Robots and Bong hits

Wall-E (A) It's taken as an article of faith that large corporations care only about maximizing profits at the expense of everything else. It's kinda true-note the recent troubles in the banking community, for example. But it's not actually true. Starbucks, for instance, is frickin' everywhere, but they make good coffee. And Walt Disney cranks out a lot of product for kids that seems designed to insult them-as the trailers before Wall-E indicated-but they do have the smarts to leave Pixar alone to do their thing.

Which is kind of ironic, considering the subtext in Pixar's Wall-E is the idea that large corporations don't always have the consumer's best interests as their primary concern. The storyline being that a Wal-Mart-like mega-company called 'Buy-N-Large' has assumed control of the whole world, made it too cluttered to live in, and built giant spaceships for the population to live on while robots tidy up back home. The problem being that, after 800 years, the planet is apparently still too dirty for the humans to return to, and also, after 800 years of having their every need catered to by robots, humans have become unmotivated slugs who move around on recliners whilst sipping pizza from a cup.

This is all just a backdrop for the main story, which is about two different robots who meet and fall in love. And Pixar pulls it off beautifully. Since the main characters don't speak, in a conventional sense, the story has to unfold through visuals, which is what animation as a genre is best at. (There's an extended scene where Wall-E and EVE cavort around the outside of the giant spaceship like Astaire and Rogers.) Notice how, through Wall-E's actions, and how he reacts to the world around him, we learn all we need to know about him in the first fifteen minutes of the film. Notice how EVE acts, and how she reacts to Wall-E and his world, and how we've got two different personalities who meet and hit it off.

Now consider that there's virtually no dialogue between them for the whole movie. I understand sound designer Ben Burtt was given dialogue by the screenwriters which he 'translated' into robot-speak for the movie. The performances of all the robots in the film, in fact, are wonderfully nuanced. Notice how the little scrubbing robot spends his time chasing Wall-E down with an air of growing frustration. When he catches up with Wall-e, he scrubs away at him with an especial glee.

The only quibble I have is the use of live-action actors in certain bits, which tends to throw one out of the movie. I suppose you could say it reinforces the difference between the humans when they left Earth, and the slug-like creatures they've grown into, but it's not that necessary. (There's a neat little visual gag in the captain's cabin showing the previous captains of the ship, each more obese then their predecessor...)

Getting back to my earlier statement about mega companies, I notice a lot of people on the 'net seem to be trying to make Wall-E out to be 'Idiotcrasy Jr.' Which really isn't the case, here, folks. The underlying message in the subtext isn't, "If you place your faith in a soulless consumer culture, you'll be a fatty Mcfatterson." but, 'If you want a better life, the amount of effort you put into it will pay off in ways that'll surprise you.' Which isn't a bad message for a kid's movie, actually...

(Oh, crap! While I'm here, I might want to point out the utter futility of trying to convince kids to see a Disney or Dreamworks animated film by putting their trailers before a Pixar film. It's like putting a McDonald's poster near the entrance to Thomas Keller's French Laundry restaurant. In my case, I tuned out after the first five seconds of the 'Madagascar 2' trailer, and by the time Pixar's short, 'Presto' came up, I couldn't tell you what the other trailers were for. Wait- I think they were for Disney's 'Bolt' which is what I guess the people who couldn't get on at Pixar but had too much self-respect to work at Dreamworks have to do and 'Beverly Hills Chihuahua', which is the entertainment equivalent of Child Abuse. Seriously, if you made a kid see that, the theater staff should call Child Services and have you arrested...)




Harold And Kumar Fulfill a Contractual Obligation (D-) Not much to say, really. The first movie worked because underneath all the pot humor, there was an undercurrent of anxiety about growing up non-white in America. The trouble was, once that point was made, there's not a whole lot else you could do with the characters. As a result, this movie doesn't have a lot going on besides dragging Harold and Kumar from gross-out gag to gross-out gag. There's a sub-plot about Kumar trying to get to his college girlfriend's wedding to stop it, but given the way the Kumar character behaves like a clueless, selfish dolt, it's hard to see why Harold's still friends with him, let alone why his ex-girlfriend would want to have anything to do with him. And trying to sell George Dubya as a goofily affable frat boy doesn't float with me. He's probably more like the petty, mean-spirited Rob Corddry Homeland Security character, in the context of this film. The return of Neil Patrick Harris-tripping on 'shrooms and riding a unicorn, no less- is the only reason this movie doesn't get an 'F' from me.

"The New Girl"

Mad Men Season 2, Episode 5 "The New Girl"

Clever title, this. It refers to A) Bobbie Barrett starting to 'negotiate' her way into Don's pants; replacing Rachel. B) Peggy's more assertive character, and C) Don's new secretary-what a little yummy!

-Everyone seems to be giving Don that "I know what you did!" look this episode. Rachel-with her new husband, Tilden Katz (?!), Peggy, Betty, Joan, Jimmy, hell, even the cop at the station.

Though in the context of the episode, leaving things unsaid seems to be the best strategy all around. When Roger Cooper and Joan discuss Joan's marriage, they wind up sniping at each other, as do Pete and his wife regarding their pregnancy issue. To be honest, Pete's wife already has a kid to deal with.

-I might be reading too much into this, but doesn't Don's advice to Peggy during her stay in the hospital seem awfully close to what he told Adam in season one? Could Don be trying to make up for abandoning Adam by mentoring Peggy? That may not be the best decision for Don, considering the leverage he's giving Peggy over him.

-Bobbie's becoming a more interesting character as the series progresses, mainly because she's the one doing the chasing, as opposed to Don, this time around. It's odd seeing her reach out to Peggy, as this worldly show-biz type and this odd mousy copywriter live on different worlds.

There's two bits of humour that come out of left field in this episode- which is where the best gags come from. The first is Pete's, er, 'visual aids' in the doctor's office where he's giving his sperm sample- there's a copy of U.S. News and World Report mixed amongst the nudie mags. The second is Freddie Rumsen's cockblock of Ken Cosgrove and the new secretary. Just as Ken's moving in for the kill, Freddie comes out and zips his fly up and down arrhythmically. "Sounds like Mozart!", he enthuses. What the fuck, Freddie?

Speaking of the new girl, while Joan's leaving 'single girl' status, she's not so willing to give up her status at the office so eagerly, as her remonstrating the new girl so bluntly demonstrates. Again, maybe it's just me, but her wiggle seems more pronounced then ever this season. (Don't tell me the writers have actress Christina Hendricks donning the fat suit, now?)

Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder (C+) A sort-of-clever, if not memorable piss-take by Ben Stiller on war movies and Hollywood. You know, there are probably primitive tribesmen in New Guinea who know that movie stars are insecure, that movie directors are pompous, and that movie producers are pricks. Which makes the satire in this film come across as kind of half-hearted. And half-way over the top is nowhere near over the top for a movie like this. So the only real pleasure you're going to get out of this film is in Tom Cruise's cameo as a fat, balding, sausage-fingered, foul-mouthed producer. The odd thing is, though, is that it's probably Cruise's best acting in, well, forever. The last time I saw Cruise trying to stretch himself as an actor (I haven't seen Magnolia.) was in Michael Mann's Collateral, and he didn't do too good a job then. You needed to see a blandly handsome man rotting from within in that role, and Cruise couldn't pull it off. (Maybe Pierce Brosnan or Russel Crowe, perhaps?) He was too fresh-faced and energetic to make me believe he was a world-weary hit man, and the dye-job he did on his hair just seemed like a bad dye-job.

The strange thing in this movie is that he's buried under a bald cap, fake nose and stubby fingers, and I've never seen him take off in a part like he does here. He's a close relative of one of Mike Myers' grotesque 'Austin Powers' characters, like Fat Bastard or Goldmember. I've got a sneaking suspicion that while Cruise the Scientologist is determined to show a sane, stable, and happy human to the rest of the world, it's a role like this that gives us Tom Cruise, actual person, warts and all. (His performance is like watching Cruise's actual persona squirt out like meat through a grinder...)

As for the rest of the film, eh... The rest of the characters are so one-dimensional, any satire that Stiller intended falls flat on its face. They're just the set up for a collection of one-liners. Case in point: Matthew McConaughey plays Stiller's agent, and in a climactic scene, Cruise's slimy producer tries to convince him to let his client die off in the jungle, and in return, Cruise will give him a G5 Gulfstream jet. As it turns out, McConaughey returns to the jungle to proudly announce to Stiller that he got him "Tivo in his house for the shoot!" The scene makes no sense, as there was nothing in his character previously to demonstrate any shred of conscious in him, so when McConaughey shows up in a long shot, at first you think it's the film director (played by Steve Coogan) who got blown up by an old land mine.

"Three Sundays"

Season 2, Episode 4, "Three Sundays"

Three consecutive Sundays in "Madmen", and the underlying theme seems to be, "Getting stabbed in the back." Sterling-Cooper gets shafted by American Airlines when their contact gets fired, making all their hard work for nothing. Peggy's older sister- much older- resents her growing friendship with the young Jesuit priest, and stabs Peggy in the back during her Confession. Then you've got Don dragging his heels in disciplining his son. Naturally, Betty thinks he's making her out to be the bad guy to the kids. And finally, Roger starts the episode pushing for a traditional marriage for his daughter, then ending the show sweet-talking a call girl out to dinner. (Shafting both his wife and her next client!)

-If there's a broader theme for this episode, I'd guess it's about how being responsible and doing the right thing isn't going to be rewarded. As the young priest points out to Peggy's sister, Anita, in the confession box. Don's attempt to be a better husband and father seems like an uphill battle- Betty and him get into a shoving match. Then you have Sterling-Cooper's meticulous proposal for American Airlines thrown out because their contact got fired. Don's daughter seems to be getting a free ride, while his son's getting the wrath of Betty, which mirrors the sibling rivalry between Peggy and Anita.

-You wonder if Duck was taking a perverse glee in giving the bad news to Sterling-Cooper about Shel's firing. (I didn't notice the 'last supper' reference of the presentation team's staging 'til someone on the A.V. club's board pointed it out.) I'm sure putting Shel's name on the presentation folder didn't help matters much...

-The secretarial pool REALLY doesn't like Peggy, not only since she makes more money, but she gets to hit the buffet table before them.

-Don's daughter likes that Scotch. Oh, yes.

-I hope we see more of Colin Hanks' Jesuit priest this season. I hope he picked up on Peggy's sister's spiteful gesture in Confession for what it was. I'd like to think his giving her the Easter egg 'for the little one' in the final scene was a gesture of compassion, and not a 'You're so busted, Peggy!' Maybe it's both?...

-Whadda ya wanna bet that the reason Ken Cosgrove gets 300 a week as opposed to Pete's 75 is his unofficial job as the office pimp? He knows an awful lot about call girls...

-It's funny, but even though Betty's in the right about their son, it's Don we empathise with. I have to assume his story about his dad beating him was true, even though one's first assumption is it's yet another lie.

-You can't help but like Roger, even though he cheats on his wife for the same reason he enjoys working at Sterling-Cooper. "It's the thrill of the chase", he tells Don, trying to console Don over the loss of American Airlines. Though if you can afford to buy out a call girl, there's not much thrill there, really.

-Check out Pete's tennis outfit on that one Sunday! Come on, Pete! Sal's supposed to be the gay one!

-Don's silence when Betty asks him, "Would you be the man you are today if your dad didn't spank you?"

-I can't say I blame Anita for her 'confession'. She's married to a lout, her figure's gone, and she got stuck raising Peggy's kid. No doubt her family views her as the 'baby factory'.

-Betty was reading that F. Scott Fitzgerald book the horny riding patron referenced in the last episode.

-So far, Duck's the only character who's life we haven't had a look at. It's kind of odd, given the trademark of this series is to show off the many facets of the character's personalities. They seem to be setting him up as a foil for Don in the business, but I'm hoping there's much more to Duck then we're seeing. While Don views advertising as an art form, where the pitch to the client is the bait on the hook, Duck's point of view is that if one is going fishing, why not use a grenade in the pond to get the fish? (It's a clumsy metaphor, but I just woke up...)

While I'm here, I've heard some critisism that at the end of the day, 'MadMen' is just a soap opera with a higher budget. This is an understandable assessment, but wrong, and here's why.

On the surface, it's a story about a bunch of disparate characters in a specific time and place, and how they interact with each other, and how outside events affect them. Which, in broad terms, is how a soap opera works. However, in a soap opera, its story lines could be charitably described as melodramatic, 'And Then' plotting. For instance:

For one character's story arc in a season on a soap opera, the season starts with Sweet Polly Baker's cliffhanger pregnancy from last episode turning out to be a miscarriage. AND THEN, it turns out that the kindly, handsome young minister Dr. Anderson was really the father, not her rising young hotshot executive husband Dan. AND THEN her sleazy half-brother Nathan shows up 'for a few days' to crash on her couch and work on his 'business idea' which he tells everyone is to start a surf shop in their city of Missoula, Montana but he's really hiding from the Mob and his business involves getting runaway teenage girls to pose for nude photos for the Internet, AND THEN it turns out that Polly's baby wasn't born dead but a deranged nurse stole the kid to raise as her own, AND THEN... but you get the idea.

The point is, Polly's always going to have a likable, or sympathetic personality, and her latest crisis is going to be resolved before the season ends. Unless the actress playing Polly wants more money, or wants to expand her career by doing something less degrading, like appear in a national ad for hemmoroid commercials, in which case, the soap opera producers will kill her off in a melodramatic way.

In MadMen, what defines the show is the complexities of the characters. Betty Draper comes across as melancholy and sheltered, and now her character seems to be taking on darker aspects, with her increasing impatience to her husband and kids, with an increasing awareness of the power of her sexuality. Pete Campbell initially comes across as a glad-handing, unctous little weasel, until you get a glimpse of his home life and how emasculated he is by his family. And Don Draper is one of the most complex characters in T.V. fiction. He's a man with a strong sense of integrity, who takes pride in his work and his family. Until you find that his entire life is a lie. He lied to get to where he is in the world, his job involves lying, ultimately. And he's desperatly unhappy. What compounds this is that this is the life he chose for himself, and he can't see any way out of it. (What's coming up in this season is Don's attempt to make the best of the hand that he's been dealt, and finding that not only doing the 'right thing' offers no rewards, but winds up making a complicated life even more complicated.

That's why the few melodramatic touches in the show seem so out of place. Peggy's pregnancy and Don's half-brother's suicide, for example. I understand creator Matthew Weiner was concerned that the show might not get a second season, hence why those odd touches went in. Since it looks good to continue for at least a couple more seasons, I'm hoping the quality of the series won't be brought down by bits like those.

"The Benefactor"

Since I've just started watching 'Generation Kill' as well, I'm just gonna go ahead and start a new topic, "T.V. Notes". I'll be commenting on it and Mad Men in that section, as well as any other T.V. related topics I can scrounge up.

Episode 3, season 2 "The Benefactor"

-This episode's full of uncomfortable moments, as the popular comedian hired to promote potato chips in a t.v. commercial cruelly insults the sponsor's wife. (She's pretty big.) Don is drafted to perform what is now known as 'Damage Control'. In other words, he has to get the comedian, the comedian's wife/manager, and the sponsors together so's the comedian can apologize for his behavior. The second story thread has Harry bucking for a higher star at Sterling-Cooper. (This starts when Harry opens Ken Cosgrove's paycheck 'by mistake' and discovers Ken makes a hundred dollars more than him. Meanwhile, Betty flirts with and then rejects the advances of another patron of her riding club.

-The scene with Betty and the young Lothario at her riding club make me think she's starting to extend her powers of seduction a little more than the season's premier, where she got the mechanic to install her car's belt for free.

-One of Mad Men's trademarks is how certain scenes bounce off each other in subtle ways. Note how the final scene of Don with Betty has an uneasy tone to it, compared with the scene of Harry cuddling up to his wife's pregnant stomach after he told her of his promotion. Don goaded Betty into helping him smooth things over with the chip people, and Harry's wife inadvertently goaded him into going for a raise.

-Dig how Roger gives Harry a mock benediction in promoting him to 'head of T.V.'. I bet it was an ad lib by actor John Slatterly, who has an awesome perverse sense of humour in his commentaries on the DVD.

-Peggy stands out in this episode in her one scene, since she's in the room where the 'crew' is watching a controversial episode of 'The Defenders', going on Harry's suggestion that their lipstick client may be willing to sponsor controversy to gain customers. They aren't, but the move impresses Roger Sterling enough to get Harry a promotion and a raise. Anyways, note how uncomfortable Peggy is while watching the show. It's about a teenager getting a 'rhymes-with-gagortion'. Oh, she can relate...

-and the awkward pleasantries between Sal and the lipstick rep. (who tried to seduce Sal last season. Cough.)

-What foreign movie was Don watching at the show's beginning? And why? It wasn't Hiroshima Mon Amour, was it?

-I love the near-silent scene at the beginning where Harry's trying to find a way to repair Ken's opened pay stub envelope.

-Don seems cartoonishly confident of his sex appeal this episode, as evidenced by his 'persuasion' of the comedian's wife to make her meal ticket apologize to the sponsors. Not a very sincere apology, either. We'll be seeing more of Jimmy and Bobbie. Is Don so disgusted of her (and himself) that he has to use dish soap to wash out his mouth when he gets home? Yes.

-Notice how Jimmy Barrett none-too-subtly bites his fist when the fat wife says that she's not sure she's 'big enough to accept' his apology. BTW, Bobbie Barrett is played by Melinda McGraw, who was Jim Gordon's wife in the Batman movies...

-Fred Rumsen drunkenly dozes off during the ad shoot, leading to crass comedian Jimmy Barrett to insult the client's fat wife, and his penance is a tart riposte from Ken. On the other hand, Don's secretary gets fired, simply because she didn't cover up enough for Don. It's a man's world, baby...

Da-na-na-na-na-na... Batman!

The Dark Knight (A-)

Like Iron Man, Chris Nolan's movie works because it's being played straight, no ironic winks, no over the top designs, no melodramatic set designs. And no nipples on the costumes. That kinda helps. The story, well, it's Michael Mann's 'Heat' only Al Pacino's in a Kevlar suit, and he's really a Welshman with pneumonia. (Notice the 'Heat' homage by the cameo of William Fichter as a banker for the Mob...) Really, Bale's 'Batman' voice is so phelgmmy, I half expected Commissioner Gordon or Lucius Fox or Alfred to offer him a throat lozenge.

And in this case, what gives it the 'A', is Heath Ledger's Joker. Hell of a way to introduce your bad guy, what with that 'pencil trick'. Ledger's Joker is such a walking bag of decay, I almost expected a tooth to fall out of his mouth as some point. If Ledger does get an Oscar next year, it won't be just out of posthumous pity. When you watch this Joker, it's like watching a homeless guy without any pants taking a long shit along the sidewalk, just shuffling along with a trail of poo behind him like a snail. It's funny and creepy at the same time. Note the amount of nervous chuckles in a theater when he appears.

What gives it the 'minus' in my rating is Christian Bale. Oh, yeah. I went there. First off, the mock-Clint Eastwood voice he's using as Batman gives his part a more comic edge than either Nolan or Bale intended. (Couldn't have Nolan re-dubbed Bale's voice?) Also, Bale needs to take layabout playboy millionaire lessons from Robert Downey Jr.

The only question is, where is Nolan going to go for the inevitable third movie? The remaining villians in the Batman universe are so camp, (The Riddler, The Penguin, er, Catwoman...) the current franchise is in danger of losing its 'gritty, realistic' tag. Maybe establish the Penguin as a Dick Cheney-type businessman? I suspect they may bring Two-face back, though I don't envy the actor who has to follow Heath Ledger...

Mad Men: Season Two- "Flight 1"

-Opens at a party in Paul Kinsey's fashionably unfashionable apartment in Montauk, New Jersey. Joan is disgusted by Paul's boho chic, his stealing a typewriter, and his black girlfriend. (Remember, they used to go out...) I'm kinda grossed out by his posing, as well. I wanna see more of Sal's relationship with his um, 'beard'...

-The big story is the crash of American Airline's flight to Los Angeles, and how it affects the working relationships in Sterling-Cooper. Turns out Pete Campbell's dad was on the flight, a fact the increasingly soulless Duck nudges Pete to use to Sterling-Cooper's advantage in getting American Airlines as a client. As disgusting a stunt it was, I'm reminded of how Pete's dad treated him when Pete asked for a loan for a New York apartment down payment in season one (And given his parent's finances, why Pete's dad turned him down), and so, in retrospect, in Pete's position, his exploiting his personal tragedy for Sterling Cooper's benefit is the most logical action that Pete can do...

-The scene where Pete's with his family has a creepy vibe to it. They're like zombies robotically reciting a script. This resonates with Pete's attempt to reach out to Don earlier. ("How does someone react to this?")

-Betty's behavior towards Don at the bridge party. I suspect she's channeling her aggression towards Don towards her bridge game. Note how hostile she is to the kids this season. I bet her hostility becomes more latent as this season progresses...

-We get to see the fate of Peggy and Pete's bastard child. He's being looked after by Peggy's sister. When Peggy tells her mother that she's capable of making her own decisions, her mom counters that, "The doctors and the State of New York didn't think so!". Note how in the final scene, when Peggy's mom hands Peggy her son to receive communion, that the kid starts crying and won't stop. Other churchgoers head out of the frame to receive their communion, leaving Peggy and her son alone...

- Chris Manley's work for season two is exceptional. He's captured that soft, unnatural lighting in the office that you'd see in 60's movies perfectly. The final scene with Peggy in the church has a dark visual counterpoint to the rest of the show.

-Don, for all his lying and cheating, is a man of deep integrity. It's hard to watch the scene where he cuts the Mohawk client loose. Don's assurances that it wasn't his decision don't give the client any comfort. Does Don turn down the Asian waitress as a form of self-punishment, or is he being corralled by Betty's callousness and Duck's heartlessness?