You wait for it, strive for it. You are one of the unlucky 1% of humanity that survived Judgment Day only to be hunted by machines. You forgive your brethren for the clumsy deification of John Connor, the man who broadcasts information to organize your resistance. But what you do not forgive, is that when a movie is made about your struggle your story isn’t told. (Perhaps you don’t mind because the movie is made in the past, way back in 2009, but believe me continuity is not something you want to bring up in your futuristic Terminator-ridden world.)

That’s the problem with Terminator Salvation, written by John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris — the plight of the individual resistance fighter is not addressed. We find a few lone groups of survivors on the ground, but we also encounter a fully-formed military structure where John Connor is just a bit player, and the tale of desperate survival to get to the point of massive coordinated attacks is skipped over. I think there is something that can be said about the time between nuclear annihilation and submarine-headquarters warthog-airstrike time. Salvation jumps into the future right before a climactic battle without the drama that lead them to that precipice. The story is in the pain of the process, the survival, not the victory.

Ask any fan of the Zombie genre, it’s not the chain of events that leads to the disaster that makes the story great, it’s the survival post-apocalypse. The previous movies made haunting references to Judgment Day, with visions of terrible mushrooms clouds evaporating whole cities. This was the opportunity to dive into that world of fallout — I think it was squandered.

I had hoped this movie would be broader in scope. Perhaps what I want is something the Terminator franchise can never really deliver, as all of the previous movies have dwelt with only a few key characters. With Salvation this pattern is upheld, but with less spectacular results.

In addition to the gaps in story telling, there are numerous plot holes that sap some of the strength from the film. To dive into all of them would be a terrific spoiler so I’d rather not do so here at this time, but there are a lot of problems that really detract from the movie. One being the seemingly “safe” and “unsafe” areas of future California that don’t make sense. In some areas leaving a boombox on the ground playing will draw enemies within seconds, whereas in other areas it seems safe to wander about freely. Maybe the machines are just really good listeners but don’t see so good. Yeah! I don’t think it’s made clear why machines are okay with leaving any area unpatrolled at all. They have the technology (ala T-800) to put a nuclear reactor in a chip, so I doubt their machines would have to continually head back to base to top off the tanks.

Even more basic, why don’t the machines just carpet-bomb the planet with biological weapons, which would pretty much kill off the last of us fleshies that weren’t asploded by the nukes?

One of the major trailers (which sadly, I had seen) revealed a huge plot device, and this is absolutely unforgivable. At the time, I had believed the trailer did not make a huge reveal, but as the movie unfolded I realized that it gave away one of the major conflicts of the entire film. For shame. This is why I hate trailers. A real trailer should be a tease, not a synopsis.

Fans of the franchise will be entertained. Moviegoers who just want to see things blow up will like this film. However, those two listed categories of people actually have a 99.8% overlap, so we can likely bundle them together as one group — the only group — that should cough up full ticket price to see this movie.

8.5 – The Wrestler

A story of meat. Broken down meat. Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei are both fantastic.

7.4 – Ghost Town

Funny stuff. Ricky Gervais is a genius.

7.3 – Watchmen

I haven’t read the work, but I’m guessing Zack Snyder made a great translation. Anything with an alternate history sucks me right in.

6.9 – Body of Lies

Leo DiCaprio as a CIA agent in Jordan. Very entertaining.

5.6 – City of Ember

For a movie with both Tim Robbins and Bill Murray I’m shocked to find such mediocrity. Apparently nobody cares that lighting a candle would completely remove 90% of the drama in the film.

2.6 – September Dawn

Pretty sure Jon Voight only made this movie about the 1857 Mountain Meadows massacre so he could play a guy with tons of wives. A terrible movie, actually amusing it’s so awful.

Clint Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a retired auto-worker and Korean War veteran. He’s old school, racist and bitter—we know this because throughout the entire movie his disapproving growls are dubbed on top of every grimace. After the death of his wife, Kowalski is forced to deal with his racially diverse neighborhood, which apparently he never noticed in any significant way before the events of the movie despite living there his entire life. The highlights of the film are his parades of racial epithets directed at friends and neighbors. It’s sad to say, but yes, that’s the best this movie has to offer.

Besides the name-calling, the rest of the film builds a ridiculous gang and race driven conflict, with Kowalski in the center and a bunch of partially-motivated stereotypes bouncing around the periphery.

Don’t be fooled by the trailers—this is not a good movie—if you’re really interested in this wait until it’s a rental. The star performance here is probably the 1972 Gran Torino, and heck, you barely even get to see it run.

By all accounts, the original negatives of the first two films were so torn up and dirty that they could no longer be run through standard film laboratory printing equipment, and so the only option became a digital, rather than a photochemical, restoration.

The final product, which the studio is calling “The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration,” combines bits and pieces of film recovered from innumerable sources, scanned at high resolution and then retouched frame by frame to remove dirt and scratches. The color was brought back to its original values by comparing it with first-generation release prints and by extensive consultation with Gordon Willis, who shot all three films, and Allen Daviau, a cinematographer (“E.T.”) who is also a leading historian of photographic technology. [New York Times]

The restoration is a thrill to watch, and I’ve never seen a better presentation, even compared to viewings in the theater. Particularly captivating was the amount of detail preserved (rescued even?) while keeping the character (grain, color) perfectly intact.

Blink

“What?” I yelled in my darkened apartment, fumbling for the rewind button immediately following Michael Corleone’s pivotal showdown with Sollozzo and the corrupt police chief McCluskey. I’d just seen something I’ve never noticed before: a body on the floor blinked as the scene ended. A blinking corpse. It jolted me out of the moment, out of the fantasy, out of the 40s. Blu-Ray did that, it gave me too much detail?

I’ve since learned that McCluskey’s blink is a known quantity—a minor bug in continuity that’s charming in today’s world of computer aided post process. Apparently that blink is visible in other formats, but I’d never seen it until I had the restoration and the resolution to appreciate it. I would never have noticed it without this version. Therein lies the rub.

For me, details matter, technology matters, and I’m just anal enough to obsess about shadow detail and grain when I think it’s important, like in the case of The Godfather. McCluskey’s blink floored me because it reminded me that I’m watching something made 37 years ago and it looks as good or better than things produced today. I never lost anything by not seeing that blink before, and maybe it was actually detrimental to the experience seeing it now.

The blink could be the only thing I’m not crazy about in the Coppola Restoration, an otherwise perfect thing, but that’s not a fair critique. If anything it goes to show how caring, faithful and complete the restoration process was. It does make me wonder however, how frequently we’ll see Blu-Ray editions of classics that aren’t cared for so well. Perhaps those unfortunate reels are best left as they are…perfect with their flaws.

Anchorman it is not. In the supporting cast, or at least the comedic supporting roles this movie stumbles. They really aren’t given the lines or time needed to shine. Add that with the fact that the movie hardly ever gets past the central joke…39 year-olds living at home and acting like children…and what you’ve got is a solid rental. If you’ve seen all the trailers you’ve seen most of the best parts, and I hate it when that happens.

First, Maggie Gyllenhaal steps in for Katie Holmes, which completely eliminates the possibility we’d have to try and take Katie Holmes seriously for over two hours. Dear Maggie, thank you, thank you, thank you. Heath Ledger’s performance should also be greatly appreciated. Although I’m far from bestowing an immediate posthumous Oscar, call me a hold-out, Heath’s Joker was plenty sinister.

What was most intriguing to me in the film was something completely unexpected—an all-out attack on warrantless wiretaps and the PATRIOT Act.

(VERY MINOR SPOILER AHEAD.)

“No man should have such power,” claims Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox, as he’s asked by Batman to monitor an entire city by using Gotham’s cell phones as impromptu sonar receivers. Batman admirably promises that the monitoring system will be put down when the present crisis abates. How responsible of you Batman! I suppose it’s no wonder privacy is one of the rights you choose to celebrate…as opposed to say Habeas Corpus…Batman solves crime with his fists dammit, not due process. Such is the strange relationship between necessary ass-kickings and lawyerly heroics in Gotham City. That much we’ve come to expect from these movies I’d argue, but a blatant attack on the Bush administration’s heavy handed “safeguarding” techniques was a big surprise to me. Well, somebody’s got to say it right? It might as well be Batman and Lucius Fox. As far as I know, fictional characters are the only people you can’t send down to Gitmo.

There are many other strong themes to explore in the film, the vicious survival instinct embedded deep in humanity, the corruptibility and delicacy of the modern psyche, and of course the thin line between anarchy and the orderly society we presume is good. TDK isn’t a perfect movie, but for summer pulp action you can’t ask for much more.

I love a good thriller and I love a good mystery. If you promise both of those with a trailer that graciously doesn’t distill the entire plot of the movie in 15 seconds then I’m pretty much already standing in line at the Cinerama. Nice work J.J. I’d love for your example—an alternative to culture-spamming the movie synopsis across all spectrum of media—to become the norm.

Cloverfield is difficult to watch. I consider myself a hardened soul, nearly impervious to disorienting camera convulsions—not out of superior physiology mind you—but typically a potent mixture of perseverance, spite, and judicial application of Maritime’s Jolly Roger. I hate overzealous camera shake in movies but as a frequent movie-goer in this day I’ve come to feel it’s a necessary penance.

I digress. Cloverfield’s major flaw isn’t the camera shake, but the botched early character development. The lack of sincerity, the blanket of unreality at the start of the film cheats the rest of the movie out of what it deserves…genuine attachment to central characters.

So What’s Great in Cloverfield?
Hud is the guy who carriers the camera for the majority of the film, and while he’s physically in the background, providing narration, he’s reduced to being a mechanical (and frequently comic) device. The camera lens is a barrier between him and reality, and capturing becomes more important than feeling—despite the tragic circumstances. Even facing death taking pictures takes precedent. “Hud” conjures H.U.D., a “heads up display” in a fighter cockpit or increasingly popular as informational readouts projected onto consumer car windshields or motorcycle helmet visors. Hud is a transparent purveyor of information, and the camera that lets us experience his trauma cheats him out of that experience.

That’s the important place that Cloverfield goes. The beginning of the film introduces the footage as property of the Department of Defense. An evidence. An entry in a database. A visual archive and nothing more.

At what cost do we come by our digital rememberences?

A film by Grant Aaker and Josh Wallaert, Arid Lands is an excellent overview of the massive contradictions that confound the Columbia Basin. From war machine to environmentalism, irrigation and farming to rampant development. The Tri-Cities is a complacent community that’s as grateful for it’s nuclear history as it is wary of it…the entire area is inextricably tied to the wake of plutonium production, and now the biggest environmental cleanup in the history of the planet.

The film did well to not delve too deeply into issues that could easily sidetrack what was the star—the land. No mention was made of downwinders, while particular emphasis was placed on the changing landscape—quickly changing from an agrarian base to a service-based economy bolstered by tourism. While the wine industry flourishes, other agriculture is consumed by ever-expanding housing developments—quickly erected with little planning or thoughts of the native landscape.

It’s a well-rounded film with a great diversity of viewpoints, excellently shot and edited. If you’re at all interested in the history of Hanford and the Columbia Basin, this is highly recommended.

But let’s get one thing straight, San Francisco is nice and all, but as far as serial killers go nobody holds a candle to the Northwest.

They might not all make the silver screen, but the likes of Robert Pickton and Gary Ridgway are so much scarier than The Zodiac killer it boggles the mind. Yes, we’ve got crazies up here that Jake Gyllenhaal wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole.

Mark Ruffalo as lead detective Dave Toschi is outstanding, as is Robert Downey Jr. in the role of Chronicle crime reporter Paul Avery. This movie is worth watching just for their performances, they even overshadow the complete lack of chemistry between Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his family, and the less than convincing “obsessive” that Graysmith devolves toward as he attempts to unravel the Zodiac crimes.

The movie is long, 2 hours and 40 minutes long, and its stodgy pacing forces you to ask why. Slashing 30 minutes off the picture would’ve gone a long way toward making it a more taut thriller, but it still has great performances and the kind of disturbing imagery that will make you think twice about walking around the streets of Seattle San Francisco tonight.

[Idiocracy was] expanded to only 125 theaters, not the usual wide release of 2500-3000 theaters. According to the Austin American-Statesman ^[5], 20th Century Fox, the film’s distributor, did nothing to promote the movie — while posters were released to theatres, no movie trailers, television ads, or press kits for media outlets were provided. The film was not screened for critics^[6]. Lack of concrete information from 20th Century Fox led to speculation that Fox may have actively tried to keep the film from being seen by a large audience… Wikipedia Entry

It’s not hard to imagine 20th Century Fox being less than thrilled with Judge’s look at 500 years into our future. At that time, intelligence has been completely bread out of the human population. Corporations have both hastened our fall and ensured the populations’ continued depravity. Starbucks sells handjobs, and Braundo, a sports drink manufacturer, has bought both the F.D.A. and F.C.C. in order to replace water as the preferred beverage nationwide.

The President of the United States is a porn-star and champion wrestler. The only thing that doesn’t change is FOX News.

Idiocracy is funny and entertaining, as most things from Mike Judge are, but the script is light – it gives the distinct feeling that more should be said – damn witty commentary but not every bit the biting social critique it could be.

Bartender: “Shaken or stirred?”

Bond: “Does it look like I care?”

It was never more explicit – the old Bond is out, and the new Bond – Daniel Craig – gets bloody, nasty, and emotionally involved while in the service of Her Majesty.

There are a few problems with Casino – most notably the movie would be vastly improved by chopping off 30 minutes. A stunning chase scene at the beginning of the feature is too long, as are several poker scenes. (And yet the screenplay never takes the time to explain why the central villain bleeds from his eye.) Product placement is rampant.

By showing James in his formative years, Casino Royale is classic but surprisingly fresh – a good introduction to the new Bond.

In Little Miss Sunshine twists of fortune send the Hoover family road-tripping across three states to enter seven year old Olive (Abigail Breslin) in a beauty pageant. The mode of transport is a canary VW Bus, that wheeled icon of freedom and opportunity. Not surprisingly the bus is showing the same signs of age as the idealism that forged it.

Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’s first feature film is about the pageantry we all endure or espouse, ludicrous pretension, and in the end family. It’s well acted, wonderfully tight (perfect run-time of about 100 min!) and completely hilarious. Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette are perfect as the parents and Steve Carrell does well to show versatility as the “top Proust scholar in America.”

Also catch the well-placed melodies of DeVotchKa, a band I’ve been enjoying for quite a while. Go see this film; if every movie in the theaters today was this good as Sunshine I’d miss them quite a bit more than I do now.

Superman Returns, with Baggage

Brandon Routh plays Superman dutifully. He’s got both the chiseled jaw and the labored-savior chip-on-the-shoulder act down pat. What he’s missing is the charisma and confidence you’d expect in the Man of Steel. This carefully crafted super looks more like he’s trying to please the comic book set than take his character in a new direction. (Which is a shame.)

Routh’s apathetic attitude is endemic throughout the movie. There are high points in the film—set design, production, costuming, all which take a clever look back at clean art-deco lines mashed with a hint of 70s glam—while keeping us firmly planted in a technologically modern Metropolis. However, after seeing the film I feel there was far too much time making sure the movie “looked like” Superman than creating a valuable new chapter in the series.

Superman’s language is dull, almost perplexingly so. Are we really supposed to be so bored with the dialogue as to spend more time contemplating the physics behind the CG cape he wears than the emotional state of the characters he interacts with?

(Shoot, I thought I could complete this review without sarcasm. Unlikely I suppose…here it comes…)

OMG Lex Luthor has kryptonite. Watch out Superman WATCHOUT. Superman can FLY. Even up into space. He can save people that are falling, use X-Ray vision, and blow out fires with icy wind spawned from his super-manly lungs. These are old tricks and in this film we see them over and over again like they are a novel concept. Very disappointing.

Kevin Spacey was charismatic as usual, but certainly lacked the shockingly sinister demeanor you’d expect from a man bent on killing billions in the process of making a killing at real estate. Without destroying the plot for someone who hasn’t seen the film, Lex wants to make an island. No, a big island, a really evil island. And he’s using Kryptonite so Superman can’t stop him from making a killing at real estate, again. No, really. I was more freaked out by American Beauty pot-smoking Kevin Spacey than this Lex.

Superman- Invincible But For Two Things: Kryptonite and Falling Action

I walked into the Cinerama hoping Superman Returns would be every bit as good as Spiderman I and II. Instead I found a film that was sloppily edited and overproduced. Shaving off 20-30 minutes of clichés would make this film seem a bit less wrote, a smidge less trite.

In the end what can we say about our most beloved of superheroes? Well, he’s no Spiderman. Ouch. When you’re up in the stars it’s a long fall back to Earth, even for Superman.

Yes, this is an unrequested mountain of content and the term SPORC sounds a bit like SPAM. This is not accidental, but these snippets are hopefully slightly more utilitarian than your unwanted email. After all a spork is indeed a utensil—just a stupendously annoying one. I’ve learned movie reviews can be somewhat similar, useful to most but annoying to nearly all for one reason or another.

But fearless, I press on. In-depth movie reviews are one of my most frequently requested features, so what could be better than ditching the “in-depth” part and substituting a one-line snarky observation? Quantity over quality? (Like SPAM, the email or the meat) Oh yes, I’ve got that now. A poor combination of multiple specializations—critique and recommendation? (Like a SPORK) Got that now too.

In a perfect world I’d have heaps of time to wax philosophic on all of these movies, but instead I leave you weeping over your bowl of processed meat, punching your keyboard with your spoon/fork hybrid in order to check your unrequested email—all the time wondering what I would have to say about these movies if I had the time to write a complete review. (Well, a guy can dream.)

You may have questions. Why could I possibly find it productive to explain movie reviews with spam and sporks? Why would I endorse a film review system kindred to a cruel spoon/fork offspring?

The mule of tableware.

What does that even mean?

Some questions may never be answered, so for today please enjoy: SPORC Episode I

8.3 – Me and You and Everyone We Know

Funny, uncomfortably honest. Highly recommended

8.1 – Crash

Surprisingly great, given high levels of Ludacris, Matt Dillon, Los Angeles

8.0 – Doctor Zhivago

An epic, and not just in duration. Has Alec Guinness (which equals radness)

7.5 – Treasure of the Sierra Madre

On Bogey and badges

7.4 – On the Waterfront

This movie could’ve been is a contender

7.1 – Hustle and Flow

Whoop. That. Trick.

6.8 – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Imagine Harry Potter, but with more sexual tension than the last season of Days of Our Lives

6.5 – Walk the Line

No men shot in Reno, but still good

6.0 – War Photographer

Includes scenes shot with a video camera mounted on still camera (which equals radness)

5.9 – The School of Rock

A level at which there is “too much Jack Black” has been identified

5.0 – The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Skip Emily and exercise my boredom. I beg of you. Exercise my boredom

4.8 – Dogtown and Z-Boys

Remember when you were rad? Yeah well these guys DO

3.8 – The Island

I’m a sucker for sci-fi. This movie proves it

2.9 – The Village

A level at which there is “too much Shyamalan” has been identified (does not equal radness)

• About the Ratings

C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were not just contemporaries fond of initials in lieu of first names, but colleagues, friends, and occasionally rivals. Lewis’ overtly biblical novels will always lie in stark contrast to Tolkien’s more obfuscated works, but this makes sense with Tolkien drawing much inspiration from Norse sagas and Anglo-Saxon poetry, while Lewis’s work was spawned more from Milton, Greco-Roman deities and fairy tales; and most importantly his rebirth of faith conjured by Tolkien himself (and additional contemporary Hugo Dyson).

The two authors’ relationship is even more pertinent today than it was then, as the Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy winds down and Andrew Adamson’s adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe starts to wind up. (No word yet on film trilogy based on teachings/critiques of Hugo Dyson.)

So why does this reviewer get less enjoyment from The Chronicles of Naria than The Lord of the Rings? With Lewis’s work it’s not the thinly veiled biblical overtones that trouble me at all, but stylistically it’s the nearly cacophonous mash-up the stories represent as a whole. That’s also part of why they are brilliant, and wonderful for children (or at least those who haven’t read much history or medieval lit). Mixing Santa Claus with greek gods? I’m sad to say it drives me crazy—but more importantly I can’t imagine any child that would oppose Santa appearing in any movie, whether contextually appropriate or not.

And finally, to the really short part, the review

Narnia, you know, for the kids. This picture succeeds on nearly all levels: the children perform very well, the special effects are entertaining, and most importantly the right decisions were made in the always difficult novel to film transition. The movie wins over much as the book does, so if you adored the series this is a must see. However, if you fall into my camp it’s just a pretty good show that can certainly wait until it costs less than $10.

That’s it. What, did you actually expect me to talk about the actual movie in such a long review? Pushaw.