Peter Hodges

I saw this with my father last night.

It is worth every penny. And for those who loved the movie the first time, a second viewing shows a whole bunch of little details that you might have missed the first time. The opening scenes of the movie and several of the larger action set pieces are filmed in IMAX. Other than that, most of the outdoor camera shots are also IMAX.

If you have an IMAX theater in your area, go see it.

Mr. Chris sends along this article from Variety that indicates Universal has bought the film rights to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. NBC originally owned the rights to do a miniseries on the first novel, but this never materialized. Reportedly, Universal has paid seven figures for the film rights. Spending that kind of money seems to be an indicator that the project will eventually get the green light. (Note: NBC’s parent company is Universal.)

Like many fantasy readers, I have mixed emotions about the Wheel of Time series. The first several books are absolutely incredible–they hands down some of the best fantasy novels ever written. Jordan weaves together so many disparate elements of fantasy and history to create his world that the result is nothing less than stunning. However, his constant antagonistic characterization of the male/female relationships in the book wears after a while. This is a necessary evil from the way in which “magic” works in the world, but it does weaken the overall interaction of men and women.

That being said, The Eye of the World, which is the first book in the series, really ought to make a great movie. This is a great intellectual property; with the right director, the movies based on these books could rival Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings saga. The story is epic, the books themselves are full of action, and there’s a strong element of romance for several characters throughout the series (despite the aforementioned antagonism).

First of all, these will be posted by Kate, even though I (Pete) wrote it. Damn all Wordpress upgrades, anyway.

West Helena, Arkansas is under martial law. Well, not really. But they do have a 24-hour curfew in effect to curb rampant violence in their town. Police officers are reportedly carrying all types of great murder machine hardware, including M-16s, shotguns, and night vision scopes. Is this one of those cases when I should haul out the old “those who trade security…” quote? Based on what I’ve heard of the situation here, I think not. The police are doing what they can to restore order, and I applaud the steps they’re taking to do so. Contrariwise, if this is a power play by the city council and the reports of violence are exaggerated, they should be removed from office for gross misuse of power. I suppose history (and the media) will be the judge here.

Is China cheating in the olympics? The right-leaning American Thinker blog thinks that they are. My wife, a massive fan of women’s gymnastics, pointed out that despite the age of the competitors, they did at least possess the skill set to win a gold medal. Whether the smaller size/weight of the Chinese gymnasts is a factor (particularly on the beam competition) is a fairly moot point now. Other allegations by other countries are starting to hit the mainstream media. Who can say how this end up for China?

Ain’t It Cool News recently pulled a negative review of the upcoming Clone Wars animated Star Wars movie at the demands of Lucasfilm. Say what you will about journalistic integrity (something I’ve said before in regards to reviews from AICN), the review sounds extremely passionate. I was not alone among my friends and cohorts in having high expectations for the movie. Seeing that a true fan thinks so little of it makes feel like Jar Jar Binks just punted me in the nut bag.

Last is our token space advocacy story. It appears that solar systems analogous to ours are somewhat rare, with a high incidence of gas giants in close orbit around their suns.This calls into question our current theories on planetary formation and provides interesting speculation on whether or not worlds depicted in science fiction (Yavin 4 in Star Wars or Allen Steel’s Coyote) could readily exist. I’d be interested to know if Kepler’s law still holds up in the wake of all these discoveries.

OMG.

Sam Raimi wants to make Evil Dead 4.

If you’re a normal human being, you’re asking: What’s Evil Dead, and why have there been three others? Truthfully, there have only been two Evil Dead movies, because the third was was called Army of Darkness. The latter should receive the title as the most-quoted B-movie ever made, as well as one of the most ridiculously funny ones. 

The series centers around Bruce Campbell’s character of Ash, an S-Mart employee who finds himself beset by evil. One fateful night, evil got into his hand and it went bad. Really bad. He resorted to cutting it off with a chainsaw to save himself and his girl, replacing his missing limb with the same chainsaw that saved him from evil. From that point on, cheesy gore ensues while he fights zombies and saves the world. 

Army of Darkness tops this plot line by sending Ash back in time to the court of some English knights. Ostensibly sent to help them stop an army of “deadites” from overrunning their castle, Ash goes on several mysterious adventures in his quest to obtain the Necronomicon, which is the tome of all evil.

Sound like fun yet?

To think that Sam Raimi (keep in mind this is the guy who directed the Spider Man movies) would have the budget to do another movie in this universe is one that makes me squeal with glee. (Yes, squeal!)

Here’s the trailer for Army of Darkness, which includes a few of the good one liners:

I actually believe.

Boo to the critics who complain that the movie is only an “extended television episode,” or to the ones who complain that it lacks action that was typical of the series. Boo to the naysayers who say its been too long since the series ended for them to resurrect a franchise out of it. This movie does not contend with the alien mythology, nor does it answer any of the questions left open by the series. It succeeds admirably as a reintroduction to the show, establishing the characters after the years since the last episodes.

Dana Scully is a doctor at a Catholic hospital, practicing cutting edge medicine in an environment that is intentionally characterized as old and dilapidated. Her life after the FBI has been spent productively, helping those in need as best she can. Mulder, on the other hand, has turned into an obsessive recluse. He collects newspaper clippings of unsolved cases and broods on a picture of his sister, Samantha.

When the FBI looses an agent to mysterious circumstances in rural West Virginia, Mulder and Scully are called into to aid the FBI in what looks to be an X-File. A Catholic priest (a convicted pedophile living in a self-policed community of post-incarceration sex offenders) has psychic visions of the missing FBI agent and is convincing enough that one Special Agent in Charge (played by Amanda Peet) uses Mulder as a consultant to verify or debunk the psychic potential of their would-be informant. 

What follows is typical X-Files–creepy twists and turns, an interesting statement on humanity, and the brilliant interplay of Scully and Mulder, writ large across the silver screen. Scully is still the doubter, after everything she’s seen and observed. It is her own struggles with faith that keeps her from believing that a sinner, no matter how vile, could find forgiveness and even atonement by helping them catch a monster. 

The only qualm that I have with the movie is that Callum Keith Rennie (who played Leoben on Battlestar Galactica) is terribly under-utilized as one of the primary villains. His intensity and focus are palpable, but he is given few lines and ever fewer chances to show his acting chops. His part in the big reveal near the end of the movie is fairly disturbing in a horror-movie archetype sort of way, but I was left slightly unsatisfied by it.

Gillian Anderson is still beautiful. She definitely shows her age a little bit, but the calm certainty with which she plays her role has improved with her time away from the show. David Duchovny looks a little wild (even sporting a beard in the opening minutes of the movie), but this is likely a greater metaphor for the state of his character, mirroring his own confusion and frustration with his life post FBI. Mitch Peleggi even makes a surprise appearance as Direct Skinner later in the show, which pleased me and will likely please other long-time fans of the show.

If you’re not a series fan, I think the movie still provides enough of a mystery plot that you’ll be entertained, even if you miss all the references to the show or to the character’s pasts. There are a couple of genuine scares in there, and they are handled with the low key style and direction of a modern-day Hitchcock. My appetite has been whetted; now I’m ready to see Scully and Mulder tackle some of the remaining questions in the show’s mythology.

The Dark Knight is the best movie of the summer.

I went in expecting it to be a bit of a letdown given the sheer amount of hype surrounding the film. After reading countless reviews about Heath Ledger’s brilliance and the the quality of the movie, I felt that too many in the entertainment business were paying posthumous homage to a departed actor.

I was wrong.

Forget Jack Nicholson. Forget Tim Burton. Forget Michael Keaton. This iteration of the Batman story is vital, realistic, and visceral. The action, the acting, and the struggles in the film hit you at a level below the conscious. In the course of the movie, viewers are forced to contend with many of the social issues of today. The film doesn’t shy away from them, instead preferring to confront them head on. Remarkably, they arrive at an answer that I not only agreed with, but also found compelling.

The Joker embodies the ultimate agent of chaos. When literally confronted with a pile of money, he remarks to a group of mobsters that he’d rather have dynamite and gasoline. That says everything about his personality. He’s not interested in material wealth. He’s playing the game for the sake of it. He doesn’t want to ultimately win, and he doesn’t necessarily want to lose. He just wants to keep playing as long as he can.

Harvey Dent, the district attorney of Gotham, provides a memorable subplot as the eventual Two Face. First characterized as Gotham’s “White Knight” (an obvious foil to Bruce Wayne’s “Dark Knight”), he uses both Lieutenant Gordon and Batman to drive his fight against crime to nearly the end. It is his purity of character and the nature of his crusade that ultimate makes him attractive to the Joker. The Joker doesn’t want to discredit him so that crime can flourish in Gotham again, he wants to discredit him because he is the embodiment of Gotham’s best virtues. Dent has succeeded in being the hero that Bruce Wayne can only dream about becoming. He works in the open using the system, and has met a large degree of success.

As anyone familiar with Batman knows, Dent’s eventual transformation to Two Face is inevitable. The events that drive him to it are rooted firmly in pop psychology, but the bit about flipping a coin to determine fate was a little overdone in a movie that lacked traditional gimmickry. It felt slightly out of place given the larger scope of the story, but I can forgive Director Christopher Nolan for throwing this bone to the legions of loyal “purists.” The results of his transformation are gruesome, skirting closely to the edge of an “R” rating. 

If Katie Holmes was miscast as Rachel Dawes, then Maggie Gyllenhall isn’t much better. She seems more confident and less girl-next-door. She wears a sort of sultry sensuality under her good girl exterior (which Katie Holmes lacked), but she still isn’t believable as a crusading assistant district attorney. Her role is sorely under-utilized in the movie, but with a running time of two and a half hours and several large action set pieces, perhaps the writers can be forgiven for not developing her character further.

The ending is bittersweet, but Batman has always struggled with the cost of being the symbol of justice for Gotham City. There is a nice set up for the sequel in the last ten minutes of the movie. My speculation is that the next movie might prove to be even darker and more grim than this one.

The comic book or superhero genres are typically rife with unbelievable acts that rarely have real-world consequences. The Dark Knight has elevated itself above genre conventions and firmly into the role of serious drama. At no single point did the dreaded “Oh, come on!” escape my lips. Whether this is a testament to Nolan’s skill as a filmmaker or my own infatuation with the story and characters will have to wait on a second viewing.

Let me indulge in a little bit of fanboy nerdery here. (Yes, I said nerdery.)

I was somewhere in the continuum between casual fan and dedicated fan when the show was on the air. I watched it fairly regularly, I went to see the movie, but when Mulder left the show for a while, I kind of lost interest. With the new movie coming out in a few weeks, I decided that it was an opportune time to revisit the show with the smartly packaged X-Files: Revelations that hit stores recently. It contains eight of the best stand-alone episodes (not conspiracy episodes) that help someone who’s been out of the loop catch up enough for the movie to make sense.

The two episodes from the first season are a bit rocky–David Duchovny is still finding his inner Fox Mulder, but Gillian Anderson is radiant as Dana Scully. However, seeing these episodes from the perspective of time and knowing the destinations of the characters makes the experience more enjoyable. The episode selection thus far may not be what I would have picked as a series fan, but they show the range of both characters and provide tantalizing hints into their potential romantic relationship. All of those Sunday nights that I spent in college watching the show (if I hear one comment about how old I am…) came back in a rush.  

In the interest of full disclosure, I do have to admit that I have always carried a torch for Gillian Anderson in the character of Dana Scully. I understand that she’s no supermodel, but the combination of brains, ability to use a firearm, and red hair is completely irresistable. That being said, my opinion regarding the X-Files may be slightly biased.

Rest assured I’ll see the movie on opening weekend and pass along the usual review. Given the fact that this movie is reportedly not about the alien conspiracy that dominated so much of the show, I have mixed emotions about it. Seeing it on the screen again is going to be awesome, but exactly how satisfying it will be after all this time remains to be seen.