Need to Start over on this a bit Journal

There is no original in putting words to paper, so I want simply to write down what it is I am planning and how I am feeling through the experience of media. The past writings are really warming and forming and my process continues here.

Radical is kinda bland

Radical by David Platt fits nicely into the milieu of missional emerging breakout primitivist church dogma, but really, it's kinda bland. There's nothing particularly radical about his proposals. This is another book written by a megachurch institution that wishes it reached people who oppose church the institution.

There still doing church like it's 1985, telling you it's like it was in 85, and that by 2015, everyone will be doing it this way again.

Short term outreach can be very good, but 80% of the time it is very bad. And so as a hallmark of his churches missional expression, I have to protest.

It's easy to write a book and say "the problem with the church is sin." But then you're completely overshadowing your own woundedness and deficiency.

One thing he does point out and is at the same time guilty of is doing church in the culture of professionalism, and the Babbit-styled production line is really what most churches tout themselves as, and all they do is play into the military industrial complex.

The best chapter deals with the gospel being for the lost and the lost's american inoculation to the gospel of the common church. True. I wonder what the missional walk looks like in a mega church in the deep south. It doesn't look like this book where I am from.

This is a fantastic book on the theory, and as most missiologists are guilty of, it does a superb job of identifying cultural markers, and then blows by them in pursuit of a monochromatic gospel. The real test of a radical gospel is stopping business as usual. What Mr. Platt seems to say is that there aren't really churches in America, there are only corporations in the field of religion. What he fails to realize is this applies just as much to his church as anyone else.

Toys

This is a classic tale of the Zevo toy company. When the owner passes away, he has the options of leaving it to either his brother, Gerneral Zevo, or his blessed innocent son, Leslie (Robin Williams), who is aided by his sister, Alisacia (Joan Cusack). The general, though extremely edgy about minding the toy factory, decides to do it and ends up taking over the toy company, and perverting it’s innocence minded production into a war-game frenzy.

He also turns the plant into a prison, who’s security is air tight, headed up by his very own son, a master of camoulflage (LL Cool J). So Leslie is trapped between the airtight security and defending his Father’s vision, which is so poorly represented in the aims and thoughts of the general.

He also must prove he is serious about opposing the general in order to continue seeing the beautiful and wacky girl in the duplicating office (Robin Wright).

The climax is one of hilarities, and extremely bizarre, but this is a good movie, with lots of humour and some truly strange plot devices.

I give it a two, but it’s not the best Rbin Williams flick.

Traitor

Don Cheedle (Reign Over Me) plays a phenomenal role in this film as he has truly developed into a leading man after such films as Hotel Rwanda. He plays a double cover agent, basically a former CIA poperative who has converted to Islam and joined al-Qaeda, however, he is really playing the whole thing off as a spin to intercept intel and mismanage al-Qaeda resources and ops.

The plot circles around him gaining credibility by staging various terrorist acts and playing shadow games with al-Qaeda to make them believe they are truly making a difference, inciting terror, while the actual efforts are geared towards coordinating planted bodies, identifying non-targets to spin as targets.

The two way nature of his mission makes him, much like Mother Night, a prime target to become collateral damage as he may be mistaken for a genuine terrorist. TO be perfectly honest, this movie was engaging and entertaining, but I really don’t remember the specifics and details, and if someone suggested it, I’d probably just say that I had already seen it.

It’s got rewatch value, but it’s very much a action, plot twist, thriller movie without much depth or meaning, other than the whole debate over what an identity truly is, and how one can preserve ones self. 

The whole thing is fun, and goes by really quickly, so I give it a 2, and enjoyed it a great deal, but it’s not like a cinematic genius or anything.

Tough Love

This is quite a film. I think it was a TV movie, but it’s really quite captivating. Young Gary (Chris Patric) is a promising kid who seems to make every bad decision in the book. A Junior in High school, he gets a job and nice car with the help of his trusting father. Little does his dad know that Gary is a pothead. 

Christin is also a doper, and a constant runaway, who abuses her mother constantly. The two are in love, and do all sorts of drugs together. While Gary’s parents are totally naïve and always try to give their son the benefit of the doubt, Christin’s mother has had enough and has joined a Parent support group called Tough Love. It’s a support group for parents of out of control teens. 

Soon Gary’s parents join tough love. Christin dies of a drug overdose, and Gary quickly descends from recreational user to hardcore junkie. After numerous interventions, being kicked out of the house, and arrested and stuck in Juvenile detention, Gary learns the true meaning of tough love.

It’s a B-ish movie, but, I found it worth the watch, and captivating in a way. It’s an interesting chronicle of modern parenting, and how far we’ve gone from discipline, and defined love. Parenting is definitely gone from our society, so it was refreshing to see a movie that looks at it. See also Parenthood. 2.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

In some ways I really did not like what they did with this. The plot did not follow a traditional reboot, and the characters were all brought back in a classic serial retcon. Rather than passing the torch to Starscream and bringing him in to his own right, much in the tradition of Ethan Hunt from the Mission Impossible franchise, they simply discover a way to bring Megatron back from the Dead.

The new plot, like so many alien movies centers around the aliens first contact with primitive humans and  a regime of decepticons which mistreated and enslaved humanity, so basically, this was Stargate with cars that talk.  The genius of Transformers is of course, the fact that there is a distinct nostalgia to the characters, and the powerful action scenes which are truly flawless in their integration with CG. 

The Retcon of the human interaction, including Sam’s (Shaya LaBouf, Disturbia) sudden connection to all knowledge of the transformers as well as the horribly poor dialogue which stands in stark contrast to the witty banter of the first movie along with Megan Fox’s incessant sexual pandering is really enough to make an average viewer turn it off, but the comic violence of giant robots really makes any movie worth watching. This is simply put, a popcorn Michael Bay (Bad Boys) movie, and so it’s a 2 for action, but if you wont’ anything else, don’t pick it. The action sequences should definitely be worth it for anyone.

Transformers

Every boy’s childhood dreams come to life in this movie. This is an epic stage of massive robots fighting for control of a distant world, and earth is the venue. We begin in Iraq where a mysterious chopper lands with no markings. Soon we learn, it’s no chopper at all.

Flash to southern California, a somewhat geeky young man begins to suspect all is not well with the used car he just purchased. Flash to the Pentagon where a team of analysts has been assembled to idenitify the signals that attempted to hack the military datalink in Iraq. 

Led by the secretary of state (John Voigt, Midnight Cowboy) this team must discover who is trying to attack the US. But it’s not the US that is being attacked directly, it is a mysterious government organization known as Sector 7. They hold the key to both the autobots and decepticons saving or destroying their homeplanet. Soon Optimus Prime and Megatron show up, and the ultimate battle begins.

This is such a rich story to tell with the classic archetype characters, framed against some rather strange and eccentric human characters. An ensemble cast featuring John Turturro (One-eye Jimmy) and Hugo Weaving (Lord of the Rings) leads the way in this fun yet serious epic action comedy. All the cars are sweet GM models as well, so if you like cars, make this 2 a priority.

Triple X

This is a highly overrated action movie. It stars the Vin Diesel (Chronicles of Riddick) before he learned how to act. His character, Xander Cage is an extreme sports athlete mogul, turned underground bad boy via the World Wide Web. He runs into trouble after stealing a Senators car and using it to base jump a ravine.

Enter good actor. Samual L. Jackson (Sphere) wins every scene he is in, and saves the movie from being a complete piece of crap. He plays an NSA agent assigned to crack certain international crime organizations (Which is a little strange, since the NSA is a home surveillance entity). He has XXX arrested and put through a series of tests, and finally approves him as a secret agent to crack a Russian Anarchy group in Prague.

What follows is a sequence of sexual encounters at the Russian base, as well as various far-fetched action sequences which have nothing to do with real life. Eventually, XXX finds himself fighting through Russians that want to kill off cities using chemical warheads. This movie sucks, but Samual L. Jackson is amazing. Severe 1.

Thie is Spinal Tap

This is the ultimate mockumentary. There are some of the funniest moments in film history in this movie. Particularly featuring Nigel Tuffnel, as he goes on about music. He writes a musical trilogy with influences from Mozart and Bach, which he says combines into a “Mach” feeling, and he has all this artistry. And he calls it “Lick my Love Pump”. 

Another classic scene, Nigel explains that usually, amps usually only go to 10 in volume, but Spinal Tap has amps that go to 11, and so it’s amazing, because it’s a whole 1 louder. And he also instructs the documentor to stop looking at a brand new guitar.

The whole package spoofs in many ways the rock and Roll scene, and the idea that bands could go on long rolling tours, and cover a span of decades, much like the Rolling Stones. It’s also a spoof in general of the music industry, and how absurd some of the label and industry standards are. 

Finally, this movie covers the spoof of celebrity. It’s absurd to think of fame, or success in terms of celebrity. Celebrities used to be politicians, and now they’re TV stars. Actors used to live in the ghettos.

This is great. 2. Christopher Guest (Best in Show) directs and stars in a masterpiece.

Van Helsing

This movie starts out well, and makes use of a cliché plotline that isn’t too overdone, and Hugh Jackman, though becoming rather typecast, does an excellent job as the soulless bounty hunter, Van Helsing. This movie is an attempt to bring together the Wolf man, Dracula, and the Monster of Dr. Frankenstein. In some senses, they are trying to pack in too much. The end all plot is that Dracula tries to bring his offspring to life instead of bursting into pussy little former embryos. And he needs Frankenstines formula to do that. I actually forget the significance of the wolfman, other than her is the servant of Dracula. Very Weird, and I didn’t really like the plot, particularly the incorporation of Frankenstein. 

Action wise, and as always Hugh Jackman does a great job, and the idea of Van Helsing a soulless man who fights evil in every place through out history is very fascinating, but used in this context, I found it rather disappointing. Kate Beckinsale plays the Romantic Interest and an equal in vampire hunting prowess, but dies at the end, which is very unformulaic and I was glad to see them step outside the box. 

All in all, this movie was lacking, but a fun cheap action flick with a slightly overcomplicated plot. This movie is also a tribute to the three monsters in question and the dir3ector studied the movies of Boris Karloff, Bellow Lugosi and Lon Cheney, and so in the presentation of the monsters, particularly the vampires I was quite pleased.

This movie is still a 2, because it is worth seeing. I think I definitely prefer other vampire movies to this oe however, including Underworld, Interview with a Vampire, John Carpenters Vampires, and Bram Stokers Dracula. Actually, this was better than John carpenters and had an element of realism despite the drastic and crazy fantasy world. I liked it.

Vantage Point

This is actually a very fascinating take on a film. It is about a 15 minute sequence of events which is told through a variety of characters and from several different points of view until the entire thing is woven together and brought to the point where you can see the whole thing and what’s really going on.

We follow some very amazing actors, too as the event unfolds as an attempted assassination of the president (William Hurt, Lost in Space) who is being protected by a secret serviceman (Dennis Quaid, The Rookie) and there’s a young father with a video camera (Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland) and a lot of other people involved.

That’s really all I can say, we watch this assassination 4 or 5 times and pretty soon you piece it all together, it’s slightly predictable, but very good in it’s execution, and that’s generally what matters with films, is the execution.

Not a while lot to say, 2.

Unforgiven

This movie is incredible. It is literally the quintessential Western. It’s  as most Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby) films go, a hard hitting moral expose on a particular issue. This actually looks at the slant of morality in movies as a good thing. It’s like The Quiet Man, except in the end the quiet man snaps and kills a bunch of people. 

Eastwood stars as William Munny, reputed thief and murderer, of a mean and distemperate disposition. Long since cured of wickedness by his deceased wife, a kid comes by his farm one day in hopes of coaxing William into accompanying him to kill the men who assaulted a whore in Big Whiskey, Wyoming. Soon they’re joined by Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman, Million Dollar Baby), Munny’s old partner. 

To overcome the men they are being paid to kill, they will also have to overcome the sheriff of the town, “little” Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman, Narrow Margin). His cruelty is illustrated in a vignette about a man named English Bob (Richard Harris, Onece Upon a Time in the West). It’s a crazy and remarkable story about the ethics of killing in a time before they were really addressed. Daggett is also an incompetent Carpenter, which reveals a lot about his psychological make up.

The saddest scene is when the kid kills a man, and then is filled with remorse. It’s so strange to watch them go through the experiences that are common place to the Western, and see them genuinely be changed. The most powerful scenes follow immediately, as William is changed and transforms from William Munny, Farmer, to William Munny, Dude. The Suit of armor is a noticeable trend to Eastwood, who plays off his earlier western persona’s  and gains a physical, visual suit of personhood. He beceoms the Darker person. Simply incredible. A Definite 2

Under Siege

This is perhaps Steven Seagall’s (The Glimmer Man) most famous film. It also stars Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive) and Gary Busey (Soldier) as Seagall plays the cook on a warship in the Navy. This cook used to be a Navy SEAL, however, and when the ship is taken over, complete with it’s 24 Tomahawk nuclear warheads, He’s the only one who can be counted to save everyone else.

That’s basically it, it’s a standard action kung fu gun movie, with a little nudity, and lots of swearing. Jones is brilliant as an over the top terrorist, and Busey as always is great with the cussing and shikanery. It’s a real fun 2 action flick. I also like On Deadly Ground. 

I’m not sure what else to say. Steven Seagall kills a lot of people, and saves even more. The final fight between him and Jones is actually really well done.

Used Cars

This movie is really a classic b-movie. It’s got Kurt Russell (The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes) as a man who is the best used car salesman in the county. He’s caught in a dealership war between two twin brothers, and is constantly scheming to make money, but not upset the balance.

Like many b-movies, this plays as a series of 3 vignettes. There’s the vignette about interrupting the television signal, and accicdentally showing the naked woman ( a popular penthouse spread at the time) and the vignette about false advertising and teaching kids to drive in mexico, and of course the vignette about the owner dying and trying to fake like he’s still alive, until you can find his estranged daughter so his eveil twin brother doesn’t inherit his dealership.

These vignettes play themselves out in a ridiculous and slapstick manner, which is comical, but not that great. I enjoyed watching this movie, but I really wouldn’t recommend it, or rewatch it. It’s just not really worth it. 1.

Ultraviolet

Before I say anything about this movie, I want to say, worst visual effects ever. EVER. The cityscapes and horizons in this movie are the worst CG I’ve ever seen. Jurassic Park was better and that was made 14 years ago. They hardly had PC’s back then. Literally. Not all the effects were bad, and in a charming way it took on the likeness of a Comic Book without being like the fruity Joel Schumacher (Dir. Batman Forever) vision of comic-scapes. But seriously…do not hire whoever they hired.

Aside from that, the plot was quite enjoyable, though a little vague at times. Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil) plays a sadly typecast, but still enjoyable saviour character, as Violet Song Yi Sharriff. Her voiceovers are tacky, but her delivery is sometimes quite charming, particulary when asked why she is stealing government property, she responds, “Because I hate humans, with every fiber of my being.” It’s actually quite chilling.

She is of course hemophage, a human turned into a Vampire-like human because of a blood disorder created by a government run genetic engineering program. She gets all the perks, though, including superhuman strength, speed, senses, but she has to drink blood to survive. Sadly, the vampire angle is downplayed a lot, and is nothing like Underworld.

She has stolen a government weapon which turns out to be a genetically engineered child who’s DNA may be used to destroy humans, in an odd plot twist. The visuals are quite beautiful at times, and the fight scenes are quite cathartic, particularly one in which Violet takes on 18 men with pistols, and uses only her bare hands.

The fight scenes are quite good, on par with Kung Fu Hustle, and quite comic bookish in their own right. The plot is week, but does enough to keep you interested if you care at all. There is also a great performance by Michael Fichtner (The Postman) as Garth, who is similar to the Cane character in the blade trilogy.

Zero Effect

For this, my 100^th Movie Review, I have chosen to do my all-time favorite movie. This is not the best movie in any particular way, but it just strikes my fancy in a certain way, the characters and the dialogue are amazing, and I could watch it over and over again and never get tired of it, seeing brand new things every time. The chemistry between all the actors is amazing, really.

Bill Pullman (Independence Day) plays the incomparable Darryll Zero, a modern Sherlock Holmes, complete with queer manner and opium addiction. Ben Stiller (Zoolander) plays his totally normal legal assistant, who works as his liaison for all public work. The Private Investigation world is ruled by Zero, he is the man. Ryan O’Neal (Paper Moon) is Gregory Stark, the next client, and “someone is holding something BIG over this guys head”. As it turns out, the lead suspect (Kim Dickens, Mercury Rising) is also the perfect match for the hapless Zero, king of cool on the job, but not much of anything any other time. 

The romance, comedy, detective story, and drama is in perfect balance, and there are so many quotables that I find myself saying, not to quote the movie, but just because that’s how real life sounds. Amazing. I can really only give it a 3 on a scale of 1-2.

World Trade Center

This is a powerful and rich exploration of the human factor in any kind of tragedy or disaster. I would pair this up with Castaway as some of the most unique idea’s behind filmmaking. It starts morning of September 11^th, 2001, and follows a crew of port authority cops.

Nicholas Cage (Snake Eyes) plays the sergeant, and this is actually his first return to intense drama since Leaving Las Vegas, unless you count Captain Corelli’s Mandalin.. Which I don’t.

As the towers are hit, the port authority go to work, getting extra gear and preparing to mount the tower and rescue people. However, at that very moment, the tower collapses. Burying all the men. 3 survive, and one is killed in the aftershock. The two men, crushed under slabs and bleeding internally, converse to keep eachother awake.

It is a rare glimpse of humanity, as they pray, cry, yell, and do many other things in an intense and crazy situation.

In other ways, other people, including former marines, school teachers, and children are all affected. It’s amazing to see the true to life ideas that Oliver Stone (Dir. Natural Born Killers) brings to the screen in what I would call a definite comeback film since his last few movies, (Alexander) have really stank.

All in all, this is a quite amazing movie, and has some of the best pacing, and affecting I’ve seen in a movie. Certain 2, and makes me want to watch Stone’s work again.

White Noise

This Bizarre thriller deals with a strange documented phenomenon where supernatural communications are perceived through detuned radio and video equipment. Static and Snow reveal images, and voices, from what appear to be dead people. The whole thing is rather strange. Michael Keaton (Much Ado About Nothing) plays a man who has recently lost his second wife, and longs for her all the time. 

He is visited by a man who says he has heard from her, and soon he becomes obsessed with the white noise signals that may hold remnants of his wife.

Soon, the messages he intercepts direct him down a bizarre path, and he finds many strange occurrences that all seemed to be linked to the white noise. He also befriends a few people who are into different things, but who all seem connected. His television is also haunted by the shadow of three strange beings.

Overall, a cryptic and shadowy movie, it doesn’t really do all that well with the suspense as it telegraphs all the scary parts, and also, it just doesn’t resolve enough, and you can’t make it out, you can’t figure out what is actually going on. On the whole, it’s just too mystical and not explained enough. 1, but a fine performance by Keaton.

Where the Wild Things Are

Max is not a happy boy. Picked on by his big sisters friends, ignored by his family, and needing a father very badly, Max is in sore need of friends. He raises trouble at home, and acts like a tyrant, desperately wanting to rule. It’s man’s will to dominate that rises up in him.

“Make me my food, woman.” He declares in front of his Mom’s new boyfriend. And then in the proceeding altercation, he bites his mother and breaks out of the house and runs down the street. Eventually he finds the boat, and heads for the land of the Wild Things. Basically from this point it covers the theme of the sketch, he threatens them when they want to eat him and tells them he hes special powers and they make him their king.

Then they build a fort, and they have a big party, and a dirt clod war. The whole imagination of it all makes it really phenomenal, but story of itself is so generalized and illustrates some interesting ideas about the problems in relationships. Overal, I found myself engaged, simply because I was waiting for something to happen which never did, and any reviewing would be superfluous. The one idea in all of this that really keeps it moving along is the vivid imagination of Max, and the power he brings to his own images by his presence.

I give this movie a 2 by the barest of margins. I really enjoyed it, but I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone, unless they wanted to see a vision of pure imagination and comic genius. 

Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit

This is a must see for Wallace and Gromit fans, but on the whole, you could afford to leave it alone. From the creator of Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run, this movie stay true to the formula, if not dragging it out a bit to achieve feature film length status.

Wallace, the amazing eccentric inventor is as it again, this time as a humane pest control man, protecting England’s gardens from the rabbit menace, yet not harming them, as they are so delightfully fluffy. He also seeks to rehabilitate them, and create a breed of rabbits that is no harm to the average citizen’s prize squash. And he’d also like to lose a few pounds as his cheese addiction fattens him through the roof.

Well, the solution and the problem to all this lie in a new and exciting invention, and some delightful sequences come out of this movie, and some really hilarious part, but, on the whole, the attempt to remake The Wrong Trousers is simply too formulaic, and the humor dwindles as Gromit’s role becomes much less funny.

Not a must see, but a valiant effort, and some vintage W & G, for sure. Sadly, a 1.