Ursus Pacificus

Are you offended easily or under 18 years of age? If so, stop now. Please. I’m serious. Go check out the Wikipedia page on Mr. Rogers.

I just read (and yes, I know I’m behind the curve on this one) one of Patricia E. Bauer’s blog posts about Tropic Thunder, quite possibly one of the top-5 funniest movies of the last 10 years.

Patricia, I know you’re offended easily, but we’re going to get you started with some immersion therapy….

You can still turn back.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

If you don’t want to be offended by nasty language, turn back now!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I’m serious!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Fuck you, Patricia E. Bauer, you whining, pointless cunt.

If we can’t speak honestly about our problems (or those of others, or society in general), we can’t address them honestly.

Nigger. See that. I said it. Not “N-word”. Nigger. I didn’t call anyone a nigger, I just said the word.

Fuck. Shit. Piss. Retard.

Retard fucks nigger shit; film at eleven.

Cunt. Bitch. Spineless. Credulous. Moron. Idiot.

Nigger is a word. People who are offended by its mere existence need something real to cry about. How come nobody gets all bent out of shape about words like “cracker”, “whitey”, “gray” and so on? Because they’re just words… like nigger and bitch.

Tits, Patty. Tits.

Are you still wincing, Patty?

You see, just because someone’s in a wheelchair or has an IQ of 48 does not excuse them, really, of anything. An asshole in a wheelchair is still an asshole. A dangerous retard in the White House is still dangerous.

Not every person is qualified for every job. Former Senator Max Cleland will likely not be performing any piano concerts at Carnegie Hall. It’s unfortunate, but it’s true. He knows it, I know it, and you know it. He may have been a great pianist before he went to Vietnam, but if he was, I’d say his best performances are behind him now. Why is it taboo to say it?

I have a learning disability, and there are some jobs I simply can’t do. Basically, any job that requires me to quickly and accurately assimilate what I see… I can’t do. I can see fine. Strangely, I still have the best-functioning eyes in my family. I could tell you what my girlfriend’s face looks like, but I couldn’t tell you what she was wearing. It’s sad, but it’s true. These are facts I have to live with every day. To be honest, if I couldn’t laugh about it, I’d probably cry about it.

Fag. Faggot. Shitheel. Douchebag. Holocaust. Genocide. Death. Cancer. Shell shock.

Come on, Patty… get with the program. You need to sing along with me, here…..

Tugg Speedman going “full retard” is part of a larger commentary on Hollywood. The joke doesn’t work, if every time they want to refer to the part of “Simple Jack”, they have to say, “of diminished cognitive capacity”. That would be part of a larger commentary on people like you, Patty.

All the best comedy is rooted, in one way or another, in tragedy. You, Patty, have become a tragic figure, and, as such, you are a comedic figure.

Nadya Suleman, is a pathetic waste of flesh, and a pointless being. That no one had the balls to say, “Nadya… y’know… you have 6 kids now, and no means of support… do you really think you need MORE kids?” .. or better still, “Nope, your done.”… is tragic. She, and her situation, and her choices welcome ridicule, parody and satire. Yes, almost any outcome will be unfortunate in one way or another… but it can be funny, too…

Again… you can laugh about it or cry about it. When you laugh about it, you acknowledge its absurdity, and maybe… just maybe… can start a dialog that can make things better. When you cry about it, you admit your helplessness.

star star star star

Well, I finally got my mitts on a copy of “Frost/Nixon: The Original Watergate Interview”… this is the actual interview, not the dramatic film about doing the interviews (which I want to see).

While Frost seems, at times, to be a little sloshed, as does Nixon, Frost seems to be an unapologetic and nearly relentless interrogator. Frost seem to try to respect the formal deference Nixon is due as a formal national leader, but doesn’t seem to let that get in the way of trying to get real answers from the man.

Nixon, for his part, worked as a skilled defense attorney to deflect blame and call evidence into question… to raise doubt in the prosecution, rather than to demonstrate his own innocence.

There are times when Nixon claims to be the person most knowledgeable of the discussions on-tape, because he was there, but when the “18-and-a-half minute gap” is brought up, Nixon breezily defers to Haldeman’s notes. (hits Staples button) “That was easy!” Frost lets it go. That’s a little disappointing.

All in all, tho, David Frost holds Nixon’s feet to the fire, and compels answers as much as he can, considering that Nixon voluntarily agreed to be interviewed, and was under no obligation (other than contractual) to participate.

It is sad that the US legislature and press could not confront Nixon even this seriously.

Of course Nixon’s dead, as are most of the people involved in his administration, as are most of the people in the senate, the house or the judiciary, who could have done anything about the corruption of the Nixon administration. Except from a historical perspective, it is largely a moot point. This interview does show, tho, that the veracity of the US press, the Legislature and the Judiciary, in protecting the American people from corruption in the Executive is wanting; then as now.

As much as anything can be a viewed as a triumph in this matter, I think this interview is it.

I’m looking forward to seeing the Ron Howard dramatic film about this episode of history.

Star, Star, Star, Star, St

Generally I’m not a Jack Black fan. We can set that to the side. Ben Stiller can be a mixed bag. He wins here. Robert Downey Jr…. I kinda liked him before this. He was brilliant here. Jay Baruchel and Brandon T. Jackson filled out the “platoon” really well. Steve Coogan … don’t really know his work prior to this, but he did a great job here.

Lighting, camera, sound, music… spfx, makeup… locations… even the story… Excellent.

The gore… the explosions… Lovely… and then there’s the fearlessness. Excellent.

…Although, I have to say I thought the comedic “actors thrust into the reality of their play” thing was a little better executed in Galaxy Quest…

All in all… four and a half out of five stars.

… Oh, and Tom Cruise.

The Ascent of Money, a (looks like) 2-hour program on the origins, evolution and current state of money and finance. The preceding link points to the page on PBS.org, where you can watch the whole thing.

I found it very interesting. I was also very satisfied with Niall Ferguson harping on the idea that the value of modern money is entirely dependent on the the faith of those exchanging it in its having value.

I was also satisfied with the frankness of the discussion of World War II’s impact on the US economy, and the post-war period, with the “expansion of the ‘American Dream’” (i.e. expanded home ownership). Of course, frank discussions of such periods, especially when talking about the financial standing of individuals (or groups of individuals) really can’t help touching on race. As an example, Ferguson touches on a region in Detriot, MI, where poor African Americans were concentrated and walled off. The ostensible reason for the segregation was creditworthiness, but Ferguson points to racism as the root of the problem.

One viewer commented:

01/14/2009 :: 12:04:23 AM
Former Contributor to PBS Says:

The racism of this program takes away from the message. Mr. Ferguson made it seem as if the current mortgage crisis is due to minority homeowners, particularly in Detroit and Memphis. The camera shots of minorities further supported his theory. Mr. Ferguson should have looked further to Florida, Arizona and Nevada where white homeowners were defaulting in waves. The problem was that many people, whites included, bought homes that they couldn’t afford. If there truly were loans for people with no jobs, income, and bad credit, then everyone would have a home now. And that surely isn’t true.

Well… I think “Former Contributor to PBS” may be reading a little much into this. A), It seems to me that, in order for the program to inform you, it must contain some information you don’t already know. Perhaps the example presented by the situation in Memphis (or Detroit) is so complete and so extreme as to be an excellent “example”. B) White homeowners in CA, AZ, and NV may be defaulting in waves, but I’d be willing to bet you that most of them are gainfully employed, but just stupid (i.e. have overextended themselves and gotten into debt loads they were only tenuously capable of supporting going forward) as opposed to poor people being preyed upon by credit vultures (viz Memphis and Detroit). I think that the frank discussion of the abuse of the poor is more interesting, and valuable, than the plight of greedy Californians trying to elbow their way into the biggest McMansions they can possibly come close to affording, and ignoring the possibility of anything buried in the reams of paperwork coming back to bite them. I have little sympathy for the McMansion set.

I think this one is worth getting the DVD and the book.

OK… I received this beauty as a holiday gift from my girlfriend. I had expressed interest in it, as I am something of a Disaster Flick buff. This movie is 30 years old, and it’s no less awful than any of the other Airport flicks. In fact it’s far, far worse. It’s really, really bad. It’s terrible. It’s painfully, terribly, painfully, awfully, grievously, miserably, badly, horribly, terribly, disgustingly, ridiculously, wildly, marvelously awful.

Wait… what? Marvelously awful?

Yes.

It combines much of the “intrigue” (sabotage, decompression at altitude, plane falling apart in flight, forbidden (or at least ill-advised) romances, and so on) of all three predecessor movies into one “compelling” “story” with unmatched “editing”, “stunning” “special effects”, and an … “involving” score.

The dialog? Absolutely horrid. I’ve seen some bad movies in my day… This has to be the worst dialog, start to finish, of any movie I’ve ever seen. This makes the stilted, wooden exchanges between Charlton Heston and Karen Black in Airport 1975 seem downright passionate.

Casting? Well, William Batliner and Robert J. LaSanka , responsible for casting such blockbusters as “Heartbeeps”, “The Nude Bomb” and “House Calls” really left their mark on this beauty. Jimmie Walker as a philosophical atheist jazz saxophonist?! Charo? Never mind what her character is supposed to be (which I don’t recall it ever being revealed in the film)… Charo? In a supposedly serious disaster flick? Please. David Warner as the Flight Engineer? Uuuuhhhh… Interesting choice… I mean the character is completely flat and meaningless… David Warner would go on to play Jack the Ripper in “Time After Time”, Dillinger/Sark/MCP in “TRON” and Chancellor Gorkon in “Star Trek VI”… Already a fairly established actor in 1978/79… given this worthless role? Martha Rae as the incontinent old woman (that’s all we know about her…. she’s “comic relief”)? Avery Schreiber (a commedian) as Soviet Olympic coach Markov, who appears to have nothing at all to do with being an Olympic (something) coach… he’s only (deeply) involved with his deaf daughter. Makes sense. John Davidson?! Just having him in the movie is kinda stupid, but as a TV journalist having an affair with a 24-year-old Soviet gymnast???!! That’s just flat-out ridiculous. Robert Wagner as a crooked defense contractor?! Lest we forget, the perennial George Kennedy as “Joe Patroni”… not just a mechanic, now… no, he’s an airline pilot. It goes on and on.

The dialog is abominable. Flat, pointless, and vapid. The French stewardess, who’s bonking the French pilot, tells him and Patroni (in bad Frenglish), “You pilots are such… men!”, to which Patroni replies, “They don’t call it the cockpit for nothing!” When did he become such a douchebag? The French (and other European) accents fade in and out. The shoeleather is laid bare. Scenes which seem to require some emotional gravitas from the dialog have none. Some of the actors are clearly trying to service their dialog as best they can, but to no avail. It’s THAT bad! Even more agonizing is the fake fictionalized “news broadcast” in the first 10 minutes of the movie.

The special effects are neither special, nor effective. TV’s “Battlestar Galactica” (1978.. the Lorne Greene version), which re-used battle sequence elements so much as to be utterly laughable, was far more credible. Compositing is positively inexcusably bad for that era. Practical effects are atrocious… The keypad on the lower cargo door.. see that and refrain from laughing hysterically. I dare you!

The score is … unbearable…? It tries to push emotion into scenes which are barren of it.

The editing is just plain awful. The movie advances like a standard soap opera, with little snippets intended to tease the viewer into watching just a few minutes more to see how things shake out, but with the dialog as hackneyed as it is, this technique leaves the viewer wondering why we couldn’t just stick with a scene long enough to resolve something.

Then, there’s the story arc (or lack of it). There are no heroes. There is no tension among the characters (except… the poorly manufactured tension between Robert Wagner’s character and reporter Maggie Whelan.) There is no agnst. There is no hunger. There is no motivation (other than Robert Wagner’s character’s desire to both kill and bed Maggie Whelan). In the end, the Concorde lands in a snow field, and everyone survives, and RJW’s character apparently commits suicide, never bring tried. The film, if it can so be called, ends with a shot of a Concorde flying over the cloud deck at sunset (or sunrise)…. what?!!

“The Concorde… Airport ‘79″ is unmitigated excrement, and yet, it is almost impossible to not watch.

Originally posted a long time ago on Paul’s Reviews Page

I’ll be rating movies on a three zone, 5-star scale. Each movie will be rated
on “Visual Appeal”, “Audio Appeal” and “Story Appeal”. Each of these three
zones can be rated up to 5 stars (or asterisks…. they load faster than
.GIFs)

Monsters, Inc.
V: *****

A: *****

S: ****

Synopsis: A “parallel Universe” populated by monsters and powered by the screams of nightmare-afflicted children in our world is turned upside down when a child sneaks through the the portal the monsters use to come and collect her screams.

Thoughts: Pixar magic of the highest order. What more do I have to say? Yet another fantastic Randy Newman score. A great story with a great twist. The one Pixar offering to date that really didn’t do it for me (A Bug’s Life) was a bit too kiddish for my taste. While “Monsters, Inc” is no “Shrek”, it does seem to be the most adult-targeting feature from Pixar to date.

While the story, music, sound editing and voice-acting were all top-notch, it really is the character design, animation and simulation (Sully’s fur and Boo’s t-shirt, for the most part) that give this movie it’s heart. Like the two previous Toy Story films, this is a buddy movie in which the buddies learn something about each other and themselves through some unexpected trial. With each successive film, Pixar’s capacity for subtle, expressive facial animation grows by leaps and bounds.

Since PDI-Dreamworks’ “Shrek” is something of a benchmark CA film for me, I’ll mention a few areas where PDI-Dreamworks and Pixar seem to diverge: 1) Realism. From what I’ve seen from the two studios, PDI-Dreamworks has the market cornered. Pixar seems to be content with a certain doll-like aspect to its characters, whereas PDI-Dreamworks seems to focus on skin texture and tone, pliability of skin and plausable deformation in forming facial expressions. There are too many looks and expressions in Shrek for me to count, which set me off laughing or getting all misty-eyed. 2) Story. Monsters, Inc. is something of a departure from the common Pixar formula, in which the thematic content is mostly light. This is the first Pixar film I’ve seen with believably sinister bad guys and starkly dark and frightening content. “A Bug’s Life” discussed death, and I think an ant or two may have gone over the horizon, never to return, but that was nothing compared to the termite battle in “Antz” from PDI-Dreamworks. Personally, I like a little dues-paying in movies I watch. The thing that got me in “Monsters, Inc.” was when Sully was coerced into giving a scare demonstration by Mr. Waternoose, and he inadvertantly exposed Boo to his “Game Face”. This, to me, is like a child seeing what his or her dad REALLY does (or is trained to do) for a living, and dad is a soldier, or special forces type, or some other “ugly” occupation. 3) Characters. PDI-Dreamworks characters, even their fairy-tail creatures, are typically cynical, pragmatic and/or pensive. Pixar’s characters are typically a bit less three-dimensional, although Sully from “Monsters, Inc.” seems to be something of a departure

All-in-all a great flick, one to keep on the shelf at home, even if you have no kids.

Originally posted a long time ago on Paul’s Reviews Page

I’ll be rating movies on a three zone, 5-star scale. Each movie will be rated
on “Visual Appeal”, “Audio Appeal” and “Story Appeal”. Each of these three
zones can be rated up to 5 stars (or asterisks…. they load faster than
.GIFs)

The Clan of the Cave Bear
V: ****

A: ***

S: ***.5

Synopsis: An orphaned Cro-Magnon girl is taken in and raised by a Neandethal Medicine Woman.

Thoughts:
Many times I had seen VHS and DVD copies of Clan of the Cave Bear in stores, and was curious…. it had a certain B-Movie air about it that left me thinking it probably wasn’t all that good. Daryl Hannah is not one of my favorite actresses. And, more times than I can count, I’ve seen good intentioned attempts at portraying primitive or aboriginal peoples botched to the point of being unwatchable. Recently, I saw a copy on DVD for $6.99, and I finally decided to give it a chance.


Clan of the Cave Bear is the story of a little girl who gets separated from her own people and ends up being adopted by another group. It would be one thing if she was just another race… but the girl was Cro-Magnon and the people who adpted her were Neanderthal. This posed some deep conflict issues, and presented some serious challenges.


My initial suspicions about the B-Movie feel were somewhat allayed, and the portrayal of the culture and people was reasonably plausable. The story had some meat to it, and there were some worthy themes. The score, by Alan Silvestri, was, for the most part, fitting and mostly transparent.


One thing I found enjoyable about the movie, and this may just be me, is the fact that the Clan had their own language, which consisted of a combination of utterances and gestures. The viewer’s window into the meaning of the language was sparse subtitles. Once a basic gesture or utterance was presented a few times, the subtitles for it seemed to taper off. More involved “dialog” still had the subtitles, which was very helpful.


Over all, I found Clan of the Cave Bear engaging and satisfying. If you can find it at a reasonable price (I’d say $6.99 is pretty darned reasonable), I’d recommend it.

Originally posted a long time ago on Paul’s Reviews Page

I’ll be rating movies on a three zone, 5-star scale. Each movie will be rated
on “Visual Appeal”, “Audio Appeal” and “Story Appeal”. Each of these three
zones can be rated up to 5 stars (or asterisks…. they load faster than
.GIFs)

Cosmos 2000 Collector’s Edition DVD
V: *******

A: *******

S: *******

Synopsis: Life, The Universe and Everything…. By the way, there are 21 asterisks up there!!

Thoughts:
When I was a kid, around 13 or 14 years old, I saw the science series “Cosmos” on PBS, presented by the late Dr. Carl Sagan. As a much younger boy, I had been exposed to some scientific thoughts and notions which set me off on the course of curiosity and a quest for understanding. Science fascinated me. It still does. When I first saw Cosmos, something else in me was awakened, beyond scientific curiosity. I became aware of the interconnectedness of everything. A sense of abject humility as well as a seemingly contradictory feeling of pride permeated me. In the years since the first time I viewed Cosmos, I have read the book of the same title by Carl Sagan, as well as several others of his books.


Carl Sagan was much more than an extraordinary popularizer of science. He made science universally and irrefutably relevant. He was ridiculously intelligent, frightfully passionate and dangerously engaging. He understood history, biology, religion, physics, planetary science, mathematics, cosmology, psychology, philosophy, sociology and any number of other disciplines, but what was, to me, most extraordinary about Carl Sagan was the way he could connect all these understandings and construct an enormous, beautiful, joyful and compelling comprehension. Cosmos weaves all the aforementioned disciplines into thirteen broadly appetizing narratives, each with striking imagery and surprisingly emotive music. Cosmos is neither condescending nor dumbed-down. It requires your attention, but its meaning is not elusive or buried in jargon and technobabble.


The thirteen episode series Cosmos were written and produced during a time of great discovery (the Voyager and Viking missions, among others) and great peril (lest we forget the Cold War). Fortunately Dr. Sagan dwelt much longer on the discovery than on the peril, although he did not dismiss the possibility of human self-extinction. Instead, he occasionally made remarks which indicated that our continued growth and discovery was contingent upon our refraining from blowing ourselves up.


If you have never seen Cosmos, see it as soon as you can. If you have seen it, it is time for you to see it again. If you don’t already own the seven-disc twentieth anniversary DVD release of Cosmos, you must buy it now and watch it often.

Kudos to Ann Druyan (Dr. Sagan’s widow) and company at Cosmos Studios for the remastering and re-release this beautiful and important work.

Originally posted a long time ago on Paul’s Reviews Page

I’ll be rating movies on a three zone, 5-star scale. Each movie will be rated
on “Visual Appeal”, “Audio Appeal” and “Story Appeal”. Each of these three
zones can be rated up to 5 stars (or asterisks…. they load faster than
.GIFs)

A HREF=”http://us.imdb.com/Title?0268380″>Ice Age
V: *****

A: ****

S: *****

Synopsis: An unlikely ‘herd’ of ice-age-era animals comes together to return a lost human baby to its tribe.

Thoughts: The trio of star voice talent that heads up Ice Age is just about as unlikely as the animals to which they supply voices. Ray Romano, John Leguizamo and Dennis Leary voice a mammoth, a sloth and a saber-toothed tiger, respectively. Ice Age is not really a dialog-heavy film, although the dialog that is there is relevant, fitting and quite often funny. Ice Age is quite well stacked with sight gags and slapstick, but is also bristling with stunning landscapes, fluid, lifelike animation and remarkably evident emotion in the characters’ faces. I’ll admit it… I choked back a few tears at various points through the film. Sadly, I saw it on a plane during a transcontinental flight, so I missed most of the real subtlety; still an excellent flick… I can’t wait for it to come out on DVD this fall!! .

UPDATE!!!

The DVD release of Ice Age ROCKS!!! “Bunny” is included!! There’s an extra “Scrat” short!!! The Special Features are very cool!! Get it!! Now!!!

Originally posted a long time ago on Paul’s Reviews Page

I’ll be rating movies on a three zone, 5-star scale. Each movie will be rated
on “Visual Appeal”, “Audio Appeal” and “Story Appeal”. Each of these three
zones can be rated up to 5 stars (or asterisks…. they load faster than
.GIFs)

Bandits
V: ****

A: ***

S: ****

Synopsis: An incarcerated pair of bank robbers breaks out of prison, takes on a “voluntary hostage” and develops a reputation as “The Sleepover Bandits”.

Thoughts: I’ll try not to give too much of the movie away… Barry Levinson hit quite a home run on this one. The movie opens as we learn The Sleepover Bandits have been killed in a bloody gunbattle while attempting to rob an LA bank. From there, we enjoy a brief “America’s Most Wanted”-like expose on The Sleepover Bandits, which leads us into their story, starting the day of their prison break and ending where we started.

The story is a rollercoaster full of stuff that’s hard to reconcile emotionally; things that you think you should feel bad about, but you end up laughing about… or vice-versa… All-in-all a solid film with a great twist at the end.