The Dark Knight

Here's one that is still in the theatres. Lester and I felt so ripped off by the latest Indiana Jones farce, we decided to double-or nothing our theatre movie money and try another sequel.
I am not a lover of sequels - it can be the best movie in the world, but after the original comes out, it loses all of it's suprise so therefore it loses the magic that it created when sequels come out.
So we went down to Larry's place in Sandy (Jordan Commons, 'cause we know that guy...) in the heat of the day, on friggin Monday afternoon specifically to see it in the IMAX presentation form (It is the first major motion picture to have sequences shot on the IMAX system (very pricey) blended with the standard 35mm format, so I thought that would be nice to see the way it was handled.) By the time we got there, there were plenty of seats left - as long as we sat in the front row or didn't sit together. Who in the hell goes to movies at 12:30 on a Monday afternoon? - apparently half of the town of Sandy, which leads me on my next tirade which is my general dislike for Sandy, or what I've come to call, "Provo North", but that is content for another post... So we ended up catching another showing 15 minutes later. Here's the part where I smash it to pieces:
The film RULED ALL OTHER SEQUELS BEFORE IT! Until the last half hour. The show is 2 hours and 36 minutes long, but it goes by fast because it has a very large and mighty little toe (entertainment value), once again until the last half hour where it goes off on a glaringly apparent political tangent that I have yet to completely decipher. I must admit thatI dearly loved Batman Begins, specifically Christian Bale as the man o bats. This one was no different, except it had Ledger to counterbalance his coolness. Dead or not, I would not hesitate to blast an actor on their work, but Heath Ledger tore the roof off the place - firstly because you almost can't recognize him - but man, everyone said he was getting in some pretty big shoes with the Joker role, and you all know how I feel about the hugely overblown Jack Nicholson (mumble mumble, Easy Rider coasts on...), but the Jokers shoes have been filled, and then some. Jack should be embarrassed. One more word on Ledger: Nurses outfit. That's all I'm going to say, but you'll know it when you see it. Creepy and darkly funny at the same time.
But, all good things must come to an end, and this one wrapped it up about a half hour late, according to my watch - with the turning of the DA Harvey Dent (you'll see) the reflection of somebody's political views started flowing, and perhaps the most perfect sequel ever made slipped, and by the end of the movie, I had that feeling like after pigging out at McDonalds - it was tasty as you ate and ate and ate the cheap food, but near the end when you are belching up flavors from the first burger you had, you start feeling a little guilty for eating it all, and just wish you could go back to the first burger again and leave it at that. 4 out of 5 toes. Story line suffers. Ledger for supporting Oscar, and not just 'cause he's dead...

Bragging about how cool I am...

Did you all know out there in the Blog O Speer that I, Casey the Speer, really am a critic?
My undergrad degree emphasized critical theory in movie mediums. I mainly studied horror, but the critical theory covered much of literature, classics and modern, as well as the horror. So when I say something is crap - you can take that to the bank, baby! Not really, the first thing they teach you is that everything is subjective to the audience's preconcieved mindset, so to combat that, there are 5 prongs that I like to use to judge a piece of written work (Yes, movies are written too. Otherwise how would Morgan Freeman know what to say in the voice over?): I have started thinking of them as toes - you need all of them to walk and run correctly, so for a work to stand on it's own it doesn't necessarily have to have all of the toes - but it better have the little toe, which, believe it or not, if you don't have, you're not standing on your own. In my case it is the combination of all of the other elements in a factor that I call "entertaining", which is a little subjective, but sometimes one of the other elements is so distracting it does not allow the viewer or reader to fully enjoy the point of the work. So;
1. Is the movie entertaining? that is the #1 job of any work. If it doesn't do it, why bother?
2. Is the story solid? does it fit in or does something seem out of place or unrealistic for the framing or setting? Wild Wild West does actually work in my opinion, always has.
3. Are the characters believable? Because any story is really about the characters and our reactions to them.
4. Is dialogue solid? Keanu Reeves massacres this in every movie since Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. "Whoa!, like, that was gnarly, dude" he says to Sandra Bullock on the bus in Speed.
5. Does the work move along set norms, or change and break through them successfully or not? Think of Silence of the Lambs with Jodie and Sir Anthony reversed with Jodie being the psycho. Would it work? These formulas for stories have been around since the days of Plato. There are very few that do break through the norms. Million Dollar Baby in my opinion, does, not just because of the girl boxer, but because it uses the vehicle of the girl boxer to move the story line to dealing with euthanasia in a very powerful way - That said, Shakespeare's Hamlet also deals with it..with more traditional point of view (To be or not to be...). Both works work, but take the more recent movie PU-239. It is the story of a guy that is trying to get money for his family before he dies from his exposure to radiation in Russia. He fails and it threw the train off the tracks. There is a snippet at the end that fixes it, but the set norms are broken with the guy's failure in my opinion, fails this #5 test because it tries to break through norms we have but fails.

So there you have it. Speero's 5 prong test. Agree with me, or be wrong...

The Bucket List

Okay, so by now you are probably expecting that if I mention a movie online, it is to bash it.

Let's just say you are right. Until I see one that competes with Forrest Gump or No Country for Old Men, I will continue to alert you to the deficiencies in our films.



The following is my review of the DVD movie ( because we are too poor to see it in the theatres)The Bucket List starring two old guys, by Casey Speer:

Basic storyline: Two old guys find out they're dying and try to live out a list of things they want to do before they die. Along the way, they become chums. that's it.

The movie wasn't bad. I had preconcieved notions that it too would be a baby-boomer pandering "I'm gonna live forever even though I am the walking dead" movie, and it was, but it had a moment or two of humor, generally dealing with Jack Nicholson's character, which is apparently the only character he can play since Easy Rider; the cranky old rich guy that mumbles out witty one liners and grunts a little. Now, that moment or two was truly that, a moment or two.

Now the bashing part: Horrible backdrops. I mean horrible. Every location was a perfect sunny day with a few clouds and a pink glow over everything. That is not reality, (especially when you only have a little while to live) - The reality would be sitting in Giza while a terrific windstorm blew sand in your eyes until your own tears made the sand harden into concrete in the 200 degree winds, all the while with vendors in your face offering to sell you a tour of the pyramids saying "you want tour, you want tour, you want tour" forever. Anyway, the scenery was really fake looking to me, which I am sure it was. But, you're right, that is not really the point of the movie.
What ended up getting to me the most has almost become a mainstream Hollywood staple: Morgan Freeman's voice over narration. It was great in Shawshank Redemption. It was acceptable in Million Dollar Baby. But it was also in War of the Worlds and March of the Penguins. Though it worked here, I simply wouldn't have used it, because it is being over used. "So...Billy Joe went on down to the train station....and there was the pocket watch his great granddad had given to him the day he was off to war....just off to the side of the stairs...it still looked the same...'cept for the dent that bullet made back in 1944..." It's just too cheesy now so it distracted from the whole movie when the voice over parts were on. (By the way i totally made that narration up.)

I would give the movie 3 of 5 toes - it can stand on it's own but at times seems a little soft and wobbly. Entertainment, character and story line are solid, at least...

Oregon Trip, 2 weeks later...

Our family Oregon trip was about two weeks ago. We went with G-Ma, Babs, Rusty, Glennmerica and Elowena and Adrianna. Babs rented a cute little house in Lincoln City on the beach that had a few stairs that went down onto the beach. Most days were much like being on a cruise ship, as in: Get up, eat. Get ready for day, eat. Go to beach or town, eat. Come home, eat. Nap, get up, eat. Go for walk, eat. Get ready for dinner, eat. Get ready for bed, eat etc... Some noteworthy events , aside from eating every 10 minutes, were the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Building sandcastles (Elowyn and Adrienne's first sandcastles ever!) We shopped at the outlet malls, Blew our own artisan glass floats, played catchphrase at sundown, Lester and I went running every morning, and rode our beachcruiser bikes actually on the beach (which was like riding in molasses) and we made everyone Beauford Stew (with fresh clams and not as fresh scallops - it was delish!).





Here is a picture of Ely Sue and the young gentleman who tutored her on how to blow her glass float...Elowyn found it particularly hot in the glass blowing studio...and I don't think it was because of the ovens!





Sandcastle building was the most enjoyable thing. Not because of the fact that you are helping a kid build their first sandcastle, but because of the destruction and mayhem that followed the building. Note the picture of Elowyn at the bottom of this post, standing proud and triumphant next to her city, named Elowyn city, what is not shown is what later ensued:

1. Kid next door approached with malicious intent (we questioned possible mental retardation, never to be comfirmed). After Lester screamed with all of her might from our second story bedroom window and he retreated (in his head thinking it was God yelling at him), we became aware of the vulnerability of our sandcastle not just to the ebb and flow of nature's tides, but the human element in the form of nasty little snot-nosed kids with unresolved issues of sandcastle envy.

2. Another kid from the other direction and female, much like the Exorcist girl, approached it to survey the land and what it would take to bring it to ruins, as our entire family watched from the picture windows of the house. We were relieved to watch her wander away, leaving it unharmed, only to have our hopes dashed as she quickly returned, runing upon it with a war cry and jumping, stopming, kicking and flouncing all over our creation. The only force able to stop her, was Adrienne, who in her distraught state ran out onto the deck and screamed "Leave our sandcastle alone!" at the top of her lungs. We received dirty looks from her parents for the rest of our stay. The feather that adourned our sandcastle was later found on HER sandcastle - which Lester and I promptly stomped on...

3. All that remained following the aforementioned episodes was a lone tower and two small trees and a partial moat, which were then peed on by no less than four dogs out on walks.

We do not know if we will go on to build sandcastles again, but that sandcastle will continue to live peacefully within our hearts.