Reviews

Our church Wednesday night group is reading Making Room for Life. The book extols simple living, but not in the systematic, hair-shirted way others have. Instead, it takes some biblical principles as axioms and wraps modern problems around them. The main axiom is the “Hebrew Day”, which you could also rename the “Agrarian Day”. That is, a daily schedule defined, as its name implies, by daylight and darkness–daylight is for productive work, darkness is for rest and individual/communal recuperation. ...

I’d have to take the “radical” option - move to a … Jeff Roberts - Jun 2, 2007 I’d have to take the “radical” option - move to a condo where the only chores are indoor ones, and where my neighbors are right in my face, since we’re all going to be so neighborly anyway.

Yes, it had lots of plot holes, but it was light-hearted, escapist fun. I liked it because it didn’t take itself too seriously, electing to scream at the audience “Sure, WHY NOT?!” The special effects are very well done, and the acting’s decent, if tounge-in-cheek.

We liked it, too. “Do they look happy?!” Jeff Roberts - Jun 3, 2007 We liked it, too. “Do they look happy?!” “Naw, they look saaad.”

Pirates of the Caribbean In sum: What the hell was that? It was long: 168 minutes. Trim 30 or 40 minutes, and call me in the morning. It was confusing. Isn’t there some screenwriter rule against more than 4 double-crosses in the same scene? Everyone betrays everyone else. As you might expect, this makes it tough for the audience to understand their motivations or actions. The action scenes explode without context. Who’s fighting whom on which ship, and by the way, which way is UP? When you can’t answer any of these questions as a viewer, you’re watching an overwrought mess. ...

Good Night, and Good Luck reminds us that history isn’t always rosy. Set in that halcyon era after World War Two, but before the Cuban Missile Crisis, Gary Powers’s U-2, or Castro’s revolution in Cuba, the film reveals that all is not right in Utopia. Communists are everywhere, or so “the junior senator from Wisconsin,” Joseph McCarthy, would have them believe. As the film opens, it’s 1953, the height of McCarthyism, when folks with any prior association with Communists–even decades before–find themselves blacklisted and convicted with hearsay evidence. Accusation assures conviction, especially among intellecutals and entertainers. ...

Watched The Rose last Sunday from 4am to 6am. Yeah, it’s been a weird week. It was a very compelling story, if difficult to watch. Bette Midler is stunning as Janis Joplin…er…Mary Rose (“The Rose”) Foster. According to IMDB, the original script was the Janis Joplin story, but Midler said it was too soon after her death to portray the story onscreen so it was rewritten. In any case, the highpoints are similar–a tortured woman with an incredible voice whose story ends in an overdose.

Spiderman 3 is a boring mess. The story is a mishmash of plotlines, centering around the three (yes, THREE) villains – Goblin Jr., Sandman, and Venom. Overlong, the film languishes in its many plots, opening with Spidey wounding his friend Harry Osborne, now the reborn Green Goblin, then sauntering to the Sandman, and the Venom super-spidey suit. There’s no discernible momentum until Mary Jane calls it quits with Peter, who’s been quite an ass, though she herself has been a needy baggage for 4 reels. In any case, this sets off a battle between Harry and Peter, and FINALLY some action. Had the movie begun here and run for a tight 85 minutes, cutting out the Sandman character altogether, it would’ve been awesome. As it stands, this bloated ($300 million) mess has probably killed its franchise. ...

Oh, the movie was OK, I guess. I had low expectat… Jeff Roberts - May 6, 2007 Oh, the movie was OK, I guess. I had low expectations and a free ticket. Myself, I almost left before the previews were over. I know the movie was PG-13, just like the last Star Wars was, but surely they know there are going to be kids at a super hero movie?! I think I’ve about had it with the theater experience. ...

(In other news, my life now revolves around Kate Beckinsdale movies) I loved this movie the first time I watched it. It was called Tora, Tora, Tora and Thirty Seconds over Tokyo. Many of the supporting cast are an unexpected delight, particularly Cuba Gooding, Jr as Petty Officer Miller, and Jon Voight as President Roosevelt. The main love triangle…meh. Not plausible in the least. Additionally, yeah, a P-40 outmaneuvering six Zeros? Sure. :-)

Why is Jon Voight suddenly the man who must be hir… DavidJarvis - May 1, 2007 Why is Jon Voight suddenly the man who must be hired to play every historical figure? Roosevelt, Coach Rupp, the Pope … the list goes on and on.

Thank you for smoking is (nearly) pure satire, similar to the Tim Robbins pic Bob Roberts. It pokes fun at Big Tobacco (natch), but mainly, it skewers our victimization culture of poor education and worse parenting. It’s oddly flat, in the same way I found Bob Roberts flat–the central character is an anti-hero, so as the action ‘rises’, I found myself more depressed–we are that dumb as a nation. Yes, we do fall for straight lines like that. Yes, we’re eager to believe anyone who’ll tell us that the road to Nirvana is smoking a pack of cigarettes per day, chugging Coca-Cola, downing three meals of McDonalds, watching 10 hours of TV, and playing PS3 the remaining 12 hours of our impotent (in both senses) existence. ...

Underworld Meh. Take Blade, remove the throbbing soundtrack, satisfying action sequences, suspension of disbelief, and credible (!) backstory, add Kate Beckinsdale in a catsuit. You have KATE BECKINSDALE in a CATSUIT for TWO HOURS! How the freak do you make a movie this bad?

Let me sum this up: It’s just like the book. The book makes no sense; neither does the movie. It’s unwatchable nonsense most of the time. The whole point of the book is to catch Douglas Adams’s quotes and sideline commentary. Only redeeming part: My favorite Elf (Zoe Deschanel) is trillian:

Okay, at this point in my life, there’s only one show I watch religiously: Grey’s Anatomy. The last two episodes have caused me physical pain. You see, the main characters, the swooping eagles of the show–Merideth, Derek, Christina, and Burke–mean nothing to me. They’re interesting in a surreal sort of way. There are two characters I DO care about–Izzie and George. They seem very real to me…they’re best friends and confidants, and they’re flawed. They don’t soar quite as high as the rest, but they do have a depth of emotion that is the anchor of this show – when George’s dad died, I had to consider what my own response will be to my father’s passing. When Izzie lost Denny, the man for whom she threw away her career, I had to examine just what I would do if my own beloved were dying and there was precious little I could do about it. ...

300 Tagline for the movie posters: This has to be the best movie involving half-naked [gay] men I’ve seen all year. Okay, I’m a history buff, and I’ve reviewed Other works about Thermopylae before. In many ways the Pressfield book (and, I’m assuming, Frank Miller’s graphic novels) were better interpretations of Thermopylae, but the movie was interesting. Some advisories: - Yes, it’s that gory. It’s about a battle waged hand-to-hand over three days, and it gives you precious little time to forget that. It doesn’t exactly glorify battle, but it does remind us that modern warfare is much more antiseptic than its ancient forebear. ...

Snow Crash Consumed this book this weekend, and it was a great mind-F***, similar to the first time you watch “The Matrix”. Where to begin? The central character, Hiro Protagonist (You have to admire a man with the stones to call his protagonist Mr. Protagonist!), lives in a dystopian future overrun by corporations, in which the world is split in two–Reality is, well, the real world, and the Metaverse is the hipper virtual world where everyone has avatars and can interact via being ‘Goggled-in’. ...

I love “Grey’s Anatomy”, but they Jumped the Shark many different ways last night. A very special…: On tonight’s very special introduction to the three-episode story-arc from Hell, we concoct a ferry-boat hitting a container ship, turn thousands of characters you don’t care about into hamburger so that we can beleaguer a metaphor for a central character who feels lost. Yay. Hair care…: We will have an entire, poorly shot elevator scene of uncomfortable actors trying to do material about an aging, balding black man’s hair. The only female will cluck her hen-like, “Leave him Be!” Four more times that should be allowed by the Screen Actor’s Guild. ...

I’ve spent the better part of three dull, lifeless days watching a marathon of Star Trek: Voyager and wanted to comment on it. LAME! I’ve listened to Jeff complain about the “venting plasma from the port nacelle” problem, and it seems every episode I’ve seen has something to do with time travel or the hollo-deck. I’ve commented several times watching these episodes how these idea were great–the first time I saw them on “Next Generation”. ...

Yeah, pretty lame. The first season, everyone was… Jeff Roberts - Dec 6, 2006 Yeah, pretty lame. The first season, everyone was especially two-dimensional, but then I thought that of TNG at first. For some reason the girls and I got hooked on Voyager, though and I’ve seen all but one episode…and now that we have NetFlix I’ll have to check for it :-) ...