geekent’s stuff’n things

Release Date: November 7, 2008
writer/director: Charlie Kaufman

Arguably I probably should have written this review either yesterday or the day before, when the film was dominating my brainspace, to the point where I spent quite some time trolling the internet for answers to the many many questions I have about this film, but my mind is more at ease now, knowing that answers aren’t readily available, and that only through another viewing or four will I actually be comfortable with Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut.

Kaufman is known for his scriptwriting duties on such cerebral-fuckery films as Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, each an exploration of one’s sense of self, which obviously is the writer injecting his own meditations into the script. They’re all peculiar movies, ingeniously different, and darkly amusing. In many respects, Kaufman is a science fiction writer, exploring the science of psychology, though largely through indirect means. Synechdoche, New York makes his previous efforts look like dabbling in comparison, with a story that has no discernible structure and a narrative that may be constantly forward moving, but it doesn’t adhere to any particular timing structure.

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[A Toronto After Dark Film Festival Showcase of International Short Films]

After gruelling coverage of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival last year,
(day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, day 6) I decided not to repeat it again this year, though I did have the opportunity. With all the craziness surrounding Rack Raids of late (I did a server transfer complete overhaul of the site and it looks pretty, except on some people’s Internet Exploder) I’m glad I didn’t. I would have had a meltdown. My favorite part of last year was, hands down, the short films selection (see Days 2 and 3 from last year), and I said that if I was going to see anything at TADFF this year it would be the shorts. And so it was on October 19 I ventured out amidst the throng of zombie walkers to see a dose of the shortages. A much more limited dose than last year though, which had two separate screenings (one for cutting-edge horror and one for cutting-edge sci-fi), which is a little disappointing (TADFF being held solely in the Bloor this year maybe limited their options in this manner), Though technical difficulties pushed things off schedule by about 10 minutes, it was overall another enjoyable set of mini-movies… mini reviews after the cut:

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Release Date: October 17, 2008
writers: Stanley Weiser
director: Oliver Stone

Over the past eight years, I have felt many things for the current so-called “leader of the free world”; contempt, disgust, revulsion, hatred, frustration, anger amongst many other things, all of them commonly referred to as “negative emotions”. He brings it out in me. What I’ve never felt is sympathy or pity for him, and I’m certain there are thousands, if not millions of others like me. I’ve heard from many sources that said Oliver Stone’s new biopic on George W. Bush will make you feel differently about him, and in some respects I guess that’s true, but what invariably sticks out is that this man, this good ol’ boy from down home Texas, this reformed substance abuser, this born-again Christian is not bred, at all, for leadership. He’s ill equipped to lead a boy scout troupe never mind one of the most powerful nations on the planet.

The film is without a doubt a semi-fictionalization of President Bush II’s life, portrayed exceptionally well by Josh Brolin, taking characteristics and events and constructing a semi-fable around them. Time-jumping between his past and his first term as President, Stone gives us a picture of the party-going Bush the Bush who couldn’t summon enough wherewithal to hold down a job, the Bush who sails through life with George Sr. (a fine acting job, if not very George HW Bush-like by James Cromwell) constantly pulling the strings, the Bush living in the shadow of his dad and desiring nothing less than making his own stamp on the world. At the same time this is a Bush who was always competing with his brother for his father’s respect and attention, but never actually applying himself to deserve it. Saddled with the burden of being his daddy’s namesake, and with a family legacy to uphold, Dubya can’t handle the pressure and so retreats into alcohol (no drug use is portrayed in the film) and later religion. Meanwhile, during his first Presidency, he’s portrayed as a man obsessed with righteousness (”I’ve heard the calling… God wants me to be President”), a man obsessed with shaping the world in his narrow image with no real understanding of the more delicate nature of international politics. He calls himself “the decider” but if anything his 8 (gah) years as president have shown, and this movie reinforces, is that he’s a divider. You’re either with us or against us. You’re either a Republican or a Democrat. You support America or you support terrorism. Bush tries to see everything in black and white, ignoring the entire rainbow before him.

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Release Date: September 19, 2008 (locally, October 3rd - wide)
writers: Robert Knott and Ed Harris
director: Ed Harris

The silly name of this film has nothing to do with an apple-themed rock concert, but rather the town in which the film is set. The wife tells me that “appaloosa” is a breed of horse, which makes it an apt western theme, if still a less than enticing film title.

Ed Harris, multi-talent that he is, directs, co-writes, stars and performs the closing title track to the film, and while the guy certainly succeeds at each, he excels at none. In the lead role as the stoic and badass lawman Virgil Cole, Harris takes his time settling into the role. For the first half of the film he seemed at odds with his character, or at least that’s how I perceived it, as he seemed to be acting in a western rather than being in a western. His line delivery seemed overtly pointed as if to say “I am a hard man” without coming right out and saying it. I have to wonder if Harris was at ease with his dual director/star role as he seemed to be distracted as a performer throughout much of the film. But equally, Viggo Mortensen as his right-hand-man Everett Hitch, seemed just as stilted in his believability initially. His delivery had subtlety but the dialogue seemed entirely too loaded and unnatural, as if to say “look, it’s western!” Cole is supposed to have a little quirk about saying big words, but stuttering over them for Hitch to correct, and it never plays naturally, but rather as “blatant character quirk”. Mortensen delivers an opening narrative, which lets the audience in on a whole bunch of information which would have been better left for the audience to discern themselves as the film progressed, rather than being spoon-fed it up front. Same goes with the closing narrative, which tells the audience nothing which they shouldn’t be able to infer themselves.

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Release Date: September 19, 2008 (locally)
writers: Takashi Miike and Maasa Nakamura
director: Takashi Miike

In contrast to what I was saying in the opening paragraph for my review of Burn After Reading, I had barely heard or read a thing about Sukiyaki Django Western. What I knew was it was a Takashi Miike film, which can be equally a draw as a detraction, and that Quentin Tarantino had a role in in. I suspected from a few still photos I’d seen that it was a “traditional” western transposed to Japan. No, not Kurosawa-style, exchanging Samurai for cowboys, but grizzled, scruffy, Eastwood archetypes with hints of Japanese anime blended in. But knowing some of Miike’s work, I was expecting it to be a weird, avant garde interpretation of the Western genre, the way western culture so often is diffused into Japanese creative forms.



To my surprise, disbelief even, Sukiyaki Western Django is about as straightforward a classic western as I’ve seen in the past 20 years. Thinking hard about it afterwards, I had to wonder if “sukiyaki” is like the “spaghetti” dish of Japan, hence coining “sukiyaki westerns” as a new genre in the country. The actual film title has a colon - “Sukiyaki Western: Django” which, like Tarantino and Rodriguez’s attempt to brand “Grindhouse” cinema, makes me think there’s a hope from the director for be more Spaghetti Westerns filtered through the Japanese lens in the future. It took me a good half of the film to settle into its rhythm and pacing, and to actually come to the understanding that this wasn’t a filmmaker playing with Western conventions, but embracing them wholeheartedly, channelling Leone more than Kurosawa.

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Release Date: September 12, 2008
writers: Joel and Ethan Coen
director: Joel and Ethan Coen

My problem with reviewing movies of late stems from the fact that I’ve read reviews from others or get reactions from friends sometimes weeks in advance of seeing the film. It’s hard to keep your critical faculties your own when you have the thoughts and impressions of others floating around in your brain while sitting in the cinematheque. I could, of course, utterly avoid reviews (and friends) but even just a peek at the Tomato Meter or a glance at the box office or noticing what names are attached to what quotes on TV ads (if it’s Larry King, or anyone from a radio or network TV affiliate then you must beware, for mediocrity -or worse- lies within) can leave an impression. Apart from duct taping comic books around my eyes and ears or somehow getting myself on the critics’ advance-viewing list, I’m just not going to make it to a film before others critics (or even friends) do. That’s just my life these days (not complaining, mind, just saying). Point being, I heard two key bits repeated ad nauseum about Burn After Reading since it’s debut at TIFF: 1) there’s not a likable character in the film; 2) the Coen Brothers hate their characters.

I suppose it’s true, the characters in Burn After Reading aren’t what you’d call cuddly, and the nicer/sweeter characters in the film have some pretty horrible things happen to them, but really, how many of your friends do you actually like all the time. How many of your friends are Brad Pitt’s perpetually upbeat, if dimwitted personal trainer Chad, or the sensitive Ted, as played by Richard Jenkins? Chances are you know more people like Frances McDormand’s softly vain Linda or George Clooney’s good natured womanizer Harry, or even John Malkovich’s bitter alcoholic Osborne and his equally bitter, pushy wife Katie, played by Tilda Swinton. These are the people in your neighbourhood, in your workplace, sometimes in your circle of friends and even in your family… pushed to a slight extreme, Coen brothers style, naturally. But it truly is a film about regular-ish people doing stupid and or bad things because they’re too self involved to know better.

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Viewed: In theatre
Release Date: August 1, 2008
director: James Marsh

In some respects Man on Wire is a caper film, like The Great Train Robbery, The Italian Job, or Oceans 11: you know they’re going to succeed, so it’s not the “if” but the “how” that suckers you in. The fact that this film is a documentary, being retold by the participants, mixing photos and reenacted (and treated to look era-”authentic”) scenes beneath the voice-overs gives it an interesting edge which both helps and hinders it.

On August 7th, 1974, after years of dreaming and planning, French wire-walker, Philippe Petit strutted out onto a wire secured between the rooftops of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. Hundreds of feet above the ground, barely visible from the ground, Petit performed for over 40 minutes, and became a celeb-du-jour. The film features a highly animated, excitable, aged Petit recounting the adventures that led him to walk the cable and stare death in the face. As well, his accomplices, including his best friend Jean-Louis Blondeau, his girlfriend Annie Allix, “the Australian”, the Americans and others who helped him each revisit their adventures, some with near-equal fervor as Petit, others wistfully, and still others with regret.

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Viewed: In theatre
Release Date: August 13, 2008
writers: Ben Stiller, Justin Theroux, Etan Cohen
director: Ben Stiller

There was a trailer for a film called Disaster Movie which ran immediately prior to the screening of Tropic Thunder, which appears the latest in a long line of scattershot movie parodies (see “Superhero Movie”, “Date Movie”, “Epic Movie”, “Scary Movie 1 - 3″ etc). I can’t actually say I’ve seen a single one of those films, and I doubt I ever will. My wife said it best after having the trailer unavoidably projected before us: “That killed some precious brain cells just witnessing it.”

The problem with those movies (again, I haven’t seen them, but it’s obvious from their trailers), is they have no intelligence or thought put into the humour behind them. Every joke is easy to make: 1) have an actor recite a popular line from a recent movie, but in a goofy voice, punctuated by getting hit in the balls; 2) reenact a popular scene from a recent film, only people’s pants fall down or get hit in the head while doing it; 3) take a tabloid-fodder celeb du jour (eg. Britney Spears or Miley Cyrus) and flog the dead horse that Leno and Letterman have long since moved on from until there’s nothing left but grotesque entrails and pulpy meat. It’s not even Mad Magazine level juvenile humour, but something well below that, pandering to the lowest common denominator at every turn. Every film they aim to ape is it’s immediate superior, no matter their quality, and in trying to take the piss out of them, they only serve to highlight that fact. They get away with stealing quotes, music, scenes under the guise of “parody”, and I guess it is, but it’s the lowest form of comedy out there, bereft of any creativity, riding on the coattails of other peoples talents.

Mel Brooks, followed by Jim Abrahams and the Zucker Brothers were the first to really capture the spirit of parody without directly mocking the films they were emulating. Blazing Saddles, Airplane, Naked Gun, Young Frankenstein all take the formula of popular cinema of the times (westerns, disaster movies, hard-boiled cop dramas, horror) but inject actual story and character development in amidst clever wordplay and satirical content, moving well beyond the easy string-of-spoofing-sequences. It’s a shame that Brooks and David Zucker would fall prey to the later produce much cheaper and more obvious parody fodder.

Tropic Thunder picks up the parody torch dropped long ago. Although it takes aim at Vietnam Movies (hardly topical anymore), it’s just the backdrop for a much larger jab in the ribs of the Hollywood system, as well as developing a well rounded cast of comedic characters featuring actual gifted comedic and acting talent.

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Viewed: In theatre
Release Date: August 6, 2008
writers: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg
director: David Gordon Green

Take Cheech and Chong’s perpetual state of haziness, the odd-couple and on-the-run 80’s clichés, and the Kevin Smith hetero-life-mate “bromantic” comedy, stuff them all in a bong and light that puppy up. Inhale deeply, hold, and you will find there’s a name for that sensation… Pineapple Express.

The new comedy from the writing team of Superbad, producer Judd Apatow, and the director of art-house fair like George Washington and Undertow is certainly a bizarre amalgam of different sources, yet there’s something natural about it all, like it should have been done long before now.

It’s interesting the clash of not just cinematic genres, but filmmakers as well. Apatow, Rogen and company are known for their oft-low brow yet deeply insightful looks at the neurotic male mind, pushed in varying degrees, obviously, for comedic intent (like Woody Allen if he weren’t so obsessed with the literati and upper class). Gordon Green is known for small-but-intense personal dramas. That a big, goofy action-comedy/drug culture movie would come out of the collaboration of the two was a bit of a surprise, when you’d figure it would turn out more like the Adam Sandler/Paul Thomas Anderson collision Punch Drunk Love (aka the Sandler movie for people who would never see a Sandler movie… and they wonder why it failed).

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Viewed: In theatre
Release Date: July 26, 2008
writers: Chris Carter and Frank Spotniz
director: Chris Carter

(I’ve already discussed my history with the X-Files in a previous post, so this is going to be less a personal history lesson an more about the movie)

To my, and I think many a recovered X-phile’s surprise, this film is far from what we were expecting, and pleasantly so. Nearly a decade has passed since the end of the series and even longer since many watched the once glorious program diminish in its competence and relevance with each episode. The hope was that this movie would be what the creative team promised it to be: more of the monster-of-the-week style of storytelling rather than tackling the messy, go-nowhere serialized conspiracy story. In many minds, I’m sure, there was a thought that this could revitalize the franchise into an ongoing series of one-off movies. Instead, what Chris Carter and friends delivered was a stand-alone, character-driven mystery with only hints of paranormal elements, and ultimately the perfect send-off for Mulder and Scully and their adventures together.

If you’ve never watched the X-Files before, it doesn’t matter. This film, with the exception of a few nods in the fans’ direction, introduces Fox Mulder and Dana Scully independently of their many exploits from years passed. With fresh eyes you would see these characters for who they are now. Scully, a former FBI agent now devoted, caring doctor/surgeon at a Catholic hospital, dealing currently with a particularly tough case of a young boy, dying, with little hope for her to give him. Mulder is her former partner at the FBI, now her life partner, squalled away in their remote home, keeping tabs on paranormal happenings around the globe on-line, lining his den with newspaper clippings. Mulder is hiding out from the FBI, wanted for some reason barely explained (or important), but obviously left alone. Scully is approached at the hospital by the Bureau, requesting Mulder’s help in a missing persons case, a case where their only lead has come from Father Joseph Crissman, a convicted pedophile living in a self policing community for sex offenders. Scully urges Mulder to assist, despite his protests, and later comes to regret metaphorically awakening the beast. Crissman has had visions which have led the FBI to limited results, and now, with time running out on their missing person, they want Mulder’s help in interpreting Crissman’s dubious abilities. And Mulder wants nothing more than to believe, and to be believed.

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Viewed: In theatre
Release Date: July 11, 2008
writers: Guillermo Del Toro (w/ Mike Mignola)
director: Guillermo Del Toro

I was about to profess my love for Hellboy in his various incarnations, but it would be a big fat lie. If I actually loved Hellboy as much as I claim I do, then why haven’t I bought any Hellboy action figures, why haven’t I purchased the Animated movies, why did I only buy the 2-disc special edition of the first live-action film and not the mega-4-disc one, and why haven’t I bought a Hellboy comic in seven years?

To be honest I don’t know. I think in my head about Hellboy and I have a strong reaction, I think he’s awesome. But he’s not a flawless character, and not everything that’s based on him or has his name on it is going to be great. There was the Hellboy Jr. comics that really didn’t impress me much and looking back at my reaction to the first film (and my review) I’m surprised at how underwhelmed I was by it then, considering how highly I think of it now. It’s become one of those movies that I can pull off the shelf and sit back and enjoy the comforts of it. It’s not perfect but it’s a fun interpretation of the character (difference between then and now is I can understand the need for different iterations of stories and characters when presented different media).

My reaction to the announcement and lead up to Hellboy 2 was unbridled anticipation. My affection for the first film had obviously grown, and I was looking forward to more of Ron Perlman in the red bodysuit, makeup and shaved-down horns. The trailers promised something much for fantastical the second time around… more creatures, primarily, an obvious love of writer/director Guillermo Del Toro (all of his films have dealt with paranormal creatures in some respect or another). Not needing to introduce the character or deal with his origin story, I was hoping the sequel could steer back into the comic books’ strengths, that of a paranormal high-adventure story, like a crossing of Indiana Jones and the X-Files. What was delivered was a junior level fantasy, a tweeners movie that’s been marketed towards adults (what parent is going to take their 10 year old to a movie about a demon, even if it’s as harmless as Harry Potter?).

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Viewed: In theatre
Release Date: July 18, 2008
writers: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan and David Goyer
director: Christopher Nolan

Four days later and I’m still trying to process it. I’ve seen two big summer releases in the interim and they pale in the shadow, and my initial reaction was “that made Iron Man look like a cartoon”. The Dark Knight is epic filmmaking, not just because of it’s budget or it’s 2-and-a-half hour run-tim but how it makes you feel. It’s a tense thrill ride, indeed, but it tugs at your innards, makes you a little ill at times, it breaks your heart and makes you laugh and you begin to seep empathy the moment your pulse starts to calm down. It takes you everywhere any movie could possibly take you, defying simplistic categorization. It’s not horror, or action, or adventure, or espionage, or police procedural, or drama, or love story, or tragedy, or simple superheroes, but all of them an more. Batman has always been a versatile character and his world has always been pliable, but it’s never been use like this, so tangible, so ground-level, so affecting.

I haven’t been to a new release movie that I’ve had to line up for in years… Spider-Man 2 I think was the last, about 4 years ago, and that was opening weekend. The Dark Knight is now in it’s third week and it’s still selling out shows and pulling line-ups, and getting into the IMAX version has become the hot ticket most evenings. What is it that’s drawing the crowds? Is it the hype? Is the the freakshow curiosity surrounding Heath Ledger’s (may he rest) final performance? Is it the glut of inescapable advertising? Yes. And Yes. And Yes. But, it’s also a damn, damn good film that plays on so many levels that it will impress a vast assortment of people who look for different things from their cinema. For those that don’t want to think and those that do equally, it will hit them hard with action, with drama, with intensity. There’s marvelous performances here from Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart and, yes, Heath Ledger that will impress virtually everyone (there’s always a cynic in the crowd), and it virtually does have everything you could want out of a movie.



The plot spirals around itself like DNA, at times juggling four separate character threads (if not more), there’s layers of players and levels of involvement. The film asks a lot, but gives a lot back in return. If you haven’t seen it yet, chances are you will, and although knowledge wont spoil the experience, I’m hesitant about recounting details of the film, simply because it’s not an easy chore.

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Viewed: In theatre
Release Date: June 13, 2008
writer: Zak Penn and Edward Norton (uncredited)
director: Louis Leterrier

Full disclosure: I loved (still do) Ang Lee’s Hulk, and yes, I realize I’m in the minority, but it’s a brilliant film technically (editing, directing and design), and I highly appreciate Lee’s sense of comic book drama. The geeks go on about “Hulk dogs” as if there’s something inherently wrong with that just because it wasn’t in the comics. Lee’s take on the Hulk isn’t about the creature, but rather a story about fathers and their children, of Bruce Banner (Eric Bana) and his dad (Nick Nolte), and Betty Ross (Jennifer Connelly) and her father (Sam Elliott). The two stories crossed paths, in modern day and in flashbacks, and what unfolded was a mystery nobody was expecting and most still don’t see. Far too many people expected a big-budget Hulk movie to be like the character, rather mindless… a summer blockbuster, just popcorn-chugging fun, full of the Green Goliath smashing his way out of any predicament. Instead, as my wife says, it turned out a snooze-fest of disinteresting human melodrama.

The new Incredible Hulk movie aims to deliver upon expectations that weren’t met from the last film, swapping out any real sense of character progression for a number of CGI rendered demolition derbies, with equal motivation to distance itself from Lee’s film (but without looking like it’s keeping its distance) and to relaunch the character as part of the new cinematic “Marvel Universe”.

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Viewed: In theatre
Release Date: June 27, 2008
writer: Michael Brandt, Derek Haas
director: Timur Bekmambetov

The bulk of Hollywood’s output from the past decade has been derived from source materials, whether they be novels, TV shows, remakes of (or sequels to) old movies, or comic books. Adapting or updating a story is always a tricky business, because what made the original work a success can’t always be duplicated, sometimes it’s a bit of right-place/right-time, and sometimes it’s the medium in which the story is told. A TV show tells a story differently from a novel which tells a story differently from a comic book which tells a story differently from a movie. In most cases, fans of the source material will invariably like the source material more than the film, because, as necessitated by the medium (and the audience), changes have to be made. Successful translations tend to pare in on what made the original work, and distill that upon the screen. Unsuccessful versions tend to only superficially replicate the source without understanding the heart or message or characters.

In this case, Wanted is a unique beast. A comic book mini-series created by writer Mark Millar and artist J.G. Jones, it was a high-concept “villains win the day” set-up (a rejected pitch, originally intended as an alternate timeline story for DC Comics) (my review of the graphic novel). In the comic, the bad guys rule the world, but there’s in-fighting, and the titular character, Wesley Gibson, must fulfill his destiny as the son of the greatest supervillain of all. The movie dispenses with the which very geeky needling of DC archetypes which comprised the bulk of Millar’s story and instead turns into a story about a league of assassins, complete with it’s own built-from-scratch intricate policies and curious history.

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Viewed: In theatre
Release Date: June 27, 2008
writer: Andrew Stanton
director: Andrew Stanton

WALL-E is not a flawless film. There are gaps and/or leaps in logic that, if focussed upon, could hinder one’s complete enjoyment of the film. Don’t let it, because by and large, the latest Pixar film is an absolute wonder, a marvel of digital animation and a deceptively complex sci-fi fable. Sure, superficially WALL-E is a kid’s movie, but it contains undercurrents that will resonate more with an adult audience. The marvelous thing about the film, though, is it’s absolutely entertaining without putting any thought into it beyond the surface story, but if you do, if you look deeply at the various concepts and ideas that the creative team have strewn throughout, there’s a commentary, perhaps a warning, about how human society is advancing (or in some respects, regressing).

The opening shot of WALL-E descends through smoggy clouds upon a metropolis filled with skyscrapers. The closer we get, we realize that not all of these buildings are what they seem, but rather hundred-storey tall piles of compacted garbage cubes, intricately and impossibly stacked like futuristic pyramids. As the camera descends amidst the surface of the city, it’s utterly devoid of life (fauna or flora), and is virtually colourless, hues of steel grey, dirty umber, tarnished silver and red rust coating the landscape comprised mostly of garbage. The camera’s passage through the city tells a story, as every billboard, every building is branded with the only colour in the city, a large logo sporting “BNL” or “Buy And Large”. The billboards tell part of the story, noting that humanity need not worry about the garbage, just leave the earth on BNL’s luxury space liners, and BNL’s WALL-E units will take care of the trash in the meantime. It’s obvious that whatever the plan was went awry some time ago, as those robots are now themselves garbage littering the cityscape. Eventually the camera settles on the only movement, a lone cube-shaped robot, the titular droid, and his pet cockroach. We watch as WALL-E performs his duty, collecting garbage, putting it into his belly and compressing it, spitting out a perfectly shaped cube which he stacks on a building.

For the first 10 minutes we bear witness to WALL-E’s solitary life, as he performs his duty during the day, races home (the back end of a maintenance truck) to avoid dust storms at night, feeds his pet cockroach (BNL-branded Twinkie-like substances, not so improbably still good 700 years later), adds to his various collection of Zippo lighters and other curiosities, and watches with fascination a tape (channeled through an iPod, viewed through a magnifying glass) of Hello Dolly (marveling at the dance numbers and the romantic plot). WALL-E passes his days, until a massive spaceship descends upon the city, dropping off an egg-shaped, Apple-influence robot before departing again. Perhaps it’s the new robot’s sleek design or his own loneliness but the little droid falls hopelessly in love. Though the egg-shape seems to dismiss him, instead focussing on her directive, but WALL-E eventually befriends her, learning her name (EVE) and showing her his home, his favourite film and his collection. But when he shows her the small green plant he found, EVE returns back into directive mode and calls for pick-up.

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Viewed: In theatre
Release Date: June 20, 2008
writer: Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember
director: Peter Segal

The Sunday prior to this film’s theatrical release I spent about a half hour slouched on the couch, remote in hand, with my carpal-tunnel-inflamed thumb hovering over the “recall” button (you know, the one that takes you back to the previous channel you were on?). On AMC (acronym for “American Movie Classics”, a station name which is only 2/3rds correct) was the year 2000 production The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, while simultaneously over on Showcase (a channel once known for it’s artful and refined sense of international and independent movie selections) was the 2005 cinematic version of The Dukes of Hazzard. While my sense of good taste and comfort wouldn’t let me watch either for any prolonged period of time, my sense of curiosity and fascination with the horrid had me flipping between the two films every two minutes or so.

I loved the original programs both films were based on when I was a kid, and the first thing a television-to-film adaptation will play upon is nostalgia. Of course it does, why wouldn’t it. There’s almost no other reason to be watching it, am I right? That is unless you’re a bit of a masochist or genuinely intrigued by whatever the marketing department might have sold the film on (that wasn’t nostalgia). Dukes, from what I saw, played out near exactly like an extended, big-budget version of the TV show (and the TV show was pretty horrendous). Rocky and Bullwinkle was a bizarre Roger-Rabbiting mash of animation and real world storytelling… about on the level of other such kiddie adaptations like Scoobie-Doo, Inspector Gadget and Underdog (I suppose, I like apparently everyone else on the continent, never saw the latter), which is to say not very good at all.

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