Cynical Cinema

Star Trek is one of the great phenomena in pop culture. Somehow it has managed to maintain it’s relevance over the course of five incarnations, with similar stories and similar characters and similar sets throughout all five. Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing a box set tomorrow, September 16th, that highlights the similarities between all five series. Star Trek: Alternate Realities Collective contains episodes from The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyageur, and Enterprise. It’s a box set featuring 20 episodes of Star Trek that explore alternative realities. And by that they mean mirror universes, parallel dimensions, twisted realities, and alternate lives.

What this box set does, most of all, is highlight the similarities between the five series. For example, no matter which version of Star Trek you watch, trouble causes the flight deck to shake and shudder, and makes the lights flicker, no matter what that problem actually is. And at the end of every one of these “alternative realities” episodes, the bizarre occurrences are easily explained away as “a temporal discharge of abnormal anomalies”, or some such thing. Most of these episodes fall into one of two categories. Either they are like clip shows - there are crossovers with old episodes, sometimes even other series, and they are really easy to do with a minimum of effort. For example, the episode of Voyageur where one of the characters is able to pass from deck to deck in the spaceship, and each level exists in another time frame. So old episodes get recycled. Or, they function as a reason for the creators of the series to do something totally different for one episode. Like the episode of The Next Generation where Captain Picard is in a coma and lives another man’s life on another planet while in his coma.

Perhaps that makes this box set less than appealing for true Star Trek nerds, or maybe it’s even more appealing. I really don’t know. But as a non-Star Trek afficionado, I found it to be very interesting. There are some great episodes here. The episode of Voyageur where two of the crew members cause the destruction of the ship, and send a message from fifteen years in the future in order to avert the catastrophe. Or the episode where a hot woman appears to be constantly jumping backwards in time, from the moment she dies until the moment she is conceived.

But the best episode on this box set, the one that makes it all worthwhile, is the episode of the Original Series where there is an evil Captain Kirk and a good Captain Kirk, and William Shatner fights himself. There is, I believe, no moment in television history (outside of that Star Wars holiday special) that involved worse acting than does this one. You see, Captain Kirk’s personality has been split in two - one of them all of his evil characteristics, and one of them all his good ones. The Evil Kirk makes it known that he is evil by twitching his face like a hamster. It is absolutely hilarious! William Shatner was silly at the best of times, but here he sets some kind of record for over-the-top silliness. This episode alone is worth the price of the box set. However, for those of you who don’t want to spend the money buying this massive box set, but would still dearly love to watch William Shatner fight himself, check out the bargain-basement DVD White Comanche, in which he plays long-lost twins, one who has grown up cowboy and one who has grown up Indian. The final showdown is as bonkers and hilarious as is this episode. Star Trek: Alternate Realities Collective hits stores tomorrow.

Alliance Films came out with the Blade trilogy on August 26th.  It’s a two-disc edition, with two of the movies on one disc and one on the other.  There are no terrific special features, it’s just a plain, bargain set of the three Blade films in a package that is conveniently the same size as every other DVD in your collection.  And if you don’t have these films already, this is one you should add to your collection.  Here’s why:

Blade (8/10):  The original Blade movie was terrific, a real breath of fresh air in the world of comic book movies.  Wesley Snipes was big, muscular, bad-ass and mean.  Kris Kristofferson was amazing as Whistler, Blade’s mentor.  And Stephen Dorff was terrific as the bad guy, a vampire who wanted to trigger the Blood Tide - an event that would, I think, turn everyone in the world into a vampire.  Or something.  The point is, this movie was awesome.  Sword fighting, guns, vampires disintegrating and great special effects, and Snipes as the most ass-kicking, toughest, meanest comic book character of all time.  There was even some good comedy - mostly provided by Donal Logue, who kept getting his arm chopped off.  And for the really cult comic book fans - some appearances by Traci Lords and Udo Kier.  Terrific!

Blade II (10/10):  By far, the best of the series.  Directed by Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth), this film is as pulse-pounding and visually impressive as any comic book adaptation could aspire to be.  (Well, until 2008 when The Dark Knight came along.)  Snipes is now even more bad-ass, and he is given some awfully cool villains with which to work.  Luke Goss appears as Nomak, a new breed of vampire that preys on both humans AND vampires.  So now the vampires want a truce with Blade, because they are after the same enemy for once.  And Blade hooks up with the Blood Pack, a cheesily-named group of vampire bad-asses who have been training their whole lives to kill Blade, but now must work with him.  Ron Perlman, as the tough-guy leader of the Blood Pack, is amazing.  And even the secondary characters are cool actors - Norman Reedus as a stoner hippie helping Blade and Whistler, and Asian action movie legend Donnie Yen even shows up as a kung-fu fighting member of the Blood Pack.  And the vampire princess, played by Leonor Varela, is one of the hottest women ever in a movie.  Visually stunning, never-ending action, and some seriously bad-ass characters and actors made this movie not just a guilty pleasure, but the best in the trilogy.

Blade: Trinity (3/10):  One of the biggest letdowns I have ever had at a movie.  Del Toro is gone as director, replaced by David S. Goyer.  Kristofferson is gone early in the film, replaced by Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel.  And I really like Ryan Reynolds - he even has some solid comedic scenes in this film.  But an action star?  Jessica Biel an action star?  I know she really wants to be, and she keeps trying and trying to be one, but she isn’t an action star.  Or a great actress.  She’s hot.  That’s about it.  I mean, stick to movies where you are hot.  Those, you can do.  Blade II had Ron Perlman and Donnie Yen.  Blade Trinity can only suffer by comparison.  But it isn’t just Reynolds and Biel that are the problem.  Snipes is the only genuine action star in the movie, but he is given just about nothing to do.  The script is dreadful, the concept just doesn’t work, and there are some really long, extended scenes that make absolutely no sense.  The other Blade films were genuinely dark, tough, gritty entries that could, on some level, be considered horror films.  This one is an absolute joke.  Not only that, Blade is now the co-star.  In his own film.  Because Biel and Reynolds are the real action stars.  Come on!  This one is total garbage.

 The two-disc Blade trilogy came out August 26th from Alliance Films.  Pick it up!  And ignore that third one.

Alliance Films is releasing the Morgan Spurlock documentary Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden on August 26th. It’s a pretty weak second effort after his excellent 2003 film Super-Size Me. But it has had a very beneficial side-effect, that being the release of a terrific 2005 documentary under Spurlock’s name. I guess he’s the Tarantino of documentaries now, adding his name to those films he feels are worth watching. And in the case of The Future of Food, he’s absolutely right. This film, also being released by Alliance Films on the 26th, is magnificent. While it’s called The Future of Food, it really deals with the history of food. The amazing corporate greed in the United States that has affected the food of the entire world. The documentary examines how farming used to be one of the most common professions in America, but now the food that reaches dinner tables, both in the States and in Canada, comes from a handful of large agricultural corporations.

We meet farmers who have been sued by these massive corporations. You see, the corporation has created a certain type of seed, one that resists the pesticide that they also sell. Meaning that farmers must purchase those seeds from that corporation once they start using their pesticide. And the corporation owns the patent on those seeds. If a farmer doesn’t want to use their seeds, that farmer is not allowed to have any of those seeds. Which means that if his neighbour DOES use those seeds, and those canola crops cross-pollinate with his own canola crops, that means that now his own canola contains the genetically engineered seeds owned by the corporation. So now the giant company can come to his farm, test his seeds, and sue him for illegally using their patent. And get this - the corporations WIN these court cases. There is absolutely no way for a small farmer to prevent his own crops from mixing with the genetically modified ones, so he has two choices. He can either pay a massive settlement to the big company, (in most cases that company is Monsanto), or he can settle out of court and start buying their seeds so as to be in compliance. Well, three choices. He can also just quit farming.

Why is this a problem? Well, it isn’t merely the idea that a company can patent something which is a part of nature. And it isn’t the fact that this same company can successfully go after small-time farmers for something that they can’t possibly avoid. In short, it isn’t the lousy, underhanded way they conduct business. It’s the genetic engineering itself that is the problem. When crops all come from the exact same genetically engineered seeds, then they are unusually susceptible to diseases and pests. Anything that would destroy one of those plants would destroy them all. Also, there is painfully inadequate testing and laughable controls on these products. Which means that if a genetically engineered food, say a tomato, was making certain people sick with an allergic reaction, there would be no real way to prove it. Because there is no label on the food that states that it is genetically engineered in such-and-such a place by such-and-such a company, there is no way to check across the board to find out if all the sick people ate the same tomatoes from the same company, or if it’s just all tomatoes in the U.S. that are contaminated, or in fact whether it is tomatoes that are to blame at all.

Then there is the “terminator” gene. Much like the concept of “planned obsolescence” in everything electronic or mechanical we buy now. (Cars are designed to last, say, eight years. Because that way, after eight years, you must buy another.) Now crops are being engineered the same way. They last one year. And after that one year, they basically commit suicide. They are now useless. Which means the farmer has to buy more of the same seeds. Every year. Which, again, doesn’t sound so bad until we think about the cross-pollination that occurs with the crops in America. What happens when the starving countries in the world, the countries that grow all of their own food and farm just to barely manage to eat, come across these plants? Suppose the suicide plants cross-breed with the plants in Sudan? And after one year, 2 percent of their crops are dead, never to return. And after two years, four percent are gone. We see commercials touting “genetic engineering” of food as a way to help starving countries. But in fact it could well cause an amount of devastation we can only imagine.

The Future Of Food ends, as do most politically or socially motivated documentaries, with a message of hope. An look toward the actual future of food. And what we learn is that although these giant corporations are basically controlling every aspect of what we eat, in the end the consumers are always in control. To some degree, anyway. There is a revolution going on in the fields of America. And this movie, having been made in 2005, hasn’t seen the full measure of this revolution yet, while we consumers are just beginning to see it. A wonderful, informative film, The Future of Food is well worth picking up on Tuesday.

I needed to figure out what the big deal is with Dora The Explorer. This little cartoon girl has become so big that she can pre-empt playoff hockey games just by coming to town. Why? I watched the entire DVD, Dora The Explorer: Catch The Stars, which comes out tomorrow, July 29th, from Paramount Home Entertainment. And I still don’t get it. Dora barely does a show! I’m sitting there, watching, and I’m doing her show for her! I’m the one who has to show her where the stars are hiding. I’m the one who has to advise her as to which star to use and when. I’m the one who has to yell JUMP to help her get over the snowball! What good is she anyway? If she can’t do something simple, like explore, on her own, why would I help her out? She may well be an explorer, but Magellan she is not. HE could read a compass. All by himself.

The plot of Dora The Explorer: Catch The Stars concerns catching stars. In a star pocket. And Dora (with my help, I might add) has a “star pocket” in which to keep the stars she catches. The stars, you see, are floating around in the air. Near where Dora is. And if you jump in the air and clap your hands over your head, you will help her catch these stars. Although I must admit - she must be fairly competent - one time, I didn’t jump and clap my hands above my head. I was busy eating nachos. And she still managed to catch the star. So perhaps she is able to do some things for herself. But she has a lot of trouble seeing things. Basically, she is a blind explorer, which is the most dangerous kind of explorer to be. No matter what is happening on the screen, right beside her, I am still the one who has to point it out for her.

And that includes Swiper the Fox, who shows up to steal the star pocket. Swiper, it turns out is a kleptomaniac fox. Apparently, simply by saying “Swiper, no swiping!” three times, you can stop him from stealing stuff. When I watched this DVD, however, I was not fast enough and Swiper managed to steal the star pocket. Perhaps when you watch it, you will be fast enough. When you see Swiper pop up on screen, be ready - they only give you seven minutes of Dora being unable to see Swiper to prepare. If you ARE fast enough, and Swiper DOESN’T get the star pocket, it means that you will avoid having to watch the rest of the program. In my version, however, Swiper DID steal the star pocket. But, like most kleptos, Winona Ryder included, he does not steal things because he wants those things. He steals them because he just likes to steal. So instead of taking the star pocket and running off, he just tied it to a conveniently placed helium balloon, and let it drift off into oblivion. Then he cackled. Grr, I hate that Swiper!

So in my version of this DVD, the one where I didn’t prevent Swiper from taking the star pocket, Dora is forced to set off on a cross-world trek in order to track down the star pocket and put more stars into it. I think. She finds more stars, which she is able to capture even without a star pocket into which she can put them, and they each have a different ability. One is really bright, one is really loud, one is made of springs, and one is a shape-shifter. The bright one helps her find her way in the dark as she sails across the ocean. The loud one wakes up a sleeping whale that is unfortunately directly in the way of her boat. Which takes a long time, but is certainly faster than sailing around the whale would have been. The shape-shifter star does something else to help - I don’t remember what, I think I went for a smoke.

When I came back, my mind was absolutely blown. I had no idea how to take this at the time, and even now, I can’t fully wrap my mind around what transpired on Dora The Explorer. Please, leave comments with what you think this means, because I am truly still at a loss here. I walked back into the basement just in time to see Dora The Explorer, and her little boat, quite literally jumping a shark. (With my help, and the help of the made-of-springs star, of course. Springs also work on water. What?) And then, she jumped over a second shark. And then - this was the mind blowing part - she jumped a THIRD shark. What? I couldn’t believe it. I had to rewind and watch this again.

What was this? Was this some kind of bizarre joke? For those of you who don’t know, the phrase “jump the shark” is a reference to an episode of Happy Days where Fonzie literally jumped a shark, on waterskis. This was the moment when everyone realized Happy Days had passed it’s prime, and run it’s course. Ever since, the term “jumped the shark” has come to symbolize a TV show that should really no longer be on the air. So was this a wink to the adults watching? An inside joke among the animators? Or maybe they just didn’t know of the term’s significance, and they really just thought this was a good idea.

There were three more episodes on the DVD - Swiper stole Dora’s necklace and threw it on top of Star Mountain. Again, I was too slow to help, this time because I couldn’t stop mulling this amazing development in my mind. Then Dora had to wake up the sun, then Dora played hide-and-seek to win Senor Toucan’s trophy. But I really wasn’t paying attention. I mean, Dora couldn’t have jumped all those sharks without my help, yelling “jump!” and so forth. So…was I complicit in the joke? Was the joke on me? Was I making too big a deal out of something innocuous? Has Dora the Explorer, the TV show, actually jumped the shark? What was in my nachos?

3 comes out today, July 29th, from Alliance Films. It is not to be confused with the movie Thr3e, which was a really crappy horror film involving the number three that was released last year. No, the 3 that comes out today is a made-for-TV movie from ESPN, telling the story of Dale Earnhardt, one of the most revered drivers in the history of NASCAR. Barry Pepper stars as Earnhardt, a man who was (pardon the pun) driven to be the best. He does an excellent job in what proves to be a fairly tough role. The movie tracks Earnhardt’s rise through the world of NASCAR to become the best driver alive, and goes up to the point where he is…no longer alive. And I must say, the handling of his death in this film is done in a very touching and simple, wonderful way.

In some ways, however, the movie does seem to sugar-coat much of Earnhardt’s personality. The DVD comes jammed with special features, including a second disc with more extras than one could imagine. Race footage, interviews, and all kinds of specials on the man. And judging from those interviews and specials, he was a little bit more of a maniac, and probably a lot more mean and dangerous, than this movie makes him appear. And although I enjoyed the film simply because it’s well done and Earnhardt is an interesting character, I found a lot more value in the special features. 3 is worthwhile for both NASCAR fans and casual observers alike.

Hustle is a 2004 movie from ESPN and Alliance Films, all about the troubled life of Pete Rose. It comes out on DVD today, July 22nd, and it begins after his retirement as a baseball player, in 1987 when he was the manager of the Cincinnatti Reds. I assume we all know the Pete Rose story, but here it is in a nutshell anyway: Rose is still the all-time hits leader in baseball history, a man who knew nothing but baseball. In 1988 he was banned for life from baseball by commissioner Bart Giamatti for gambling. As the manager of the Reds, he was betting on baseball, (including some bets on his own team). Tom Sizemore plays Rose, and one can only imagine he brings many of his personal demons to the role. And I found his performance alternately brilliant and irritating. At times, he really seems to embody Rose as he was at his most charming and reckless (he really does look like him), and at other times, I couldn’t shake the image of John Turturro. Somehow, he really reminded me of John Turturro. But that’s likely my own problem. The movie opens with Springsteen singing Glory Days, which is a promising beginning.

Hustle is directed by Peter Bogdanovich, the man behind such classics as The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon. Bogdanovich shows a sure hand here, but he isn’t given much to work with. I have always felt that the way Rose played the game was an incredibly important part of his story. That on the field, he had no off switch, and that made him an all-time great. But off the field, that lack of an off switch made him something of a menace, to himself and others. The moment when, in the 1970 all-star game, he ran over Ray Fosse, a catcher for the Cleveland Indians, separating his shoulder. Fosse was never really the same after that.

And at the time, this moment became famous in baseball. Look how much Pete Rose wants to win! Even in a meaningless All-Star game he’s willing to get dirty! Well…OK. But suppose, for a moment, that Scott Stevens had laid out say, Ron Francis at centre ice during an NHL All-Star contest, ruining his career. Would anyone celebrate this? Or would they call him a maniac? No one throws at batters in an All-Star game. No one slides hard into second or runs over a catcher. It’s a meaningless exhibition. This was perhaps more an indication of a sociopathic personality than it was an example of hard-nosed baseball.

And the Fosse incident is dealt with in Hustle, early on in a throw-away moment. “Oh, isn’t that Ray Fosse? He was never the same, eh?” And that’s it. So although the details of the Pete Rose baseball playing career are glossed over, his gambling habits are put under a microscope. The whole movie deals with just two years - from 1987 when Rose met Paul Janszen, the man who would become his assistant and later bring him down. And really, Paul is the star of the movie, as he goes from wide-eyed hero-worshipper to a disillusioned, badly used former friend of Rose who turns him in partly because he has no choice, and partly because he has been victimized by the man.

And that’s fine, Paul is played quite well by Dash Mihok, but this really is a movie about Pete Rose, right? Well, why not spend the time learning about Rose and how he got to be the way he is, instead of focusing on the other guy? Why not start during his playing career, at least a bit? Rose comes off at first as a guy who just wants everyone to like him, but slowly it becomes clear that he is just using these people who consider him their friend. And that’s all we really learn about him throughout the whole film. Which makes the whole picture feel very long.

The baseball scenes are few and far between, and really don’t look realistic at all. The supporting cast is decent, but Melissa DiMarco as Rose’s wife Carol doesn’t really seem to know how she feels about her husband at all. Sarain Boylan, as Paul’s wife, is pretty easily placated. And the people playing Marge Schott and Bart Giamatti and Fay Vincent all look quite a lot like the people they are playing, but that is where this story really is. In the back rooms of baseball. And these characters are terribly underused. This movie is really not good enough for the story it tells.

But wait! There is a reason to pick up this DVD! It is the special features. Bart Giamatti’s press conference in 1988, where he banned Pete Rose from baseball for life, has an eerie ring in the context of baseball today. His line “the integrity of the game of baseball must be defended by a process which, itself, lives up to the same standards of integrity” (I paraphrase because I can’t remember it word-for-word) is really striking when looked at through the lens of the steroid scandal. The interviews with Rose are incredible to watch as well - the Primetime interview where he finally admits to betting on baseball in 2004. A Sportscentury interview with John Dowd. There is even an interview with Paul Janszen on ESPN. But what’s saddest about these special features is that they give more of a window into Pete Rose than does the movie. The movie is a miss, but the special features are magnificent.

This summer, we’re pretty spoiled when it comes to the big, blockbuster comic book movies.  Iron Man was absolutely fantastic, and The Dark Knight is the best comic book flick ever made.  And looked at in that light, the re-release of The Punisher, special extended edition, would be easy to overlook.  And perhaps that’s for the best.  Now, I must say I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the original Punisher, starring Dolph Lundgren in 1989.  That scene where he’s being tortured on that table, and the bad guys are about to do that comic book thing where they leave the room, assuming he’s going to die.  And through the pain, and the horror, he yells at their departing backs;  “Hey!  HEY!  Have a nice day.”  Magnificently idiotic!

And although there are parts of the new Punisher that are aggressively mediocre enough to be kind of funny, and there are moments that actually verge on the magnificently idiotic, the movie just doesn’t have enough of those moments to justify watching it.  This new, extended edition, appears to have added a whole new story line.  One which requires a major military scene in Kuwait to start the movie and set up this story line.  And yet, that scene was never filmed.  Too expensive, you see.  So what they have done is photograph the actors, and they’ve animated the scene to kick off the movie.  The main problem with that is that not only does it feel tacked on, but it also makes that whole story line tacked on, and they were probably right to cut it out in the first cut of the movie.

This movie was too long the first time.  Now they’ve added an extra twenty minutes, making it interminable.  It just isn’t compelling enough to get me to sit there for two hours plus.  Thomas Jane is OK as the comic book hero (who has no superpowers or special abilities, except…anger?)  And John Travolta is alright as the Comic Book villain, Howard Saint.  But there are so many bothersome moments in the film.  If Saint wants the Punisher dead so badly, why does he send one person at a time?  Why not send his whole team?  And if the Punisher keeps losing all these fights, isn’t he more the Punished than the Punisher?  And why does he go to such great lengths to mess with the minds of his targets when he’s just going to walk in and blow them away three days later anyway?

Not only was this movie average at best the first time around, it has become even more bloated and obnoxious this time.  While it’s an easy DVD to watch when you’ve shut off your brain, there is no real redeeming value to this film or DVD edition.  Even the special features are weak - all we get is a “making-of” nine minute feature about this extended edition, which involves picture taking and drawing.  Boring.  Just like the movie.  It came out July 15th from Alliance Films.

Scared Sacred is a documentary that tries very hard. Too hard, in fact. And it has a laudable goal and premise. But then it tries too hard. That goal and premise is that the guy making the film, a guy with the delightfully clever moniker “Velcrow Ripper”, wants to tour the “ground zeros” of the world, and find something “sacred” at each location. This is commendable, and could have made a very deep and moving film. He tours the World Trade Centre, of course, as well as the Khmer Rouge mine fields in Cambodia, Hiroshima, war-torn Afghanistan (pre- and post-9/11), the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal India, Bosnia, Israel and Palestine. In each place, he interviews local people who have managed to rise out of the crisis to do amazing things, or at the very least adopt a changed yet hopeful world view out of such horror. Again, this goal is commendable, it’s laudable, it’s even glorious when it works. And Velcrow Ripper should be congratulated for even making the attempt.

When this film works, it’s magnificent. There is a man who, as a child soldier for the Khmer Rouge, planted land mines all over Cambodia. Now, as an adult, he scours the countryside for those very same land mines and de-activates them, one at a time, up to 100 each day. This is an incredibly compelling story, and an amazing story about this one man. The Afghani musician who was banned from performing or even listening to music by the Taliban, but who got around it by filling his house with songbirds, is also wonderful. And the spirit of the people in Bhopal as they create clinics and band together as a community to help those injured by Union Carbide is heartwarming. But the problem with the movie is that more often than not, it doesn’t work. And the main reason is the film maker. Velcrow Ripper comes across as one of those new-age spiritualists who has read three books and begins to think that he is on the same spiritual plane as the Dalai Lama, or the resurrection of Gandhi. After each powerful interview, his voice appears, narrating, saying incredibly cheesy and painful new-age gobbledygook. It’s not only intrusive, it’s distracting and counter-productive.

He needs to realize that the story is not about him. It is not about his desire to become at one with nature, or his efforts to find the sacrosanct heart of a tragedy that happened to others. And it isn’t about his personal musings, which may as well be Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy, they are so lame. No, this movie should be about the people he interviews, the tragedies that have affected humankind, and the people who have managed to rise above this heartache. But it becomes a movie about this one man and his quest for spiritual satisfaction, a quest that is punctuated by his inane dialogue and cheesy, obvious musings. Velcrow Ripper should be commended for making this film, but the next one should be edited and, if necessary narrated, by someone else.