Cynical Cinema

Wayside School is a popular kids’ TV show based on a series of popular kids’ books of the same name. Season One of Wayside School comes to DVD today, August 19th, from Paramount Home Entertainment. The best thing about the DVD is that it comes with the first volume of the books, Sideways Stories From Wayside School. I started flipping through the book as I put on the DVD, and before long I was completely engrossed. Thirty two-page stories from Wayside School, each one about one of the students on the thirtieth-story classroom at the school. You see, the school was supposed to be one floor, with thirty classrooms, but because of a design flaw, it ended up being thirty floors, each with one classroom…anyway.

The TV show features some Grade-A voice talent. Nancy Cartwright (voice of Bart Simpson and Ralph Wiggum, among others) does Maurecia, Mrs. Jewls and Dana. Phil LaMarr (famous from MAD TV) does the voice of Mr. Kidswatter, the principal. Other well-known voice actors include Tara Strong, Jason Marsden, and Terry McGurrin.

By the time I finished the book, I realized I had barely been paying attention to the TV show itself, and two episodes had already gone by. So I began paying attention. Where the book deals with each child in the classroom equally, the TV program focuses more on a few students, like Todd who is always getting into trouble, and Maurecia, who wears a helmet and roller skates at all times. The books are incredibly charming and ridiculous in a kid-logic sort of way, and the TV show comes close to capturing that spirit of silliness and twisted mayhem that the books do so well. With the packaging of Sideways Stories From Wayside School along with Wayside School: Season One on DVD, this is a great pickup for anyone with young kids.

Season One of Transformers: Animated hits DVD today, August 19th, from Paramount Home Entertainment. It picks up right where Transformers Animated: Transform and Roll Out left off a few months ago. Transform and Roll Out was really the first three episodes of this series, episodes that you actually don’t get with this DVD. Five Autobots - Ratchet, Prowl, Bulkhead, Bumblebee and of course Optimus Prime - have found the AllSpark, which is some kind of big deal for Transformers, and they have stashed it safely on Earth. And they now live in Detroit. While in Detroit, they must do battle against numerous foes. Not only do evil Decepticon robots occasionally show up to attack them and snatch the AllSpark, but since their arrival on Earth, they have been enlisted several times to do battle against human comic book Supervillains as well.

Which means that although there is a story line to Season One of Transformers Animated, it is really told in just four episodes. And the other fourteen episodes are filler. Stand-alone episodes where the Transformers fight guys made entirely out of acid, and learn to play Twister. Finally, we get to the end of the season, when Megatron (the leader of the evil Decepticons) manages to trick a friendly Earth scientist into helping him rebuild his own body…ah, I won’t ruin it for anyone. But truly, there are only four episodes you need to watch. Episode 4, episode 6, episode 15 and episode 16. If you want to watch the episode about the guy who dresses up as Robin Hood and robs banks, or the one where Bumblebee stars in a WWE-style event against a human on tons of steroids, then go ahead and watch them all. Otherwise, I have just saved you seven hours.

Seven hours that you would spend, as I did, wondering how the character Prowl managed to, while growing up on the planet Cybertron, acquire ninja skills. Or how come the Decepticons are necessarily evil? The only way this appears to be determined is simply because they keep referring to themselves as evil. All we really know about them is that they hate Autobots and want to fight them. And they seem to be meaner when they fight. That’s about it. There are dozens of supporting characters who show up for one episode at a time, only to be killed off at the end of that episode, who then show up later having only been “presumed” dead. There are dozens of characters who don’t make sense. Like the “bounty hunter” transformer who shows up on Earth to collect the bounty on the head of Optimus Prime. But…how is he the only transformer in the world who knows that the Autobots are on Earth? If the Decepticons sent him to collect the bounty, why wouldn’t they just invade themselves in order to get to the AllSpark? Ah, so many questions with this show. Most of them best left unasked.

This series IS better than Transformers Cybertron, in that it makes a little more sense. A little. And it doesn’t have an opening theme song that drives through my brain like a white-hot railway spike. But this may be considered “faint praise” at best.

South Park recently came out with a DVD release of their Imaginationland trilogy, three episodes from Season Eleven that were crammed together on DVD as though they were a full-length movie. I took issue with Imaginationland because it sucked. As a full-length movie it sucked, and as three individual episodes it sucked. Those three episodes are a part of South Park: Season Eleven, which comes out on DVD today, August 12th, from Paramount Home Entertainment. In that review, I suggested that the creators of South Park may well be running on empty. That the well has run dry for them. And, in recent seasons (and the Imaginationland trilogy) this looks to be true.

However, Imaginationland is only three of fourteen episodes in Season Eleven. Of the other eleven episodes, there are two bad ones, six good ones, and three classics. Worth skipping is the Hillary Clinton episode, which is juvenile and painful. You see, apparently just doing offensive things to Hillary Clinton is in itself funny…although the end of the episode is almost worth it, to hear Cartman explain how his intolerance of Muslims saved America. A solid moment in an otherwise mean-spirited and stupid episode. The other bad one is a silly, juvenile and unfunny episode about Mr. Garrison (now Mrs. Garrison) discovering that he (she) is a lesbian and fighting to save a lesbian bar. There just isn’t anything smart or funny in that episode at all.

The good ones involve a Night of the Living Dead spoof involving the homeless, an outbreak of lice at the school, an episode where Stan’s dad says the “N” word on Wheel of Fortune, a spoof of King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters that involves Stan’s dad competing with Bono for the crown of “who took the world’s biggest crap”, an episode about the Guitar Hero phenomenon, and one about a list the girls have made at school that ranks the best-looking boys. All of these are very good, smart, and worthy inclusions in the South Park oeuvre.

The three classic episodes, however, are so much better. The episode where Cartman pretends to have Tourette’s Syndrome in order to swear as much as he likes, whenever he wants to, is fantastic. He attempts to turn his “courageous” battle with Tourette’s into an appearance on national TV, where he can go on as much as he likes, and as offensively as he likes, about Jews. Mostly to enrage Kyle. Not only is it a reasonably accurate and (considering it’s South Park) sensitive portrayal of actual people with Tourette’s, but it’s also a good satire of media culture, and funny all the way through.

The second classic episode involves Cartman playing a practical joke on Butters that backfires in a huge way. While Butters is asleep, Cartman takes a picture of him in a compromising position, to show people that Butters is “gay”. But the picture would more accurately paint Cartman as gay, and he begins to lose his mind trying to find the picture, thinking that Kyle has it and is planning to show everyone. Meanwhile, Butters’ parents, thinking he is exhibiting gay tendencies, pack him off to a camp for bi-curious youngsters to have him “fixed”. This episode is a fantastic skewering of the Christian panic over homosexuality, and also involves some terrific Cartman moments.

And the other classic episode, the best on the disc, is the one where Stan starts to question Easter. This is something I myself have questioned many times. What, exactly, is the connection between Jesus dying on the cross, and being resurrected, and rabbits and eggs? Painting eggs and chocolate rabbits and the Easter bunny are even more removed from the religious reasoning for Easter than are Santa Claus and Christmas. In this episode, Stan’s questioning of Easter uncovers a vast, Da Vinci Code - style conspiracy involving the Vatican, the American Christian League, and a shadowy secret society that protects the secret of Easter. This episode, (I don’t think I’m giving too much away here) also involves the funniest killing-of-Jesus scene in TV history. Although, I can only assume it’s the only killing-of-Jesus scene in TV history.

Five terrible episodes, six good episodes, and three fantastic episodes make this DVD, like the series itself, hit-and-miss. But overall, it’s still a hit, and it has not thrown in the towel. The three classic episodes alone make this DVD a must. South Park: The Eleventh Season comes out on DVD today.

The new trend in kids’ movies is to take a concept from a classic adult film, dress it up with cutesy animated characters, and dumb it down for the kids who might buy the lunchbox. Barnyard is no exception.  I’m reviewing Barnyard here as a point of reference for a TV series that is coming out on Tuesday.

Animals can talk and walk on two legs, but of course they do so only when people aren’t looking. Otis is a cow who is left in charge of the Barnyard after his father is killed defending the other animals from coyotes. Of course, Otis just wants to party, doesn’t want to fill his father’s shoes, but comes to grips with his role by the end of the film and saves the day. Much like the thousands of kung-fu movies I’ve seen.

One problem I had with Barnyard is that they’re cows. But they’re male. They don’t have udders, so they MUST be bulls, but there are other bulls we see in passing with rings through their noses who seem to have nothing to do with the movie. Secondly, why is it up to cows (or bulls, if that’s what they really are) to defend the farm? Wouldn’t horses do a better job? I’m thinking Boxer in Animal Farm. And there ARE horses there as well. So what are they doing while the coyotes eat chickens?

Every animated movie must have several characters meant to be cute and funny, and I guess in Barnyard they’re supposed to be the mouse with the Mexican accent, the tiny baby chick who idolizes Otis, and the freaky nondescript animal who keeps bursting out of a box for some very unnecessary dancing scenes. But none of these characters is funny, they’re just cuddly and irritating.

Not that Barnyard is that bad. It has some decent moments, like a scene involving a bad apple neighbourhood kid and some cow-tipping, and a scene where the donkey keeps knocking the farmer unconscious. But overall, it’s a movie every adult has seen thirty or forty times, with not enough humour to keep the kids entertained throughout.

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?

After Dora The Explorer: Catch The Stars threw me for a total loop, I was a little resistant to the idea of watching her spin-off show, Go Diego Go! I am not sure whether it’s a genuine spin-off, it may well just be the same show created by the same people and animated by the same people and written by the same people. Basically, it is the exact same show. Diego is just Dora with a different haircut. It attempts to teach kids the same things that Dora does. Spanish, and…other stuff. But Dora comes off as merely a near-sighted explorer, which means that all I have to do while watching her show is point out the things she can’t see for her damn self.

With Diego, there is a lot more work involved. I have to crawl to make otters crawl. I have to jump to make them jump. I have to duck to avoid a mudball. I have to sing in Spanish to make a llama go up a hill. All of which means that Diego episodes have even less actual story than Dora, but far more participation. I’m not really helping Diego the way I help Dora, but rather I’m simply mimicking his actions. Which is way more work and far less rewarding. Adding more filler and less story to Diego is a series of supporting characters who each have their own theme songs. Like his backpack. It can rescue him from any situation, but first it sings a very long and obnoxious theme song. I guess assuming that he will not be caught by the puma in the meantime. Dora has a map that does the same thing, but at least it’s theme song is kinda catchy.

One more thing. Diego is constantly extolling the virtues of playing outside, being active, and reading books. What kind of TV marketing genius came up with that one? If kids read books and play outside, they aren’t watching TV! Your show is on TV! That’s just bad marketing. Go Diego Go: The Iguana Sing-A-Long comes out Tuesday, July 29th, from Paramount Home Entertainment.

There have been 52 half-hour episodes of Transformers Cybertron, a Japanese animated Transformers program. All 52 of those episodes are now on DVD in the Transformers Cybertron Ultimate Collection, out today, July 22nd, from Paramount Home Entertainment. It’s one of those shows that has a lot of flashy colours and tough-guy posing, all with the Transformers. Very frenetic, very confusing, and every episode is almost exactly the same. The Transformers characters in this series are different from the ones we have come to know and love - no Bumblebee! But there is of course an Optimus Prime and a Megatron, there are Autobots and Decepticons, and of course everyone ends up on Earth.

The basic idea of the series is that the population of the Transformers’ home planet, Cybertron, is threatened by a black hole and evacuated, and all the Transformers are sent to Earth. In order to save their home planet (and also, of course, the Universe), the good-guy Autobots must find the five Cyber Planet Keys, which will give them enough power to stop the marauding black hole and save all of existence. But Megatron, the evil leader of the evil Decepticons, has the map that shows where the Cyber Planet Keys are located in the universe. We can only assume that if he were to get his hands on these artifacts, he would use them to destroy the universe and everything inside it. We really don’t know though. For all we know, he would use the massive power of the Cyber Planet Keys to open a successful car parts lot, and to finagle an invitation to the Playboy Mansion. Who knows?

All in all, this show is extremely confusing. I was constantly aware that the show had been translated from the Japanese, because the translation of certain words is…strange. Something I don’t understand though are the voices. These are mechanical transforming robot aliens from across the universe. Why are some of them Irish, others are hicks, others are British…it doesn’t make sense! And one of the characters really sounds like he’s voiced by Larry the Cable Guy. The theme song is one of the worst in TV history. It’s that old Transformers song, you know - “more than meets the eye…robots in disguise”, and so forth. But it’s updated for today’s world, which means it’s been given a cheesy R&B beat and hook, and there’s rap in it. Although, the rapper actually doesn’t say anything. He just says “Transformers! Transformers! Transformers! Transformers!” You would think they could have afforded a lyricist. I’m sure you don’t need Tupac to do your song, but this thing is as painful as that moment in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II when Vanilla Ice was “freestyling” on stage and started rapping “Go Ninja! Go Ninja! Go Ninja! Go Ninja!” for eleven minutes.

In fact, the rest of the series seems to be plagued with a similar lack of writers. Every single episode, Optimus Prime says “Transformers! Transform and Roll Out!” at least four times. Also, every time the Transformers are about to do anything - like go for a picnic, order pizza or watch Three’s Company, whatever it is they do - he yells “Transformers! Sound off!” And then each of the Autobots steps forward and yells their own name. This really takes up a lot of time, and it’s just irritating. Like, why are they doing this? Is it simply because some exec behind the scenes thinks it adds a bad-ass extra bit to the scenes where the colours are flashing and the Transformers are punching the air? I don’t get it. And I don’t get this show. At all.

One of the phenomena from my own childhood, and that of my current family, that I have never fully understood, is Transformers. I kind of got it when my friends would play with their toys, and the thing would turn from a robot into a car, or a helicopter or a motorcycle or whatever it was. That was kind of neat. In a McDonalds toy-of-the-week sort of way. I never figured I could be entertained by something like that for more than a few hours. But then, some of my friends were into Transformers more than just for the toys. Transformers, for them, were a way of life. They watched the TV show, they eagerly anticipated the movie, they had all the characters, they wore “Down With Decepticons” T-Shirts. They ate Transformers breakfast cereal and brought Bumblebee Snack Cakes to school in their Optimus Prime fire-truck-shaped lunch boxes.

OK, I’m making large portions of this up, and many of these products may never have existed. And I have to say that because there are some people out there for whom the childhood of the eighties is not yet over, who are still obsessively excited about the whole Transformers concept, who have become the type of collector who makes an excellent central figure in movies such as 40-Year-Old-Virgin. And if they read this, and thought there really was a line of “Down With Decepticons” T-Shirts, they would spend the next three weeks online trying to find them, lose their jobs because they didn’t go to work, mortgage their houses in order to finance the T-Shirt purchase when they DID manage to find one, and then they would never find it and end up broken and destitute and living in an empty boxcar at the abandoned O-Train yard. And I don’t want that.

Alright, that was a lot of lead-up to this review, which will be far less interesting in substance. Transformers Animated: Transform and Roll Out is the first movie to come out of the Transformers Animated production. This is a TV series that was produced to capitalize on the revitalized market for Transformers watchers in the wake of the 2007 blockbuster movie. It’s produced by the Cartoon Network and involves the characters you would expect, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee chief among them. I think, although I’m not certain, that Transform and Roll Out is the first three episodes of the series crammed together in a 68-minute “movie”. There are three distinct portions to the film, the first being a battle in outer space between the Autobots (good guys) and the Decepticons (bad guys) over the All-Spark, a device that would give the Decepticons the ultimate power over the universe. The second involves the Autobots crashing into Earth, setting up in Detroit, and becoming heroes. And the third involves the Decepticons discovering the Autobots there and turning Detroit into a battle zone.

I am still not sure of a couple of things. The Autobots are the good guys, and they have the All-Spark, and must protect it at all costs against the bad guys, because if the Decepticons get their metallic hands on it they will control the world. So why don’t the Autobots simply use the device to defeat the Decepticons and institute their own benign rule over the universe? And why does Bumblebee have a name taken straight from an Earth creature, when these robots have never been to Earth and don’t even know what humans are? And why does he look vaguely like a cat? Frankly, I still, to this day, don’t understand the appeal of Transformers, to kids or to nerds. The series (and by extension this movie) is obnoxious. They take human expressions and cliches and update them with technological terms, as though that is supposed to be funny. “I’m not ready to go to the Well Of All Sparks yet”. Uuuuhhhh…

Transformers Animated: Transform and Roll Out has a couple of animated shorts in the special features. One is a bizarre scene where Optimus Prime gives a talk to a bunch of schoolchildren. Another is a two-minute scene where the motorcycle transformer crashes, and then punches Bumblebee. Just some bizarre pointless extras to a bizarre, pointless DVD. One thing of note on this volume - the voice of Optimus Prime is done by David Kaye, the same guy who does the Big Voice thing on CHEZ 106. You know that voice that does our promos and says “classic rock…CHEZ 106″? He’s Optimus Prime. And while I wouldn’t suggest that’s a reason to watch this, it isn’t a reason not to watch it…Transformers Animated: Transform and Roll Out comes out June 17th, from Paramount Home Entertainment.

          When The Animation Show starts, the first character you see is Butthead.  The second is Beavis.  And while they are not involved in the show itself, and are merely hosting it, you get an idea of what the show is going to be right away.  As my Grade 8 science teacher, Mrs. Walsh, used to say - rude, crude, lewd and socially unacceptable.  The Animation Show Volume 3 is a series of sixteen short animated films, packaged together, that comes out June 3rd courtesy of Paramount Home Entertainment. 

          The first short film is called “rabbit”, a bizarre but about two kids who seem intent on murdering small animals.  Everything in the short is labeled.  When they pass a tree, the word “tree” appears beside it.  When they eviscerate a sheep, you see the word “sheep”.  The proceedings are presided over by a tiny little golden “idol”, who has some sort of magic powers, turning a cage into a pie and things of that nature.  He seems to be the god which these children worship, and is convincing them to perpetrate these heinous acts.  And…that’s about it.  Eventually the kids get eaten by bugs.  It’s weird and creepy, but pretty effective. 

          The second one is a strange live-action style animated bit called “City Paradise” about a Japanese swimmer living in a big American city.  The third is called “Everything Will Be OK”, about a stick drawing named Bill and his life.  Again, weird, but it is hilarious and very smart.  I’d go through all the shorts, but there are sixteen and it would be boring.  So I’ll just say this.  Not all the shorts are crude, not all of them are offensive, and not all of them make sense.  In fact, most of them make little sense, but few of them are offensive.      Some of the highlights are “one d”, where the entire world goes about it’s business in one dimension, so sticks talk to sticks and they get into other sticks to drive them to work…all this amid an alien invasion.  Also fun is “learn self defense”, a very short bit about a guy learning self-defense through cheap shots.  Not very good, but fun. 

          Most of these short films are good, and although you get a certain amount of the violent and the belligerent and the profane, that isn’t really what the Animation Show is about.  Really, it’s about art.  Short films, almost by definition, are artsy.  Simply because people make them solely with the intention of creating something cool.  No one ever sees a short film, so you can do whatever you want with it - it isn’t like some major studio is backing you and you need to turn a profit.  I’d be surprised if any short, ever, turned a profit.  But I’m also too lazy to look it up and see if one has.  So this means that when watching The Animation Show, you’re watching stuff that was made by a film maker with the sole intention of doing what he or she wanted, not what he or she thought you wanted to watch.  And if you like actual art, and you’re interested in short bursts of artistic expression, that makes it a wonderful collection.  If not, you can skip this.  And go rent The Lion King again.

Alright Focus on the Family and like-minded Christians, I’m calling you out. You’re getting lazy. You spend so much time fighting against ambiguously gay television characters like Spongebob and Tinky-Winky, that you don’t have time for your own children. And why do you need to complain about these TV characters and movies like The Golden Compass? Because the only thing left to raise your children, what with all that time spent complaining, is the television. And you want to make sure that while being raised by that TV, your young impressionable boys don’t happen across the Teletubbies and all of a sudden start liking showtunes, lusting after Skeet Ulrich, and planning for a career as an interior decorator, or Kevin Fededline’s backup dancer. I know, I know, you COULD just spend time with them, making sure they watched only Christian-approved programming and maybe reading with them, but that seems like a lot of effort, doesn’t it? Better to write angry letters and volunteer at the latest Fred Phelps or anti-abortion rally, leaving your children in the care of (you hope) the VeggieTales.

So then what happens? Your kids are now addicted to cartoons and television. The only way to get through to them now is through other cartoons or possibly video games. And you want the to learn the bible, but they’re not going to be reading on their own or anything. So now, what, NOW what? Well, you hope that biblical stories get made into cartoons, so your kids can watch these cartoons and grow up to be just like you, and join you at the next Pat Robertson seminar. And lo and behold, here comes The Ten Commandments, the story of Moses, in cartoon form! And sure, you could always wait until Easter for the Charlton Heston movie to come on public access television, but then you would have to strap your children down with bungee cords and tape their eyelids open, because there’s no way they’re sitting through that one on their own.

Well, thank God for Christian Slater, Elliott Gould, Alfred Molina and Ben Kingsley, who have all provided their vocal talents to The Ten Commandments, (cartoon version), which came out May 13th courtesy of Alliance Films. This is one of those computer-generated “animated” movies where people kind of look like people, and kind of move like people, but they are mostly bald because animating hair would be that much more difficult. Again - lazy! Just because Yul Brynner was bald in 1956 doesn’t mean all ancient Egyptians were hairless, OK? Lazy, lazy, lazy. With The Ten Commandments, the story is already there. All you have to do is tell it in a cool, new way. But this movie hasn’t even done that. It’s just a cartoon remake, almost scene-for-scene, of Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 epic! Down to the scene with the staffs and the snakes, and the slave labourers doing their thing, and the parting of the red sea while Moses stands facing it. That one is pretty much shot-for shot the same.

Which means that what we’re doing, in watching this film, is comparing it with Charlton Heston. And it comes up pretty darn short. Cheap, easy animation vs. a cast of thousands, with massive cinematography and epic storytelling? No contest. And Heston vs. Christian Slater? Come ON. Heston had the Moses voice. The deep, booming Moses voice. Christian Slater does not have that voice. In fact, he has a pretty sissy, weenie voice. Can you imagine, in a live action movie, Woody Allen playing Moses? That’s how this movie feels.

“Let my people go!”

“Umm…no.”

“OK, I’ll take my staff and I’ll leave.”

“Yeah, you’d best be going.”

And then there’s Alfred Molina, as Ramses, who calls for Moses like he’s William Shatner in The Wrath Of Khan. “Moooooosseeees!” “Khaaaaaaaaaaaaan!” And Elliott Gould as God may as well be…well…Woody Allen also.

So what it comes down to for me is this - why? Why make this movie at all? I wracked my brain long and hard before coming up with the laziness explanation. And I am fully aware, so don’t bother pointing it out, that the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments is more of a Jewish story than a Christian one. But I don’t see Jewish lobby groups complaining about Patrick Starfish. When I do, I will make fun of them as well. And this might not be the right forum for this, but…isn’t what Moses (and of course God) did to the Egyptian people…terrorism? The plagues - you can’t drink the water, it’s unsafe. The locusts have eaten your crops, so you can’t eat. Your civilians will die if you don’t…let God’s people go. We will kill all of the first born sons of Egypt. Yes. We will murder your innocent citizens if you don’t give us our independence. Umm…sound familiar? Perhaps in Palestine, the people might…OK. I was right, this is not the right forum for this. The Ten Commandments, stupid cartoon version, comes out tomorrow, May 13th, from Alliance Films.