A Passage to India

I was so profoundly moved and excited by EM Forster's book that I looked for the supposedly best film adaptation of the book. Enter David Lean's 1984 version. I hungrily awaited its turn on the netflix queue (it takes some time when you're competing with kids' movies and Gilmore Girls for the wife)... and it arrived! ... and I was sorely dissapointed.

I thought surely with all the awards and nominations it received that it would be, well, at least good... but it was not. I couldn't even finish watching it. Where was my beloved story? Where were my beloved characters? The screenplay was a painful, laborious, tedious regurgitation of the book. The writers and actors tried to stick to the book, but it just didn't work. The book is just way too long and deep to be faithfully portrayed in a movie.

They truly should have made an adaptation based on the book that captured the essence of the book instead of ridiculously trying to reproduce every scene in the book. The result was that the movie utterly failed. Sad, so sad. Don't waste your time. Read the book or listen to in on CD.

Shooter

To begin with, I think Mark Wahlberg is a fantastic actor. Although I do have Marky Mark and Funky Bunch from back in the day in my music collection, I'm glad Wahlberg made the transition to film.

Shooter was directed by Antoine Fuqua and stars Wahlberg, Danny Glover, Michael Pena, Kate Mara, and Ned Beatty. Everyone delivered in this movie. My only issue was with Elias Koteas' character, Jack Payne. Either bad character writing, or bad interpretation.

Michael Pena looked a little familiar, but I couldn't quite place him. I'll remember him now, though, great performance. He was a bit goofy in the "making of" special feature, but that's not what counts, I suppose. I was not familiar with Kate Mara, but like Pena, a great performance, and what a cutie she is.
Rhona Mitra played a minor role, and again, I wasn't familiar with her, but a great performance.
Shooter is about a Marine Scout Sniper (which I suppose there is such a thing as, since the author of the book on which the movie is based spoke in the 'making of' featurette and mentioned he had based his book on the life of a real Marine Scout Sniper) played by Wahlberg. He gets screwed by the government while on an assignment and retreats to the mountains of Montana. He is summoned back to duty by what he thinks is a legitimate government operation, but gets mired in an evil conspiracy imbedded in the government. Again he is betrayed, but with the help of an rookie FBI agent (Pena) and his deceased partner's widow (Mara), he gets his revenge and rights the wrong.

The storyline is smooth. The plot twists are a little predictable, but fun. The action is top-notch. The technical details seem on. A must see.

Relative Strangers

This movie can't be good, I thought, looking at the DVD case. Then I saw who the actors were and I was more optimistic. I shouldn't have been.

It had Ron Livingston, who I've been a fan of since Office Space. It also had Neve Campbell, Danny DeVito, and Edward Herrmann. They tried, they really did here. I really wanted to like this movie, I really did.

It was about an up&coming psychologist with a liberal bent, Livingston, who's about to get married (to Campbell) and finds out he was adopted. He finds his birth parents (DeVito and Kathy Bates), but is quite distraught they are so... well... not in his class. They ruin his life and he treats them terribly, which sends his fiance (Campbell) packing because he's not practicing his 'love everyone' philosophy.

It all works out in the end, but it just didn't work for me. Good actors, trying hard, but I think the victim of bad writing.

Pass on this one.

Night at the Museum

Night a the Museum was a mildly entertaining movie starring Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Carla Gugino, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Bill Cobbs, Owen Wilson, and Steve Coogan.

In typical fashion, Ben Stiller plays a seriously goofy guy, who can't get life quite right. For fear of losing joint custody of his son, he takes the only job available to him -- security guard at the local Museum of Natural History.

But this museum comes alive at night. You are immediately thrown into the action which includes Teddy Roosevelt riding a horse, a puppy-like T-Rex skeleton, a group of Neanderthals, a group of Huns, Lewis & Clark guide Sacajewea, a mini-sized Roman army battling a a mini-sized railroad interest, and many other exhibits-come-to-life.

The rest of the plot is silly and not worth getting into, but it was entertaining, especially with the kids. They had to watch it multiple times, of course.

I did find a couple deep thoughts in the story, however. See, Stiller's character is constantly pursuing new schemes in hopes of finally finding his groove, so-to-speak. But he always seems to fail. He tells his son that he can feel his 'moment' coming real soon. His son responds something like, to paraphrase, "What if you're wrong, dad? What if you're just an ordinary guy who should get a job?" How shocking! What is that is me?!!?!?!? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Stiller is redeemed in the end, still a museum nightwatchman, but extraordinary in his ordinary role.

Yeah, I'd recommend this movie, I suppose, for pizza night.

Olive, the Other Reindeer

A few years ago, a cute little book made it's way into our home. It was Olive, the Other Reindeer by Vivian Walsh and J. Otto Seibold. My daughter absolutely loved the story, and I found it cute and amusing, especially the illustration. In brief, the book is about a little dog named Olive that hears "Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer" on the radio and thinks it's saying "Olive the other reindeer," rather than "all of the other reindeer." So Olive sets out to the North Pole to help Santa.

The movie is not new, made in 1999 for TV, but I just ran across it at the library. A few share production credit (including Drew Barrymore - who is also the voice of Olive), but the standout is Matt Groening. I didn't know this when first watching the movie with the kids (guess I missed the credit on the jacket), and so I was beside myself at how fantastic the movie was. The story, although quite different from the book, was hilarious, and the animation was top-notch, especially because it closely followed the book's illustrations.

In the movie, you had The Postman (Dan Castellaneta) as the spectacular antagonist out to ruin Christmas. Olive (Drew Barrymore), goaded on by her pet flea, sets out for the North Pole in response to Santa's radio broadcast plea for help from "Olive, the other reindeer." On her journey, she encounters and is aided by a hilarious cast of characters including Martini the penguin (Joe Pantoliano), Richard Stans the bus driver, and Round John Virgin, the lumberjack-type guy. Along with Olive, these last two are mondegreens (here's your vocabulary word for the day). Richard Stans from the Pledge of Allegiance, and Round John Virgin from Silent Night. Ha ha!

Another witty reference in the movie that had me rolling on the floor was when Olive was trapped in the mail truck with no apparent way out. She suddenly notices a package addressed to her from a company called "Deus ex Machina" In it is a file which allows Olive to escape. You'd have to see the movie and understand Deus ex Machina to get it, but it is quite funny.

This movie goes right alongside Christmas Story and Elf as must-see holiday flicks.

John Pinette

With the XM Radio, you get XM Comedy, which has accompanied me on many, many a long drive home. On those nights when you just don't feel like music, you're in no mood for the lunacy of AM talk-radio, and you just finished that book-on-CD, some comedy can hit the spot. I've discovered some comics I really like, and some I really don't.

John Pinette is one I really like. Discovered him on XM Comedy, and netflixed a couple of his videos, the last one being I'm Starvin', filmed in Montreal in 2006. He looked good, lost a lot of weight as is really noticeable when compared to this YouTube clip from who-knows-when, which is great. Would hate to lose such a talented guy due to health issues. Although the act isn't all-new -- there's plenty of classic bits in there like the tremendously funny Chinese buffet bit (also in this YouTube clip) -- it was great. Aside from a mild curse word benignly thrown in every now and then, his act is pretty clean. I'd give it a PG-13 rating, maybe even a PG 'cause I'm sure kids hear worse stuff on network television or the playground.

In I'm Starvin', he reveals he spent a couple years on the Broadway musical, Hairspray, as Edna Turnblad. And IMDB shows he's got an impressive filmography. Indeed a talented guy. Never miss an opportunity to watch or listen to John Pinette.

Other stand-up comics I like include Dane Cook, Bob Marley, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Ellen DeGeneres, Lewis Black, and Stephen Lynch, to name just a few. Some people I think are quite funny, but I haven't heard them in stand-up venues, include Craig Ferguson, Jon Stewart, David Letterman, and Dennis Miller.

Some top comedians I simply don't like include Robin Williams, Bill Cosby, Larry the Cable Guy, Bill Maher, George Carlin, and Carlos Mencia. I'd rather listen to silence than the last four.

Quigley

I like libraries. I like libraries a lot. If perhaps I wasn't so interested in money, I might be content as a librarian. I like the way libraries feel. I like the way they smell. I prefer university libraries because they are much more comprehensive, but even small public libraries can be quaint and exciting. I found a quaint little library on the outskirts of a metropolitan county library system. It was small, but modern and new. They have a little collection of movies. My wife is hogging the Netflix queue with Grey's Anatomy, which is alright, but I was longing to watch something different. I looked for a movie the whole family could watch, and thus, in typical fashion, I chose a really bad movie, Quigley, starring Gary Busey.

The story is about a ruthless, self-absorbed businessman who has an accident and apparently dies and goes to heaven. But they won't let him in. He comes back to earth as a Pomeranian dog, to right the wrong, which he does.

The script was terrible, the acting was terrible, the film making was terrible. I mean really bad. But I watched it because the kids were enjoying it. There were a couple of interesting things of note, however.

First is that the movie had an Evangelical overtone. I faintly recalled that Gary Busey, in recent years, had a bad accident of some sort, after which he become a born-again Christian. This was the case, and this movie was made afterward. Which makes sense, that he involved himself in this project.

Second, neither my wife nor I could keep our eyes off the mom in the movie, played by Jessica Ferarrone. Aside from doing about the only good acting, my wife was transfixed by her ample bosom. I must admit it was distracting, but I also thought her very attractive overall. Amazingly, google images returned almost nothing on her. In fact, this is only one of two pics I could find. What I could find out about her is that she was Lydia Karenin on General Hospital in 2003 and that she's been on NYPD Blue and CSI: Miami. Being such an attractive woman, and from what I saw in this terrible movie, a good actress, I'm surprised she hasn't done more movie work. And being so sexy, I'm surprised there aren't more pictures on the internet.

Third, was the odd ensemble of actors including Oz Perkins, Christopher Atkins (of Blue Lagoon fame), Curtis Armstrong, Bill Faggerbakke, and Dorien Wilson. They seemed missplaced here. Their filmographies don't seem to put them in this kind of movie. Perhaps they were just hungry. It was also interesting to note that Christopher Atkins is straight-edge, which can sometimes be aligned with fundamental Christianity. Perhaps that's what drove all these actors to be in this really bad movie, although I didn't look enough to find out all their religious affiliations. Direction and screenplay for this movie was by a William Byron Hillman, who according to IMDB, has only worked on like seven movies (as either writer, director, or actor) in the past 35 years. I can see why. I just have to share a snippet from a netflix member review,

This movie ranks supreme on the unintentional comedy/bizarro scale... Also, when you watch it, just remember that Quigley's budget was around -5 dollars (hard to forget), and that the pomeranian actually wrote the script. It will provide the most enjoyable experience of your life.

Pass on this, unless your kids want to watch it alone.

1985

Listening to NPR on the way home today (well, monday) the All Things Considered program had a bit on the new Bionic Woman series on NBC. Here's the link to the NPR program. Well, this made me think of the old Bionic Woman starring Lindsay Wagnar.



This made me think of the Six Million Dollar Man, starring Lee Majors.



Which made me think of Lee Majors in The Fall Guy.



Which made me think of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, because its star (Gil Gerard) sorta resembles Lee Majors.






And then a torrential flood of nostalgia overtakes me. These were the shows that I grew up watching. Some (like Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman) were in reruns, but they filled up my many hours in front of the TV when I grew up. Other shows that I recall at the moment include Knight Rider, Blue Thunder (albeit shortlived), Airwolf, Spiderman, Wonderwoman, Incredible Hulk, I Dream of Genie, Adams Family, The Munsters, and oh so many more. Nick at Night fed me shows way past network rerun status, including Mr. Ed, Leave it to Beaver, and Patty Duke. Oh, those were the days... *sigh* I think I should write a book about the 80's according to me.

So, it makes me feel like what Bowling for Soup was singing about in 1985. Their video for 1985 is rather bland, but here's the best home-made cover video I've found. It's quite funny.