Movie Review: Ratatouille

Did you honestly think that I could write a bad review for a DisneyPixar release of any kind?
I didn't think you could.
But the fact is, I'm more than willing to admit that this is not one of their stronger releases.
There I said it! Ratatouille is not a strong Disney/Pixar release. Garsh that is cathartic. Now I don't want you to think that I went in specifically looking for a problem with this movie, for there is little wrong. It wasn’t as if I needed something wrong to point out the fallibility of this wunderkind studio.
It is a pretty cute little tale of a rodent named Remy with dreams of cooking at a great Parisian restaurant like Maxim's named Gasteau’s. He reads the books by the author and when the opportunity is afforded to him, he takes the chance to cook. Pretty simple—and what could be predicted by the trailers. The young rat finds a decent enough patsy, a quasi-nerd that just wants to succeed at something. The rodent uses the young man as a front to make his own dreams come true.
Now I said this is a good movie. Heck it sounds like it was tailored for someone like me--a great lover of delicious food. So we have a Disney movie AND a foodie movie. So, there, you have two biases, right next to each other. So any negative criticism takes on a new sort of importance.
The kind of movies Pixar makes are profoundly more mature then the audience tends to aim for when heading out to the matinee. Look at Toy Story 2. Toys being taken away to Tokyo for a musuem? What 9 year old is going to get that? Power problems in Monstropolis in Monsters Inc.? That doesn't go well in the single digit set.
And great cuisine created for a most difficult critic in all of Paris?
See? I loved the movie, but it just did not fit the definition of a good Disney film. Sure, the rodents are cute when alone; but when we are treated to them en masse, our brain immediately cuts to images unintentional-rats that carry fleas and the plague.
It is innate for all of us. It is like flinching when you see a snake. You might have no fear of them, but if one appears in your vision, you jolt.
Protagonist aside, there are some other drawbacks to this movie that distract from the fact that this is a Disney movie. Kitchens are serious places in my world. It is one locale. How do you make it funny for the tykes? The filmmakers add a series of slapstick moments where the rat manipulates the geek named Linquini into becoming the best chef in the world. Remy uses hair pulling to make the geek a total puppet and leads to some great, old-fashioned, silent-movie-reminding gags.
But it appears forced. The movie is still so top notch, it is like adding a fight scene in the middle of "Terms of Endearment." It may have worked on paper, but in execution, it is uneven.
Such is the whole movie. It is brought down by a being such a mature movie and a perspective that running around merely ‘enhances’ it’s story.
It hurts me as I write this. The filmmaker, Brad Bird, has a special place in my heart. He worked and created both the Iron Giant and Incredibles. Both are highly intelligent flicks and every moment is used as if it is supposed to be there.
These mistakes surprise me.
My guess is, I have recently learned, the film was abandoned for a period of time while Pixar ironed out their contract with Disney. This flaw shows. It shows because the rest of the film is so good. It was as if some teens were given the helm, added the silly 'puppet' sequences and by then, it was too late. They went ahead and edited what they could.
The main thing is Pixar tried. They really did. Who would have thought of an animated film about rats and cooking? It's brilliant in sheer audacity! And for me, that gives me home that these moviemakers will continue to make films that are creative and deep.

Journal Entry: Sunsets

My journal ideas said that a sunset is virtually impossible to describe. Guess what this story is about?

Hortie had always thought she would fall for a Deaf man. She knew it. She figured they would never tease her fro her weird sounding name; she knew they never would tell her that her singing was bad, even in the shower.
She never thought she would have fallen for a man who was blind. Robert Banks was everyone a single woman at her age would have hoped for. He had finished high school early, he played on the only sports team offered to him, goalball. He ran daily and read and spoke three different languages. He played the guiltar to calm himself on rainy days when the thunder confused him and made his dog anxious.
They worked together for a strong five years at the Deaf and Blind school in varying capacities. Working together was a bad description--they were separate buildings but their concerns and comrades were the same. They saw each other almost daily. She admired him and his drive.
She gave a small laugh when had asked her to 'see' a movie. The irony of the statment made him quip, "it's okay, I've used that pick-up line on several ladies and you were the first to get the joke."
She was smitten all of a sudden.
They datged off and on for several months when another rainstorm yelled across the Front Range. When the water stopped dropping, she stated she needed to get out and feel the cleaniness.
He had no idea, but since she was the only one who could drive, he concurred after a quick stop for warm coffees.
She found them a decent rock facing west high on the hill and smiled.
"You're smiling, it's good to hear," he mentioned.
"Haven't I been lately?"
"I think you might be asking the wrong person, don't cha think?"
Her smile broadened.
In the silence, she moved closer.
"It's sunset, your favorite time."
"It is."
"They say it's impossible to describe a sunset."
"I've heard that."
"Can you desribe it for me? I'd like to know why it's so important for you."
He sensed her tense. It was not out of fear of asking her to do something so esoteric. It was because she did not consider herself a poet.
She paused.
Then she put her arm around the blind boyfriend and pulled him tight to her.
"Thanks for doing that," he said,"I think I get it."
She did not let go until sometime later.

The BoogeyMan of Devil's Lake

More random fiction---unfinished and unedited. Whilst in spinning class--I heard the song, "I'm Your BoogeyMan" by KC and the Sunshine Band. This is the result.

Rob had finished driving a good two hours from Grand Forks into Devil’s Lake. He checked out bright and early from the Best Western, in hopes of beating any traffic out of that city. He realized as he greeted the roads that he was still stuck on several big city ways—there never was any traffic any where near Grand Forks.
But the early rising of unfamiliar surroundings of Eastern North Dakota did not fulfill his need for breakfast. He could have stopped in several of the truckers’ stops along the way, but he knew that many the roadsters were piloted by the husbands of the women in Devil’s Lake. He could not risk discovery from someone.
He arrived in the Lake shortly before ten am and felt it would be safe enough to hit only coffeehouse in area. He was normally there, however much earlier, on Saturday mornings.
The bells rang on the front door of the small parlour of the bistro. Every single face turned to look. Some waved at him, including some students.
One such student was working at the counter as both cashier and barista.
“Good morning Mr. Bryson! How was Grand Forks?”
“Um, good morning, Cherise. I’ll just go with my usual skinny mocha. You know how to make it the way I like it,” Rob explained.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” she took his money and looked down quickly.
“Thanks.”
Noises shrieked from the espresso machine and over the din, louder now, Cherise continued her line of questioning. Rob was not sure if she just couldn’t take a hint or thought there was an emergency.
“Did they take your manuscript?”
Seeing that she choose to pick the OBJECT in his arm and not the company he might have had (the large, juvenile, accidental hickie on his neck he would discover when he got home), he figured it alright to admit some travel.
“No, they didn’t. Wouldn’t even really look at it. How did you know?”
“I didn’t. But you are all dressed—not in your running garb. And Brian’s cousin works at the Best Western. Good choice. When we go for football games, that’s where we stay.”
Rob would have cursed under his breath had he not had an audience of students behind him. They were not watching outright, that came from experience, but they were listening, he would later discover.
“Was that one of your private tutor, I don’t know, what you’d,” the machine exhaled into Cherise’s face and caused her to step back. She began again, “Was that one of your private tutor, I don’t know, what you’d call a tutoree?”
“Mentoree? Yeah, he was. He was a mentoree. An old student now at UND,” he lied, “good kid, wanted to do better in his English course.”
“Sure he did. And you’re the best for that,” she said as she prepped the toppings on the coffee.
He could not tell if she believed him.
He fumed and left the café as fast as he could. His stomach whined some when he saw the donuts on display on the counter, but thought it would best to just leave and not give an opportunity for the conversation to be elaborated upon.

The internet is a wonderful thing. Rob knew exactly what he was getting to when he moved to this town. Some liked to lable it the halfway point between Bismarck and Grand Forks, but Rob knew better.
It was the entrance to small town hell.
Every single stereotype, the chatting, the nosy neighbors, all the things that kept the intellluctuals away--it was all true by this point, 3 school years later.
He selected the small town because it had what he needed and nothing else. In this land of internet connectivity, he knew he wouldn't be far from life, if the need surfaced. But he didn't want a life, at least, not when he moved her. Coming out of the closet was not the easiest of situations to deal with--his parents ignored the fact that he had two degrees but with Sum Cum Laude honors. They only saw him as filthyand wished nothing more of him in the Illnois outback. It wasn't much sooner afterward that his first love, his only physical love by that point decided, "let's just be friends."
It was time to grow up--and get away.
Devil's Lake was the answer. He knew no one there, they did not know him. He had little urge to slam back the closet door and lock it, so approached it all with an open mind.
It did not help.
When a person is seeing only the negative and only one hope to get out of it--well, one's glasses become a bit rosy. Rob was that way. The pay was terrific at the school he worked at; and outwardly, if he did not pay attention, no one said a word to him.
But in the silent stares and quiet of the supermarket, given nothing else to think about--he knew they were talking about him.
He could see their glances over the aisles. He could hear them when they felt him out of earshot.
He knew they stared at him and wondered. Not only if he was gay, but if he did things that they read about in magazines. Did he want to have sex with the football team, the basketball team (the first team he had ever seen that was all white) and the baseball team together.
He could not ignore them.
So he escaped them everyday.
Rob wrote. He wrote a journal, a blog, a myspace and several bulliten boards. Stories drifted out of him like his next breath.
Scary stories.
He knew better then to go to the public library with all the glances.
He did much shopping on the internet as well.
His most famous tale, the one that got him some noteraity, was a short one that was included in an anthology of the Year's Best Short Stories. It had dealt with a teacher who hated life so much that he sold himself out to the college he worked for--by blowing the place up violently.
He liked dragging it out and reading it again and again when the mood suited him.

Rob met Howie at the one YMCA housed in Devil's Lake. Rob hated glancing in the locker room. THe small town housed only old men who were not worth the time or his own high school students who might turn on him. That was why he williing glanced at Howie. He lived elsewhere, for his gym bag was a carry on from a recent flight that still had tags. That was evident.
That and the young man wore two bathing suits.
As the young man disrobed a mere two lockers from Rob, Rob realized that they were the only two there that evening. THe young man pulled two bathing suits out and put both on. One was torn and ripped and the brief was snug over the top. The layering caused Howie's rear to bulgde and it made Rob laugh to himself. The young man lived elsewhere and had strange habits.
Rob smiled the next day when he learned that Howie had come from UND in Grand Forks to intern in his colleague's classroom. The youth called Minneapolis home, his blonde hair a testament to his Norweign hertitage.
His swimming trunks belied the fact that he competed in triathleons all over the nation.
The rainbow on the back of Howie's car gave the rest of the information away. Rob dare not bring it up, but the students filled in the gaps with their gossips and looks. Rob knew more about Howie before meeting him then most people should.

Movie Review: Transformers

Have you ever heard of a melodrama?
In the olden days of the Wild West, they were theatre for masses. Storylines bordered complex, but the presentation was kept juvenile enough that a man, drunk off his butt could come in and get the story midstream. They were the purest form of entertainment--really hard work for sophisticated actors to take a great idea and whittle it down into something a general audience could digest.
I think I just saw a melodrama.
Transformers is what Pirates of Caribean should have been; it is what all summer movies really should become. I felt like I was in a drive-in.
Micheal Bay, for some reason, is continulally given this big budget pictures for really crappy movies. Armaggedon? Crap. Pearl Harbor? Historical crap.
Sure, both movies had their moments. They seamlessly combined top-of-the-line special effects with actors and kept your jaw on the floor and your head spinning.
Depth? That was down the hall at the art theatre. Mr. Bay wants explosions, lotsa, lotsa explosions.
So I had very little hope for this movie going in. Growing up, my mother subjected me to fifties movies of her youth. Now I'm becoming the adult and now I've got my precious 80's, of which the famed "Transformers" cartoon and toy were born of.
My turn. My partner's turn. Now we can look back at the happy times. That's why we went to see this movie.
But something happened.
Seems that Mr. Bay's childish style of moviemaking worked here much better. The simpler plot, the lack of depth worked to his benefit.
And kept those explosions.
I could go on about the plot, but if you've read the poster, you pretty much got what's going on. An alien race with the ability to mimic machinary brings their war down here.
Simple. Now have the good aliens and the bad aliens fight. Alot.
Explode things.
Folks, as I reread this, I may be sounding very angry at this movie. It's not bad at all. Just simple. And violent.
I'd like to call the robots themselves "eye-candy" but that would not do these amazing behemoths service. They are indeed huge robots with all the guts of a car or truck hanging from one place or another.
They are more like "eye-heroin."
You cannot take your eyes off the screen. The camera in the older days would be static and the special effects would be brought out to you like a good stiff drink. Here? Director Bay moves the camera like a photojournalist in war, giving glimpses of these huge monstrosties in the environment. They fight, they scream and, truly, it is amazing.
What is also amazing is a young Shia LaBouf. Far from the usual teen pinups who use their looks to gain fame, he has cut his teeth with growing up in the business. He is given very little to do with the movie (actors are merely something to watch between special effects sequences in Bay's movies) but you can't take your eyes off of him. He is the kind of kid you met at some party and just knew he was clean-cut enough to accomplish something in his life. That drive is right there on the screen. I want to see him do more.
Yes, he suffers from the 'ugly' theory I once proposed. That the uglier the actor, the better the performance. Don't believe me? Look at Forrest Whittaker as Adi Imin in THe Last King of Scotland. The man is very definition of excellent.
Shia is not exactly Playgirl material.
And we may never see him again because he doesn't have the 'leading man' qualities of Leo DiCaprio or Daniel Craig.
Tis a pity.
I hope this doesn't happen to young Shia.
I hope, also, you might take the time to visit this movie. It isn't a sequel. You might enjoy the noise. There is no commitment. You will truly have a good time.

Movie Review: Team America-World Police

Suppose they told a joke and no one laughed?
That's what happened to me, I mean, was I the only one in on the joke? I knew that my fellow Coloradoans, Matt Stone and Trey Parker are notoroius for terrific satire, labblasting everything from themselves to the world-at-large. You grow to expect it from the creators of South Park.
In fact, it is one of the few comedies I'm willing to watch. I know, I suppose I could have seen Team America: World Police in the movies--but it was released in that nadir of cinema, springtime. .The place where movies in search of a Very Specific Audience are wont to go.
This is actually a decent movie. Now I didn't say good. For it is really a one note joke. And if you get it, it all kinda goes down from there. And if you don't get it, you'll think it is very, very weird.
The entire movie is told in puppets. Big marionettes like they used to have on the early seventies television kids' programs, you know, "the Thunderbirds." In it, terrorists are about to lay seige to all the worlds' delegations and so a special counter-terrorist team is activated to get to them first.
But here is the joke.
Look at the title again. "World Police." Since when did America become the police to world? Never has, but, for some reason, the politicos like to think so. It gives them reign to invade small countries with oil.
So we are sent around the world to beat up terrorists. Now the terrorists are another joke in this movie. See...they are never named. Just like the Republicans highjakcing the term to inspire fear in voters ("if you vote for us--the terrorists will never win!"), the villains in this movies are just merely called the terrorists. At one point, the leader of North Korea becomes the bad guy.
Just as disturbing as the real world.
The lamblasting continues with making fun of peace loving actors who feel they have something to say about world events; to comments that action is really just a bunch of explosions.
But no one seems to get the joke here. The movie flopped.
Which explains why Bush was elected, I suppose.
I give these two full credit--South Park and this little movie show two men with a ton of talent and commentary. I think I might chaulk them up to the 'why aren't they more famous?' line.
And the movie?
If you have no idea about what I've said here, well, I doubt you would enjoy it. If you are one to find fault in the currect polictcal climate, then maybe you might get the joke. I know I laughed.
And I don't like comedies.

Final Segment: The Visitor

He observed, unconsciously, the face of his colleague before him. It smirked some, then became furrowed in a deeper thought. At first, I thought the youth was just copying my face in jest, but then I realized.
He was imaging my thoughts. Reading them, if youwill.
My heart returned it a heavy rhythm fueled by anger and intrigue. The monster in front of me was readying my mind.
I mimmediately tried to remember the feelings I had when I was in yoga class, or in meditation. Empty, empty, empty. But my heart, retched into a position upon my aunt's passing, was taking power over the rational mind. I held an image in my head of a jet black playing card--hoping that this would be a ticket to freedom.
"It won't work, Gary, it won't work. It's okay. Look, I know you have a schedule to keep, as do I. But I need to speak to you, I really do. Do you mind stepping downstairs?" The young man stretched as if his yard work had taken it's toll on his spine. I made a pop and I heard it and my eyes were lift from his smooth face to the edge of his shorts--where a small patch of fur and stomach were suddenly revealed.
I swallowed hard, shook my head and looked back to my aunt lying behind me.
A chill ran down my spine.
It was joined by tears.
I guess there is no better way to go, I mean, lying in your own bed, most likely asleep, with comfort and smells of all that makes you happy. Uncle Jack's photo sat beyond her, a big smile blessing his face of a time, I have no idea when, long ago when she cracked a joke and he laughed--and she snapped the picture.
I looked to her eyelids and wondered what she saw now beyond the stressors that had revaged her for so long.
But reality bit into me like a mosquito--was he making me think these things?
I turned to found that he had left to the top of the stairs.

"I cannot ease your pain, Gary, that is something mortals fight alone and for different reasons."
"Whatever. Please don't try to console me, you murderer," the statement was ill-suited to the company and was made on impulse. The youth nodded his head down, as if ashamed.
He had stopped sweating, but his t-shirt was damp and clung to his chest. He did not breathe.
"Please, come with me."
"Willingly? Not on your life!" I stood and approached the door, pulling me close enough to see the freckles on his upper arms. I held a hand up to the door frame.
He laughed.
"I hate to have to say this, but do you think you can beat something like me?" He raised his eyebrow.
I laughed to myself and my momentary vanity. "No, actually, I guess not, but I'd rather perish in a fighting."
He laughed to himself as well. "Oh you will, trust me," and with a smile he walked down the stairs. His humor must have been borne, for he yelled up, "don't worry, you can visit with her moreso later--she's not going anywhere."
On the drive home after this event, I would think this statement terribly rude. But I had forgotten he was imaged to me as a child, a teen rather, perhaps a young adult. I laughed only becaused I needed it more than anything else.

I entered the living room unsure what to expect and, at this point, too sad to really care.
He sat on the couch, almost feline in appearance.
"Before I left, when encounters like this tend to happen, I'd like to ask a simple question."
I nodded, afraid if I opened my mouth again I'd begin to weep over my loss
"What do I look like to you?"
I furrowed my brow and thought about it. I provided a description of a young man, thin and brisk, covered in sweat.
"Why?"
"I appear differently to different people. I was just wondering. You know Gary, I never forgot you."
"Huh?"
"You remember a few months back? When you discovered your partner was leaving for a coworker? When you sat there, alone, that Saturday night? You had given up on weeping and you thought about, well, you thought about, you didn't want this world any more?"
My jaw went slack. Again, I felt violated, removed from my comfort zone with the reealization that I had been watched during a horible crisis. But it was not as huge of an issue now for some reason--most likely due to his interventiion.
The feeling escaped quickly and then I began to weep when I realized what he was saying.
"You were very lonely. You went beyond the human emotion to stay around. You thought about..."
"...my partner's gun lying upstairs beside the bed."
"I asked permission..."
"...permission?"
"Permission to comfort you."
I realized, just as my emotions seemed beyond me now, that night, they also escaped any rational thought.
"You made me look this way."

I turned to leave the stranger behind, finding that this rush of information was not what I came here for. I had just wanted to visit with my Aunt during this lonely time--knowing what she was going through in part.
I did not want this.
The visitor stood and walked over to me. Normally I refused to be touched, I had not been raised to be so touchy and feely. But I did not wince. I did not hold back, deciding that fate was, by far, stronger than anything right now. He leaned forward and hugged me. He stepped back, letting his hands rise to my neck and the back of my head.
His eyes were a blue I had never seen before or since.
He smiled and leaned forward again and kissed me.
I closed my eyes.
When they opened, he smiled and stepped backwards towards the back of the house. He reached down to the coffee table and picked up my aunt’s cordless phone and held it out to me as if it were a gift.
“This should work now. They won’t bother you and will totally understand.”
“They?” My throat shook and the word came out differently then expected.
He smiled again and stretched and yawned, as if ready for a nap. The t-shirt pulled up at his waistline and exposed his white skin underneath.
He turned to leave, I suspected, out the back door. He stopped as if I had said something; thought something.
He looked over at me one final time and smiled.
“It will be some time before I see you. Please, know, you have a purpose you have yet to fulfill.”
I did not hear the backdoor close, let alone open. I called the nearest hospital and wept.

Movie Review: Ghost Rider

I gave up watching videos because I worked at a video store and had seen everything.
I started working at a movie theatre, for I wanted to see more movies.
I got rid of my NetFlix, for I got to see everything I wanted.
Then there was Ghost Rider. I wasn't renting movies, but for any readers of my blog know, this is a genre of film that my partner and I adore and love to abhor--super hero movies. Growing up the geeks we are, this style of film became popular just as our life started together.
Then there was the evitable fallout. Too much of a good thing, they say, brings about sequels and bad movies.
Bowing to the almighty dollar the studios knew they had something in those Spiderman and X-Men titles. People were lining up to buy tickets.
Worse, actors, especially male actors, have always wanted to done a cape and fly.
Heck, it is the motivation to why my better half and I can donate 15 hours a week to City of Heroes. For an hour every night, we can put on (digital) costumes and fly about saving the world from unhinged evil. No tight underpants; no strange looks.
Ghost Rider starts Nick Cage, who was once promised to be Superman in Superman Returns--especially if comedic wunderkind Kevin Smith was going to take the helm. Kevin got smart--he makes comedies and heroes of a different sort, even if he is a comic book fanboy. But Cage must have been hurt--for someone green lighted it.
Shakespeare once asked us to "suspend disbelief." In that, we need to pause our thinking, critical minds and actually sit back and give the show a chance. I’m more then willing. I knew Pirates 3 was bad, but I still wanted to watch. But Ghost Rider is such a glaringly bad picture; the holes in plot and filmmaking are as glaring as an open wound. Think of it as driving by a particularly bad car wreck. You don’t want to slow down; you hope the body isn’t close to your lane. But as soon as you drive past *poof* you slow down and gander.
Certainly the tale isn’t very original. Devil finds a patsy willing to make a deal for his dying father’s life—you know, the selling souls bit. Yeah, you’ve not heard that one, have you. At what point are people going to learn this is a stunt by the Devil and the payoff has yet to be successful? Anyhow, Johnny Blaze signs the papers and gains immortality. See, the Devil has other purposes for him and need to keep him alive.
Now what part of inspired casting does show up here—Peter Fonda as the Devil. Think about it. He started motorcycle anti-establishment craze with his friend Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider. Now he’s the Devil with a Harley. Works for me.
But it can’t sustain me for an hour and half.
So Johnny becomes the Devil’s pet and get to collect souls that are ready to head to hell. Now they are already bad, so I guess Blaze doesn’t have a problem. Of course, the Devil has been collecting souls for eons, one would wonder why he would need help—so to remove this problem, it seems Evil’s son is attempting a coup de grace over his father with the help of some other demons.
Okay, I’ll buy that. Evil becoming just like his dad, let’s give him come credit.
Now comes the McGuffin—several souls have signed a paper in blood in exchange for something. We don’t know what, but the paper exists. And the previous ‘Rider’ hid said paper to make sure the Devil would never gain its power.
So immortality and absolute ability to bend the world to evil existence needs MORE power?
And that the previous “Rider” hid the paper somewhere in a cemetery, so the Devil can’t reach it.
Ah, huh? Isn’t the cemetery like a supermarket for evil and soul collecting?
And you are beginning to see—the problems of this movie begin to pile up, one on another and bring the title down by sheer weight.
Worse, there’s no sense of fun at all. Early, Cage uses his gift for comedy briefly and I sighed, hoping that his laughter could turn this movie into something slightly more light. No can do. He also becomes all Serious with Righteousness and begins to hammer more nails into the coffin of this movie.
Too often then not, we critics slam the movie but offer precious little advice to how to avoid all of these pitfalls in a storyline. Well, here’s my idea for this movie. Sure, keep the signing of the contract with the Devil but have him not always cheating death, but instead doing quite well. Have him an avid church-goer trying to cleanse himself of sins left and right. Have him donating thousands to children.
Finally, disaster happens and Blaze finds himself on death’s door.
The Devil finally arrives.
I need you to get a particularly bad soul for me.
Seems there’s a horrid, evil killer who the police have shot at and various others have tried to stop.
Ghost Rider tries but also cannot get to him.
So it begins—seems that special soul is actually Evil’s son.
See? Wasn’t that more interesting? I think so. I’d go see it.