Dennis the Unmenacing

Late last year, I wrote about the perfect intersection for Star Trek fan and score enthusiast, The Ron Jones Project -- a 14-disc box set compiling all of that composer's fantastic work for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Now, La-La Land records has decided they too will help expand the library of music from that series by releasing Star Trek: The Next Generation Collection -- Volume One. It's a set of music from five other composers who worked on the show. Though its "mere" 3 discs pales in comparison to the epic Ron Jones collection, it's still a great sample of work from throughout the seven-year run of the show.

And frankly, a sample is the better way to go, in this case. As a musical score fan, I can tell you that the thing that made Ron Jones' work on Star Trek so phenomenal is that he really wouldn't "play ball" with what the producers wanted. Rick Berman, the producer at the top, literally (and famously, in music fan circles) said that the music of the show should be like "wallpaper," never calling attention to itself and shapelessly filling in the silence. It's a wonder Ron Jones survived for nearly half the series' run, flying in the face of that philosophy with almost every episode he worked on.

As I said, this collection features some work from other composers. The first disc is devoted to Dennis McCarthy, who wrote more music for Star Trek (across TNG and all the later spin-offs) than anyone else. Disc two is the work of Jay Chattaway, the man who would ultimately replace Ron Jones after he was let go. Disc three covers three other composers who each worked on a single episode, filling in for various reasons for the two regular composers.

I picked up this 3-disc set because I'm a huge Star Trek and music fan, even knowing not to expect as much from it as I did the Ron Jones set. But I had reason for hope due to the nature of the compilation. Unlike the Ron Jones set, which featured complete episode scores (all of them), this set included both a few complete scores and some single tracks from other episodes. I figured that somewhere in seven years of the show, there had to be a few tracks that violated the "wallpaper edict," and I assumed those would be curated for this release.

Indeed, that's what happened. But the results were still mixed overall. I'm going to jump to the end here and tell you that unless you are a Star Trek fan, and a real music nut, you probably won't want to buy this set. I'd grade it a C+ overall, which might -- might -- be good enough to recommend a single-disc CD, but the $35 price tag for the three discs is probably steep enough that only the real soundtrack fans should spring for it.

That said, I'd like to explain what you do get in this collection in more detail, and I feel the best way to do that is to break my review into three parts, one per disc. So if you love film and television music, I suppose you're in for a treat! If you don't, brace yourself for two more days in the near future where my blog probably won't interest you much.

First up, Dennis McCarthy. As I said, he wrote more Star Trek music than anybody, and he didn't achieve that by breaking the rules. He's by far the composer I like the least on Star Trek. I can't blame him for putting his head down and doing a job, but his music is rarely anything you'd want to listen to outside of the show itself. Fortunately, this album does highlight the rare exceptions.

The complete score to his first episode, "Haven," leads off the album. Not a very great hour for the show, but a pretty solid suite of music. Listening to it, I realize that Dennis McCarthy probably has it in him to be a composer I would enjoy; this music clearly comes from an early exploratory period before he started toeing the line. His work here has richer orchestration, more dramatic spikes, and several playful embellishments suiting the comedic aspects of the episode. (Well, the parts that were supposed to be funny, anyway.) He even makes use of a recurring theme that I've read was intended for the character of Jean-Luc Picard. It pops up one or two other times on the disc, appearing in early episodes before it was dropped at the producer's request.

There's a single track from the climax of "Hide & Q" that's really solid. It's the sequence where Riker, bestowed with the powers of a Q, tries to give gifts to please his crewmates. The track starts with religious liturgical parody (with Q's entrance), has some tender emotion for the gift of Geordi's sight, and even some fun and primal material for Worf's potential mate. Again, this was early in the show, before McCarthy "learned" not to include such flourishes.

The highlight of the Dennis McCarthy disc is a 7-minute suite from the late first season episode "Conspiracy," in which body-snatcher-esque crayfish possess members of Starfleet Command and try to take over the galaxy. It was a truly out-of-character episode for the show, marked by rather unbelievable gore for 80s television, and an atmosphere of darkness and mistrust you'd never see again on Star Trek until Deep Space Nine found its legs. Whatever rules McCarthy had been following, he rightly dumped them to deliver an unusual score fitting the unusual episode. It's dark and sinister, fun to listen to, and I wish the composer had done more work like this.

The rest of the McCarthy disc is pretty dry. Even hand-selecting tracks from dozens of episodes, the CD producers couldn't really find enough truly interesting McCarthy material to fill a disc. There's a nice bump in the road for the episode "Elementary, Dear Data," a jaunty little theme he composed for the Sherlock Holmes adventure on the holodeck. Other than that, it's just a real snooze. I remain amazed (not in a good way) at how McCarthy is able to write action music cues that don't have a sense of action at all. There's a suite from the episode "Time Squared" that sounds like his work on the film Star Trek: Generations -- exactly the sort of uninteresting "wallpaper" Rick Berman asked for.

I'd call this disc a C+. There are a couple of B+, as-good-as-Dennis-McCarthy-gets tracks you can cherry pick for your shuffle play, but mostly it's music to fall asleep to. Not the reason why I sprang for the collection -- that'll come soon when I continue my review of this collection.

Best Worst Movie 2: The Trollening

If you read my write-up on Best Worst Movie, you must surely be asking yourself, "so... did you actually watch Troll 2?"

<Balki> Well of course I did, don't be ridiculous! </Balki>

I mentioned in discussing Best Worst Movie that Troll 2 doesn't feature a single troll. Here's what it does feature. A family of four takes a vacation to the tiny farm town of Nilbog, trailed by the older sister's immature boyfriend and his three stupid friends. The young boy of the family is haunted by visions of his dead grandfather, come to warn him that the residents of the town are all goblins in disguise. The goblins wants you to eat some of their food, which will magically convert you into a strange green pudding that they in turn will eat. (They can't just eat you directly, silly -- they're vegetarians!)

It's every bit as stupid as it sounds and more. It has preposterous and unearned plot developments. The characters seem to be competing in a "who can behave most stupidly" competition -- and it's a dead heat. It's all backed by a truly lame synth soundtrack. By any measure, this is a grade F film.

The theory goes, of course, that it's so bad it's good (SoBIG). Indeed, sometimes it is. But for me, comparing it to The Room, it isn't as consistently SoBIG. The movie is more often unintentionally stupid rather than unintentionally funny. And not all of the actors are cringe-inducing; a few of them really are trying to be good.

However, I must acknowledge that while this movie may not deliver the goods (bads?) consistently, there is one scene in it that is the indisputable SoBIG champion -- the most hysterically awful, awfully hysterical thing ever committed to film. It involves a witch seducing a dumb jock with an ear of corn. I'm not kidding. It's unfathomable that anyone involved with the movie could ever have thought for one moment that this scene would be anything but a laugh riot. Even if everyone was insane enough to believe in it on the page, I can't imagine that on the set, as they were throwing buckets of popcorn on the actors, that nobody stopped for a moment to ask "what the hell are we doing?" Or that the editor, when he was layering in the "You Can Leave Your Hat On" sound-alike, didn't have a moment of clarity and suggest maybe this didn't belong in the movie.

But don't take my word for it. Watch for yourself:



This is the highlight of Troll 2. If you're into bad movies, you'd probably enjoy watching the rest. But in any case, The Room remains king of its ignominious hill in my book.

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

Once I'd seen The Room, Netflix had become aware that I was willing to watch notoriously bad movies. Netflix has also been plying me suggestions for documentaries. Put those two things together, and you get an interesting recommendation: Best Worst Movie.

Have you ever heard of Troll 2? I hadn't. Made in 1990, it's another movie "lauded" in some circles as the worst movie ever made. Certainly, it sports a dazzling pedigree. It's rated 0% at Rotten Tomatoes. It ranks in the bottom 100 at IMdB; in fact, before people latched onto it as "hilariously bad," it was in fact the worst rated movie there.

The protagonist of Troll 2 is a young boy of around 12. And now, as an adult, the actor who portrayed him decided to make a documentary film about it. And it stirs up a surprising variety of thoughts in just 90 minutes.

Literally, the first five minutes of the film takes place in a dentist's office. I wondered briefly if Netflix had sent me the wrong disc. Then I began to resent the filmmaker's slow burn to the obvious reveal: this dentist of today was an actor two decades ago, featured in Troll 2. So not the best note to start the film on.

But things turned around quickly. This dentist, who portrayed the father of the family, along with the young boy now grown and making this film, both came across as likeable people. And they "got it." As they take you around the country to fan screenings of Troll 2, they have no illusions. "Yes, our movie was terrible," is their message. "But it makes people laugh now, and that's great with us."

You learn about the strange pedigree of the film. It has nothing at all to do with Troll, the movie you would think was its predecessor. In fact, there isn't even a single troll in Troll 2. It was made by an Italian director, Italian writer, and Italian editor -- all certain they knew what life was like in America circa 1989. One fan of Troll 2 describes the result quite wonderfully in the documentary: it's as though aliens from another planet saw a human film, and then tried to make one of their own.

The documentary takes you through this modern day cult reaction to the movie, and you see that it can have a very positive impact. We meet another actor from the movie, who was an actual mental patient at the time, and today is recovered, yet still not fully settled with himself. When he goes to a Troll 2 screening and receives rapturous applause from hundreds of adoring fans, it's clearly a positive force in his life.

Then you get another side to the tale, as the documentary turns to those Italian filmmakers I mentioned. It's culture shock in pure form: they clearly think they made a good movie, one they still stand behind. The director himself basically says, "if you don't get it, screw you" -- and part of the movie seems to be his journey toward a new attitude: "maybe you're laughing when I didn't mean it, but I still made you feel something, and that's good enough for me as a director."

After that, the movie took me on a guilt trip. We meet the woman who played the mother of the family, and she seems like a complete loon. She seems like she might currently be a mental patient, and she looks like she's been through the skin stretching procedures in Brazil. And she thinks that her movie holds up today along Casablanca. She thinks it's timeless, filled with wonderful performances, and has a deep message about the importance of family. "Wow!" you the viewer delight, "This is hysterical!"

Except then you follow the dentist as he goes on a tour to some science fiction and horror conventions, and discovers that outside of these fan screenings of Troll 2, no one knows who the hell he is. And it clearly gets to him, and it's sad. You're made to realize that he really does wish, deep down, that he could have been an actor, and that this Troll 2 cult following was a wave he was riding to recapture lost youth. When it was the crazy skin lady with the delusion, you were laughing. Now it's this poor dentist you really liked. Not so funny now, is it? Shame on you.

Or wait a minute! Not shame on you, shame on the director -- this punk kid of Troll 2 now turned punk director of Best Worst Movie. He's totally exploiting his fellow actors! And yet, they all agreed to be exploited. Oh hell, what am I supposed to feel watching this documentary?!

So, a pretty impressive array of thoughts and feelings for one breezy documentary about a horrible movie. And make no mistake -- Troll 2 looks absolutely dreadful. As for Best Worst Movie, though, I think I'd rate it a B. It's a film with shades of Trekkies, and yet also something truly distinct.

Revisiting Paradise

Early last year, I wrote about two unsettling documentary films, Paradise Lost and its sequel. The films dealt with the murder of three young boys in an Arkansas town, and the three teenage boys convicted of their murders, dubbed the "West Memphis Three." The documentaries paint a compelling and chilling picture of a gross miscarriage of justice. It seems abundantly clear that the wrong people were convicted for the crime, and on prejudicial and circumstancial evidence.

The documentary filmmakers have been at work on a third installment in the series, to debut at a film festival this later, and then run on HBO starting next January. As of today, they have a new ending for their film. The West Memphis Three have been released from prison.

Though it seems the right thing was finally done, it's hard to look on this as anything like justice being served. For one thing, the lives of these three are still irrevocably ruined. True, not as awfully and finally as the lives of the three victims, but they nevertheless have spent half their lives in prison. And they're not even truly vindicated now. The legal technicality on which they've been released is not an exoneration. As I understand it, their "Alford plea" requires them to plead guilty and take credit for time served, even as they simultaneously maintain their innocence. They've done nothing wrong, but had to accept the penalties of saying they did in order to go free.

Even if they had been exonerated, they'd still be unlikely to ever settle into anything like a normal life. The moniker "West Memphis Three" will follow them forever, brandly them falsely as killers. On news sites such as CNN, that ran stories about their release, the comments threads were dominated by people ignorant of the facts of the case, who likened this situation to the recent Casey Anthony saga, lamenting "still more people getting away with murder." (And they weren't talking about the actual killer in this case, who remains at large and unconfirmed -- and probably always will be.)

I'll close by recommending one more time to check out at least the first of the two Paradise Lost documentaries. Before, watching it was sure to just leave you with an unfulfilled sense of outrage. Now at least there is some rough semblance of a happy ending in the matter.

Pin Down

Until recently, I'd never seen the movie Kingpin. This may be hard to believe, since there was a time there when it seemed like Comedy Central was playing it three times a week, every week for a year and a half. It's been in my Netflix queue for a while too, never bubbling to the top.

After a lunch time conversation, a co-worker decided that Kingpin needed to line jump. He brought in his copy of the DVD for me to watch. As the DVD sat there on my desk at work, and then later on my counter at home, it prompted an interesting array of comments. Some people told me they thought the movie was really funny, and they were sure I would enjoy it. Others thought the movie was pretty terrible, and that I should just give it right back and not waste my time.

My opinion fell somewhere between the extremes. If I was expecting another raucous, funny Farrelly Brothers film to rival There's Something About Mary, I didn't get it. But if I was expecting to sit there for just under two hours in stony silence, I didn't get that either. And yet, it might be that the best thing to come of this film is that it's where Woody Harrelson met Bill Murray, which would pay off a decade later in the most awesomely funny part of the awesomely funny Zombieland.

Bill Murray is definitely the best thing about this movie, and since his character bookends the film, the middle chunk really starts to drag. Woody Harrelson is at his funniest when he's playing a more eccentric character (see Cheers, Zombieland, etc.), but here he's really the straight man to the not-as-funny Randy Quaid. It's not that Quaid is bad. He's just not as funny as I imagine other actors would have been, even Woody Harrelson, had he been cast in the other role.

It's not a bad comedy, all told. It's just disappointingly average for featuring some talented actors. I rate it a C+.

Embrace the Dark

In 1999, The Matrix came along and blew the minds of a legion of movie-goers. But a small slice of them, like me, were somewhat less impressed -- just one year earlier, we'd seen Dark City.

Both movies follow a protagonist with a growing awareness that the world he lives in isn't real. Both are aided by a wise outsider with the ability to infuse the hero with vast knowledge in an instant. Both are pursued by ominous forces fighting to maintain the status quo. Both develop the ability to manipulate their false reality. Okay, so The Matrix has kung fu, wire stunts, and "bullet time" -- and I'm not saying that isn't neat. But basically everything else The Matrix has, Dark City had better. And first.

I recently watched Dark City again, part of my Top 100 Movies project, and found that my enthusiasm for the film hasn't waned in the slightest. But I do recognize today that that enthusiasm is somewhat unlikely. I don't particularly like the film noir genre. I've trashed several film noir movies here on my blog. Make no mistake; Dark City may be a sci-fi film, but it is equally (and maybe in greater part) a film noir.

Style is the centerpiece of the movie, permeating its every aspect. The tone is bleak. The color saturation is dark. The sun never shines in Dark City. The costumes are austere.

The character design of the adversaries, the Strangers, deserves special mention. Every element of them is perfectly ghoulish, from their gaunt and pale frames, to their evil black outfits, to their unsettling manner of speech ("...yes?"), to their odd names, to their wicked teeth chattering. Off-hand, I can't think of a movie villain I've ever found more chilling. I mean, Darth Vader scared the crap out of me when I was five years old, but if I'd seen one of these guys at that age? Scarred for life.

The actors playing the Strangers may steal the show, but the main cast is great too. Rufus Sewell is a compelling hero, even in a low-key performance. Jennifer Connelly is the perfect femme fatale for the genre. William Hurt plays the detective role with palpable exhaustion. And Kiefer Sutherland... well, I won't lie, I'm still not quite sure what's going on with his strange... breathless... speech. But it's the very definition of what actors call a "bold choice," and it somehow totally works in the context of the movie.

Remove the awesome stylized trappings, and I can't pretend that there's much to the story beyond a typical "hero's journey." But in 90 short minutes, the movie takes you on that journey perfectly, and even finds moments to reflect on the nature of the human soul. What makes a person who they are?

The finishing touch is a stellar, wall-to-wall musical score by Trevor Jones. Aside from a few night club scenes featuring "source cues," I believe that every last second of the film is scored. The music never fails to heighten suspense, accelerate action, amplify unsettling moments, and generally magnify every sensation the movie invokes. It's a feast for the ears to match the feast for the eyes.

Dark City remains high on my list, an absolute A.

Ape Soundscape

In my recent review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I neglected to mention the musical score composed by Patrick Doyle. Let me correct that oversight now by saying that it was another wonderful element in an enjoyable movie. In fact, I recently picked up the soundtrack album myself, and it's in heavy rotation on my iPod.

Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes re-make was a big disappointment, but the one truly great element of it was Danny Elfman's amazing score. The work Patrick Doyle has done on this new film feels stylistically connected with Elfman's work -- and even in occasional moments, with the original film's score by Jerry Goldsmith.

It's a loud, in-your-face score. Noisy brass. Frenetic strings. And of course, the percussion. The more action oriented the cue gets, the more the percussion pours it on. It starts right from the beginning of the album -- literally in "The Beginning," the first track, and continues over the first several cues.

The soundtrack does slow down a bit through some of the early tracks, representing the more quiet and emotional chunk of the movie. On film, this music supported the sentiment wonderfully; on the album, it's not quite as strong without the visual support. Listening to it straight through can lull you into a bit too sedate a mood; but if you play the album on shuffle, it's easier to appreciate any one of these slower songs mixed in with the more driving action cues.

And the deeper you get into the album, the more that material comes. It begins with a slow burn in a number of great, suspenseful pieces that slowly builds the tension. One track is an especially great example of this, despite its goofy name, "Cookies." (If you've seen the film, you'll recall the scene.)

As the story barrels on into act three, the music goes pedal to the metal. An ominous choir with eerie synthesized processing arrives in "Caesar's Stand," and then the percussion drives up to maximum for two pivotal (and lengthy) action cues, "Zoo Breakout" and "Golden Gate Bridge."

If you're a fan of movie soundtracks, this is one to make sure to add to your collection. It's one of my favorites to come around in a while; I'd rate it an A-.

Unlocking the Forbidden

Though my last attempt to view a so-called "classic sci-fi film" ended miserably, I decided to roll the dice on another one. More people would probably consider this one a classic anyway: Forbidden Planet.

I found two aspects of the film to have the most impact. First was the visual effects. This movie was made in 1956, yet has effects that would have still been impressive 30 years down the road. Yes, the spaceship is shaped like a flying saucer and looks super cheesy in a way that tells you exactly when the movie actually was made, in the same way that shag carpeting tells you a room was furnished in the 1970s. But the quality of effects is pretty amazing if you can overlook the content of those effects.

The other aspect is the performance of Leslie Nielsen as the commander of the spaceship. I am aware that Nielsen was a well-regarded serious actor before the 1980s arrived and he became better known for deadpan humor. And yet I'd never seen it myself in action. It's truly an amazing thing to behold. I kept expecting him to make a joke. Really, his behavior in this movie was not that different from his behavior in a movie like The Naked Gun -- it's all a matter of context.

But as far as the overall quality of the movie? Meh. It's not terrible, but neither is it great. I wouldn't put it on any "best movie" lists, though I certainly would put it high on a "most influential" movies list. This movie clearly inspired a lot of science fiction that would follow, particularly the Star Trek television series. In fact, the whole film plays like an average episode of the original series -- no "Amok Time" or "The Doomsday Machine," but neither a "Spock's Brain."

I'd call it a C-, all told. Probably something sci-fi fans should see to better "know their roots." But it's certainly not anything to show a non-sci-fi fan. They won't get it. (Even if it is based on Shakespeare.)

A Pleasant Experience

Time for another "watched it again because I'm re-building my Top 100 Movie List" review. The film in question this time was Pleasantville, a wonderful, sentimental movie that made a huge impression on me when I first saw it in theaters. I'm pleased to report that if anything, it made an even bigger impression on me watching it now.

In case you haven't heard of it, Pleasantville is the story of a young high school student, a child of divorce, who keeps his troubles at bay by enjoying reruns of a "Leave It to Beaver"-style show from the 50s: Pleasantville. Through the intervention of strange old man, he and his older sister are sucked into the world of the show itself. As they begin to have a profound effect on the integrity of the fictional world, it begins to change them too.

Visual effects play a huge role in the storytelling. The world of Pleasantville is black and white. But when the two siblings arrive and start meddling, it slowly begins to colorize. At first, it's just a lone flower in the middle of a bush. But soon, every scene is a dazzling mixture of black-and-white and color elements. Even now, over a decade later, the effects seem flawless. They're such a wonder at times that they might overwhelm the story... if they weren't so integral to the story.

And that story is perfect. It begins as a comedy, mining every corner of a fun and light-hearted premise. But then things turn deeply tender and poignant, as the movie's true message asserts itself: hiding beneath the surface of every person is more than they ever show to the world -- but they shouldn't hide any of it. It's a universal message I think anyone could be inspired by, but I find it a particularly personal message myself.

To be blunt, I find it a beautiful metaphor for coming out of the closet -- and not because the movie is trumpeting the "rainbow of colors" inside everyone. Make no mistake, I don't imagine that writer-director Gary Ross had a "gay agenda" in making this movie. The subject is not addressed directly in the movie at all. But as someone who spent too much of his life hiding this major part of myself, I couldn't help but be moved by this story.

If it's not too late to steer away from soapbox territory, let me move on and praise another perfect element of this movie, the cast. Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon play the siblings transported into the TV show, and both handle the comedic and dramatic elements expertly. In the sitcom world, their parents are played by William H. Macy and Joan Allen; the former is brilliant as a stalwart resistant to change, while the latter breaks your heart as someone frightened by change in herself. Jeff Daniels and J.T. Walsh are residents of the town, similarly on opposite ends of the spectrum, and just as superb in their roles. Don Knotts is the mysterious TV repairman who sets the film in motion. There are even pitch perfect turns from actors who would come to be better known later in their careers, Jane Kaczmarek and Paul Walker.

To make a long story short, yes, this movie is still top 100 material. It's top 10 material for me. An absolute grade A gem.

Earth Survey

Many years ago, I read the debut novel from Christopher Rice, A Density of Souls. He's just a couple years younger than I am, and was in his early 20s at the time he published that book. Then as now, I dreamed of one day getting my own novel published. I expect I read the book almost hoping not to like it. I imagine I thought it would boost my own ego to know that the only reason he got published as such a young age was that he has a famous writing mother, Anne Rice; knowing he'd gotten published with a "bad book" would in some warped way bolster my own writing ambitions.

Instead, it turned out to be a rather good book. (And I've since come to understand that the greatest obstacle at the moment to my grand career as an author is my own lack of buckling down and actually doing the writing.) In a distant recess of my mind, I resolved to check out future books from Christopher Rice, once he got around to writing them. That recess must have been quite deep, because it's a decade later and he's written four more novels since then. In any case, I finally remembered that old mental note and decided to read his newest effort, The Moonlit Earth.

This novel is a bit of a mystery thriller revolving around a woman whose younger brother appears to have been involved in a terrorist attack, and has since gone missing. She's determined to get to the bottom of his strange behavior and exonerate him, but finds even more mysteries within her own family the more she digs.

To whatever degree Christopher Rice has a reputation, it's as a gay writer. He's been out since he published his first book, and I understand that each of his books includes a significant gay character. This book is interesting, in that the fact the younger brother is gay is somehow both pivotal to the plot and entirely incidental. I don't think I can really explain how that works without revealing more of the plot than I care to, but suffice it to say that it's a skillfully navigated dichotomy.

A less successful dichotomy is that of the two mysteries at play in the novel. The story starts out with a grand mystery of grand scope -- what was the reason behind this terrorist attack? There's a strong personal element too -- how was the brother really involved in it? But by the final act of the story, those mysteries have been supplanted by the characters' own family history. There's a mystery in their past as well, and solving that becomes the more important issue in the book. The transition between these puzzles isn't quite smooth, and can't help but feel like a reduction in scope as things move from a global to a personal stage.

But this latter mystery is just as compelling in its own way. You do become invested enough in the characters to care about the drama of their past being exposed. I was still interested in seeing how it all ended even after the book had made it clear that the things I started out being interested in weren't the most important things. Rice has a brisk and easy to read style of writing that pulls you quickly through his tale. I never marveled at a clever word choice or ingenious sentence, but I also never questioned the characters as real people. It's believable writing, if not showy.

I rate The Moonlit Earth a solid B. Christopher Rice has definitely made his own way, a separate writer from his mother, and I plan to check out more of his books.

Firefly Flashback: Serenity (The Movie)

Now we come to the most miraculous chapter in the story of Firefly, the feature film Serenity. Some way, somehow, Joss Whedon managed to convince a studio (Universal) to fund a not-lavish-but-not-cheap sci-fi movie based on a TV show that ran only 14 episodes. Well, okay, the quality of said show (and enthusiasm of its fans) surely did some of the convincing too... but the point is that it's hard to overstate just how improbable it was that a movie continuation of Firefly would ever happen. But it did. And it's good. Really good.

One of the most impressive things about the movie (to my writer sensibilities) is how perfect the first 5-10 minutes are. Following the original series pilot and the FOX-requested "second pilot" episode The Train Job, this marks the third time Joss Whedon has had to find a way to introduce all the characters and the premise of the universe. And while I might argue it isn't handled quite as deftly as it was in the two-hour Firefly pilot, it is handled much more quickly here, and without sacrificing clarity -- both "musts" for a feature film.

We start in a school room setting, where we're quickly told about Earth-That-Was and the Reavers, then segue directly into Simon's rescue of River, showcasing their relationship and giving the background on what was done to her. And then that segues into the introduction of the Operative, the villain who will be chasing them. And from there, it gets even more sophisticated, with one of Joss Whedon's trademark "one-ers," a single camera shot that takes us through all of Serenity, showing the full geography of the ship and quickly introducing us to every character on board. You know who the pilot, the engineer, the doctor, and so forth all are, because you see them doing those things. And it's all done in an entertaining way, with quick pacing and plenty of humor, for those of us Firefly fans who already know all this stuff and don't need the re-introductions. Really savvy writing; exposition is nigh-impossible to do this well.

This is just the first of many great balancing acts achieved by the script. We get a thrilling chase sequence in the opening act, the kind mandated in a "mindless action movie," but it's hardly mindless here; it shows the threat of the Reavers, establishes the character of the crew in general (and Mal in particular), and showcases the signature Firefly blend of adventure and humor. At the end of the film, we get a desperate "last stand" sequence so well set up that you really do believe any one of the characters could die. And in between? Fist fights, space battles, and everything else you expect in an action movie, but intelligently presented and motivated by the plot.

That plot manages in just two hours to give us closure on several dangling threads from the series. We learn what the experiments on River were really all about, and why the Alliance wants so badly to re-capture her. We learn the truth of the Reavers. You laugh. You cry. You cheer. You're stunned into silence. (When I saw it in theaters, there was an audible gasp following the infamous "leaf on the wind" line... and then stone silence.)

Is it absolutely perfect? No. Inara and Book have rather marginalized roles in the film -- particularly Book (whose mysterious past is teased again, to be left unrevealed). The fanboy in me wishes that Mal's contact after the bank robbery could have been Badger, just for one more connection to the show. And then there's Mr. Universe, a rather weird character who crosses over to annoying in my book, in that he feels like he's intruding on the poignant funeral moment at the end of the film. (Seriously, this guy gets "billing" next to major characters we've loved throughout the series?)

Still, these quibbles aren't sufficient to make a dent in the A grade I give the film. It's on my top 100 list. I've let that list fallen so far out of date that I couldn't tell you exactly where it falls, but I don't have to wait on my eventual update to know for certain this would still be on there. This unlikely additional chapter in the Firefly saga is one of the best -- even if it does make you wonder in a bittersweet way how all these plot revelations might have spooled out over a season or two of the show itself.

Ah, Firefly.

Mike Wazowski!

I hadn't watched Monsters, Inc. since its original run in theaters. Hard to believe, but that was a decade ago; that's more than enough time for me to forget exactly why I liked it and only remember that generally, I did. So as part of the "sprucing up the top 100 movie list" project, I decided to give my DVD copy a spin.

I must confess that by about 15 minutes into the film, I was beginning to think "wow, I may have just been totally blinded by this movie the first time around." It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. I don't think I'm normally so impatient with a movie, but Pixar films are typically just 90 minutes long. To be this far in and be thinking, "I guess this maybe wasn't so charming, so funny, so great..." Well, it was a disappointing feeling.

Then the character of Boo shows up. And from there, the movie shifts into high gear. Somehow, this charming little girl -- actually voiced by a two-year-old -- was the last spice in the recipe to make it all click. Suddenly, the movie really is charming and funny, and sweet, heart-felt, whimsical, clever -- countless other things.

Billy Crystal and John Goodman give excellent vocal performances, and have a wonderful interplay with one another -- a particularly impressive feat when you consider their voices were recorded separately. There are also great turns by Steve Buscemi, James Coburn, and of course, Pixar-staple John Ratzenberger.

I don't count this against the film in any way, but I found it interesting to see just how far Pixar has advanced computer animation in the last decade. You can tell that the new boundary they were really pushing at the time was "hair." The fur on Sully realistically moves in the wind, gathers snow, and more. But this film was still before The Incredibles, Ratatouille -- Pixar films with major human characters, that required them to tackle the frontier of "skin." Boo's animation is an absolutely believable embodiment of a toddler, but her look is closer to a plastic toy than a person.

I rate the film an A-. It's still wonderful, but didn't quite blow me away the way I remember the first time around. Maybe that's because of the even better movies Pixar has done in the decade since, and maybe that's not entirely fair, but there it is.

A Hilly Reception

I used to be a pretty big fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I'd like to think I still am; they just got canceled. But the thing is, in a way, they are still making new episodes. Most of the folks behind MST3K have taken their act to the internet and set up RiffTrax. It's a web site where they release virtual DVD commentaries that continue the MST3K tradition of skewering bad movies. Just pop in the DVD, purchase the RiffTrax commentary, sync them up, and enjoy.

Unburdened by the problem of getting broadcast rights for a film (as they needed to for MST3K), the RiffTrax gang has been able to take on bigger, more recent targets. But they still take on classic movies from time to time, and because those movies are often easy and cheap to license, they still release "episodes" -- special Rifftrax DVDs that let you watch a movie with or without their commentary. Netflix has many available, and I recently checked out the RiffTrax version of House on Haunted Hill.

This is a classic Vincent Price movie, in which a group of random strangers are invited to stay overnight in a haunted house to claim a cash reward. A primordial reality show competition... with ghosts. Made in 1959, I'm convinced this movie must have looked dated even at the time, hokey and cheap. It's also filled with all the excesses of classic filmmaking that often try my patience: over-acting, languid pacing, bad editing, and more. If I were just reviewing the movie, it would probably get a D- or something.

But of course, those very elements that make the film so terrible make it prime material for the RiffTrax treatment. The awkward pauses are places to insert jokes. The hammy acting is ready to mock. And the RiffTrax gang is in very good form here. I laughed out loud several times during the film, even just watching alone on my couch. It was only after the movie that I even stopped to think how impossible I'd have found watching it without the commentary. It was an enjoyable experience.

I don't know if it's quite right to rate "Rifftrax: House on Haunted Hill" as though it itself were an actual movie, but I'm going to do so nevertheless: B+. If you ever liked an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, treat this like one of the better ones.

Firefly Flashback: Objects in Space

Objects in Space is the final (sniff) episode of Firefly. Many fans regard it as one of the best episodes, and I certainly felt that way the first time around. The first several, actually. But watching it recently, it didn't quite do it for me as well as before.

Make no mistake, I'm not saying it was a bad episode. Nor am I even saying it was "bad for Firefly." In fact, I'll go ahead and give the game away and tell you I'd rate it an A-. So what is it that I'm bagging on?

The very thing that once made me lovelovelove this episode, actually: the character of Early, the bounty hunter. Oh, he'll still entertaining. Still a worthy opponent for the crew of Serenity -- clever, chilling, comical, and menacing all in turns. My problem is that I now find him to be just a little too eccentric.

Joss Whedon wrote and directed this episode himself, and has a lot to say about it in the commentary he recorded for the DVD. Basically, he was playing around with a lot of existentialist philosophy in this episode, exploring the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre. "Is the room still her room when she's not in it?" kind of stuff. And it is at times funny and thought-provoking. Even at the same time, occasionally.

But at other times, it's also just plain weird, and feels like it would be better suited to a stage than a TV show. For example, the whole exchange: "Are you Alliance?" "Am I a lion?" Or the simple fact that Early is so open-minded that for a split second, he seems to actually believe that River turned into the ship. It strikes me as just a little too weird, weird for weird's sake.

Still, there's no denying the effectiveness of most of this episode. It includes some of the most profound moments of the series. There's River's anguish at feeling unwanted, and joy at the end to find acceptance. There's the horrifying moment when Early calmly threatens to rape Kaylee. There's Simon's heroic confrontation of Early (even if it does mess up River's plan).

So, like I said, an A- overall. Not at all a bad note to end the series on, if it had to be that way. But fortunately, there was another chapter a few years later -- the movie Serenity.

Firefly is certainly the best "only one season" TV show I've ever seen. It's one of my favorite series, period. Watching all the episodes again offered as many thrills as watching them the first time around, and I'm sure in years to come, and watch them all again many times more.

A Real American Hero

Another new movie that I'd originally had no interest in was Captain America: The First Avenger. I've soured pretty thoroughly on superhero movies over the past couple years, picking and choosing only a few to see. But here, as with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, there was a lot of good word of mouth to convince me to make an exception here.

One reason I maybe should have been considering it anyway was the director, Joe Johnston. Besides helming October Sky, a just-brushing-the-bottom-of-my-top-100 movie, he was also the director of The Rocketeer, one of the small handful of superhero movies I've actually liked. Captain America even seemed like it could have a bit of Rocketeer flavor, both being period stories set in decades past.

Well, it's no Rocketeer, but Captain America wasn't too shabby. The main problem for me with the movie was that it just took a long time to get rolling. Things are slow right from the first scene, a modern-day opening that exists only to set up next summer's film, The Avengers. If the film were truly stand-alone, this material not only would have been cut, it probably never would have been filmed.

Then there's the captain's origin story. I never could just relax and enjoy it because of two major problems, and so I found that to be slow-paced too. First, there's the story itself. Basically, a scrawny guy takes steroids and instantly becomes a superhero. It has to be a period piece, because for this day and age, that's a really screwed-up message.

But the bigger problem for me was the way the movie depicted our pre-steroidal hero, by using CG to Benjamin Button Chris Evans' head onto another body. I mentioned in reviewing Rise of the Planet of the Apes that the moments where my mind rejected the CG were few and far between. In Captain America, it never worked for me. Every scene of wimpy Steve Rogers just looked wrong. The head would move independently of the neck, or look obviously rotoscoped into the image, or be oddly blended into the shoulders. The look of the artifically sunken jawline seemed to change from one scene to the next. In my opinion, bad visual effects don't always get in the way of telling a story, but they certainly did here.

Fortunately, as with any superhero origin story, this section of the film only took up the first 30 minutes or so. And once "Captain America" arrived, the film finally found its footing. Chris Evans made a likeable hero. Hugo Weaving made a delicious villain. Tommy Lee Jones brought his patented brand of no-nonsense folksiness to a fun and funny supporting character. And Stanley Tucci made a full meal of his light snack of a role. All that is probably no surprise, but it was nice to see the performances all come together.

The story wasn't especially deep, but it certainly was exciting enough. It served well to hold several good action sequences of different types -- chases, assaults, aerial acrobatics.

In the end, I didn't like this as much as The Rocketeer. But for a superhero movie, I thought it a pretty good effort. I rate it a B-.

Rise to the Occasion

I had seen the trailer for Rise of the Planet of the Apes a few times before other movies this year, and had almost immediately dismissed it. No interest in seeing that, I thought. But then a funny thing happened. Several of my friends told me it was pretty high on their must-see lists. And the critics had their say, and widely praised the movie. Next thing I knew, I was heading to the theater last night to check it out.

It's true! It's actually a rather good movie! It pulled me in during the first half with a surprisingly heartfelt story. James Franco's lead character is a researcher trying to find a cure for Alzheimer's Disease, and the scenes between him and his father, played by John Lithgow, really provide a strong emotional anchor for the film. At the same time, both father and son form a bond with ape Caesar, a brilliant motion-capture performance by Andy Serkis. The visual effects for the animation aren't always 100%, but they're usually more than convincing enough to make you forget about the technical wizardry and invest in the character. I could imagine that some of the audience were starting to get impatient with all the sloppy sentiment, wondering when the ape rampage would begin, but I myself was surprisingly pulled in by what was just a good drama.

But of course, the rampage does eventually begin. And that delivers too. Again, the effects aren't always 100%, but they're always good enough that whenever I'd "catch myself looking," I'd forget again just a moment later. Personally, I found the first half to be a better drama movie than the second half was an action movie, but that's not by much. There's a great extended sequence set on the Golden Gate Bridge that delivers pretty much everything you want in the climactic scene of an action movie.

Things do get bogged down just a bit in the middle, as the movie tries to bridge from drama to action; it does feel like we spend a bit too long with the "imprisoned Caesar" storyline. Still, I got more than I was expecting from the film -- worlds more than I'd have ever thought from that trailer I saw a few months back. I rate the movie a B+.

Firefly Flashback: Heart of Gold

Well, some episode of Firefly has to be the "worst" one. Sorry, Heart of Gold, but you're it. You're not a "bad" episode. You have plenty of good jokes, an interesting guest character (Inara's friend), and a couple of solid scenes that give insight into the main characters. It's just that your premise is kind of goofy (our heroes defend a frontier whore house? really?), and things don't quite gel the way they usually do on your show.

Here's what really does work for me in this episode:

This is our longest look at Jayne "in his element." And I don't just mean whoring himself senseless (though that applies too). This episode is all about a prolonged gunfight against a foe who can't be negotiated with or tricked. Jayne lives for this stuff, and this episode is the most use he ever gets of his extensive gun collection.

It's a great episode for the Inara/Mal relationship. We see that as good as Inara is at constructing and presenting a mask, it's still a mask with real feelings hidden behind it. She gets her heart broken in this episode, and announces her plans to leave Serenity as a result. (One has to imagine what would have changed her mind, had the show continued. Instead, she follows through on her threat/plan.)

There's a fantastic scene where Wash and Zoe discuss having children, and the extra complications that come with that because of the life they lead. And it's an especially melancholy scene to watch if you've seen the movie.

But here's what doesn't work for me in this episode:

The friction over the difference between a "companion" and a "whore" doesn't really play. I can buy off on the concept; I just don't think the writing does justice to Inara's character here.

The villain of the episode is a bit too cartoonish. He doesn't actually have a mustache to twirl, but when he's threatening to rip a baby out of its mother's womb, he might as well.

Several guest characters in the episode die in the climactic battle, and much is made of their deaths. There's even a funeral scene near the end to go with it. But it all feels a bit hollow compared to the far more effective death in the immediately preceding episode, The Message.

If there's a silver lining in the cancellation of Firefly (and it's damn hard to find one), it might be that this episode is as bad as the show ever got. Like I said, it's really not bad -- a B in my judgment. Many TV shows, even a few TV shows I watch on a weekly basis, manage about this level of quality on average; for Firefly, this was "bottom of the barrel." That's pretty gorram good.

Blair With Me

As I've mentioned, I've recently been in the midst of trying to remake my personal "Top 100 Movies" list. As I've been doing this, I've come across a number of movies that I just don't remember as well as I'd like. I have a memory of liking them, a sort of warm glow when I think about the movie, but I can't remember enough specifics to know where to rank them.

The Blair Witch Project is sort of one of those movies. Actually, I remembered the movie rather well. But when I built my Top 100 list for the first time around 7 or 8 years ago, I actually ranked the movie near the top of the heap -- at #6. Beginning my new list by taking stock of the old one, I thought to myself, "there's no way I truly thought this movie was that good, is there?" I decided to revisit the movie and see for myself.

It has become a bit of a thing to join in the backlash against The Blair Witch Project. And it's understandable. This is basically the forefather of the modern "it's real, man!" movies, and paved the way for a lot of later crap that wasn't nearly as well done. I say that can't be held against the original.

But I also have to acknowledge that my original love for the movie was absolutely colored by the circumstances in which I saw it. It might be hard to believe now that anyone was ever gullible enough to think this might be actual found documentary footage, but I'll be honest with you: for a short window leading up to the release, I did. This was part of the masterful marketing campaign leading up to the release of the film. Sure, by the time it had actually arrived and I was getting to really see the film, I knew the truth... and yet that little seed had already been planted. "What if it is true? I mean, of course it's not. But what if it was? How cool would that be?"

What's more, I saw The Blair Witch Project for the first time while I was on the road at a summer game convention, working for Decipher. I banded together with a bunch of co-workers and volunteers to scour the city for a theater actually showing the movie -- it was still in limited release at the time. It had the atmosphere of a "film they don't want you to see," and that made you feel even cooler about finding a way to see it.

Basically, everything I have just described was attempted again just a couple years ago with Paranormal Activity, and far less effectively. It certainly informs why I liked the movie so much the first time around. But can the movie now stand on its own today?

I say yes, it can. I will readily acknowledge that the film isn't without flaws. Some of the character behavior buckles under scrutiny. (Mike kicked the map in the creek? Seriously? Heather decides to go back and unwrap the creepy twig bundle bound with strips of her missing friend's shirt? Seriously?!) Also, while I firmly maintain that "less is usually more" in a horror movie, I do think there are moments where that principle is taken just a bit too far in this movie. (When Heather is running through the woods and shrieks "What's that!!!!", the camera whips to the left to capture... absolutely nothing. Not even a flicker of movement.)

But despite these few blemishes, I still find the movie chock full of good stuff. It's pull your feet up onto the couch, don't go to bed right after the movie's over fun. Josh's disappearance is a chilling highlight, and his tortured moaning from the forest on the next night even more so. (Is it a ghost? Has his tongue been ripped out?) And I still love the ending, in the basement of the crumbling house. It's perfectly set up in the interviews at the top of the film, in that it's just one detail among many that you don't ascribe great importance to when you first hear it. It's a stark visual image that still makes my hair stand up when I see it.

Yet I don't want to pretend that even these moments are triumphs of savvy writing. The fact that the film works at all is a testament to the three actors who portray the doomed filmmakers -- Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams. The "script" for this movie was really just a sequence of events that the actors improvised around. I mentioned earlier that I may question some of their behavior, but I never question their emotion. The exhaustion, the hopelessness, and most of all the panic and fear -- I believe every minute of it. Heather Donahue is especially good in her role, ratcheting up the tension a little more in every new scene.

I should probably also briefly acknowledge two stories from my past that definitely "prime the pump" for me to love this movie.

Once, at age 14, I became lost in the woods at night while on a hiking trip. Alright, to be fair, I was only "lost" for about 30 seconds, and I was within earshot of about 20 people who could have come to my aid if I'd decided to go into full panic mode. So you'd be well within your rights to claim that this doesn't count. But I can still easily access the intense feeling of total panic I felt in those few moments, and this movie can too.

Secondly, at a much younger age, I once had a misadventure in an empty house. I won't bore you with the particulars of the story. (That's code for: "I'm too embarrassed to tell you.") But once again, it's a memory that brings up some raw emotions, and the abandoned house climax of this film reaches that feeling too.

So, wrap that all up in one (creepy, twig bundle) package, and I rate the movie an A- today. I still love it, even though I can now more readily acknowledge it has some flaws. That does kick the movie off the lofty perch it held on my old top 100 list, though I'm fairly certain it will still retain a spot somewhere on the new list once (if ever) I complete it.

Charting My New Addiction

I've recently discovered a totally awesome web site. If you're a fan of movies, this will upend your world... as in, to a degree where I should probably be warning you away from the site rather than guiding you to it.

It's FlickChart.com. You set up an account, and the rest is simple. It shows you two movies, side by side. Click the one you like better. Two more movies. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. It tabulates all your choices, and bit by bit builds your own personal favorite movies list.

I've been in the process of rebuilding my own top 100 movies list, so needless to say, this web site is exactly what the doctor ordered. And it's crazy addictive. They have a mobile-phone-optimized version of the site, and that's become my new replacement for Angry Birds. Instead of pulling out my phone for a game when I have a few spare moments, I rank movies.

The thing is, FlickChart does make for a really good game. Over a recent lunch hour at work, my friends and I just sat there discussing movies as it presented matchup after matchup. Most of the time, the choices feel like no-brainers. But occasionally you get a really fun and difficult one -- two movies you love desperately. Or two horrible movies; you'd gladly never see either of them again. But you must always pick one.

It can take a long time to really smooth out your favorite movies list into something that feels accurate. For example, the first two movies it ever showed me were two I found average at best. Still, I had to pick one. And thus, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" became my supposedly #1 favorite movie for a long, long time.

Fortunately, you can take the reins a bit more to smooth things out. You can enter movies by name to incorporate them into your list. You can click on a movie already in your list to re-rank it in a "lightning round" comparison against several other movies on your list.

And the filters options are pretty amazing. You can have it display only movies from your list (or parts of your list). Movies with certain actors, from certain genres, from certain years or decades, and more. When you mark that you haven't seen a movie, it puts it on a separate list that's ranked in order by the votes of the site's entire user base. Basically, it's an ordered list you can use for your Netflix queue.

Hey, did I mention that at the touch of a button, you can add movies to your Netflix queue?

You can also compare your lists with those of friends also using the site. If you start, and want to connect with me, send me a friend invite -- my user name is the same as the name before the ".blogspot.com" in my blog's address.

If you'll excuse me now, I'm going back to my newest addiction.

Firefly Flashback: The Message

Firefly has a notoriously mixed up chronology. There's the intended viewing order (as presented on the DVDs). There's the mixed up order in which FOX aired them (which didn't even include the episode I'm talking about here). And then there's the order in which they were actually filmed.

According to DVD commentaries, The Message was actually the last Firefly episode to be filmed. And before filming was completed on it, the whole cast and crew got the word that the axe had fallen and the show had been canceled. These extenuating circumstances add a major emotional weight to the end of the episode -- the funeral scene in which the crew of Serenity brings home the body of Tracey (Mal and Zoe's old war friend). The real funeral was for Firefly itself, and you can tell when you watch this episode. The cast is incredibly solemn -- perhaps too much so for what their characters would be feeling for this person in this situation. But I know it chokes me up when I watch it, so I'm not about to complain. And the music! Composer Greg Edmonson serves up a requiem for the show in that scene, taking the already high emotion to an even loftier place. It's all a fitting tribute, and a beautiful scene.

The rest of the episode is good too, but not quite as great. This is another "ripples in the pond" episode, like when Saffron came on the ship for the first time, and everyone had a unique perspective on it. The problem here is that this character of Tracey doesn't cause as many ripples. He means a lot to Mal and Zoe, who already have a past with him. He ends up meaning something to Kaylee, as the two nurse a bit of a crush for one another. Stretch things a bit, and you can say he means something to Book, as proper treatment of and respect for the dead falls squarely in his wheelhouse. But the ripples don't really reach any farther than that, and we haven't even covered half the main characters. Wash, Simon, River, Jayne, and Inara just don't have much to do in this story.

But it's hard to complain too much when what is there is strong. You do get caught up in Tracey's story (and so you can accept that the characters placed on the periphery this episode get caught up in it too). The "Fed" chasing him is a reasonably intimidating and persistent villain; one can imagine he might have become another recurring Firefly character if the show had continued. But most of all, you feel for Mal and Zoe, who are confronted with drak memories of the war, try to do the right thing here, and get nothing but trouble for it.

I rate this episode an A-. I don't think I would even put it in the top half of Firefly episodes, were I to rank them, but it's still an A-.

Writer on the Alpocalypse

After many years, "Weird Al" Yankovic is back with a brand new album, Alpocalypse. Even though it's been a while, Weird Al has never gone far; he's constantly keeping up with the times and evolving to parody whatever the music of moment is.

Frankly, he's quite a bit more current with music than I am. He performs nearly half a dozen parodies on this album, but I'd only ever heard the original version of one: Lady Gaga's "Born This Way." (Which in his version becomes a comment on Gaga herself, "Perform This Way.") The parodies of Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, and two hip hop artists? Well, they're funny songs for sure -- especially "Party in the CIA," which juxtaposes some seriously dark lyrics onto a bubblegum pop melody. But the parody itself was mostly lost on me.

Fortunately, Weird Al albums have never been just collections of parody songs. Half of each of his albums are always original tunes, often done in the style of a famous artist, though not a direct take on any one of their songs. I've often found those the be the highlights of a Weird Al album, and that's definitely the case here.

There's "Craigslist," a wonderfully spot-on embodiment of a song by The Doors. "CNR" is a White Stripes-style song that's basically chock full of Chuck Norris jokes... except that "Chuck Norris" becomes Charles Nelson Reilly.

Two songs on the album land well because they're about the kind of person that everybody knows. "Ringtone" is about a guy with an obnoxious cell phone ringtone. Better still is the closing track on the album, "Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me," a heartfelt plea to someone who sends every random bit of junk e-mail along to every person they know.

But the real gem on the album, in my opinion, is "Skipper Dan." It's a song about a washed-up actor who now drives a boat on the Jungle Cruise ride at Disney. Yes, I'm sure the extra laughs I get from this have a lot to do with my recent experience on the actual ride itself. But I think I'd still find it funny and clever in any case. The fact that it includes actual references to the real ride is just icing on the cake.

I'd rate the album a B+. It's not Weird Al's best, but it's still solid enough to show that even after 30 years, he's as talented, funny, and relevant as he ever was.

Midnight Movie

This weekend, I went to see the newest film from Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris. It was a fun and breezy story that easily entertained; you should find it enjoyable whether you're a fan of Woody Allen or not.

On the one hand, it marks a "return to form" for the writer-director. After movies like Match Point and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which don't feature a proxy character for the man himself, Midnight in Paris revolves around one. The protagonist is a neurotic, cloyingly self-depracating writer -- exactly the sort of person Allen would have played himself in younger days. Here, he instead casts Owen Wilson for the role. From the sound of it, I might not have thought it the most natural fit, but Wilson actually does an exceptional "Woody Allen impersonation." (It's not literal imitation, but you can absolutely hear the voice of Woody Allen speaking through him.)

But unlike those earlier Allen films (the ones I've seen anyway), this movie is decidedly plot-driven, and not merely "situation driven." This struggling novelist is falling in love with the city of Paris, and wistfully longing to have been there in the time he regards as its heyday -- the 1920s. And then, one midnight, up pulls a vintage car to pick him up and literally take him back to the 1920s. He suffers his days in the present, waiting for his nights in the past and the chance to hobnob with some of his favorite writers and artists.

I've already mentioned Owen Wilson's good performance, but the real draw of the movie in my mind is the lengthy list of actors who appear as famous figures from the past. Kathy Bates delivers a fun Gertrude Stein (with perhaps a few shades of her character from Titanic). Adrien Brody is an hysterical Salvador Dali. The real scene stealer isn't a household name (unless you watched Law & Order: LA) -- Corey Stoll is brilliant as Ernest Hemingway. But lest you think all the acting prowess is leveled at caricature, know that the cast in the "present" is solid too, including Rachel McAdams, a wonderfully pompous Michael Sheen, and veteran character actor (you'd recognize him, I'm sure) Kurt Fuller.

The message of the movie isn't necessarily deep, but it's well told. The editing sometimes lingers too long on shots of the city, but I have to admit that it stokes the fire I've always had to visit Paris myself someday. In the end, it's just a fun little movie. I rate it a B. It might not be something you're likely to see in a theater, but I do think it's worth seeing at some point.

Firefly Flashback: Trash

We've come to the first of three Firefly episodes that never aired on FOX during the series' original run. It's also my favorite of those three. Hello, it's another heist episode! And Christina Hendricks is back as the wonderful character of Saffron. Of course I'm going to love it.

This heist doesn't feel quite as elaborate or entertaining as the one in Ariel, but it still has plenty of action and tension. It also focuses largely on different characters than the Ariel heist, with Wash, Kaylee, and Jayne taking key roles. (Along with Mal, of course.) There's also the fun twist at the end, of a sort of "meta-heist" to con Saffron herself, which brings Inara into the caper as well.

One great thing about having Saffron back in the mix is that this time out, the characters all know exactly who and what she is. As a result, a lot of the tension and fun in the episode comes in waiting for her to double-cross our gang, and seeing if they'll be smart enough to outmaneuver her. But she does get fleshed out a bit more in this episode too. Well, maybe. We definitely see her in a few vulnerable and more tender moments, but your guess is as good as mine as to whether any of it is genuine emotion.

As far as the comedy goes, this episode is one of the series' very best. Jokes about Saffron's trustiworthiness abound, bested only by the jokes on her multiple identities. Also, River can kill you with her brain.

That last reference is to a scene near the end of the episode that further pays off Jayne's betrayal in Ariel. Simon learns that Jayne tried to sell them out, and confronts him in a chillingly calm way.

My one quibble would be with the stale old framing device of beginning the episode after the action (in this case, with Mal naked in the desert), then flashing back to show how we got there. There was a time this structure seemed novel, but it's so long past that I can't remember it. Nowadays when I see it, I just think that the episode wasn't running long enough for broadcast time, or that the writers weren't sure the opening tease was enticing enough, so they constructed an artificial teaser to keep people from tuning out. It does generate a laugh here, I won't deny that -- it just still feels like sloppy and/or lazy writing to me.

Either way, it's still a solid, fun episode. I rate it an A-.

Words Without Friends

At some point, somewhere, I can't recall exactly when or where, I heard there was this documentary called Wordplay that I ought to check out. I was either given the wrong impression, or I was confused, because I thought it was a documentary about the game of Scrabble. For you readers, let me clear up my misconception.

Wordplay is actually a documentary about crossword puzzles. Specifically, it revolves around the editor of the notorious New York Times crossword puzzle, who has been doing it for decades. It's two distinctly different documentaries blended together.

In one "film," we meet enthusiasts of the puzzle, including some celebrities. Jon Stewart, Bill Clinton, and more weigh in on "what it is about crossword puzzles," sometimes just as a way to have fun, other times as a metaphor or training for other aspects of life.

We meet one of the puzzle makers whose work is regularly published in that newspaper. This is a man known by name in the elite circles of puzzle solving, who is referred to by one puzzle enthusiast as a true artist. (We learn how quality work by him, which deserves a "Friday or Saturday slot," is squandered when published on a Monday or Tuesday. And we learn what that means, in case you don't already know.)

The other "film" follows the annual crossword tournament organized by the Times editor, and the cream of the crop players vying for top honors in the event. It's a look at competition in general, and allows some intellectual distance because the competition isn't taking a form everyone is used to. You're dazzled by the skills of the tournament elite, and eager to see which of the people you've met will come out on top.

This half of the movie isn't as compelling as it might have been, I think because the filmmakers basically play it straight. I found myself thinking back to the documentary King of Kong, which set up a real David and Goliath scenario for the audience, and became richly entertaining as a result. This movie doesn't tell you who to root for, or offer its own perspective on events. That arguably makes it a more pure documentary... but it makes a less entertaining one too.

If you have any interest in games or puzzles in general, or certainly crosswords in particular, you'll probably find something worthwhile here. Still, I found the individual parts more compelling than the whole. I'd rate it a B-.

What a Maroon / High-Altitude Training

Last night, I went to Red Rocks to see Maroon 5 and Train in concert, a night out suggested by a longtime friend who loves both bands. I myself am far more familiar with Maroon 5, having all three of their studio albums. Train, on the other hand, is a band whose music I like well enough, but often in an "I didn't know they did that song" kind of way.

Predictably, I enjoyed the Maroon 5 portion of the concert most. They opened their set strong, with a nonstop run of half a dozen up-tempo songs. They literally never stopped playing, just blending one song into the next for 20 minutes straight. A nice, high-energy start to the night, I thought -- though it kind of worked against the mood when they slowed down later and did two or three back-to-back low key songs. Still, they finished out strong and played lots of energetic music.

Listening to Maroon 5 albums, I've often wondered how lead singer Adam Levine can sing for long stretches in his style. He's awfully high on the scale, riding the falsetto break and belting out in almost equal measure. I now have my answer: he can't. Many of the songs were transposed to lower keys in the concert, and many vocal phrases that were a falsetto/full-voice mix on the album were entirely one or the other in concert. I don't say this to mean that he sounds bad live; but the studio takes are definitely well-cultivated. Basically, the band sounds rather different in concert than on their albums. Which is arguably a good thing, if you're looking for some variation.

So then came Train, and I'm still not sure just what I thought of them overall. Their approach seemed to be, if you don't like this bit, maybe you'll like the next; they tried a lot of different gimmicks over the course of the night, and I certainly didn't like them all, though your mileage may vary.

Lead singer Patrick Monahan changed shirts six times in a 65-minute set, starting out as a Neil Diamond look-alike and passing through something vaguely Brian Johnson (meets Freddy Mercury?) before ending up with something I think I saw Belinda Carlisle wear once in a video.

A prolonged (and if you ask me, painful) bit had them bring 20 women up on stage from the audience to sing and dance as "Trainettes." Later, there was a walk-out-into-the-audience treatment of "Marry Me" that would have been hokey, but was actually pretty funny when the singer acknowledged mid-verse that his at-altitude hike up 200 stairs was more work than he'd expected.

They did an acoustic set of songs from Blondie, U2, and others. They sounded really great, and I was quite enjoying it... though I wondered with a faint twinge why they were doing some of their best work on other people's songs. Still, their set did include every Train song I think I know, so you were probably getting the main material you were looking for, if you're a longtime fan.

A good night, overall. If you're a fan of either band, I'm sure you'd enjoy the show if it comes to your town.

Firefly Flashback: War Stories

Given how short a run Firefly had, it's an unlikely but pleasant surprise that several guest characters showed up for more than one episode. I think the villain of this episode (and The Train Job), Niska, comes out on the bottom of the rankings -- but only because he's in the illustrious company of Badger and Saffron. His reappearance here is great not just because he's a compelling nemesis of a very different style, but because he shows that actions in the Firefly 'verse have consequences. Mal crossed him earlier, and now Mal most definitely has to pay for it.

This is the most brutal and graphic episode of the series, with multiple scenes of torture (including a severed ear). And as I noted in Out of Gas, few can sell pain as believably as Nathan Fillion. You cringe to see what happens to Mal in this episode... and cheer all the more because of it when he triumphs at the end.

Mal is far from the only badass on display in this episode, though. Zoe has the awesome moment where she doesn't hesitate for an instant when forced to choose between her husband and captain. Book gives us another taste of his dark side when informing us that the Bible isn't quite clear on the subject of kneecaps. Inara takes on a female client and the only issue made of it is how gorgeous and graceful half the crew finds her. (Ah, an enlightened future!)

And, of course, there's River's big moment at the end. This is the first taste we get of the River we would ultimately see in the movie. Until this point, River (and Summer Glau) has given us plenty of humor, and many moments of emotion and gravitas. But when she picks up a gun here and kills three people literally without looking, we see an entirely new side of her.

Also great is Wash's role in all of this. You could argue that his jealousy of the relationship between Zoe and Mal seems awfully (in)convenient to come up right here, right now. They all seemed to be getting along well enough so far. Yet you really have to accept this would have been an issue either at some point in the past or at some point in the future. Better that the series actually dramatizes it and we get to see it. And, as always with Firefly, some great jokes come with it too. ("She promised to obey?")

I rate this episode an A-. Maybe the minus shouldn't even be on there. I'm not sure I can exactly point to one "off" element of the episode to explain it; I just know that while I liked this episode a lot, I didn't love it quite as much as the many grade A episodes I've reviewed so far.

Mirror Universe

Over a decade ago, back when all seven cast members of the original Star Trek series were still alive, and the series Enterprise had yet to arrive on the scene, a documentary film was made about Star Trek fans, called Trekkies. I'd been aware of it for a while, but was in no particular hurry to watch it. I've been to my share of Star Trek conventions both for business and pleasure, and I'm well aware of just how much a Trek fan can remind you that "fan" is short for fanatic. Still, I did throw it into my Netflix queue at some point, and sooner or later, everything will bubble to the top.

It's an interesting documentary to watch. It remains carefully neutral, not really positing an opinion or viewpoint of its own. It simply presents a 90-minute procession of Trek fans expressing their love for the franchise in a wide variety of ways. In maintaining such a blank slate approach, the film essentially holds a mirror up at its audience; whether you're a Star Trek fan yourself (and to whatever degree you are one, if you are), I think your reaction to this film would differ very much accordingly.

I myself have had a very interesting journey as a Star Trek fan, and so my reaction to the film felt complicated. I began when I was younger as an ever more enthusiastic lover of the original series and The Next Generation, and then Deep Space Nine. I never reached a point where I wanted to dress up in costume at a convention, but I certainly had a good collection of Trek memorabilia going -- loaded with items of little real value or use.

Then I went to work at Decipher, making the Star Trek CCG. Watching Star Trek was no longer a recreational activity for me. And this coincided roughly with the Voyager and Enterprise era of Trek, a period where I think we can all objectively agree that the quality of the franchise plummeted. I would say this didn't actually diminish my love of Trek, but it certainly transformed it.

I never would look down on a fellow Star Trek fan who chose to express his passion in a more extreme way than I. For one, we're geeky brethren in a world that largely looks down on us. We should have each others' back, not stab it. Not to mention that these kinds of people paid my salary for over five years. And yet my own love of Star Trek I basically put it in a drawer, like a photo album that could conceivably be brought out to look at fondly on occasion -- but which never actually is. I haven't actually watched an episode of any Star Trek series in any context since I was laid off from that job more than six years ago.

Ummm... I was talking about a movie here at one point, wasn't I? My point being that watching this documentary, confronted with some really enthusiastic fans doing some fairly outrageous things, I didn't look down on them -- but I did think to myself, "man, if I was ever anywhere close to that point, that just feels way, way past me now." So it was a vaguely melancholy experience, which I would imagine very few other viewers of the film would have.

The host of the documentary is Denise Crosby, the actress who played Tasha Yar on The Next Generation. Her own Trek journey is an interesting one too. After fighting to make it on the show, she asked to leave before the first season was even completed. At the time, she was thinking only of her unfulfilled needs as an actress; she was clearly not thinking about how her departure might well feel like a slap in the face to fans and fandom. And so I think this documentary for her was an olive branch (much like her later return to the series as an occasional guest star). "No, really, I do like Star Trek and especially Star Trek fans." And yet you do feel her occasionally stifling a reaction to her interview subjects -- for example, to the woman with a borderline stalker obsession with Brent Spiner.

The only real point the film makes is one I wholeheartedly agree with: liking something like Star Trek should be no less socially accepted than liking something like a professional sports team. Beyond that, the movie is just a nice bit of confection that's easy to watch, if not an excellent piece of filmmaking. I grade it a B. Your mileage will probably vary, based on your own relationship with Star Trek.