…we can start looking at potential candidates for next year.  Hat tip to John in the comments to this post over at Language Log.  ..bruce w..

So, how many of these scenes do you recognized? Hat tip to John August. ..bruce w..

It’s interesting how easily “Groundhog Day” could well have been done as drama/horror. Hat tip to Sippican Cottage. ..bruce w..

I didn’t have plans to go see “The Book of Eli”, even though the trailer made it look like “Fallout 3: The Movie” (I happen to be a big fan of “Fallout 3“). But then I read some early reviews that indicated that “Eli” might indeed be worth seeing, so my sweet wife Sandra and I went yesterday.

I’m glad we did. And she is, too.

I won’t recap the plot here, except to say that Eli (Denzel Washington) is carrying a book west across the devastated North American continent, and Carnegie (Gary Oldman) — who runs his own ruined town — wants that specific book.Oldman uses every tactic he can think of to persuade or force Eli to hand over the book.

“Eli” is a truly fascinating and remarkable movie. On one level, it’s a stylized post-apocalyptic samurai movie. On another, it is a classic Greek drama, with archetypes, divine intervention, and inexorable consequences. On yet a third, it is a morality play about Good and Evil, one that could have roots in the Middle Ages. Finally, it is a subtle yet profound treatise on faith in general and on Christian faith in particular. There are layers upon layers here, particularly as the film reaches its denouement — and said denouement means that I will go back into the theaters to see it a second time with new eyes.

My main criticism is the language, the principle reason for the ‘R’ rating. (Yes, there is violence, but it is very stylized and not much different from what you’ve seen in films such as “The Lord of the Rings”.)  It wasn’t necessary (the Greeks didn’t need it in their plays), though it did serve as a marker between characters on either side of the great divide.

The acting was excellent; the directing was outstanding; the art direction was very effective (and, yes, the film looked a lot like “Fallout 3″). What was most telling, though, was the depth of characterization and writing. “Eli” shows just how banal and shallow “Avatar”‘ is, both in story and characterization. In particular, Gary Oldman’s character — Carnegie — is vastly more believable, sympathetic and effective as an antagonist than either Parker Selfridge (the corporate scum) or Col. Miles Quaritch (the military scum) in “Avatar”.  Likewise, the religious themes in “Avatar” come across as rather goofy feel-good New Age-ism compared to the themes of faith, sacrifice, and suffering in “Eli”.

As John Notle said over at Big Hollywood, “Eli” in the end is a genre movie. But what a genre movie — possibly the best of its kind (though I have to reserve judgment until I see “The Road”).  Your mileage may vary.

SPOILER AFTER THE JUMP

WARNING. SPOILER AND REALLY SERIOUS SPOILERS.

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The book that Eli is carrying — and that Carnegie wants more than anything else — is the Bible, apparently the last copy in existence. Carnegie wants it because he knows he can use its language to manipulate people and build his power base. Eli is acting on communications from God — God told him where the Bible was buried and has been guiding him west for 20 to 30 years towards a place where the Bible belongs. Eli’s copy is bound and locked, and Eli has been reading from it “every day” for those same 20-30 years. Eli — who pre-apocalypse was a Wal-Mart greeter — has incredibly keen senses and absolutely deadly fighting skills — unarmed, with a large, sharp knife, or with a gun. He wanders into Carnegie’s town looking for a charge on his external battery for his iPod. A fight in the main saloon (Carnegie’s HQ) leaves several people dead and Carnegie intrigued. He offers Eli a leadership position, unlimited clean water (a rarity), and sex with a beautiful young girl (Solara, the daughter of Carnegie’s woman, Claudia) to stick around; Eli refuses all of it and tries to leave town, even as Carnegie finds out that Eli has a Bible.  Confrontations and chases ensue; they end with Eli shot and lying in the dirt, and Carnegie heading back to town (minus most of his men) with the Bible (Eli told Carnegie where he hid it rather than let Carnegie kill Solara).

REALLY SERIOUS SPOILERS AHEAD

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Eli — instead of going back to town after the Bible — continues west, helped along by Solara (she’s got one of Carnegie’s still-functioning cars). They make it to the ruins of San Francisco, and Eli indicates that they need to head out to the island in the middle of the bay — Alcatraz. There Eli indeed finds a community, one dedicated to rebuilding civilization by collecting and reprinting whatever books they can find. But one book they don’t have is the Bible. Eli, still suffering from his wound (Fisher King, anyone?), tells the leader there to get lots of paper — and begins to recite the KJV Bible entirely from memory.

And we see for the first time that Eli is blind.

Change back to Carnegie’s town. Carnegie has the town engineer carefully pick open the lock on the book. Carnegie opens it — and sees that the Bible is entirely in Braille. He tries to get Claudia (who is blind) to read it, but she claims (with a smile) that it’s been too long since she last read Braille. In the meantime, all of Carnegie’s power structure is falling down — most of his henchmen are dead, and his control over the town evaporates.

Back at Alcatraz, Eli finishes dictating the Bible, then dies from his wounds. But the community there prints a hardbound copy of the Bible and places it among the other religious books in their collection. Solara takes Eli’s weapons and starts to head east back to Carnegie’s town and her mother.

Food for thought.  ..bruce..

I swear this exact scene was in "Avatar". Except everyone was blue.

I saw “Avatar” (in 3-D) yesterday afternoon and saw “Sherlock Holmes” this afternoon.

I’ll be going back to see “Sherlock Holmes” again, probably within a week; “Avatar” will have to wait for DVD, if then.

“Avatar” is worth seeing once on the large screen, in 3-D, just for the sheer visual spectacle and technical brilliance. But the plot, character development (or lack thereof) and dialog is every bit as wretched, unoriginal, and stereotypical as others have warned. The film really, really is “Dances with Wolves” meets “Ferngully: the Last Rainforest“, to such an extent that I felt embarrassed for James Cameron, who wrote and directed the film. Not only was there not an original thought, theme, or plot twist in the entire film, the whole film was largely predictable from the start, with developments telegraphed far in advanced, and the characters were unrelentingly one-dimensional. No nuances, shading, or sympathies here. The “aliens” look, dress, ride, fight, and even whoop like stereotypical Hollywood Indians, and their bodies — largely human except for being (a) blue, (b) 15 feet tall, (c) with a tail, and (d) having a neural interface built in to their ‘pony tail’ — make no sense for the environment, particularly having plain human feet (5 toes, none-prehensile big toe) in an arboreal environment. The longer I go since leaving the theater yesterday, the less I think of the film — the technical excellence fades and the bad taste of the actual underlying film remains.

By contrast, “Sherlock Holmes” is worth seeing repeatedly, both on the big screen and once the DVD comes out. It is a deceptively excellent film. I say “deceptively” because it is only when it is over that you begin to realize just how well the entire film was directed, edited, performed, and art-directed. Robert Downey Jr (in the title role) does more to establish Holmes’ character within the first few minutes of the film than any of the “Pandora” actors do during that film’s entire 2:40 length. The chemistry between Downey and Jude Law (who plays Watson) is instant, real, and believable. All the characters are complex, imperfect, and conflicted, yet drive towards their respective goals, enduring the consequences along the way. And it’s all great fun, with some real tension and great visuals along the way. It probably noses out “District 9″ as the best film I’ve seen this year.

Based on my own viewings — and based on the crowds today waiting to see “Sherlock Holmes” — I not only think that “Sherlock Holmes” will win the weekend box office, I think that it will dominate “Avatar” for the rest of their respective box office runs here in the US. Your mileage may vary.  ..bruce w..

xkcd hits it again.  Click on the comic to see the original (larger) version.  ..bruce w..

Fake movie trailer mashups are among my favorite videos on the ‘net. This one imagines a 1951 version of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, staring Charlton Heston as Indiana Jones. Quite well done. with some great footage. ..bruce w..

No, really, Captain -- 40 years from now, they'll still be filming this.

The original “Star Trek” series started on NBC the same month I started my freshman year at Grossmont High. It ran two and a half seasons before dying, but eventually spawned a long list of movies and four successive TV series (ST: The Next Generation, ST: Deep Space Nine, ST: Voyager, and Enterprise) — not a bad legacy that. However, aside from some flashes of brilliance in ST:TNG, the whole franchise pretty much hit its peak with the second film “ST: The Wrath of Khan” (1982) and never quite climbed that high again.

There was, however, an early chance to reboot. At the end of the third Star Trek film — “The Search for Spock” (1984) — the Enterprise has been destroyed, and Captain Kirk and his crew are largely on the run from the Federation in a captured Klingon warship. While the film itself was a letdown from “Wrath of Khan”, it provided an opportunity to take the familiar characters in a dramatically (or at least significantly) different direction. Instead, ST IV (“The Voyage Home”, 1986) recycled the main plot element of the first Star Trek movie and by film’s end had restored the crew to the Federation’s good graces and to a brand-spanking-new Enterprise. The entire Star Trek universe has pretty much been stuck in a rut ever since.

Until now.

Abrams has done, at least to a certain extent, what Paramount should have done 25 years ago: freed the characters from the trap of Star Trek canon. The film starts with changed history: Kirk’s father ends up in command of a Federation star ship just long enough to destroy the ship and end his own life buying time for most of the crew and civilians on board to escape from a massive ship that has appeared out of nowhere. His newborn son, James Tiberius Kirk, grows up as a troubled, rowdy, brilliant young man, who accepts a challenge from a Federation captain — Christopher Pike — to attend Star Fleet Academy. He meets up with other (to us) familiar characters — McCoy, Uhuru, Chekov, Sulu, and, yes, Spock — who find themselves thrust into the middle of a threat to the entire Federation.

The film is, in my opinion, a complete success. It has a few flaws — too many lens flares, and some goofy (from a scientific point of view) exposition in the middle explaining just what’s happening and why. But it easily rivals “Wrath of Khan” for the position of best Star Trek movie ever (though it’s hard to argue against William Shatner and Ricardo Montelban chewing up the scenery and spitting it at one another). The cinematography and directing frankly exceeds any previous Star Trek movie, and the special effects make it just that much more stunning; the opening five minutes of “Star Trek” has more action, pathos, and drama than the grand climax of most preceding Star Trek movies.

The youth of the familiar characters at times borders on making the film seem like an ST version of “Teen Titans” or “Smallville”, but part of the fun is not just seeing them at a young age but seeing them start to form bonds (a few of which are unexpected and definitely not canon).  But it’s a well-done film that can stand on its own merits and that thankfully avoids (except in homage) the cliches and traps of all that has preceded it. A big thumbs up.

SPOILERS AHEAD — SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP

The fundamental plot is that over a century in the future (of the film), an aging Ambassador Spock (“Spock Prime”) fails to stop a supernova in time to save the planet Romulus (center of the Romulan empire). However, he is still able to implode the supernova using ‘red matter’ to trigger the creation of a black hole — but that same black hole drags both Spock Prime and a massive Romulan mining ship, led by one Captain Nero (Eric Bana) — back into the past. Nero and his ship captures Spock Prime and uses some of the ‘red matter’ to create a black hole at the center of Vulcan — thus destroying the whole planet. And Nero’s next target is Earth.

As mentioned, the scientific exposition in the middle of the film is goofy. In Spock Prime’s future, a supernova “threatens the galaxy”, goes off early, and destroys Romulus (and, one must presume, a whole pile of other systems, since that star didn’t appear to be Romulus’s star). This ignores the fact that the blast wave from the supernova travels at light speed and would take, oh, years if not decades or centuries to reach Romulus. Spock Prime’s use of red matter at one little part of the shock wave causes the supernova to collapse into a black hole that sucks Spock and Nero both back in time (instead of simply crushing them). After capturing Spock Prime, Nero dumps him on the surface of what has to be another planet in the Vulcan system, where Spock is able to seen Vulcan (and its destruction) as large and clear as we can see the Moon (vs., say, how we see Mars, Venus, and other planets, namely as little points of light). That really turns out to be largely a plot convenience to have Spock Prime and Kirk end up on the same planet together.

This is all stupid (and wrong) on so many levels that I just have to wonder what Abrams was thinking here. I mean, it’s one thing to do the requisite “sufficiently advanced technology” to get us warp drive and transporters. This kind of stupidity, however, is equivalent to having Kirk fly up the side of a building unaided. Sigh.

That said, it’s still a great film. Go see it.  ..bruce..

I'm from the government, and I'm here to tax you.

OVERNIGHT LINK (note the singular)

ITEM: The Onion has become so much better than Saturday Night Live at video humor:

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As ‘Fun, Watchable’

Well, that’s probably it for the day. I have work to do.  ..bruce w..

Dawn is a feeling...

AFTERNOON LINKS! Yes, there are actual afternoon links!

ITEM: Maybe it’s because he paid all his taxes — actor Kal Penn (of the “House” TV series and the “Harold and Kumar” movies) joins the White House staff.

ITEM: President Obama visits Baghdad. Good for him, and I mean that in all sincerity. My son Jon (CPL Webster, USMC)  just finished his tour of duty in Iraq in February, and he’s likely to be in Afghanistan by the end of the year. And I’m glad  — and again I mean this sincerely — that Pres. Obama was given as warm a welcome by the troops there as was President Bush on each of his visits to Iraq.

ITEM: So, how is the economic upheaval affecting law firms? Pretty harshly, by all accounts (emphasis mine):

Look, with minor exceptions, the reality is that M&A work is dead. Real estate work is non-existent. Putting aside bankruptcy, in every historic bust, litigation was the work that saved the day. But when we talk to law firms about litigation even in the patent world, I’m being told clients are cutting back. They’ve decided to cut back on the volume of prosecution work and are postponing any litigation they can. You can bring a lawsuit and prevail at trial but still not be assured of winning because today you don’t know whether you will be able to collect on the judgment.

One of our clients – a leading and successful IP boutique – told me that one of their very best long-term patent clients has decided to put off all their outside legal work except what is absolutely necessary to preserve the asset value of the corporation.

Let me summarize this way: Clients are pushing the reset button. They are insisting on smaller teams for their litigation and corporate work. We’ve heard a lot about this in the last few weeks. Clients are redesigning the value paradigm.

Much of the work that went outside they no longer deem to be of the same value. Work once viewed as essential is now viewed as elective. Work once viewed as high in value is no longer needed or is viewed as much less in value and warranting a much lower price. Commoditization is spreading to more and more work. It may well retreat some in the long run but in the short run it will operate with force.

FRESH MORNING LINKS! Now with less pork!

ITEM: Best headline of the day: “New Media vs. Gnostic Bureaucracies”. It also happens to be an outstanding article; here’s a key passage:

News media enterprises today are subject to market forces and are facing consequences – the destruction of many recently prosperous enterprises and types of enterprises.

But the modern nation-states – and the supranational organizations like the United Nations — are stiflingly bureaucratic. They are less subject to market forces than are businesses, and in reaction to the current economic panic – a crisis of abundance, not of scarcity – the big governmental and intergovernmental bureaucracies are opportunistically seizing more power.

The bureaucracies have a shifting parasite-host relationship with the social engineer, the “international development professional,” and the other types of soulless technocrat whom the late Samuel Huntington called “Davos Man” and Frederick Wilhelmsen called “the egomaniac, lusting gnostically to dominate all existence.” Just contemplate what has taken place in Washington the past two months, and at the Group of 20 Summit in London last week, where Chinese totalitarians, Russian authoritarians, cosmopolitan eugenicists, and Western “democratic” socialists strained to stitch together a Frankenstein monster from the jumble of formaldehyde jars holding the maimed remains of capitalism.

As the saying goes, read the whole thing.

ITEM: Robert Avrech, over at Big Hollywood, recounts his encounter with a stalked woman in a gun shop in Culver City (CA):

“I can’t believe I’m here. I’ve been against guns and violence my whole life.”

I let this pass. Now is not the time for a self-righteous lecture.

ITEM: Defense Sec’y Robert Gates seeks to expand the government payroll by 39,000 while reducing private sector defense contractors. He’s cutting some key weapons programs as well:

Gates also proposed canceling some of Boeing’s missile defense programs, including one to equip a modified 747 aircraft with a laser that can shoot down missiles soon after they’re launched, saying the program “has significant affordability and technology problems and the program’s proposed operational role is highly questionable.”

Boeing would also be hurt because it makes one-third of the F-22 fighter jet and the Pentagon plans to stop ordering additional aircraft. Gates would also cancel the Air Force’s program to build a new search-and-rescue helicopter, which had been awarded to Boeing. And it would not order more of Boeing’s C-17 cargo planes. Boeing could also see a military satellite program, known as TSAT, end.

Didn’t we go through this with Clinton? And didn’t we really, really regret it when 9/11 happened? I already quoted Santayana a few days ago, so I’ll quote Benjamin Franklin instead: “Experience is a dear school, but fools will learn at no other.”

ITEM: And if Obama appears to be repeating Clinton’s mistakes with the military, he likewise seems to be repeating Jimmy Carter’s mistakes with geopolitics:

Rarely has a Presidential speech been so immediately and transparently divorced from reality as Mr. Obama’s in Prague. The President delivered a stirring call to banish nuclear weapons at the very moment that North Korea and Iran are bidding to trigger the greatest proliferation breakout in the nuclear age. Mr. Obama also proposed an elaborate new arms-control regime to reduce nuclear weapons, even as both Pyongyang and Tehran are proving that the world’s great powers lack the will to enforce current arms-control treaties.

ITEM: Speaking of not learning from experience or history, the Associated Press now wants to go after “content pirates”. Good luck with that; after all, the RIAA has been so successful in its efforts to date.

ITEM: Creeping socialism/fascism update: Investor’s Business Daily raises the on-going issue as to why the Obama Administration won’t let banks give back TARP funds — is it to maintain control over these institutions?

ITEM: I considered embedding this Onion video, but I thought it might be a bit too, ah, graphic for some of our readers: “Hot new video game consists solely of shooting people point-blank in the face.“ I did find it hilarious, though, particularly in its skewering of the more pretentious side of the video game industry.

ITEM YOU PROBABLY WON’T SEE ELSEWHERE IN THE MSM: The Washington Times reports that the Bush Administration’s African AIDS effort saved 1.1 million lives.

OVERNIGHT LINKS

ITEM: Creeping socialism/facism alert: Remember the Phoenix police? The ones who seized the computer of a blogger critical of them? Well, now they’re detaining photographers for allegedly violating Homeland Security statutes by allegedly taking photographs of a Federal building (the photographers stated they were actually shooting in the opposite direction).  When the photographers asked what statute they were violating, the policeman said, “Google it.” Hat tip to the Drunk Report.

ITEM: From various accounts, the US is planning to send Italy far more than the $50,000 reported on wire services as emergency aid in the aftermath of the major earthquake outside of Rome. But a reader over at the Corner at NRO e-mailed Jonah Goldberg with an interesting question:

If Italy accepts their bailout money, will Obama have the power to remove [Italian Prime Minister] Berlusconi?

Good question.

ITEM: Speaking of Obama and Europe, some of the commentators over there are less than impressed with his oratorical prowess:

… am I alone in finding him increasingly to be something of a bore?

His performance at the first press conference in London with Gordon Brown featured moments in which he sparkled – his riff on loving the Queen was a high-point. But most of the serious answers that I listened to were interminable, windy and not very impressive. At points there were pauses so long that it appeared he had simply lost his train of thought.

Today, we were treated to another set-piece Obama speech, and my didn’t he go on a bit? The crowd in Prague was huge, and initially wildly enthusiastic, but what he served up was not any more impressive than his damp squib in Berlin last year. Is there a computer which churns this stuff out for him? . . .

Empires rising and falling, destinies being defined and a Golden City standing as a monument to unconquerable spirit… goodness, what a ham. When he really gets going he’s worse than Tony Blair.

But Obama was only warming up. “When I was born,” (Everything usually leads back to him, you’ll notice)… “the world was divided, and our nations were faced with very different circumstances. Few people would have predicted that someone like me would one day become an American President.” (Him again)…

“Few people would have predicted that an American President would one day be permitted to speak to an audience like this in Prague. And few would have imagined that the Czech Republic would become a free nation, a member of NATO, and a leader of a united Europe. Those ideas would have been dismissed as dreams”. (Not by Ronald Reagan they wouldn’t have been, when most of Obama’s Democrat friends thought the then US President’s robust approach to the Cold War made him a loony on the loose).

ITEM: As for the continuing crisis, this graph apparently is quite popular all over the net:

The key take-away from the graph above is to note the series of “bounces” in each bear market, where the stock prices rise for weeks or even months before declining again and to an even lower level. The big dispute right now is whether the market has hit bottom or whether it’s just going through a temporary rise. I have no clue, but then, I have no stocks. Or bonds.

As for the overall historical trends, this chart — covering 140 years — shows the ups and down over time:

The takeway here is: stocks go up and stocks go down. The overall trend is up, but that trend is measured in decades.

Ain’t we got fun? ..bruce w..