Opening in Dallas, 03/30

Wow, first Opening post in the new digs! I’m so excited. And I’ll be even more excited next week, when there’s a huge collison of stuff I want to see coming out. So, check back next week is what I’m saying.

The Lookout (trailer): OK, I do actually want to see this. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was pretty awesome in Brick, and if this movie seems a little bit too much like a combination of that and Memento, well, I trust that’s just misleading marketing. Plus, it helps that I’ve read in a couple of places now that that’s just misleading marketing.

Journey from the Fall (trailer): I’ve not heard much about this film, about Vietnamese families struggling to adjust to life after immigrating to the US during the aftermath of the Vietnam War. It’s only been sparsely reviewed, but the reviews have been OK.

Nomad (The Warrior) (trailer): The Weinsteins bring us an epic from Kazakhstan. Really.

Blades of Glory (trailer): Not much to say. Either you want to see it or you don’t.

Meet the Robinsons (trailer): There’s something about the non-Pixar animateds in general, and Disney movies in particular, that just seems so … busy. As with Chicken Little, I can hardly even take the trailer for this.

Peaceful Warrior (trailer): Here’s a real WTF? moment for you. I actually saw this last year, when it was released by Lionsgate, but now Universal is throwing it out there for some reason. I really, sincerely, honestly can’t imagine why. It’s not a very good movie, and I can’t think of any kind of niche audience that would be interested that missed it the first time. Very, very strange.

Awe and Wonder

Is anyone still wowed by technology? Even better, is there some gadget or device that has been around for ages that still amazes you? This happens to me on occasion and sometimes I have enough time to embrace it.

 I previously mentioned my marvel at internet movie delivery systems (and anything new on the Internet still amazes me) but today I was “wowed” by something that is an everyday commonplace occurrence:  the microwave.

 I remember getting our first microwave in the early 80s (83…84?) and being afraid of it. One of the only directions my mother gave me was “don’t stand in front of it.” I think it was the fear of radiation. (I never bothered to look it up and I’ve passed that on to my kids today….it could be all for naught, but it just doesn’t feel like standing right in front of the microwave while dinner is being reheated is the safest thing to do….now i want to look it up). Anyway, I always tried to put my food in and turn the knob while standing off to the side with my arm stretched out(ours did not have start button. Once you turned the knob, it’s on!).

I was never amazed by the technology back then, though. It just seemed obvious to me. It was called a “Microwave Oven” so it was something that heated food. And it was smaller than an oven, so it was “micro.” I never wondered how it worked so fast or why only the food itself was hot and not the surrounding air or walls of the microwave.

But today I was reheating something for breakfast (leftover steak or something…I’m a scavenger) and looked through the little window (from a safe 2ft distance, of course) and wondered how and why.  How does it really work? I mean, I’ve heard it explained as the microwaves actually penetrate the items inside and heat it from the inside out, etc…but how does it produce heat? I mean, the sun is a big raging ball of fire. I get that. Stars full of gases and things….boiling water…gas stoves…internal combustion engines…. but microwaves?

 It leads me to think about the military ray gun that is used to make people feel like they’re on fire. When I first read about it I thought to myself “That’s interesting. A nice non-lethal deterrent” and then went about my day.  But this is the stuff of science fiction!! And I didn’t even care….but the microwave still stumps me. They say it cooks from the inside out, but the outside is always hotter than the inside…what’s the deal with that?

How is my plate not hot, but the food on it is hot? Don’t even get me started on microwave popcorn. I could be stupefied all day

At any rate, you may all understand microwaves and think I’m being silly, but is there something else (calculator watch, atomic clock, dlp million mirror monitors) that amazes you?

Black Snake Moan

Written and directed by Craig Brewer. Released by Paramount Vantage.

Last week, Jackrabbit Slim pointed out this review of Black Snake Moan, in which Lakshmi Chaudry takes the film to task for its rampant misogyny and “unmistakable lack of compassion” towards women. It’s a tough review to argue with; after all, this is a film where a woman’s sexuality manifests itself literally as a sickness. And it’s also a film that high-fives a male character for losing his virginity to said woman.

So, yeah, it’s a highly questionable movie from a socio-political standpoint, and that’s even without bringing race into the equation. Truth be told, though, I feel like I would be indulging the movie by reviewing it in those terms. Because in the end, it’s just not a very interesting film.

It’s hard to see what else writer and director Craig Brewer had in mind here, except for (obviously) contriving to have a black man chain a white woman to a radiator. After accomplishing this goal, though, the movie stops dead in its tracks. The remaining hour-plus of runtime is filled with almost literally nothing, Brewer interrupting the nothingness only for a blues interlude by Jackson and a confrontation between Lazarus and Rae’s boyfriend Ronnie (Justin Timberlake) that seems like it’s from a different movie . When Lazarus finally unchains Rae, it’s done without any cause or effect; he simply sets her free and the movie continues on without any change in the behavior of either character. Somehow, Brewer has made a movie about a man chaining a woman to a radiator without that act actually mattering.

Anyone can be provocative, if that’s all they have in mind, but without any depth behind the imagery or thought about the symbolism in it, you end up with a very superficial piece of art. In this case, you can save yourself two hours and simply look at the movie’s poster without missing a thing. I suppose that’s the movie equivalent of judging a book by its cover, but when the book is nothing but a cover, what else can you do?