Steven M. Finkelstein

Well, regretfully, I have to say this was the worst Tim Burton movie I’ve ever seen. To begin with, instead of just relying on source material from the two books, Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Burton decided to go with a linear narrative. Now, it’s very rare that you’re going to hear me encouraging deviating from a linear narrative, as you take a good deal of risk when you do, but this is one of the rare occasions that I would actually endorse it. Part of the magic of the two books is that there isn’t really any cohesive plot to speak of. There’s a feeling of unreality; Alice is having adventures in a kind of dream world, so the only needed transitions are her running from encounter to encounter with the different animals and creatures. It worked in the books, and it would have worked here, but strangely, Burton decided to just take the characters and write his own story with them, combined with some back story and mythology that is only hinted at. The results are disastrous.

For a guy like Burton, who I’d commend as being one of the most creative directors I’ve ever encountered, Alice is surprisingly derivative. There were aspects that reminded me of several other films, among them the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Narnia movies (and books), along with some stripes of Neverending Story. The battle scene between Alice and the Jabberwock at the end reminded me very much of the claymation characters from Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, one of the worst movies ever made, right up there with the live action Bewitched and Gigli. Awful. But the movie that Alice most resembles for me is actually one that might possibly be considered the biggest misstep for another great director, Stephen Spielberg. I’m referring to Hook. The similarities are many. Alice, like Peter, returns to a land of enchantment she’d known as a child, but as an adult. She finds that in her absence there have been unpleasant changes happening, and only by embracing the childlike quality that had allowed her to visit the “imaginary” locale in the first place-  Wonderland, or Neverland respectively- can she set things right again. Hook would have been redeemable had Spielberg just stuck to the book and not tried to rewrite a classic. Burton is guilty of the same crime.

There’s the additional problem of all of the characters seemingly going for different tones. Some of them seem to be there for comedic effect, some to ramp up the action, some are going for melodrama. It’s like Burton just told everyone to let their freak flag fly and do what they feel. The result is that there’s a real incongruence. If it was going to be straightforward action, then they should have stuck to that, the same for comedy. Since Burton couldn’t seem to make up his mind, we as an audience can’t either, and that’s never good. Then there are so many other, smaller things to potentially nitpick. Johnny Depp, as the Mad Hatter, is inexplicably Scottish; he goes into battle at the end of the movie in a kilt, yielding a claymore. Huh?! During the movie he laments that since darkness has fallen over Wonderland, (which the natives refer to as Underland, also inexplicably), there is a certain dance he no longer does. When the White Queen and her disciples win the battle at the end, he breaks into the dance, which looks like a juiced-up version of the Electric Slide. I read in a newspaper where the reviewer compared it to the Ewoks dancing at the end of Return of the Jedi, and I concur. It’s the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever seen Johnny Depp do on the big screen, again, simply awful. The Jabberwock talks, speaking not to Alice, but to the Vorpal Sword, with whom it apparently has some sort of shared history; since Burton just pulled this particular piece of clap-trap out of his ass and there’s no mention of it in the books, this is merely confusing. The same goes for an invented character, a bloodhound who is being forced to track Alice against his will because the Red Queen is holding his mate and puppies captive. Hey, Wonderland is pretty great, but you know what it needs? A C.G.I. bloodhound! Think how much that will add to the movie!

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The best I can say for this super-expensive disaster is that there are some pretty colors from time to time, but they don’t come close to saving this lifeless outing. I saw this movie in 2D, rather than pay the extra four dollars a ticket, and now I’m glad that I did. 2D, 3D, or 5D, nothing was going to save this movie; it was dead on arrival. I’ll just say this in closing. I don’t know how many of the choices I’ve been talking about, the decision to deviate from the source material, the addition of new characters, the baffling creation of a new mythology that is then inadequately explained, the making of the movie into a Lord of the Rings style quest that pits all the characters against each other on opposite sides of a central conflict, etc…I don’t know how many of those choices were Burton’s, or how many were the Disney execs telling him what to do to try to make it more appealing to the masses. For Burton’s sake, I really hope he was being leaned on heavily, because if  he had creative control and he did something like this, I’ve lost a lot of respect for the man. Everybody misfires every once in a while, creatively, and even a guy like Burton is allowed to do it. But if he was going to choose one time for a major misfire, he might have done so with another project besides one based on two of the most beloved children’s books of all time. On paper, it seemed like Alice was the movie that Burton was born to direct. I don’t know. Maybe the pressure got to him. My rating: 3/10.

Okay, now before you even ask the question why I would pay money to see something like this, let me just tell you: Meg and I got a pair of free passes to the premier when she was selling her soaps at a comic convention this past Saturday. That’s the only reason I would ever be caught watching something like this in theaters. That being said, I’ll see just about any movie for free, though I was going into this one with incredibly low expectations. After all, the title is “Hot Tub Time Machine.” That’s basically all you need to know about the experience you’re going to have. Maybe it’s because my expectations were so low, or maybe it was because I was a little sleep deprived and everything was way funnier than it should have been, but honestly, it wasn’t that bad. Successful comedy is mainly about content, pacing, and delivery, and all three were working pretty well here. It was a bit of slapstick, some drug humor, and a healthy mix of gross out; the premise, essentially, is that three loser middle-aged friends (John Cusack, Rob Corddry, and Craig Robinson) go back to a ski resort where they spent some of their happiest times in the mid 80’s, along with Cusack’s 20 year old nephew, Jacob (Clark Duke). The resort is run-down now, but their room does come equipped with a hot tub that turns out to be, you guessed it, a time machine. They’re blasted back to 1986, and then there’s general time travel fueled humor, with Crispin Glover and Chevy Chase coming along for the ride. What makes it all click is that there isn’t a whole lot of effort to explain why the hot tub is magic; it just is, and the frantic foursome decides that probably the best way to deal with it is to do every drug in sight, hook up with promiscuous 80’s sluts, and babble incoherently about the butterfly effect (both the well known principle of time-travel and the Ashton Kutcher movie). The three friends are trying to do the identical things they did the last time they were here, so they don’t mess up the future, while the nephew is just trying not to mess anything up so that he isn’t born.

The whole thing feels a bit like the South Park episode where the boys go to the ski resort and the whole thing is a parody of an 80’s movie, except in live action with the R rating. The pacing is good…seldom do things lag, it just goes tearing from joke to joke to joke, so that even if one of them falls flat every once in a while, there’s another one to pick it up a few seconds later. There are a few serious moments that gravitate around the ideas of destiny, whether things are predetermined, etc, etc, but luckily, they’re few and far between. The timing of the delivery for all of the principles is spot-on, for Cusack, certainly, who goes gleefully back to his comic roots, for Corddry, who’s been surprising me with a fairly successful post-Daily Show movie career, and also with Craig Robinson, an underrated comedian probably best known previously for his role as an enforcer in the movie Pineapple Express. The best scenes, unsurprisingly, are with Chevy Chase as the cryptic hot tub repair man; we have just as little explanation for why he’s there as for why the tub is a time machine in the first place.

At the end of an hour and forty minutes, this movie provided more laughs than any I’ve seen in quite some time, the equal of last years’ The Hangover, and not quite as good as Superbad from a couple of years back. I don’t do the comedy genre too much, at least not in theaters. It takes good reviews across the board for me to even consider it, and were it not for the fact that the tickets were free, like I said, I wouldn’t have bothered. But it’s nice to be pleasantly surprised, as I was in this case. It was good to be reminded that sometimes you need to just turn off your brain and have a good laugh at a squirrel being puked on. My rating: 6/10.

A few days ago, Tiger Woods issued a public apology for his “repeated transgressions,” namely the many, many times that he cheated on his wife, Elin. Woods read a prepared statement, took no questions, and allowed only those he personally selected to be there. Some people say that was arrogant of him, and perhaps it was. But I think the people who classify it as such are deliberately ignoring what is obviously a fundamental aspect of Woods’ personality, and part of what has made him the greatest golf phenom the world has ever seen. Woods has been described as a control freak, and I think, having watched him, both on the course and in his private life (what I’ve been able to see of it) in the past decade, I completely agree with that assessment. Woods is a person who thrives on control. He is completely in control of himself on the golf course, only rarely showing the slightest of emotions…perhaps a barely perceptible grimace and shake of his head when he misses a putt. Even his trademark fist pump when he sinks a long birdie seems contrived. That’s what allows him to be so dominant:  he appears to have such an ironclad grip on what he is and what he’s doing at all times. He is the consummate athlete, always the professional, appearing almost robotic at times. I think at some point Woods felt like “hey, it goes over so well on the golf course, why not have it translate  to all other aspects of my life?” And it worked, up until the fateful car wreck that has thrust his private life into the public eye, really for the first time since this once-in-a-lifetime athlete burst onto the scene.

Now, Woods has no choice but to reveal more of himself than he ever has before, if he wants to salvage not only endorsement deals, but his professional career. Oh, and his marriage. Let’s not forget that. And if he seemed like a cold and emotionless robot while delivering his written statement, what we must remember is how difficult this is for him. He has never talked about anything remotely like this before, and it is unfortunate that the speech that allows the most insight into his life is also concerning what is most probably his biggest failing. He talked about letting people down: his fans, his wife, the sponsors, and it’s true, he did all of those things. But I just don’t feel that I can judge him as harshly as some reporters have. Yes, his actions were reprehensible, but I think the reasons that he gave for doing what he did were very valid. He did indeed think that he was above what is normally thought of as right and wrong, that the rules didn’t apply to him. And how did he start thinking that way, that he was a god among men? Well, it was because of us. It was because of the fans, it was because of the sponsors, it was because he had been so successful at creating this mythos around himself, this idea of Tiger as being just a bit more than human. We were the ones who propped him up; we were the ones who put him on that pedestal. Yes, the failings were his, and I don’t condone them, but I understand them. 

And then there’s a couple of other key issues. Everyone is saying that Elin is this poor damsel now, mistreated by her husband, the serial philanderer…yes, she is. But she’s also a gold digger who married Woods for his money every bit as much as for himself, and if you doubt that, consider the rumors that she’s only going to be willing to stay with him if he forks over a few hundred million dollars. They’ll stick together; the two of them will sit down and sign a contract just like Woods putting his “x” on the dotted line for Nike or Gillette. She’s not “staying with him for the kids.” That’s bullshit, and everybody knows it. Then there’s the issue of the reporters, who are bitching and moaning because Woods didn’t take their questions. The only things that they were going to be asking (other than when he’d be returning to golf), is the exact and the most sordid details of the extramarital affairs! Reporters are, at their core, gossip mongers, no matter how much they try to paint themselves with the brush of integrity. Think of all the details that came out during the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal. For the love of God, I didn’t need to hear about that shit, and guess what? I don’t need to hear what happened between Woods and some waitress at the IHOP either! I can pretty well guess, not that I want to.

All in all, this has been a sordid business, and neither Woods nor Elin have come out looking like remotely decent people. But the bottom line for me is this. I don’t really care what Woods is doing in the bedroom, I care what he’s doing on the gold course. Golf is such a boring sport anyway, if Woods isn’t playing I’m not going to be watching, like another third of the potential audience. And if he was arrogant with his apology, I don’t think we should be surprised, and I don’t think he should be crucified for it. The fact is, he’s arrogant and aloof because he tried on that persona at a very young age, found that it fit, and, looking around, he saw that no one had a problem with it! Far from it; he was revered, admired, celebrated! Woods is just being Woods. He’s being true to his nature. The only thing he needs to do to balance the books is go back to doing what he does best: winning tournaments, promoting shaving cream, and being a smug, smarmy, self-assured asshole. And, apparently, banging cocktail waitresses.

Well, when I’ve got it in my head to see a movie, I rarely let the reviews dissuade me. After all, I don’t see eye to eye with all reviewers all the time…actually, I probably disagree with them more times than not. This particular time, though, the reviews were bad…and they were right. Wolfman isn’t unwatchable, but it’s not great. It’s predictable, for one thing. You know what you’re getting: a Victorian era piece with everyone trying to speak in English accents, some of them more successfully than others. Basically, what you’re in for with Wolfman is a bit of every monster movie cliche of the past twenty years. Think Wolf, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (which also featured Anthony Hopkins), Sleepy Hollow, and even a bit of King Kong, and you’re on the right track. Benicio Del Toro returns to Blackwood, England around the turn of the nineteenth century, when his brother turns up eviscerated. The townspeople blame the gypsies, the gypsies blame a demonic, possibly mythical monster. Hopkins, as Del Toro’s father, seems to know more than he’s letting on. We get some flashbacks to Del Toro’s childhood, much like with Johnny Depp’s character in Sleepy Hollow, and before long he is bitten by the werewolf, at which point the rest of the plot progresses much like the Jack Nicholson movie, Wolf, with about the same quality of special effects. It’s all woods, mores, and mist; if these sorts of movies are to be believed, England is always just swimming in mist, all night, every night. Hugo Weaving (Elrond in the Lord of the Rings, Mr. Smith in the Matrix trilogy), shows up as Inspector Abeline, from Scotland yard, strange, since he died at the end of the Hughes brothers’ film From Hell, but whatever, throw him in the mix too, why not. We know what’s coming, the revelation of an “evil” werewolf vs Del Toro’s conflicted version, the showdown between the two mangy mutts, and the all too familiar question of whether he can be saved, particularly with the help of his dead brother’s fiance. Spoiler alert: he can’t be, and it’s just as well, because even a gifted actor like Del Toro can’t save this one-dimensional character, or this one-dimensional movie, for that matter. His death scene is simply laughable, where they were looking for dramatic.

This movie is another example of talented actors (Hopkins and Del Toro are both former Oscars winners), signing onto a movie more for the paycheck than the script. They do their best, with Del Toro snarling and frothing and Hopkins hamming it up as he can be relied on to do, but we’ve seen too many elements of this film before; like the last film I reviewed, Avatar, this seems cobbled together from plot points featured in other movies of the genre, and there isn’t anything original or unexpected to raise the overall quality. At least with Avatar I was able to enjoy the color and movement of the lush alien world, Pandora. Here we just get soggy, boggy England and ash gray skies, with some mangy dogs running around that vaguely resemble respectable actors. My rating: 4/10.

Pop quiz: what do you get when you cross Pocahontas, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Ferngully: The Last Rainforest, The Matrix, and Dances with Wolves? The answer is Avatar, the James Cameron runaway smash hit that’s made 650 million dollars gross, domestically, and counting. It’s even knocked off the record set by Cameron himself twelve years ago with Titanic. I wasn’t planning on seeing Avatar originally, but when movies set records like that, and become, more or less, cultural phenomenons, I feel the need to see what all the fuss is about. I’m obsessed with media, if no one has been able to tell from my blog yet. But I was feeling a little sceptical going into the experience, just because there were some people…a lot of people…who were talking about this movie like it was the best thing they’d ever seen, that it had redefined their lives, that it had changed the way they thought of movies, and their perception of the world. Roger Ebert said he felt about it the same way that he did the first time he saw Star Wars. That’s high praise.

And undeserved. Here’s the thing about Avatar. It’s gorgeous, visually, I’ll admit that. Stunning, really, at certain points, particularly in 3D. You’re really there, on Pandora, the lush, beatific planet where humans have traveled, 140 years in the future, mainly to rape this wonderland of its natural resources, particularly rocks that act as a good fuel source, or something. The lanky blue-skinned aliens of Pandora live at one with the plants and animals, and that makes them savages that must be eliminated for the good and the greed of humanity. And that’s where the plot becomes so jaw clenchingly predictable that I wanted to give James Cameron a lobotomy through the ocular nerve with a dull pencil. The movie is two hours and forty minutes long, and from about the thirty minute mark, I was able to predict each and every thing that was going to happen for the next two hours plus, while all the while I was hoping against hope that something other than what I knew was going to happen was going to happen. It didn’t. James Cameron absolutely refused to show any creative integrity, and I guess he just hoped no one would notice, or if they did, that they wouldn’t care because of the pretty colors. Sadly, he was right. The box office numbers prove it.

To make things as short and to the point as possible, the military is trying to infiltrate the creatures’ society, so they create avatars that look like the aliens but are under the control of humans that stay behind at the military compound in a sort of fugue state…kind of like the Matrix. Sam Worthington, an up-and-comer who was in Terminator: Salvation and will appear next in Clash of the Titans, is a crippled marine who is hand picked by the stock military-guy villain to get in good with the aliens and learn their ways. He agrees, then he and the princess fall in love, even while I was begging the whole time for it not to happen. Worthington goes native…kind of like Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves. Or John Smith in Pocahontas, take your pick. Then the inevitable happens, as the military comes in to destroy the forests to get at the precious resources, and they must be taught a lesson about how naughty it is to mess with an ecosystem for their own selfish gain…kind of like Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. And the humans are defeated, of course, and Worthington, who has found a way to transfer himself from his crippled human body to his avatar one permanently, lives happily ever after with his blue alien chick.

All the while this was happening, as I said, I was looking for some kind of unexpected plot twist, something, anything. I really, really wanted the military to just obliterate the aliens, not because the humans were any more sympathetic, but because at least then something would have happened that I genuinely wasn’t expecting, and Cameron would have won my respect. But I knew it wasn’t going to happen. As far as Cameron goes, whatever credibility he ever had with me is gone, and I don’t care how well the movie does, or how much money it makes. There was not a shred of originality here. Each and every element of the plot was borrowed from elsewhere; there was just a fresh coat of paint slapped on it so it could be repackaged. I’m still giving this travesty a decent rating, because, like everybody else, I was watching the landscape, the animals, and the colors fly by with my jaw on the floor. But make no mistake, a movie can’t rise above mediocrity with sub-par dialogue and a story that was constructed from some of the other most successful movies of the past twenty years, no matter how pretty it is. James Cameron must think movie goers have shorter memories than goldfish, or maybe that we just won’t care about the plot when we’re gorging on eye candy. But when a movie would have been a whole lot better with the sound off, something is seriously wrong. This movie has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture of the Year, and I just pray that the Academy has more balls than Cameron, and doesn’t bow down to the Gods of special effects. I guess it’s still worth seeing, but, the same as a vacuous runway model, this one is only attractive till it opens its mouth.  My rating: 6/10.

I had mixed feeling about writing this particular blog, but I felt obligated to, so here goes. As some of you may be aware, my girlfriend Megan and I are now officially engaged, and we plan on being married shortly. This may come as a surprise, seeing as I’ve been vocal here on the site before about how opposed I am to the institution of marriage. Before I’m written off as a hypocrite, then, I hope everyone will at least take the time to read this post. First of all, not to sound like I’m backtracking, but I’d like the distinction to be made that I’m not and have never been opposed to all marriages, all the time. That’s not the case. I have said in the past, and I still maintain, that there are about a million bad reasons for getting married, and about half a dozen good or valid ones. Among the invalid or foolish reasons I would include the following: because society dictates that’s what’s supposed to happen, because the woman has become pregnant and one or both parents doesn’t want the child born out of wedlock, because either the bride or the groom think it’s going to solve problems with the relationship, because of pressure from friends or relatives, or because either the bride, the groom, or both just don’t have anything better to do with themselves some weekend. I could go on and on…and on. But it won’t take me long to list what I would consider to be the right reasons. They are: first and foremost, if the two people are committed to each other and love each other, AND they both feel that marriage is the ultimate form of trust, commitment, and expression of that love. I might not necessarily agree with the sentiment, as it is my belief that if all the feelings are there, the marriage itself is then rendered unnecessary, but be that as it may, the point I’m trying to make is that if the two people are marrying for each other, which is to say, not because society, friends, or family are pressuring them to, I’m a lot more willing to accept it. After all, a marriage is supposed to be between the two people who are being wed, and not about some nagging mother, or grandmother, or whoever else it might be, forcing some poor son, or daughter, or whoever, into it. Marriage should be the decision of the two people who are marrying. Period. End of story.

One of the other biggest reasons is for healthcare, and guess what? That’s why we’re doing it. I recently got a slightly better job, as I mentioned here on the blog, and in addition to another couple of bucks an hour, there’s healthcare and dental offered. That’s nice; it’s been a while since I had either, and I could sure use a checkup and a tooth cleaning. But it’s been even longer since Megan has had those things, and she deserves them. Obama’s sweeping reforms won’t be happening any time soon, I’m fairly certain, and, like so many others in the country, Megan was finding it hard to come up with the money to get healthcare on her own. Private companies are absurdly expensive, even for the most basic of plans; that’s just the unfortunate reality of the situation. But my job offered a plan that would cover myself and a dependent, and that could include Meg…but only if she were my spouse, and not my domestic partner. So we were faced with a choice. If Meg was to be able to get healthcare through my job, as I was, we would have to be married. I can’t pretend to be happy that’s the way this country, and this society, operates. I just finished saying how marriage should be free of outside pressures and influences from anyone, and that goes double for the federal government. But we live in a society where marriage is encouraged, where it’s regarded as the ideal, and things like this are a prime example of how that’s reinforced. Is it not enough that Meg and I were living together, monogamous, loving each other, and committed to each other? It was for us, but not for this insurance company. A spouse gets healthcare, but not a boyfriend or girlfriend.  

So we’re going through with it. I was reluctant at first, but to be honest, I’m a bit excited now. Do I feel like I compromised my principles? Yeah, maybe, a little bit. But I’m not naive enough (or maybe motivated enough) to try to change the system. That takes generations, and many people and voices working together, if society was to try and get marriage abolished…and not many people feel anywhere near as strongly opposed to it as I do. I guess maybe I’m just a lazy person, or maybe there’s just certain convictions I’m willing to stand up for more strongly than others. You have to pick your battles, and this just didn’t seem to be one that I could win. And I want Meg to have healthcare. I do. I love her, and I’m happy to do this for her. And then there is, of course, all the romantic crap that goes along with it too…till death do you part, you’re the only one for me, etc, etc. I hope her family and mine forgive us, because we’re not doing it in a church, or a synagogue. The event will have no religious significance, and there will be no one in attendance but us and the impartial witness we’re required to have. A judge will do it. There will be no pomp, no ceremony, and when it’s done, we’ll be man and wife, and there will be healthcare for all. I like to think that when it came to the most important things in my life, I did them my own way, on my own terms, and my marriage will be among them. All of that being said, even if we are doing it for pragmatic reasons, I’m honored to be Meg’s husband, and I will try to be the best partner to her that I can, which is not to say I haven’t been doing that anyway. I’m losing a bet with my sister that we made more than twenty years ago: we bet twenty bucks that I’d be married by the time I was thirty. I said I wouldn’t be, she said I would. I’m still about eighteen months away from thirty; so close, and yet so far. But you have to compromise about some things, sometimes. It’s all about priorities. It’s all about what, and who, is most important.

So, I recently quit one job and started another. The new job, I judge, just from the few days I’ve had of it, seems to be marginally better than the old one. It pays slightly better, and there are benefits available, which make a huge difference, since Obama and his various supporters and opposition can’t seem to get their act together. But the new job isn’t really any more interesting than the old one; it’s security again, and unfortunately, that’s a profession that involves a lot of standing or sitting around, not really doing much of anything. Granted, I understand the need for security, and I’m not downplaying the importance of the field. I’m also not saying that these are the worst jobs I ever had; as I’ve mentioned here on the site before, I toiled in food service for several years, not able to find anything else till a few months ago. But just because we’re talking about something that’s slightly less unbearable doesn’t mean that I feel any better or more enthusiastic about going in for work five days a week, getting up at six in the morning, no less, to do something that is boring the living hell out of me. It frustrates me that all I want to do is work on my writing and be left alone, and the fact that I have to continue working these menial jobs I hate makes me absolutely loath the world sometimes. Maybe it makes me sound like a spoiled brat, but I don’t even care. I know the world doesn’t owe me a living. I know that there are people all over the world who would kill for the privileges that I enjoy. It’s all a sliding scale. There are people who are freezing and starving; by the same token, there are people who are billionaires and live in luxury, in the most opulent of surroundings. I’m in the middle somewhere, just doing my best to get along.

I’ve talked on the site recently about how some people are preoccupied these days with whether at some point the world is going to end, or be dramatically altered, by earthquakes, by tidal waves, by a giant comet colliding with the Earth. When I think about that, about the world being thrown back into the Stone Age, no electricity, return to the wild, let might make right, why is it that it’s so appealing to me? I think the reason is that I’d like to see us all return to our roots, when no one stood above anyone else due to accumulation of wealth and influence. I’d like us all to return to year zero. We’d live shorter, more brutal lives, but at least then we’d all remember what’s important! It’s in a city like New York where the poor and homeless live alongside and among the insanely wealthy, that I think about these things most, especially when I go to work at a Park Avenue sight where the people I’m “guarding” are making more  in five minutes than I make in a month. I’m so jealous of them for their wealth, and yet I think what they’re doing is as much of a joke, if not more so, than I; they’re in suits and ties, each one trying to look more snooty and well off than the last. We’re all jokes, everyone in the building, and everyone is taking themselves so seriously. Well, I’m not. I understand the basic futility and uselessness of what it is we’re doing, every one of us, essentially wasting the precious time of our lives, having the sand in the hourglass tick out while we dance like simple-minded marionettes. If bombs started going off, if we were hit with an earthquake, if that tsunami rose from the Atlantic and drowned the Gomorrah that is Manhattan island, I would have no problem with it; I’d rejoice. If I happened to be one of the casualties, at least I wouldn’t be bored anymore. And if I was lucky enough to be spared, and everyone was reduced to their base instincts again, seeking shelter, food, warmth, I would gleefully pick up something to use as a cudgel, and get down to the real business of living, the business that all of us “civilized” people have forgotten. We think we’ve evolved, but we’ve really done the opposite. Just because we’ve put on custom-fitted suits, it doesn’t mean we’re enlightened. We’re just deluding ourselves. Well, my eyes are open, and even if I have no choice but to keep on as I’ve been, that doesn’t mean dissension isn’t always in my heart. Ask yourself, if you’re one of the many who spend your days doing something you rather wouldn’t, what would you do if some day your shackles were suddenly broken? Think about it. Because if it turns out that any one of the Apocalypses scripted by those supposedly in the know come to pass, and you are a survivor, then you’ll very quickly have to come up with a new job…and I  think you’ll find it was the one you should have been working at all along.

If you live on the East Coast, or other parts of the country where the changes in the season mean big swings in temperature and noticeable changes in the weather, by November you have to be mentally ready for what you’re going to be seeing and experiencing for a period of about four months, give or take. Snow, rain, sleet, hail, gray skies, no growing green things, and less daylight are all to be expected. It can get to you, sometimes, when you know that spring is still several weeks away, and going out for a walk in shorts and a tee-shirt won’t be a possibility for a while. Were it possible to just stay in the house and only venture out occasionally for groceries, that’s just what I’d do. Of course, I’d still be serenaded by the same crappy rap music shaking the walls from the guy in the apartment behind me, and the Italian couple next door screaming at each other, along with the higher pitched yelling of their child, who is in the process of learning that healthy communication should take place at the maximum possible volume. Sigh.

Still, though, there’s quite a lot to put me in a more cheerful mindset this winter. Even if, a year previously, I was enjoying higher temperatures in South Carolina, I was still dealing with a God-awful, going nowhere job, a general climate of ignorance, and the knowledge that I would have to orchestrate a move to another state in the next few months, yet again. This year, none of those things are true. I’m about to start a higher paying job than my previous one, a job that actually offers health and dental care (novel concept). I’m in New York, where I tend to get along better with the citizenry, my immediate neighbors being exceptions. But most importantly, I’m operating under the knowledge that in a few months, in midsummer, I won’t have to move again. Knowing that in all probability, Meg and I will renew the lease here, is very exciting to me. I’ve even gone so far as to do some minor home improvement jobs around the house, something I can’t ever recall doing before…normally, I wouldn’t bother doing any serious alterations, if I knew I was just going to be moving on again when the lease was up.

Knowing that I’m going to remain in this city, in the same place, makes it so much easier to get through the winter doldrums. I know the warm days are going to come again, with their leisure, and the many cultural opportunities, and opportunities for mischief, that this city affords. I’m even excited by the prospect of living in a single neighborhood for more than a year at a time; Boro Park has its charms. Even if the looks I get from the Koreans and the orthodox Jews are equally disapproving, it doesn’t bother me. They can’t get rid of me. I’m paying rent, and we’re stuck with each other. So the remaining days of cold don’t bother me. When I feel momentarily bleak, I just remind myself that it’s temporary, and more than worth it to be here.

It’s strange that I should be bored by a movie with a word like “Imaginarium” in the title, but I have to say, that’s where I was finding myself by the second hour of this film: firmly entrenched in the land of boredom. By then, the movie was so irreparably muddled that all I was hoping for was it to end as quickly as possible. The first half hour or so was very strong. The plot…while there was one…went something like this. Christopher Plummer, as Dr. Parnassus, has made a deal with the devil, Tom Waits, for immortality. In exchange, when his daughter turns sixteen, the devil will take possession of her and her soul. Having lived for many centuries, Parnassus, a hapless drunk, makes his living as a sort of traveling peddler, who, along with a teenage front-man who has eyes for his shapely young daughter, and Verne Troyer (because every circus act needs a midget), trundle about in a colorful, over-sized cart, stopping to give shows, during which people are whisked away into the “imaginarium” a sort of fantasy world created partially through their own imaginings and partially through Parnassus’ conjuring. Things become complicated when their family life is disturbed by a new addition, Tony (Heath Ledger, in his final role). The daughter falls for Ledger, whose reason for being there is unclear, and, unfortunately, remains so throughout the film. After a certain point, it all just falls apart. I wish I could explain it more clearly than that, but I simply can’t. Seldom have I encountered a more tangled hour and a half than that which followed the first thirty minutes. There is a struggle between Parnassus and the devil, during which each one is trying to capture five souls; if the devil does so, he retains possession of the daughter, if Parnassus wins, the daughter goes free. Along the way, we learn more about Tony, but also less. There are people after him because he embezzled money from a children’s charity of his own creation, or at least I think that’s what’s happening. I couldn’t swear to it, or to much of anything else in this movie.

This is a film by Terry Gilliam, and he’s hit and miss. He’s had some really big hits (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys), and some spectacular misses (The Brothers Grimm, which was completely unwatchable). Although there were some really fun visual moments in this film, colorful, eye-popping, etc, there’s also a whole lot that makes no sense, both in terms of plot and in every other conceivable way. This seems like a rough draft of a film rather than a finished product, emphasis on rough. Probably half an hour to forty-five minutes of this film could be saved; the rest belongs on the cutting room floor. It seems like, when Gilliam has a project in mind, he has about a million ideas, and this time, rather than choosing between them, he tried fitting in all of them. The result is a muddle of epic proportions. There are high points, certainly. Heath Ledger does a fine job, for all the scenes that were shot with him before his death (three other actors fill in for him, Johnny Depp, delivering a lot, as usual, Jude Law, delivering a little, and Colin Ferral, making me want to lobotomize myself with a spoon). It’s yet another reminder of how talented Ledger was, and how much of a loss his death really is. Christopher Plummer is enjoyable as Parnassus, and likewise Tom Waits, who is essentially playing himself. Still, this movie has far too many shortcomings to counteract the bright spots. The tone suffers from so much incongruity that there are several moments, looking around the theater, when I could see that the audience didn’t know how to react to what they were seeing. Whenever you have people looking at each other and being sort of perplexed, along with a few scattered, none-too-sure-of-themselves chuckles, you know you’re failing as a director, and the fault here is all Gilliam’s. This belongs in the same category as The Brothers Grimm: a failure on a number of levels. In a way, it’s almost like Ledger’s career, which experienced legitimate hits, like The Dark Knight and Brokeback Mountain, and seriously bad misses, like a Knight’s Tale. I guess you can’t win ‘em all, but at least Terry Gilliam will have a chance to make another movie. Ledger, tragically, will not. My rating: 4/10.

Well, the holiday season is the second biggest time for movie openings, right after midsummer blockbuster season. All the Oscar bait on display, and also some big-budget eye candy, which is what Guy Ritchie was going for with his loud, flashy Sherlock Holmes, an attempt at rewriting the public perception of the world’s most famous literary detective. Robert Downey Jr. has come a long way, in the past few years, to erasing opinion of him as a talented actor who can’t leave the drugs and partying alone. Now in his early forties, it seems like Downey has his priorities straight, acting being foremost among them, and the movie going public is rewarded because of it. Downey truly is a leading man, with charm, screen presence, and versatility. He can do drama, he can do comedy, and there is no longer any doubt he can do action, as he mixes it up here with former WWE wrestler Kergan and duels with Roderick Strong, here a somewhat forgettable villain in Lord Blackwood. Much of what happens in this first installment is setup for later films, which there almost certainly will be, as ”Sherlock” is doing a brisk business. We get glimpses of a shadowy Professor Moriarty, Holmes’ arch nemesis, who rumor has it will be played by Brad Pitt in part 2. Jude Law rounds out the cast as Watson, not really adding much.

There’s quite a bit in Sherlock Holmes that works. The green-screen created London is a fun place for the characters to mug with each other and strike poses, and there are some really enjoyable action set pieces and sequences. There’s plenty of room for improvement, though. The biggest problem I had was that it’s, well, a Guy Ritchie movie, and that means that things move at a furious pace from the very beginning. Ritchie has everybody running around at about a hundred and ten percent, behind which a very loud, ear-smashing soundtrack is pumping. I’d like things to be taken down just a couple of notches. A great part of the problem for me was pacing. The rest of it came from the fact that I couldn’t really understand what everybody was saying all the time, Downey in particular. Part of it might have been that he’s looking for an English accent that he never quite gets a handle on, and part of it might have been that there are times when he’s delivering expository speeches where he’s speaking too quickly for us to grasp every nuance. If Ritchie had just told everyone to slow down, take a deep breath, and lower their heart rate, and ours, before starting every scene, I think the movie would have been helped immeasurably for it. Also, I didn’t so much care for the supposedly witty banter between Holmes and Watson. In the written stories, it was always point and counterpoint between the two, yin and yang. Here, it’s more like yang and yang. Law, as Watson, seems to be just a watered-down version of Holmes himself, possessing some of his abilities as a detective, but just being one or two paces behind him in terms of deductive prowess. I wanted to see more of a difference between them, though they are at least at odds over Holmes’ slovenly habits…that part they got right.

All in all, there’s more here to like than not to. Everything is wrapped up in a satisfactory manner, with a speech by Holmes in the closing minutes neatly tying up any loose ends that had been bothering me. There were no gaping holes left in the plot, and I find that I do want to see the next installment, so this one did its job. It also convincingly landed Downy at the helm of a second action franchise after Iron Man, part 2 of which is due out this coming summer. With an Iron Man film and a Sherlock Holmes film out every other year, he’s suddenly a box office god rivaled by few. What I would advise Ritchie to do the next time out is to have everybody brush up on their English accents, slow things down a couple of clicks, and focus a bit more on actual character development and well, um, detection. That is, after all, what Holmes is all about, not bare knuckle boxing, and that’s what I’d like to see a bit more of. I know we’re trying to appeal to kids growing up in an age where they’d rather see Holmes pull out an M-16 and start mowing people down, but let’s try to preserve the integrity of the source material a little bit. Holmes is one of the most complex literary figures from history. I’d like to see more of that complexity and less running around and things exploding in part 2. But it’s Hollywood, and it’s Guy Ritchie with the biggest budget available to him he’s ever had, so there’s probably not much chance of that. My rating: 6/10.