All posts by

Richard Corliss and Why the Blockbusters Were the Best Films This Year

by Glenn Vance on January 22, 2009 in Movies with 1 Comment
ironman

In last week’s issue of Time mag­a­zine their film critic Richard Corliss wrote a rather lengthy arti­cle on why he thought that all of the best movies this year were block­busters. Some of his favorites from the past year were Iron Man, Speed Racer, WALL-E and The Dark Knight, and while I agree with two of his choices, Speed Racer didn’t appeal to me (so I didn’t see it) and, hate me if you will, and if you loved it you prob­a­bly will, but I didn’t care about see­ing WALL-E. At all. I’m a big fan of the Pixar pic­tures, but WALL-E just didn’t inter­est me.

But I have to agree with Corliss on his sec­ondary point; being the end of the year this is the time for awards-caliber films, and this year is look­ing pretty lame. Early on I was inter­ested in see­ing Gran Torino but then my inter­est fiz­zled out for no per­cep­ti­ble rea­son even though I love Clint East­wood. The Reader sounds so bor­ing and Slum­dog Mil­lion­aire deals with under-aged pros­ti­tu­tion so they’re out in my book.

But Corliss doesn’t bring up the biggest glar­ing omis­sion that he made about the two films that we do agree on. The Dark Knight was directed by Christo­pher Nolan who did the fan­tas­tic Memento1 sev­eral years back and John Favreau directed Iron Man. Favreau started out in indie films (Swingers, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Cir­cle) and then moved on to direct­ing (Will Ferrell’s sec­ond most under­rated per­for­mance — Elf2 ) Indie direc­tors tend to focus more on story and plot than, say, Michael Bay or that dufus McG3 because their bud­gets are usu­ally in the high hundred-thousands or the low mil­lions. What’s been great about Nolan’s and Favreau’s careers is that they so far have kept the indie ethic of sto­ry­telling first and just tack­ing on the spe­cial effects to aide the visuals.

I doubt Iron Man or The Dark Knight will get nom­i­nated for the big awards, other than Heath Ledger, but the were enjoy­able and inter­est­ing films that deserved the crit­i­cal acco­lades, and the piles of money, that they earned.

  1. And the awe­some The Pres­tige. [↩]
  2. Most under­rated? Stranger Than Fic­tion. [↩]
  3. Why doesn’t he just use his real name — Joseph McGinty? [↩]

Paul vs. John: Who’s the Better Songwriter?

by Glenn Vance on January 20, 2009 in Music with No comments
beatles

I first heard the Bea­t­les way back when I was a Boy Scout. Our scout­mas­ter had brought some tapes on the cam­pout and he played them in the car as went back and forth to the camp­site and I have to admit that at the time I thought they were just…okay. But, much like This is Spinal Tap, with repeated hear­ings they got bet­ter and more inter­est­ing. I don’t remem­ber now what those first tapes were, prob­a­bly “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “The White Album”, but I don’t know. Maybe it was those, maybe not. Since then though I think that “Revolver” is prob­a­bly their best, and as with most every­thing, every­one has their own opin­ion about the band.

Every­one who’s any­one, on first hear­ing, just knows that John is the bet­ter song­writer.1 He was much cooler than Paul since Paul had gone on to be in that lame band Wings. Then Paul did “Ebony and Ivory”, which imme­di­ately dis­qual­i­fied him in the cool cat­e­gory. Paul was the pretty one that all of the girls loved while John was the rebel and res­i­dent weirdo. Who would have thought to have a bag in for peace? John. Would Paul have thought about hav­ing a bag in for peace? No of course not, because Paul was the good one.

So time passes and I see the film Imag­ine, star­ring the rebel him­self, and you come away with only one thought: Man, John was a jerk. And not just a small-time jerk. His jerkios­ity could have caused an eclipse. Or sank the Titanic. Or crushed the Third Reich. At one point there is a fan hang­ing around out­side of John’s home, so John goes out to the gate and talks to the guy. He is less than friendly and actu­ally insults the man sev­eral times.

John was a tool. But that shouldn’t dis­count his abil­ity to write cool songs. “The Bal­lad of John and Yoko”? Genius.

And now when I lis­ten to the Bea­t­les albums2 I hear the songs that Paul sang and how their much more…singable…than John’s songs. “Eleanor Rigby”, “For No One”, “Let it Be”, Paul is the win­ner on my score­card. John’s got some great ones to his credit, and Paul did sing “Back in the USSR”, which I think is ter­ri­ble and knocks Paul down a few notches, but the same album has “Hap­pi­ness is a Warm Gun” and “Everybody’s Got Some­thing to Hide Except for Me and My Mon­key”, which are awe­some. But they don’t make John the win­ner. John wrote some very strange songs, which I’m sure some peo­ple like, but for me, the wal­rus is Paul.

  1. And every­body was cooler than Ringo. [↩]
  2. And I own and have heard all of them. Least favorite? “Yel­low Sub­ma­rine” [↩]

The Old Man Is Almost Back…

by Glenn Vance on January 16, 2009 in Television with No comments

It’s been a long time since I wrote here, but some­thing is going to hap­pen tonight that sadly will be the begin­ning of the end for the best show on tele­vi­sion today (sorry, “Lost”). The reimag­ined “Bat­tlestar Galac­tica” fires up for the sec­ond half of sea­son four and I couldn’t be more psy­ched about it.

We last saw our band of pil­grims as they arrived at Earth, but not the Earth that we cur­rently know. It’s a bombed-out radioactive-looking waste­land that doesn’t look very wel­com­ing to the voy­agers from the twelve colonies. I would guess we’ll get our ques­tions answered this sea­son, at least I hope we do. Bat­tlin’ Bill Adama has brought these peo­ple this far, I doubt that he’ll leave them hang­ing, but what about hope at this point? Most of what was keep­ing every­one going onboard those fly­ing tin cans was the hope that Earth would be out there, some­where, and that it would be hab­it­able. It’s like get­ting half of a prayer answered. Sure, you made it to Earth, but are you going to like it once you get there? Good luck. Brother Cavil is still out there with his com­pa­tri­ots, and when they find Earth…eek.

We’ll also finally get to see the last secret Cylon. I guess after Baltar’s aborted Cylon Detec­tor didn’t fig­ure out that four of the Final Five weren’t human that some­one we know and love will be the last one. I’m hop­ing that it’s not one of the top two (Adama or Pres­i­dent Roslin), and I don’t think that the cre­ators of the show would take so obvi­ous a tack. My gut tells me that it could be Tom Zarek, but who knows. It would also be a com­plete mind f*ck if it was Billy Keikeya, who died in a bar­room shootout, or Ellen Tigh, who was killed by her hus­band back on New Caprica.

And is Lee Adama still the pres­i­dent now that Roslin is back? Does she even want to be pres­i­dent any­more? If Lee is still pres­i­dent, will Zarek keep try­ing to influ­ence him(another rea­son that I think he is a top con­tender for The Last One)?

My only com­plaint? That the Sci-Fi net­work sur­vives off of peo­ple watch­ing this one show, and because of that they aired the first ten episodes of sea­son four and then had the audac­ity to hold onto the final 10 until 7 MONTHS LATER. Shame on you, Sci-Fi Chan­nel. At least you’re finally going to air them.

And I’ve waited so long for this show to come back on. Please lord let it be good. No, be bet­ter than good, please be great and remind me why I love this show so much. Please.

Back to Top ↑

The Man With the Yellow Hat is a Very Peculiar Man

by Glenn Vance on September 12, 2008 in Kids, Television with 10 Comments
Man-With-the-Yellow-Hat

My old­est son loves him some Curi­ous George. The books, the show (on PBS) and even the toys, but he wouldn’t buy one of those toys because it’s not a super­hero or a Planet Hero, but if those didn’t exist he prob­a­bly would buy some Curi­ous George toys.

He and I read Curi­ous George books prob­a­bly twice a week thanks to the library. Curi­ous George Goes to a Restau­rant. Curi­ous George Plays Base­ball. Curi­ous George Flies a Kite. Curi­ous George is Bored. Things like that. You know the drill.

And no one in this coun­try or world would know about Curi­ous George if it wasn’t for his ubiq­ui­tous friend, the Man With the Yel­low Hat (MYWH for those in the know). He has no name, no his­tory, he just exists as the Man With the Yel­low Hat. We do know a few things about him though. He is an explorer, as we know from the first Curi­ous George book. He also appears to be wealthy, hav­ing an apart­ment in “the city” and a house in “the coun­try” and because if this he is a man of leisure. There are no real world loca­tions in Curi­ous George, but one can assume that given the his­tory of his cre­ators, the hus­band and wife team of H.A. and Mar­gret Rey, who fled Nazi Ger­many to even­tu­ally live in New York City, that New York is “the city”, but I’m com­pletely and totally get­ting off topic.

The Man With the Yel­low Hat is ALWAYS wear­ing yel­low. He never wears blue. He never wears red. He never wears black. Only yel­low. And it can only be yel­low or else part of his per­sona and psy­che is gone, like a war vet­eran who lost a limb that can still feel it itch­ing when he gets back to “the world”. This weird char­ac­ter trait would make it dif­fi­cult for a nor­mal per­son to shop for clothes, but he does live in “the city”, so he prob­a­bly gets his clothes tailor-made at some hab­er­dasher, being a wealthy gen­tle­men and all.

And for the love of all that is holy, don’t lose his hat. Few things are worse than this sce­nario. As he said in one of the episodes of the Curi­ous George show, which I watch with my old­est, “With­out my hat, I’m just not…me.” No kid­ding, Man With the Yel­low Hat. Then you’re just “The Man”. A generic plot point in a children’s book. He. Is. Nothing.

The Man With the Yel­low Hat also seems strange just for the fact that he’s a strap­ping young guy in a city full of avail­able ogling females who lives with a mon­key. Not that there’s any­thing wrong with that! And he’s always leav­ing George by him­self, say­ing things like, “Now I’ve got to con­ve­niently go over here. Don’t get into trou­ble!” What does this moron think is going to hap­pen, George is going to just sit there? Every­body in the books calls the mon­key CURIOUS George. There is no “Mild-Mannered George” or “Dullard George”.

But all in all the Man With the Yel­low Hat seems to live a pretty cool life. He’s an explorer, he dri­ves a con­vert­ible, he flies a plane, he has a pet mon­key. My old­est would kill for that life.

Back to Top ↑

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →