I’m apolitical. I don’t vote, and I try not to bitch. Politics have always been outside my realm of interest. They just seem to get people so worked up out about things that, often, they feel powerless to do anything about. I don’t need that kind of stress in my life.

It’s not that I don’t believe in this little democracy experiment that we call America – in fact, I trust it so completely that I’ve never seen the need to vote. I’m fully confident that, collectively, the voting population of our country has my best interest at heart. I’ve always told myself that I would register to vote if and when something important enough comes up on the ballot, but the truth of the matter is that I have yet to see any significant change to my lifestyle based on who’s holding office.

Despite having had a politically-motivated girlfriend years ago, I still managed to shy away from political discussions (much to her exasperation!) In retrospect, that was probably due more to my lack of information than anything else – in college I didn’t read the newspaper, listen to the radio, or even watch much TV (except for, of course, Star Trek, The Simpsons, and the X-Files!) Ignorance is bliss.

A few years ago, I realized how horrible our music stations are in Juneau and I began tuning my car radio to our local AM talk station, instead. My commute time is roughly 3 minutes, though, so this new window to the world of current events was relatively small. Each day I learned a little bit more about politics from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Regan, and Laura Ingram on longer drives to the store or on my lunch break. Eventually I discovered that talk radio is very heavily conservatively biased. I’m almost ashamed to say how long it took me to realize that – having had no political background to speak of, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you Conservative:Republican :: Liberal:Democrat. All I knew was that I didn’t often agree with the sentiments I heard on the AM band. (Yes, I’m aware of NPR. But both sources are strongly biased and I believe that an open mind can and will see through both sides. In that sense, I guess it doesn’t matter who you listen to.)

Crap. This was supposed to a short movie review for Fahrenheit 9/11.

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I have seen the future and it is gray. The buildings, the cars, the robots. All gray. In the future, everything will be faster, too. Freeways will be crowded with cars traveling at absurd speeds and elevators will actually propel themselves downward faster than gravity would otherwise let them descend. Baring some leap in psychological evolution, you would expect the average human to scream in abject terror when faced with the prospect of actually traveling somewhere. Or when standing next to the low, ineffectual glass railings of the buildings’ balconies, 40-or-so stories above the ground.

I’m talking, of course, about the world of I, Robot. Judging from the movie, Chicago will be a very different place just 31 years from now.

I went in to I, Robot expecting to hate it. I’ve got nothing against Will Smith (except, perhaps, Wild Wild West), but I rarely trust Hollywood to handle a science fiction book adaptation well. Either because I had such low expectations, or perhaps because I’ve never read the Asimov robot books, I found myself thoroughly this movie! (Not reading Asimov’s works ahead of time might be the only way to enjoy it – it was listed in the credits only as “Suggested by an Isaac Asimov book!”)

It took me awhile to warm up to it, though. At first I couldn’t get over Will Smith’s hat. Throughout the first third of the movie, he insisted on wearing a tight leather toque, pulled down to the eyebrows, consistently covering only one of his two ears. That sort of thing drives me nuts. Would you do that with a baseball cap? A 10-gallon hat? I don’t care how cool you think it makes you look, we’re symmetrical for Pete’s sake – Wearing your hat over only one ear is like getting an extended foot massage on only one of your feet; it’s bound to mess up your balance somehow!

Okay, admittedly that was a minor quibble. Trying to look past the protagonist’s hat, I began to evaluate the character himself. Police officer, hates robots, of course. I suppose that later, when the shit hits the fan and the robots start going crazy, no one’s going to believe him because of his well-known, bigoted viewpoint. How lame. I can’t imagine that the characters in the book were this shal… hey now, waitaminute. Could I be wrong?

That’s the thing that got me in I, Robot. The writer and/or director did a great job of leading me down the wrong path. At times (and certainly by the look of the previews), I believed that I was in for an action flick, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover a decent suspense movie instead. Once the story got rolling, I had a hard time guessing what kink would pop up next. I was surprised to learn the robots’ motivations, and I misjudged who the main antagonist was at several turns. Those are good things, by the way. Hollywood can be so formulaic sometimes that I enjoy the occasional, unexpected twist.

Besides the story unfolding to my enjoyment, I also loved watching the special effects. Alan Tudyk, who I knew from Firefly, was fun to watch as the robot, Sonny. In fact, all the robots in this particular movie looked pretty darn good. Although obviously CGI, they seemed very there. They were animated to walk very much like humans with realistic weight and balance, but when it was time to get their groove on, they took advantage of their superior speed and power to pump out superhuman jam. Well, all except for the older robot models. They plodded along jerkily, but that was also pretty cool in its contrast.

I’ll bet one of my favorite effects in the movie, though, was one that probably escaped most people’s attention. There’s a scene where Will Smith is trying to get out of a house being demolished by a huge robot. The hallway’s crumbling under his feet, walls and ceiling are being absolutely pulverized as he’s sprinting for the door. In the middle of all this mayhem, the camera view switches to his pumping feet as he reaches down to scoop up the housecat racing along beside him.

Can you imaging how difficult it must have been to get that shot?

Trivial Thought: Poor cat. Left to die in a car trunk. (UPDATE: I have been informed that Grandma got the cat. Hmm. Guess I missed that.)
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? Surprisingly, er, surprising plotline. Plus, with the exception of the very last pull-away, I thought that the SFX were quite good (if a little too high octane for the script.)
Would I recommend the movie? Yes, except maybe if you’re a big Asimov fan. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that you’ll be disappointed.
Will I buy it on DVD? Tough one, but there’s a good chance, yeah. Especially if it comes with some good extras.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Spider-man 2
Shrek 2
I, Robot
The Day After Tomorrow
The Terminal
The Chronicles of Riddick
Troy
Van Helsing
The Stepford Wives

For the most part, I enjoyed Spider-Man (the first movie.) Toby Maguire, who I didn’t know before he was cast in it, played a great Peter Parker, Sam Raimi turned in a restrained performance as director, and while I didn’t thrill to the Green Goblin’s character, William Dafoe did a decent job playing him. My only real complaint had to do with the special effects. Once scene in particular (Pajama-man climbing his first wall) almost ruined the movie for me.

My biggest hope for the second movie was for them to make the effects more believable. I’d heard somewhere that Raimi liked the original’s “comic bookish” quality of effects, but that just doesn’t hold water with me. If you’re going to make a live-action movie out of a comic book character, do what you can to make it look realistic – if you want it to look like a cartoon, animate it. Sounds to me like they just ran out of money/time/talent.

I went into Spider-Man 2 having already heard some critical praise which bordered on hype. Normally, that’s a bad sign – when my expectations are high, movies have an annoying tendency of falling short of the mark. And it didn’t help any that I read my fair share of Spider-man comic books back in high school… If anything, they just made me harder to please.

Even so, I didn’t come away from the theater disappointed! In fact, I’ll say that Spider-man 2 is the best movie I’ve seen this year. Without giving away any spoilers (not already seen in the trailer), here’s why:

• The fight scenes were absolutely amazing. Frenetic, fluid, and very believable (as much as a radioactive-spider-infected man fighting a neuro-interfaced-man-robot-thing can be believable, anyway.) The visual effects were much improved.
• Tobey Maguire is Peter Parker. Even behind the mask, his voice comes across as that of a nerdy college kid (contrast this with the way actors typically voice Bruce Wayne differently than his alter ego, Batman.)
• Alfred Molina was perfectly cast as Doc Ock (awesome villain!), J.K. Simmons completely nails the role of J. Jonah Jamison, and James Franco is quite believable in his intentions as Harry Osborn.
• Aunt May being on Spider-man’s side was a nice twist on the comic book’s portrayal of her character. Peter Parker had enough to worry about in this movie without her unintentional guilt trip added in.
• Now that Sam Raimi has an honest-to-God blockbuster under his belt, it’s nice to see the big studios’ rein on him loosen up a bit. Witness the Evil Dead homage in the operating room!
• Raimi fans (like me) also have fun looking for cameos in his films. It was great to see Bruce Campbell, Ted Raimi, and even his… car in Spider-man 2 (not to mention Stan Lee!)

Despite all the good stuff, there were a few things that bothered me:

• I don’t know how the comic book versions went down, but Doc Ock’s and the Green Goblins’ origin stories were far too similar. Someone should really crack down on Oscorp.
• Kristen Dunst didn’t sell me on the Mary Jane character. She didn’t do a bad job, but she definitely wasn’t as perfectly matched to the roll as Tobey Maguire was to Peter Parker.
• Is it just me, or is Spider-man much more resilient in this movie? The subway scene in particular portrayed his human body as practically indestructible. Judging from my experience, spiders are not especially invulnerable – where did he gain those powers?
• Must every villain in the Spider-man movie franchise communicate their motivations through insane ramblings with themselves? I think it’s time we had a villain that’s not certifiably crazy, just, you know, motivated by evil!
• J. Jonah Jamison’s son was completely unnecessary. Boooooring.

All the bad things I listed above are just nit-picking. For what it’s worth, I only came up with most of them after the movie was over – they certainly didn’t detract from the film. Because I’ve already decided that I want to see it again (at $9 a pop!) Spider-man 2 is definitely going to the top of my list for summer movies.

Trivial Thought: One of the reasons I want to go back and see Spider-man 2 again was because I saw it the first time from the 3rd row. Maybe those special effects weren’t as good as I thought…
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? It’s another great sequel that continues the all-important character development right where it left off (see Shrek 2). We all know how easy it is for Hollywood to cash in and screw up movie franchises – fortunately, this movie is probably even better than the first one!
Would I recommend the movie? Even to people that have never owned over 4000 comic books!
Will I buy it on DVD? Yes, first day it’s out.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Spider-man 2
Shrek 2
The Day After Tomorrow
The Terminal
The Chronicles of Riddick
Troy
Van Helsing
The Stepford Wives

When I hear that Stephen Spielberg is directing a new movie, for some reason I automatically think it’ll fall into one of two categories: Action flicks (Indiana Jones, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Jaws, A.I.) or Fishing-for-Academy-Awards dramas (Schindler’s List, Empire of the Sun, Amistad). After seeing the Terminal, I’m reminded that he’s more frequently dipping into another category that’s difficult to ascribe a name. Let’s call it the Throwaway Story.

Calling The Terminal a throwaway story isn’t a bad review, it’s just my way of saying that the movie is simply about a bunch of stuff that happens. Apparently it’s loosely based on real life events just like Spielberg Throwaway Story: Catch Me If You Can. Tom Hanks, who was an FBI agent in the latter, now plays a very different character in Viktor Navorski, a citizen of the make-believe country of Krakozia. When his plane lands at JFK in New York, he discovers that his country has erupted in civil war, that the United States will not issue him a visa nor return him to his country, and that until his government is legitimately recognized, he will be unable to leave the “international transit lounge.”

It’s a testament to Steven Spielberg’s abilities as a director that he was able to perfectly pace a two-hour movie on such a thin premise. Although most of the group I saw the movie with complained about its length, I thought that he spent just enough time what he needed to: Viktor conquering the language barrier, Viktor figuring out the airport’s dynamics, Viktor meeting and making friends, falling in love, and finding a job.

For a Spielberg movie, though, I came away with a surprising number of nit-picks. I thought that the portrayal of Viktor’s comprehension level was a bit too high (admittedly, perhaps this bothers me only because I’ve taken the time to learn another language). Also, the head INS agent came across as a bit too harsh in his extreme dislike for Viktor, and yet he wouldn’t take advantage of certain opportunities to get rid of him.

On the plus side, I was pleasantly surprised to guess wrong on the reason for Viktor’s visit to the States and I commend Spielberg for shying away from a typical Hollywood ending with at least a couple of his relationships with his friends.

The Terminal is a nice, neat little movie. It’s funny in all the right places, makes you want to cry here and there, and even has a worthy villian to hate. Thankfully, it doesn’t make a Big Statement on life, culture, politics, or anything else, and I think its lack of a Message is what makes it charming. In the years to come, I’ll bet that The Terminal will be one of those movies that we’ll see over and over again on cable TV.

Trivial Thought: Has anyone else noticed Spielberg’s recent propensity for the extreme backlighting of characters? I wonder if it’s intentional. And that reminds me: What was up with that fountain?
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? It’s a study in cinematic pacing – not to mention set design and extras coordination on a massive scale!
Would I recommend the movie? Yes.
Will I buy it on DVD? Doubtful. It was a good movie, but probably won’t stand up to multiple viewings.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Shrek 2
The Day After Tomorrow
The Terminal
The Chronicles of Riddick
Troy
Van Helsing
The Stepford Wives

I have to be careful in writing about The Stepford Wives, because if you go in knowing what it’s about, it can be a very predictable movie. This isn’t normally a movie I’d see, especially in a movie theater, but I had a few reasons:

I really like the new theater on the Outer Banks.
The movie was listed in the paper as a Sci-fi/Drama/Comedy.
Mathew Broderick is pretty cool and
Nicole Kidman is pretty hot.

Dang. It’s hard to write about this movie without spoiling anything. Let’s just say that the introduction to Nicole Kidman’s character was too lengthy, characters were completely dropped (the kids), the writers didn’t even make an effort to make the science believable, and the ending felt tacked on. I think I read somewhere that this was a remake of an older movie. Perhaps they were constrained by that.

The best I can say about The Stepford Wives is that it was a “cute” movie.

Trivial Thought: The twist at the end must have been an attempt to alleviate the predictablity of the movie.
What did I find worthwhile about the movie? Christopher Walken is always fun to watch and Mathew Broderick is still pretty cool.
Would I recommend the movie? No.
Will I buy it on DVD? No.

Overall Summer Movie Ranking
Shrek 2
The Day After Tomorrow
The Chronicles of Riddick
Troy
Van Helsing
The Stepford Wives *

(* Ranking these movies is harder than I thought! I’m going with a “What would I rather see again?” approach. For instance, I’d rather see Van Helsing again than The Stepford Wives, even though The Stepford Wives is a better movie. Same goes for The Chronicles of Riddick and Troy. Obviously this will be an extremely subjective ranking!)