Kung Fu Night! The Buddhist Fist

After a while, they all start to look the same--but I'm not complaining!

The Buddhist Fist, directed by Yuen Wo Ping. Starring Shun-Yee Yuen, Sui-Ming Tsui, and Lung Chan. Peace Film Productions, 1979. Runtime 90 minutes. Unrated.

Just to be perfectly clear, the only thing I won't forgive in a Kung fu movie is bad Kung fu (curse you, House of Flying Daggers!). I don't come to these films to see deep characterization or clever plots, but to see some cool moves. Watching Kung fu is sort of like attending the ballet, except the dancers are trying to kill each other and aren't dressed like pansies. You might think of it as ballet for men.

That being said, The Buddhist Fist has most everything you could want in a Kung fu movie: it has a terrible script, plenty of lowbrow slapstick humor, a simple narrative that's somehow still hard to follow, characters who walk on and off with no development, extremely bad dubbing, and some really, really awesome Kung fu.

The plot, such as it is, follows two boys, Shang (Shun-Yee Yuen) and Si-Ming (Sui-Ming Tsui). Si-Ming for some reason or other becomes a reluctant Buddhist monk at a very young age, whereas Shang grows up to be a barber. Both of them practice Kung fu: Si-Ming is master of the Buddha Palm, and Shang is master of the Buddha Fist.

After going to the city to find his fortune and shave some moustaches, Shang returns home to find his godfather has gone missing and all the locals are curiously indifferent. Meanwhile, some masked man is blackmailing some other masked man, and the two masked men are trying to steal a priceless jade Buddha statue in order to sell it to eeeevil foreigners. While Shang hunts for his godfather, a lot of minor characters, all of whom bite large chunks out of the scenery, try to kill him, apparently on orders from the aforementioned masked men. Best of the hired killers is an outrageous hunchback whose Kung fu involves moving like a zombie from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" while making loud bone-cracking noises. The fight ends only after Shang punches him so hard in the back that his hunch bulges out of his chest. Yeah, I mentioned the low-class humor already, right?

The centerpiece of the film is of course the fighting, and Yuen Wo Ping demonstrates his characteristic inventiveness and skill at using set pieces as the characters perform limb-bending stunts in intricately choreographed bouts of chess-fu, chopstick-fu, giant-freaking-sword-fu, barbershop-chair-fu, street-vendor-fu, birdcage-fu, jade-Buddha-statue-fu, and probably several other fus I can't even remember. Even though some are quite lengthy and the lighting changes dramatically between shots, I never grew bored or confused during the fights. The plot certainly confused me, but when they stopped talking and started punching and flipping and kicking, which was frequently, my confusion turned into open-mouthed wonderment.

The movie seems to be over when Shang has discovered what happened to his godfather and subsequently flipped and slid and kicked and stabbed the man who appears to be the main villain, an evil and mysterious figure known as Big Small Feet. But that's when the plot twist happens! I won't tell you what the twist is since, if you watch the movie, you'll see it coming from miles away anyway, but for a Kung fu film of this sort, I found the twist to be an unusual surprise. It leads into the longest and most impressive of the movie's many one-on-one battles.

I find it particularly interesting that Shang in the last battle does not merely attack his opponent in blind rage and rip him to shreds as many other Kung fu heroes would do. At one point, he actually holds back a little and says, "It's time to stop fighting and start repenting." Of course, that doesn't work and they immediately start fighting again, but I found it to be an unusual bit of graciousness. At the very end, there are even strong hints that the villain showed some mercy of his own and found a sort of redemption.

So I recommend the movie, but be warned that you won't enjoy it if you have a low or even merely moderate tolerance for cheesiness and camp.

The Sci Fi Catholic's Rating for The Buddhist Fist:

Myth Level: Medium-High (pretty much the same narrative as any other Kung fu movie)

Ethics/Religion: Medium (quite violent of course, mild sexual humor, surprising redemptive ending)

Quality: Medium-Low (low quality makes this kind of film extra good)

Full Print of Long-Lost Metropolis Found

Snuffles and I have been planning a lengthy joint discussion of Fritz Lang's silent epic, Metropolis, for some weeks now, and have been gradually assembling our source material. Now it turns out that a complete copy of the film, previously thought permanently lost, has been found. For the sf fan, this is serious stuff, an unbelievable, mind-blowing discovery. Here's the article from ZEIT Online:

Last Tuesday Paula Félix-Didier travelled on a secret mission to Berlin in order to meet with three film experts and editors from ZEITmagazin. The museum director from Buenos Aires had something special in her luggage: a copy of a long version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, including scenes believed lost for almost 80 years. After examining the film the three experts are certain: The find from Buenos Aires is a real treasure, a worldwide sensation. Metropolis, the most important silent film in German history, can from this day on be considered to have been rediscovered. [more...]

Hat tip: John C. Wright

Movie Review: Hancock: Delayed

In my usual habit of getting done what I say I'll get done sometime after I say I'll get it done, I'm putting off the movie review a bit. I am spending July 4th weekend with family, so I hope readers can forgive me for neglecting the blog a little.

July 4th Movie Weekend

The July 4th weekend is on its way, and that means it's time to think about big-budget sf movies. Last year at this time, I found myself watching a muddled, incoherent, overly loud mishmash called Transformers, and judging from the reviews, I have the opportunity for a similar annoying experience this year with Hancock.

On the other hand, with everything that's been going on, I somehow missed the release of WALL-E, a movie I could probably convince Snuffles to see with me. Its reviews are quite positive, though the claims that it's super-serious sf sound far fetched; I'll believe it when I see it.

What I'm really impatient for, however, is Hellboy II. I may need to prep for that in the near future by watching some of those animated Hellboy films. Anyway, the reviews for that one are so far quite positive.

Off to the Movies!

Hi, it's Lucky. I'm just popping in quick to tell you that the Deej and I are off to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull together. Don't wait up!

In the meantime, listen to the classic song "Me and Indy Jones" to get yourself in the right mood.

Msgr. Barr on Prince Caspian

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian opens this weekend. Monsignor Eric Barr has been writing on the upcoming movie. His posts appear at the blog Anamchara where he suggests that the movie will probably get mixed reviews and discusses the movie's themes. Msgr. Barr has the scoop on the rest of us, as he has already seen the premier in New York. His opinion of the film is quite positive.

Msgr. Barr also has an article on the subject, "Film Tells Story of Faith Forgotten, Hope Renewed (PDF)," in The Observer, a Catholic newspaper:

The movie may appear to be for kids, but the adult-themed message takes on the modern, cynical, godless world view that all of us must encounter each and every day:that religion is for the immature, that faith is useless, that the very ideas of God, Jesus, resurrection and life everlasting are fairytales meant to help children sleep, and not for adult consumption. [more...]

Meant to help children sleep? I thought they were meant to scare the bejabbers out of 'em. I'm joking, of course, but I don't remember Bible stories ever helping me sleep at night.

Honestly, I didn't enjoy the first Narnia movie all that much, but then again, I'm no fan of the books, either. Msgr. Barr indicates the new film is good, so I'm hoping for an improvement over the last. He is undoubtedly right that it will get mixed reviews no matter what, as some critics will be unable to get over the religious themes or unable to reconcile a stunted perception of Christianity with the movie's action sequences. I doubt, however, that many people will attack the film out of revenge for the poor showing of The Golden Compass. Barr attributes Compass's poor showing to Christian outrage, but I'm more inclined to attribute it to the bad script and direction. Barr also notes the comparative popularity of the first Narnia film, but Narnia undoubtedly has a larger pre-existing fan base than His Dark Materials, so I don't think the comparison is valid.

The X-Files: What the Heck?

In weird movie news, a new X-Files movie entitled The X-Files: I Want to Believe is slated for release later this summer, on July 25. USA Today had an article on the subject some time back but I only got wind of it recently, like, today. Apparently, the trailer has been released unusually late, so it easily flew under my lax sf movie radar.

I used to watch the TV show regularly, but stopped when my parents forbade me to watch it anymore. After writing that sentence, I have to pause and ask myself, "Was it really that long ago the show was on?" Realizing that it was indeed that long ago, I wonder why the heck they're coming out with another movie now, especially since the show jumped the shark right around the time they came out with the first movie, which, as I recall, was two hours of frustrating non-revelation, an extended version of the show's obnoxiously convoluted alien invasion story arc.

The first question now is, will all the X-philes be enthused, or has everyone put this show behind him and moved on? The second question is, will Hollywood stop resurrecting old TV shows as movies?

Bone Slated to Become a Movie (or Three?)

Last night, I was talking to Lucky the Goldfish and she was going on and on about true feelings or something (I wasn't really listening), when I decided to turn the conversation to something interesting, like comic books. I was just getting warmed up on an impromptu lecture on the subject when Lucky interrupted and asked, "How come you haven't blogged on the movie adaptation of Bone?"

I said, "What movie adaptation?"

Lucky rolled her little eyes, flopped onto the keyboard, and flailed around until she had hit the right buttons to bring up this news article at Rotten Tomatoes:

The comic book adventures of Jeff Smith's popular Bone brothers may have ended in 2004, but if all goes according to plan, they'll soon be making the transition to the big screen.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. has picked up the screen rights to Smith's creations; though the studio hasn't decided whether to go the live-action or animated route, a production crew -- including Dan Lin and Jon Silk -- has been assembled. [more...]

This is good news to me, of course, as I am an enormous fan of Bone. It was inevitable that someone would try to adapt it for screen eventually, but I admit I had hoped it would be Disney, which shows signs of rebuilding its 2D animation department.

Hollywood Reporter has the best article on the subject, but the information is scanty as yet. According to author/illustrator Jeff Smith's blog, Boneville.com, about all that has happened so far is a phone conversation between himself and Warner Bros. Smith is slated to be executive producer. This is the second attempt at a movie of Bone. The first deal was with Nickelodeon, but that fell through, according to Smith, mainly because Nickelodeon wanted to insert pop songs.

Fans are of course speculating about how the film will be made. Most, including me, will want it to be done with 2D animation, and Smith indicates that he would prefer a traditional cartoon himself. Live action and CGI have been mentioned as well. I have grown to dislike CGI over the last few years and feel it would take away much of what makes Bone special. As for a live action movie, I once thought it was a good idea, but the next morning, after I had sobered up, I realized it would be a huge mistake: watching a tender moment between a computer-generated Fone Bone and a live actress playing Thorn would be painful. It's even painful to think about. Besides that, none of the women in Hollywood who look the part of Thorn can act worth a darn.

I guarantee the film adaptation will be quite bad, no matter how skilled its cast and crew, unless it is extended over two or three movies. It would be impossible to stuff Smith's epic into one film: even if dispensable subplots like the Great Cow Race were deleted (a move that would anger the fans), the comic still has too much material to fit into two hours. A two-hour epic is inevitably rushed and under-developed.

Fans of the comic are already clamoring for a 2D film and expressing distaste for CGI, and I hope Warner Bros. listens. Given the increasing mainstreaming of anime fandom, the success of The Simpsons Movie, and the general displeasure with computer-generated animation, I suspect America may at last be ripe for the production of a well-made 2D cartoon marketed to adults. Bone is an ideal title for such a project. I'm inclined to think they should make it after the fashion Peter Jackson made the Lord of the Rings movies, remaining reasonably faithful to the source material while amping up the grittier and darker elements. In Bone, they could probably place emphasis on the violence, the angsty parts, and the Freudian symbolism without driving away the family crowd, though I confess I look forward to the hubbub some of my fellow Christians will make if the infamous "bathing scene" makes it to film; that will give me at least a week's worth of enjoyable posts to write.

Happy Valentine's Day

And so the day of love is here again, the day on which, according to legend, birds choose their mates and about three different saints named Valentine were martyred. Normally, I take Lucky to a movie or something on Valentine's Day, but I'm in the field now and I'm off movies for the time being, anyway.

Speaking of movies and Valentines, the critics have given a nice Valentine to The Spiderwick Chronicles. After a long string of miserable fantasy films for kids, it's nice to know that a good one has been released.

On the other hand, the critics turned up their noses at Jumper, which disappoints me; I had been looking forward to that one, even though I'm pretty sure a Nickelodeon special back in the early nineties had an identical premise.

House on Haunted Hill

As yet another excuse for putting up a fast blog post so I can run off and deal with some important and exciting projects, I refer you to The B-Movie Catechism, where EegahInc has given his thoughts on the film House on Haunted Hill for his monthly film club.

In discussing the failed marriage at the movie's center, EegahInc says something interesting:

Maybe the Lorens could have avoided all this heartache by popping over to YourFriendlyDivorce.com where they have 10 helpful hints to make sure your marriage ends nicely. They include insightful tips like #3 Seek common goals with your spouse, #4 Learn to see things from your spouse's perspective, and #5 Have a parenting plan. "Let's face it: divorce is painful." the website explains, "But with proper planning and a desire to reach agreement, you and your spouse can achieve harmony, fairness and mutual respect." (Look, if you can't make your own smart aleck remark here, you're just being lazy.) [more...]

Yeah, I can come up with one of those. How about this: Hey, if you can have harmony, fairness, and mutual respect in your divorce, couldn't you, um, have it in your marriage? I mean, really.

Up and Coming

Very soon now, we're headed home. After we have access to all our resources again, we'll start delivering some of the things we have planned. While in the Denver airport, Snuffles read Neil Gaiman's Coraline (you may forget that Snuffles is not only an otaku but a kid lit enthusiast). I'm just about finished with William Gibson's Count Zero, which will also get a discussion.

A lot of sf/f movies have come out lately, but we simply can't hit all of them. I was getting exhausted from constantly running out to the theater before I slapped myself in the head and remembered this isn't a movie blog. Anyway, I will review National Treasure: Book of Secrets in the near future, and it's likely I'll see Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. Though I intended to review it, I missed Enchanted and don't think I'm likely to make it.

It is also almost time to begin a multi-part criticism of Michael O'Brien's A Landscape With Dragons, to which both Snuffles and I look forward with relish.

The Last of Santa and the Martians (for this year)

We have now made it an annual tradition to get stuck overnight in the airport at Denver. Last year, we got to do it with thousands of other people. This year, according to recent weather reports, we may get to do it twice. It isn't the hardship for us that it is for some people; we view it as a lark: this year, when we arrived in Denver and found our flight was cancelled and that we couldn't fly out until the next day, we did what any sensible travelers would do: we raided the airport bookstore and then retired to a restaurant and bar where we could have dinner and become mildly intoxicated before plopping down in an empty gate for a long winter's nap. Sleeping in a pile with a unicorn, dragon, and phoenix, with a goldfish bowl tucked under my arm, is really quite cozy and not at all uncomfortable. I rather enjoy the Denver airport: it's like a really expensive shopping mall with bad selection, but they don't run you out if you decide you want to sleep there.

Anyway, now that Christmas is behind us and we are beginning to pack for home, we take one last wistful look back and notice that some of our fellow bloggers have been writing of our favorite holiday movie, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. In particular, please note the review at It Came from Allen's Brain, where you will find the film reinterpreted as a christological allegory, further proof that you can do that to anything if you strain your brain (or Allen's) hard enough. I haven't decided yet if I think it's a good idea to interpret everything as a story about Christ. Part of me thinks it's a lot like interpreting everything as a story about the bourgeoisie oppressing the proletariat or as a story about men oppressing women. It's really, really interesting--for about ten minutes.

For another, much more subversive take on the movie, check out the review at The B-Movie Catechism. EegahInc has given the film a twisted yet somehow convincing reading. According to him, the movie isn't about Jesus, but about bad parenting. What he seems to be saying, and he has a good case, is that the movie's basic moral sucks. Maybe curing children's TV addiction by giving them more toys isn't the solution. Those Martian parents should have kicked them out of the life pod and made them play outside instead.

Speed Racer Trailer

Man, it's too weird sometimes. Does anyone remember last year when I claimed I had the ability to predict the creation of certain movies? I did it again; now I just wish I'd told you about it beforehand so you'd believe me.

I was just commenting to Snuffles some time back that anime and manga characters tend to look Caucasian, and he was saying in reply that I really don't get it, and then it occurred to me that it might be an interesting experiment to adapt an anime or manga into a live action film with mostly Caucasian actors. Um, yeah. I mean, it just sort of occurred to me as a possible experimental sort of thing. Well, anyhow, watch the trailer here for Speed Racer. I admit I didn't watch this cartoon as a kid, so this is brand new to me.

Hat tip: Cinerati

Up and Coming

I'm in the field now (things slow down here in the summer!) so I don't have a lot to tell you. I will, however, tell you some of what we have up and coming.

First of all, in the distant future, I will write that third and final essay on Bone...after the person who borrowed it gives it back (you know who you are).

Also in the distant, possibly less distant future, is an essay on those Harry Potter novels and what I think is a good way for Christians to view magic in fiction. This one requires some research and reading. You'll note over on the sidebar that I'm in the midst of Hans Christian Andersen, which will serve me when I write this one. I'll probably also give Andersen his own discussion.

To my temporal shame, I actually watched 300 recently. I want to give this a more-than-usual extensive discussion, so I have a few things to look at or up before I present the review, which you can anticipate this weekend. In the meanwhile, check out the review at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is a lot less harsh than I'm going to be. I also discovered the existence of an earlier movie on this subject, The 300 Spartans, though I haven't seen it.

I recently had opportunity to read the comic, The Walking Dead, Vol. 1: Days Gone Bye. I was borrowing it, though, and had to give it back, so if I write it up I will have to do so entirely from memory. For a great Christian discussion of zombie comics, check out this fine post at the SF Gospel on the subject of religion and zombies. Check out this one, too.

Kung Fu Night! Legend of the Red Dragon

Did I just watch a kung fu rip-off of House of Wax?

Legend of the Red Dragon, written and directed by Wong Jing. Starring Jet Li, Yau Shuk Ching, Danie Ip, and Tse Miu. Running time 83 minutes. Rated R for violence.

As the film opens, Hung Hei-Kwun (Jet Li) has returned home to find his entire village killed by the corrupt imperial dynasty. His best friend shows up, but as it turns out, this friend has turned traitor. After a brutal wire-fu battle, Kwun leaves said friend stabbed in the gut and seriously burned. Kwun takes his young son and trains him in gravity-defying martial arts. They end up as bodyguards for a comedic wealthy man who's in the process of being robbed blind by his fiancée and her mother, who are actually con artists. On top of that, the evil government has burned the Shaolin temple in order to find five boys with a treasure map tattooed on their backs. On top of that, Kwun's old friend is back; he's been healed by a witch, though he's still horribly burned and goopy; he's now invincible, drives around in a funky armored car, and can tear people in half with his metal hands. On top of that, there's a creepy Shaolin master who dips people in molten wax for no reason whatsoever, and on top of that, there's a lot of eye-popping, impressively inventive wire-fu combined with plenty of corny humor, altogether making a movie that's nearly incomprehensible but nonetheless tons of fun. (And in case you were wondering, the evil mutilated guy does indeed fall in the vat of wax at the end.)

Buried in the midst of the typically crazy, revenge-centered plot is that weird House of Wax stuff. Are they trying to pay homage or just steal ideas? House of Wax, in case you didn't know, features Vincent Price as a horribly burned wax sculptor who can no longer sculpt because of the damage to his hands. Nevertheless, he can still swing around on house roofs at night in order to kidnap people and dip them in wax for his museum, and he can even punch out multiple opponents in a grand battle royale. So, Legend of the Red Dragon has a burn victim, a vat of molten wax, and people dipped in wax--I don't think this is a coincidence.

If you want to attempt watching this, just make sure, as with most historical fantasy kung fu movies, that your brain is switched firmly to the off position. Don't try to figure it out because it probably doesn't make sense anyway. The action is good, and the cinematography and editing, considering the low budget, are smooth and keep the acrobatic, physics-defying stunts easy to follow. Now if only the script were so easy.

Speaking of the script, I wonder if the weird, anachronistic dialogue is present in the original or is only in the English dubbing. Lines like "Bring it on, you sons of b***es" and "I'm going to make sure that bastard is done for" don't sound to me very, you know, nineteenth centuryish. Or Chinese.

There isn't a lot of religion or philosophy in this. We get the message that corrupt governments who heartlessly kill their own people are bad, but no duh. There's some chivalrous honor code stuff in here, but it's one of those rough and tough honor codes, and sometimes it's presented with irony or scary intensity. "Remember, there's nothing more important than family," Kwun tells his son shortly before skewering his own brother. At the movie's beginning, he offers his infant son opportunity to join him in his fight against the government or die on the spot. Nice. After that, we have a total of six young boys constantly engaging in kung fu fights against seriously nasty villains. I'm going to give this points off for child endangerment.

From what I've seen, Jet Li's movie personas are three in number. He plays the cute, likable, innocent, bumbling, callow youth who happens to be a kung fu master. He plays the (*snicker*) street-wise hip-hop gagsta who happens to be a kung fu master. Or masta. Or something. And lastly, he plays Jet Li trying very hard to be a creepy deadpan guy who happens to be a kung fu master. He's playing the latter in this movie, as is the young boy playing his son. They are hilarious.

The Sci Fi Catholic's Rating for Legend of the Red Dragon:

Myth Level: High (wire-fu, historical fantasy setting, wire-fu, revenge story, wire-fu)

Quality: Medium-High (can I say it's high quality if I can't understand it?)

Ethics/Religion: Medium (chivalrous honor code coupled with child endangerment and some potentially disturbing violent images)

300 Angers Iranians

MSNBC reports that Iranians are angry at the film 300 because of its depiction of the Persian Empire. Apparently, the Iranian government is claiming the movie is an anti-Iranian propaganda piece and implying the film is an intentional move by the U.S. government. They've also noted its historical inaccuracies, though I don't think accuracy was something the movie was going for: it's based on a Frank Miller comic, not on history. Frank Miller's the guy who gave us Batman the Dark Knight Returns and Sin City. Accurate history would probably be something new for him.

Take it from the archaeologist that talking smack about ancient Persia is, well, ancient. I haven't seen this movie and probably never will, but if they've depicted Persian kings as weak and sexually decadent, that has ancient precedent whether or not it's accurate (cf. Esther and Daniel, for starters).

So here it is from MSNBC:

TEHRAN, Iran - The hit American movie “300” has angered Iranians who say
the Greeks-vs-Persians action flick insults their ancient culture and provokes
animosity against Iran.

“Hollywood declares war on Iranians,” blared a headline in Tuesday’s
edition of the independent Ayende-No newspaper. [more...]

Filmography links and data courtesy of
The Internet Movie
Database.

New Additions to Sci Fi Resources

Check out the recent additions to our Sci Fi Resources list (to your right). We've added Peter's Overlord List, Intuitor's Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics, and The Movie Cliches List.

These resources are not only fun and amusing, they're good listings and descriptions of typical pitfalls in sf literature and film. If you're interested in writing sf, checking these websites and seeing what not to do is well worth your time.

Rotten Tomatoes Golden Tomato Awards

I keep forgetting to tell you guys that Rotten Tomatoes has released its Golden Tomato Awards for 2006. It's a simple concept--the winners are the movies that score highest on the Tomato Meter, which monitors reviews to see if they're generally good or bad.

2006 was a bad year for speculative fiction films. The few times I made the mistake of going to the theater, it was to see movies that represent poor choices on my part--The Covenant, Eragon, Superman Returns, and Arthur and the Invisibles being all the ones I can remember, probably the only ones I saw. Superman Returns was an unfortunate attempt to resurrect a dead franchise rather than create a good new one, Eragon and The Covenant were indescribably bad films based on dubious books, and Arthur and the Invisibles was just a general failure. But from the awful reviews, I see I'm going to have to see Ultraviolet. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.

The Golden Tomato for sf movies went to Children of Men, which I missed, with The Fountain in a distant second. In fact, according to Rotten Tomatoes, only Children of Men, of all the year's sf movies, got a "fresh" rating on the Tomato Meter.

This upcoming summer is an exciting time for sf/fantasy film. Not only is the final Harry Potter novel coming out, but the fifth film will be coming out as well. With it will come the third installment of Spider-Man, a franchise that has been especially good, though number 3 is usually where franchises go downhill. There's also Transformers, which will either be a lovable technophilic action flick or another insulting attempt to make a few million bucks.

And then there's Bridge to Terabithia and Ghost Rider, both of which I expect to be lousy. Both are coming out this weekend, so brace yourselves, because The Sci Fi Catholic, for reasons even he doesn't understand, can't get enough of bad sf/fantasy movies.

Oh, and on another note, I'm pleased to say Epic Movie got a 2% on the Tomato Meter. Maybe that will teach those guys.

I seem to have a superpower....

I discovered my incredible power about a year or so ago. I found that, if I thought for a while that something cool should be made into a movie, within a few years, the movie would get made. About five years back, it occurred to me that somebody ought to remake King Kong but keep it set in the 1930s. And then came Peter Jackson's remake that did just that. Some time ago I realized it was high time for a live-action Transformers movie, and guess what's coming out next summer?

I could only conclude that I have the power of making movies happen.

No, I didn't promise they'd be good movies, just movies.

Actually, of course, Jackson had it in mind to remake King Kong for years before I thought of it, and Transformers was probably inevitable. The generation (mine) that grew up on the cartoon is now a generation of young adults who go to summer adventure flicks. The Transformers movie is just a shameless way to cash in on that, and I have an awful feeling in my stomach that this film I'm so highly anticipating will be...well, awful. Maybe the feeling is just Eragon hangover. Hopefully, it will pass.

But on the off chance that I can make movies happen or that Hollywood has a psychic spy satellite tuned on me or that I just like popular '80s stuff that Hollywood types see as potential blockbusters, here's a list of what I would like to see in theaters in the near future. Feel free to add titles of your own.

• Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. Yes, I know you've never heard of it, but that one season before it got cancelled ruled, okay?
• Duck Tales: The Movie. This bad boy is long overdue, but since Disney has apparently jettisoned its animation department in favor of that awful CGI I'm already bored with, I don't expect it to happen, or at least, I don't expect it to be any good.
• Gobots. Okay, I'm kidding. That's just to tick off all the Transformers fans who might be reading this. I will say, though, that Gobots were much less breakable than Transformers. Their hands had less of a habit of getting lost, and they didn't usually have those antennae that snap off so easily. I think they were cheaper, too. They hold a special place in my heart because I owned both a Gobots Command Center and its evil counterpart, Thruster, which came with the extra gimmicks of a trap door that wouldn't stay closed and a motion alarm that went off whenever an insect anywhere in the house so much as twitched.
• Battlestar Galactica. Yes, yes. I know there was an original movie before the TV show, and I know there's a remake TV series, but while the original BG was a rip-off of Star Wars, the new one is a rip-off of West Wing and ER. Ugh. "Presidential Breast Cancer in Space" is not my idea of entertainment. I'm talking about a movie unrelated to the new series that actually taps the potential of the show's premise--a flying refugee camp. I want to see stressed out people having riots, an ineffective kangaroo government, pilots hated because they failed to protect the homeworld and reviled because they're a bunch of womanizers (like in the original show), and I want to see smart Cylons. Make 'em look like the originals, but make 'em stealthy, and let's see them pick off ships from the fleet one at a time while the number of Vipers steadily diminishes. We're talking intense here, baby. Real edge-of-your-seat stuff.
• Bone. I have to mention it. I think it's in my contract. I'd prefer a movie trilogy, but I don't know who's going to do it now that Disney and Warner Brothers are done with animation and Nickelodeon already dropped the project. I once fancied that a live action movie with CGI bones and rat creatures might be a good idea, but then I came to my senses.

Movie Review: Eragon

Ouch.

That's the first word that comes to mind, and it's hard to know what to say after that. I knew something was wrong when the movie opened with a drab narration followed by the image of a moody guy in outlandish makeup sitting on a throne that looked like the result of a high school art class, saying in a voice part geeky, part whiny, and part bored:

"I suffer without my stone. Do not prolong my suffering."

If the word were "with" instead of "without," he'd sound for all the world like a man talking to his doctor about an upcoming gall bladder surgery.

This is King Galbatorix, a cardboard evil emperor saddled with one of the silliest names in literature or film history. In the right mouth, this goofy line could be menacing, but John Malkovitch apparently doesn't want to put in the effort. Awful as it is, I was amused by this scene because Malkovitch, in his evil makeup, sitting in his dark throneroom, reminded me of David Hemblen as Lord Dread in Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. I guess that's not all bad, but Captain Power was a campy 1980s TV series, and Eragon, for all its high budget, looks more than anything like a made-for-TV movie.

Malkovitch's opening line is perhaps the most imaginative in the film. Through the rest of the movie, we're subjected to classics like, "If you had been here, you would have shared his fate," or how about, "Tomorrow will come before you know it." Ugh. I don't remember the dialogue in the novel being this bad. Most amazing of all, it took four writers to pen this. Couldn't one of the writers look over the other writers' shoulders and say, "You know, I've heard that line in about five or six movies before this"?

The movie's plot is a sketchy outline of Christopher Paolini's novel, which borrows its own plot from Star Wars: Eragon (Edward Speleers) is a farmer boy living with his uncle until he encounters a mysterious blue stone that turns out to be a dragon egg. In a motif borrowed from Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern, the dragon (voiced ludicrously by Rachel Weisz) forges a psychic connection with young Eragon, making him the new Dragon Rider destined to end the rule of the evil Galbatorix. Fortunately, Eragon encounters Brom (Jeremy Irons), an Obi-wan Kenobi who explains the ways of the Force, or rather, of Dungeons&Dragons-style magic-casting. Then Eragon and Brom are off on a romp through the Middle Earth-like world, trying to join forces with the Rebel Alliance, here called the Varden. On the way, they rescue a spirited elf princess (Sienna Guillory) and meet up with a jaunty freedom figher (Garrett Hedlund). In the act of finding the Varden, they inadvertently draw Galbatorix's orc-like hordes of urgals (in the movie, chunky guys with black lines painted on their faces stand in for the monsters) to the hidden fortress, forcing Eragon and his dragon to join in a desperate battle. In the novel, Eragon passes out and wakes up elsewhere whenever Paolini isn't sure what to do with him. In the movie, they only have time for that once or twice.

The movie manages to be simultaneously drab and rapid. The characters rush through everything. The few brief scenes given over to sentiment or character development are so cliched that nothing emotional or otherwise worthwhile happens. It's an A-list movie, but it's hard to figure out where the money went. The sets, at first quaintly rustic, stay quaintly rustic the whole way through. The final, brief, dull "epic" battle takes place on a set that looks as if it were cobbled together out of planks, though for some reason it morphs suddenly into a gigantic castle when Eragon hops on his dragon and starts flying around.

The elves and dwarves promised early on are AWOL, and Galbatorix's evil legions are basically shirtless fat guys. For the final battle, Eragon and his princess/future girlfriend don laughable armor. Eragon's looks like a turtleneck covered with metal. Princess Whatsername's breastplate looks as if it were designed to emphasize the breasts it's supposed to plate, and--oh, look! She's holding her hairdo together with an armored comb! Isn't that darling? This couple would be a hit at a costume party, but in a real battle, I think they'd get their butts kicked. All the special effects budget apparently went into the dragon, which looks good, but perhaps they should have found some cash for creature makeup, set design, and costuming.

Contrary to what many reviewers, such as Lawrence Toppman, apparently think, Eragon's psychic connection to the dragon Saphira is not original to Paolini. The idea comes from Anne McCaffrey. At the same time, many viewers may unfortunately get the idea that the teenage Paolini was a less competent writer than he really was. Though highly derivative, Eragon the novel is both exciting and surprisingly complex, considering that it was written by a teenager. The film version is neither exciting nor complex.

Let's speak a little of the review by Eric D. Snyder. I'll begin by clearing away an odd comment made in response to his review (scroll down the page of the link above to see it). He has one commenter who claims Paolini ripped off Jeff Smith's comic epic, Bone. Now, I know Bone. I love Bone. I want to marry Bone. Paolini didn't touch Bone for this novel. He ripped off just about everything else, but the only things Eragon shares with Bone are unlikely heroes, dragons, lush environments, sword-wielding princess babes, and close friends of different species. You can pick up any one of these at the Fantasy Plot Device Clearinghouse. Such vague similarities are not borrowing.

Speaking of which, I loaned Bone volume 4, The Dragonslayer, to a friend a while back. He said he'd return it in a week, but it's been over a month. I'd better call him up: "I suffer without my Bone. Do not prolong my suffering."

Now for Snyder's remark about Paolini's educational history: a few commenters on his site have already read him the riot act for suggesting that the movie is a pipe dream born out of social awkwardness resultant from homeschooling, but I'd like to make a few additional comments. First , Snyder should have realized that it's unsafe to criticize the author of a book because of the awful movie someone else derived from that book; however bad some people might think the novel is, most will agree that it's Pulitzer material compared to the film. Second, there's nothing about Paolini's unexpected rise to fame that suggests social awkwardness. Besides writing a lengthy epic in his tender years--not a feat of genius by any stretch, but at least impressive--Paolini made the novel sell through his parents' tiny publishing house in large part because he went on a massive publicity campaign, if I remember rightly. It was enough of a campaign that Knopf took notice and took the book. Okay, Paolini didn't do that all by himself, but you don't do that at all if you're afraid of people or can't interact with them.

Now for a final comment on Eragon the novel. This isn't in the movie (not much of the book is in the movie), and so it has nothing to do with the subject here, but considering the nature of this blog, I can't resist.

Paolini, as is to be expected, makes a lot of mistakes in his first novel. One thing he demonstrates is the peril of placing a satire in a work that otherwise isn't satirical. Putting the questionable artistic quality of his novel in mortal jeopardy, Paolini has Eragon and Brom visiting a city dominated by a religion that worships a big rock with three spikes on top. The temple of this religion is called a "cathedral," apparently because Paolini thinks this is a style of architecture rather than a Christian church with a bishop. The members of this religion spend all their time, Paolini tells us, arguing about which of the three spikes is the greatest, and about whether or not they ought to worship a fourth, lower spike.

Satire, to be effective, must be cutting, and to be cutting, it must be precise. This is neither. The rock with three points is apparently the Trinity, but I've yet to hear a debate in Christianity over which member of the Trinity is the greatest. The metaphor really breaks down with the fourth spike. Presumably, this is meant to represent bickering between Protestants and Catholics over Marian devotion, but I've heard no one suggest Mary should be considered part of the deity except a few far fringe liberals, and they were so vague that I'm not sure they were saying it, either. At any rate, Paolini's blundering attempt at ironic criticism should remind us all of what we look like to outsiders when we allow our serious disagreements to disintegrate into petty squabbles. Since this is apparently how Paolini really views Christianity, something must have happened to give him such a negative impression.