Category: Review

I’m a little too tired to write a full knock-down, drag-out, comprehensive comparitive quadruple review right now, but this will be a good marker/reminder for me, may spark conversation, and should express my general positions without the time-consuming and tedious backing-my-opinions-up-with-references-to-the-actual-details-of-the-movies that will surely be included should I be able to pull this ultra-mega-super-quadruple-tag-team-review together.

But here’s the short version:

Ella Enchanted is to The Prince and Me as
The Punisher is to Man on Fire

That is, while EE and tPaM have a similar basic groundwork, commoner gets wooed by prince despite her desire to avoid same, falls in love, lives happily ever after – they are significantly different experiences.

That is, while tP and MoF have a similar basis for character motivation and similar drive for action of an ex-Military/Special OPS guy who experiences a personal loss going after the man and his organization who caused that loss in a violent, vigilante way despite the fact that their loved ones are already dead – they are significantly different experiences.

And here is how: EE and tP differ from tPaM and MoF in that the former two do not have any meaningful emotional hooks, are not based in a believable reality, and are not peopled with believable characters. EE and tP have to go over-the-top with special effects, makeup, and unbelievable fights/challenges to get your reaction, while tPaM and MoF elicit genuine emotional responses and really hook you into the characters through powerful storytelling.

Now, none of these four films is a master-work of acting and storytelling, and it is perhaps only in comparison with the ‘lighter’ fare of EE and tP that the other two films seem so much more fulfilling and engaging. Yes, there are cliches in tPaM, yes the art direction and visual tricks/flares go a little too far in MoF, but all is forgivable because despite these and other flaws, I cared, and was emotionally involved in the characters’ journies. EE and tP did not deliver in these key ways. They were simple diversions, but do not stick to the palate the way tPaM and MoF will, long after you have left the theatre.

And now, I shall sleep, perhaps to discuss this at length another time.

So, I was buying some pringles recently, and under the influence of TV commercials, in addition to regular and sour cream & onion pringles, I grabbed a can each of Spicy Cajun and Fiery Hot pringles. The TV commercials imply that the Fiery Hot ones would induce screaming and great pain, which, occasionally, is something I enjoy.

So first I tried the Spicy Cajun. If you’ve ever had Pringles’ Mesquite BBQ, the Spicy Cajun have almost precisely the same flavour as the Mesquite BBQ.

Oh, right. Except plus burning.

That’s right, they taste like burning.

I assume they’re using something like capsacin for the burning sensation on my lips, tongue, and … well, other parts of my mouth. Nothing too severe, but compared to, say, regular Pringles, it’s like eating burning. Except the flavour is Mesquite BBQ.

Then I moved on to the Fiery Hot Pringles. I can say defininitively that the Fiery Hot Pringles are just that; they are very much more like burning. Perhaps more capsacin. And yet … less good.

See, the Spicy Cajun Pringles at least had a flavour. The Fiery Hot Pringles … they’re just … fiery hot. No appreciable flavour. Just burning. Plenty of burning. Not very good.

I would not personally recommend Fiery Hot Pringles, unless … I guess you like … sprinkling capsacin on your potato chips. But the Spicy Cajun are pretty good, if you like that sort of … BBQ flavour plus actual burning sensation. I think I’ll stick to regular and sour cream & onion in the future, myself.

Just briefly. for reasons I may get into in a post on FYTH in a bit, a mini review:

I just finished watching The Butterfly Effect. I liked it. I mostly reccommend it.

Perhaps because I have seen exactly zero episodes of this “Punk’d” thing, or perhaps because I have seen … less than half a dozen episodes of “That 70’s Show”, or perhaps for some other reason, I had no disappointments regarding Ashton Kutcher’s acting in The Butterfly Effect. In fact, considering all the “bad press” and “word of mouth” I heard about his acting, my expectation may have been lowered, but … he seemed to do really well. And I appreciated Amy Smart much more than I have in her other recent projects, which is nice, since I liked her acting when she first appeared on the scene. Maybe it’s the director.

Anyway, I don’t want to give away too much of the story, but suffice it to say that … in his own weird way, Ashton’s character discovers that he can travel back in time and change the events of his life. Which, because of the way small changes ripple outward and can cause big changes (in what is sometimes known as “the butterfly effect” to people who don’t know much about chaos theory but talk about it anyway), results in unexpected (to the character), and sometimes massive, changes in how his life turns out. Which is the crux of the film; can he find a way to change things to create a “happy ending”?

The exploration of this is … not handled (by the character) in a particularly intelligent or satisfying way. Which is my own main frustration with the movie; he wasn’t really thinking about what he was doing, he was mostly just guessing and improvising. But if any intelligent and/or logical person found such major changes occurring, I expect they would perhaps take more time to think about what they were doing before they do it.

Anyway, in addition to a series of not-too-well-thought-out decisions by the main character, the movie’s structure and pacing are not typical of mainstream movies. The movie opens fairly slowly, and while there are enough interesting things happening to draw one in, the movie does not get to what was promised in the trailers/commercials until the second reel. And then, quite a bit of the film is ponderous and methodical. I noticed it, which may mean something, or not. I did not think it was bad, I just noticed it was different from what most mainstream movies would do. Except then, as the movie approached the end, the editing and pacing tightened up and lost the feeling it had been building (and quite a few chunks from a lot of scenes, probably for length) as it led into an obvious but … perhaps unsatisfying end.

Though my brother and I were dissatisfied by it for different reasons, it seems. So, who knows. But the film, overall, was satisfying to both of us.

It isn’t for everyone. It does have some shocking sequences that may upset people. But I thought it was part of the story, and integral to the explanation for his time-altering abilities; the events were so shocking that … well, you’ll see. Or not.

I guess this wasn’t short after all. Oh well.

I just finished the last of URU that I can play without having high speed internet access. Out of the box it has a whole standalone game, much like MYST, Riven, and MYST III: Exile, with plenty of tricky puzzles and … somewhat to my dismay, a fair amount of jumping to precarious and often distant, more often moving landings. Anyway, when, in a month or few, I have high speed internet access again, I will be able to enjoy URU Live, which promises new Ages to explore every month, community activities, and a hand in unraveling the larger mysteries of D’ni. But as I don’t have that, I’m not reviewing that. Just the standalone part.

Pretty good.

What, you want more?

Uhhmmmm… Well, there are … six … (maybe nine or ten) ages to visit (depending on how you could them, perhaps as few as five), each with its own set of … challenges to face. One of the ages is like … home base. Whenever you get into any trouble … say, a puzzle you can’t figure out and you want to try something else, or if you’re about to fall into a bottomless expanse or a pool of lava, you hit this linking book you keep conveniently on your hip at all times and you are returned to Relto, your ‘home base’. Which is handy, since I missed where I was jumping to quite often.

Anyway, the graphics are keen. Amazing, really. We played it on my brother’s new computer with a Pentium4/2.66Ghz and a Radeon 9600XT, so that may have had something to do with it, but seriously, the graphics were amazing. I was never aware of a clipping plane, and the textures were … just … soooo… detailed. Wow. The detail and variety that went into designing everything was just outstanding. You can switch between 1st and 3rd person modes as you explore the photorealistic realtime 3D environments, and the camera in 3rd person left little to be desired. It was aware of what you needed to see and when and sometimes even managed to point me in the right direction on how to handle puzzles. Fantastic.

The interface is clean and simple, very little to get confused by and a quick, quick learning curve. The environment is quite reactive; they spent a fair amount of time, it seems, developing a physics engine. While the interface does not give you real use of your hands (beyond using linking books), your feet can and do kick around quite a few objects. And the objects react in a realistic fashion. And while I simply couldn’t wrap my mind around it, my brother and father had no trouble with it and got me through the several parts of the game that required to use the physics engine to get through something.

The story is rich and detailed and … though we have been playing on my big TV set instead of a computer monitor and thus cannot quite make out much of the text … there are around a dozen (maybe more) books just full of information about the ages you visit and the D’ni and their culture and history … it’s just … very deep. And with the character creation system (appearance, really), you can make an avatar that looks just about like you in face, features, even fashion, and play the game watching yourself wander around in these environments. Between that and the storyline, you can really get drawn into the world of URU.

Overall, if you have a computer that can handle it, I recommend it. Sadly, Cyan Worlds has made the decision NOT to offer a Mac compatible version of URU … as of yet. With no announcement of one being in the works, either. Sigh. And if you have internet access and enjoy the games in the MYST line, URU Live promises to be a continuously updating pleasure. So, well worth the money. Yep. I guess that’s about that.

Okay, so, I checked out Chicago from the library this week on DVD. I’d never seen it before, on stage or in this critically acclaimed movie. I have to say that I am disappointed. I didn’t have high expectations for it, but … now I have to wonder about all the people who thought it was great.

It isn’t great.

Good, maybe, if you like that sort of thing, but … I don’t know, the whole thing was just ….

Here’s perhaps the best way I can put it: Less than an hour in, I wanted to just turn it off.

I thought perhaps there must be some wonderful, redeeming end, and I stuck it out, but … even that was disappointing.

Yes, celebrities singing and dancing is something … but I didn’t care about the characters (save one, but more on that in a moment), or the outcome, and most of the time I felt that their breaking into song and dance (and flashy costumes) didn’t fit particularly well with the story. Nearly the entire thing was just the sort of empty “razzle-dazzle” that was so clearly painted as being there to distract the audience from the fact that there’s no talent or real content beyond the “glitter and feathers” of the production. I guess that’s it, though; if you tell someone you’re cheating them, at least you’re honest, and they’ll let you get away with it.

Well, I won’t. Chicago … I may be able to appreciate it … some other time, but on first impressions, it’s … empty. “Good” but not “great”, and in my opinion not the best casting.

Except…

Except in two key roles: John C. Reily created the only character I cared about in the entire piece, and his song and dance number, while still out of sync with the story, was one of the most meaningful. Richard Geere was excellently cast, and excellently played.

The rest of the major characters were … adequate at best. (Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs shined, though were not given the chance to do more than play their small roles excellently.)

And that’s what I have to say about that, for now.