Superman in a bra.

Thighs shaved smoother than a cucumber. Cupid-bow lips. Armored breast. Screenings for Lesbians Only. The first ever feature film for the DC superhero WONDER WOMAN has already caused its fare share of controversy and orgasm.

It seems as if critics are only lauding this Patty Jenkins-directed film for fear of retribution from the female gender, and as contriteness for heaping such derision on the female-driven GHOSTBUSTERS last year. The first female superhero movie? Oh, it’s the best movie ever made! Best superhero movie by a mile! Totally “gets it” for women!

You lost me at lesbian screenings.

WONDER WOMAN is undoubtedly a thrilling tale, with excellent production values, an origin story not done to death like Batman’s or Spider-Man’s, its star an alluring neophyte in man-dribbling mini-skirt, with a scarring orchestral theme that halts armies and storms ramparts! (The bed of Hans Zimmer drums, the wailing banshee tritones of Junkie XL; insistent, vertiginous, clawing into your cerebral cortex!) Yet the movie fails to jolt into the upper climes of superherodom. Maybe it does for feminists and those boyfriends who need to gain access to feminist panties, however as part of the DC Extended Universe, WONDER WOMAN fails to grapple with the darkness and depth of MAN OF STEEL or BATMAN V SUPERMAN. It gets very close though. As close as a shaved thigh on a pouty face.

From Here To Themiscyra.

Wonder Woman’s origin story (created by William Moulton Marston in 1941) was originally set during World War II. WONDER WOMAN (written by Alan Heinberg, Zack Snyder and Jason Fuchs) is set in WWI, because the filmmakers wanted “social innocence” (read as women being treated like second-class citizens without repercussions: they wanted Diana to be out of place when brought to 1900’s London, yet unable to change the social climate).

Other than the era change, Wonder Woman comes to us as we remember her: embarrassingly patriotic red-white-and-blue garb, shield, sword (called the “god-killer”), Lasso of Hestia (aka Lasso of Truth), and tiny black nun’s panties covered with armored platelet and a gold-rimmed corset that makes us yearn after that and those.

A brief prologue shows Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) in modern times, looking at a vintage 1918 photograph of herself (see SIDEBAR). Then we are flashed back to a sun-soaked paradise island – Themiscyra, where we find a city of warriors bred for battle, ruling their land with wisdom and strength, running a society with ingenuity and intelligence, with no need for the opposite gender except for procreation; in other words, a society of men— Uh oh! Now I’m in trouble. No, not men – Amazons! Wild warrior women!

We meet young Diana (remarkable Lilly Aspell), mimicking General Antiope (statuesque Robin Wright, bringing her sensual venom from HOUSE OF CARDS and expressing it in real battle). Connie Nielsen is Diana’s doting mother, Queen Hippolyta, describing Diana’s birth (molded from clay by Zeus). And what is that accent they’re all using? Are they reverse-engineering Gal Gadot’s exotic Israeli accent into the full Amazon cast?

Baby Diana is trained by Antiope until she blossoms into Gal Gadot, faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap— well, you know. And that is the movie’s contradictory misstep: Diana and the Amazons are bred for one thing – battle against Ares (Hippolyta warned: “Ares the god of war turned men against one another and war ravaged the earth”) – yet when grown Diana wants to lend her fighting bosom to the World War because she suspects Ares’ meddling, the first thing the Amazons do is disown her, telling her The legends are not true!… See? Now do you get the reason why this movie is not credible? And you thought I was just being sexist.

Y’know, if you try to find a picture of Wonder Woman that ISN’T prurient – you will fail.

When American pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crash-lands on Themiscyra and inadvertently leads Germans to its shores, the warrior women launch into sexy battle and win. (Fist-up for woman empowerment and all that.) Sexy and kiddie-clean, as there is no blood whatsoever in this balletic battle utilizing blades, arrows and guns. Antiope even takes a bloodless bullet for Diana. (But I thought their armor was bullet-proof, or is that just Diana’s gauntlets? Even so, the pellets from these old-fashioned guns couldn’t have done that much damage – why not rush Antiope to that pool of rejuvenation that they put Steve in? Movies, huh?)

Steve, an American spy, importunes the Amazons to join him in the war effort, telling them of the villainous General Ludendorff (Danny Huston), and his chemical warfare mistress, Dr. Poison (Elena Anaya), from whom he stole deadly information. But the Amazons do not believe, as Diana does, that Ares is behind the “war to end all wars,” so decide to bravely sit out this world conflict. Diana is forced to steal the shield, lasso and sword, and sail off as a runaway with Steve. She’s painted as a rebel because Wonder Woman, like Superman, threatens to become a boring character if she is all-pure. Hippolyta laments to Diana, “If you choose to leave, you may never return.” (Uh, one good reason, please?)

Yet… as Hippolyta watches her daughter disappear over the waves, she proclaims, “The more she knows, the sooner he will find her,” meaning she ADMITS Ares is behind the war, also revealing she has not told Diana something important. We would learn later it is Diana herself who is the “god-killer.” And there was no reason to keep that secret. And if Hippolyta is so dubious of Diana’s battle prowess, why not just mobilize her army of lazy Amazon bitches and join the war effort?

You lost me at star-spangled underpants.

Back in smog-choked 1918 London, it’s fish-out-of-water time as Diana tries to fit in with a misogynistic society where women are subservient, like Steve’s assistant Etta (Lucy Davis, still a secretary; in THE OFFICE, sensual; here, frumpy). Diana enters the all-male House of Lords, led by David Thewlis. She berates the generals, not understanding how they can knowingly “sacrifice all those lives.” Answer: Because all men are pigs, right girls?!

Superhero sugar high.

Movie is funny in innocuous ways: Diana tells Steve, “Only an Amazon can defeat Ares.” He replies, “We need to get to London and try to find the men who can.” She retorts, “I’M the men who can!” It’s cute because it’s true.

Homage to SUPERMAN: they put glasses on Diana as a disguise; she stops a bullet in an alley mugging; she gads about in a big cloak to cover her armor/nakedness.

The old trope of Steve recruiting his men while they’re engaged in bar fights – Said Taghmaoui, Ewen Bremner and Eugene Brave Rock (very cool to include a Native American on this ragtag team); the three men who would be in that amazing cross-generational photo.

Quite childishly romantic, as Steve and Diana spend but one night together in a hotel room, before they will be separated by tragedy; although I’m thinking of the logistics on how a super-powered being can ever be satisfied by a mortal, even if he is the Captain of the Enterprise. Superman’s Kryptonian thrusts are two decades away.

At the front lines, the team is pinned down in a trench. Steve yells, “This is No Man’s Land; no MAN can cross it!” Oh, here we go – fist-up for substituting the word ‘woman.’ Thankfully, they don’t, and instead go for the jugular with the Wonder Woman reveal.

Slow motion, Diana climbs out of the trench, shrugs off her cloak, revealing the battle armor that wouldn’t cover a midget (prompting all male genitals to slowly “unfold”), and steps into the mud of No Man’s Land. Somehow, she has her sword and shield, boots, gauntlets, thighs, waterfall raven tresses babbling over naked shoulders, flap of groin-skirt sensually teasing, you could almost taste the pearbottom… In this hero shot, violins chug, smoke drifts, she looks like Linda Carter – the movie has won! –

Bullets scream at her, they ping off her gauntlets and shield, and then, the chugging is joined by those temple-throbbing drums – and the jarring tritone theme unleashes its fury. We almost wet our groin-platelets in ecstasy.

She takes on armed Germans, clobbering, swishing, deflecting bullets; flawless skin, vermilion lips, corded thighs, nun’s panties, raven locks… I don’t know where you’re looking, but my cinema experience is a wonder…

DC movies have started to follow a dangerous pattern (no, not just the new longer motion logo, which Cinema Sins will go ape over): their third acts devolve into eye-shattering CGI battles that would do TRANSFORMERS films proud. It was great in MAN OF STEEL, as Superman used his powers of flight and strength in ways that had never been visualized before; the city-sized explosions became a little tiresome in BATMAN V SUPERMAN, but here… they’ve bought the farm on predictable and overblown with Wonder Woman versus Ares, just clobbering the shit out of the greenscreen.

The villain gets to soliloquy on “wiping out Mankind and bringing paradise to the Earth,” which I can’t find fault with. She actually answers, “I can never be a part of that!” Give me one good reason why you don’t want paradise on Earth again? But the audience is not given the chance to ponder contradictions, as now Wondy is fighting a gigantic Viking special effect with a man-skort. How can she possibly win against this obviously stronger god? Answer: more special effects.

The big questions in play in WONDER WOMAN (Is Mankind worth saving? Will love save the world? Is every human both darkness and light?) become totally irrelevant due to the movie’s own plot. You see, after Wonder Woman defeats the Visual Effects Department (aka Ares), all the Germans break out of a trance and become good again. They’re telling us that all that “morality” and “love of war” has nothing to do with human free will, but possession by Ares! Which means that questioning Mankind’s dual nature, and capability for love, and busting out the painfully trite “They are warlike – yet noble” speech can all be boiled down to, “Just keep Ares away from them, they’ll be okay.”

“It’s about what you believe. And I believe in love.” Diana’s opening and closing maudlin narration makes us cringe, as the filmmakers try to tie Wonder Woman to William Marston’s original ethos – that she would combat hate (i.e. war) with love (i.e. breasts). “I have seen the terrible things men do to each other in the name of hatred, and the lengths they’ll go to for love.” My gorge is rising, as well as… “Only love can save this world. So I stay. I fight, and I give… for the world I know can be. This is my mission. Now. For ever.”

And a cheese factory exploded in London.

END

Better Dead Than RED 2.

A bunch of stunts and car chases got together and called itself RED 2.

It convinced Bruce Willis and John Malkovich to reprise their roles as Frank Moses and Marvin, ex-CIA Retired-Extremely-Dangerous overactors, “indicating” their way through this spy comedy. Movie also convinced Helen Mirren to reprise her role as the most dangerous wetwork queen bitch, given a contract to kill Bruce and Malko, her best pals. Bryan Cox returns, lusting after Helen. And Mary Louise-Parker returns as Bruce’s delicate civilian love interest, so that I may lust after her.

There’s also a plot of a WMD about to be loosed on the world, so Frank and Marvin must find the eccentric professor who built it (for reason unknown). You lost me at why anyone cares about or listens to these old queens if they’re off the grid and about to be whacked. And who is the professor? Well, whenever a character in one of these ensemble movies is introduced by first seeing the back of his head, it’s always a case of speculating on which A-lister was conned into taking a cut in pay to be in this ensemble cast. Turns out the professor is Anthony Hopkins, conned into taking a cut in pay, so therefore, acting while giving only half a rat’s ass.

Forever pursuing Frank Moses – Neal McDonough as a CIA spook, who gives way too much of a rat’s ass. I mean, can you just leave these retired people alone for a second, CIA muttonhead? Maybe you’ll discern that killing them will accomplish nothing. And maybe you’ll keep all the bones in your hands and legs intact.

Catherine Zeta-Jones turns up, Russian spy, kisses Bruce in front of Louise-Parker. Now L-P jealous, but not enough to make it interesting. L-P, so hot and sensual, empathetic, caring, using the weapons she knows best in combat – breaking people by kissing them instead of shooting them. Now she make Bruce jealous. But not enough to make it interesting.

Apparently, it’s funny cos they’re old…

Who is responsible for this garbled mess? Director Dean Parisot (from the enjoyable GALAXY QUEST to the mediocre FUN WITH DICK AND JANE 2005); but more than the director’s fault – the editor, Don Zimmerman. It seems amazing that Zimmerman worked on those same two movies, as well as other A-List titles that never exhibited the haphazard piecemeal approach he effects with RED 2. Shots appear at random after the scene is over, reaction shots that go nowhere, mean nothing; further shots after the button has been pushed on a scene; a hodgepodge of meaningless angles after the point of the scene has been made, etc. After his body of good work, Zimmerman seems like he’s getting too old for this shit, as in apathetic. He could take a few lessons from the editor of CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER. Or maybe from a 7-year-old.

David Thewlis is a French spy called The Frog (and no one sees this as racist because…? American movie?); and Byung-hun Lee is the agency’s premier assassin who somehow can’t kill Frank Moses because – I don’t even care anymore.

One of the stupidest lines: Frank yells to Marvin during a gun battle, to take Frank’s girlfriend to safety, “Get her outa here!” To which Marvin asks, “When?” Frank’s yelled reply, “Now!” When someone says get her outa here during a gun battle, doesn’t it imply NOW? What did Marvin expect the answer to be: “In ten minutes”? Who wrote this redundant piece of idiot dialogue? Turns out, the same two guys who wrote the first movie. Now they’ve figured out how to phone in scripts.

Y’know, movies like RED 2 are the reason why Liam Neeson quietly usurped the Action Hero crown from Bruce Willis. It’s not so much that the movies themselves are bad, but that Willis is also bad in them, forcing his comedic shtick like amateur hour.

Eventually we just get sick of this many idiots firing automatic weapons and hitting this much nothing. Especially when their target – our heroes – are right in front of them and they don’t shoot AT them but fire warning shots into the air, and then AFTER the hero takes cover do they start shooting AT the hero’s location in earnest…. My head’s about to explode with how many times the bad guys have the drop on our heroes and DON’T shoot them.

Don’t make the same mistake with RED 2, Movie Maniac. When you see this movie – shoot to kill.

END

A Very, Very Brief History of Hawking.

My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
— Stephen Hawking.

The brilliant English cosmologist Stephen Hawking appears as a B-character in the movie about his life, while his first wife Jane hijacks the narrative in THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.

Adapted from the book Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen (Alma Books 2007), THEORY is good for its motives – god knows we need more movies lauding scientists – but is not so much about Hawking and his black holes, as about his wife and her pink one. I lost interest the moment the most important thing onscreen became the love triangle between Hawking, his wife, and her fuck-buddy…

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING quickly devolves to The Theory of Hitting Biopic Beats, racing through Hawking’s youth – Cambridge college in the early ’60s, drunk friends, Meet Cute with art student Jane Wilde at a party, onset of his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – so it can arrive at the Behind The Music beats; you know, those moments when the narrator ominously intones, “Then… tragedy struck…” And that’s just a big galaxy of wrong. Focusing not so much on this physics genius’s achievements, as on the tragedies that would befall him throughout his scientific career. And no shrift is given to any of the men who collaborated with him on his world-shaking theories (especially Roger Penrose, who appears as an eyeblink). His stature rises in the academic world as if by magic, as we are not shown any of the connecting tissue between major physics achievements, just the final results and acclaim. As his star rises, his body withers, his limbs losing their mobility, his speech becoming more slurred; after being wheelchair-bound for years, he catches pneumonia and must suffer a tracheotomy, losing the ability to talk altogether. The tale of Stephen Hawking has always been one of excruciating tragedy coupled with literally mind-boggling achievement.

Stephen Hawking and mere humans.

Eddie Redmayne is Hawking, in an uncanny performance that deserved its Best Actor Oscar (but then, we recall the wisdom of Robert Downey Jr. in TROPIC THUNDER on never going Full Retard – i.e. Hawking might have been completely disabled physically, but his mind IS the greatest theoretical physics machine in this world).

David Thewlis brings his same Good Professor from the HARRY POTTER series.

Felicity Jones is Jane, who married Stephen whilst both were in college, soon after he was diagnosed with ALS. One wonders at the motivation behind their marriage, because Hawking was given only two years to live. How does that motivation carry through the decades of Hawking’s continued unpredicted existence? Yes, there is a “love story” weaved through Hawking’s immeasurable tragedies, but how does that translate over 100,000 nappy changes and carrying your lover in and out of your marriage bed?

Also, is the story of Hawking really about, uh, “love”? Movie specifically adopts Jane’s point of view, and I don’t trust accounts by wives or lovers of great men. (The silliest thing in the world must surely be Richard Pryor’s “Wife No. 5 and 7” offering opinions on Pryor’s motivations and inner thoughts.) Jane, no matter her own great accomplishments, cannot ever comment authoritatively on Hawking’s inner thoughts. Yet here she is, her subjective views on her ex-husband Hawking turned into “truth” by the motion picture industry.

Charlie Cox is Jonathan Hellyer Jones, the fuck-buddy, whom Jane meets in a location long renowned as the best pickup joint for fuck-buddies – church. Movie suddenly skews to MELROSE PLACE, as we are then compelled to wonder when the obvious sexual electricity between Jane and Jonathan is going to be conjugated. And that’s another big black hole of wrong. That shouldn’t be what we’re here for! And why am I now resenting Jane for just wanting a little good lovin’ like any red-blooded human?

If director James Marsh and writer Anthony McCarten want to pull these relationship-manipulation tricks on us, go make another movie. Of course we wonder how Hawking conducted his love life, but don’t make it the focus of the tale! We are told in a euphemistic way that his erections are on a “different system” to the ALS, so through the mind-bending lifelong tragedy of his escalating disease there is at least that one fluttering spark; he fathered three healthy children with Jane – but we are left to wonder how Jane, on a purely human level, extracted her satisfaction from their encounters. Remember, this guy cannot move. He literally “just lies there.” Much is made over the “love” shared by Hawking and Jane, but you lost me at wiping the arse of your lover and still retaining any libido at all.

We tell ourselves there must have been some kind of “arrangement” between them, for Jane not to end up batshit crazy; she must have sought pleasures elsewhere with Stephen’s blessing. And sure enough, she did. Jones was inducted into the family dynamic on the proviso that Jane would still care for Hawking, no matter what she did on the side to get her ya-yas out. However, this very modern, very necessary sex-love-triangle is played like Jones and Jane are star-crossed lovers. And when Jane brings Jones to the Hawking dinner table and they are discussing Hawking’s theories – with her translating Hawking’s slurry language – there can be no greater emasculation of her genius husband, as Jones looks at Hawking as if Hawking is a child who has just learned to speak.

From the outset, THEORY OF EVERYTHING takes it for granted there is a christian god – even though Hawking is an atheist, at the least an agnostic, in that he sometimes makes reference to the term “god” to make a point. This has always been an irritation with me, because Hawking is smart enough to know better, yet we must give him a pass, because he is so debilitated he has to play the game for the fairytalers around him who must supply his drinking water and wipe that genius arse. At the dinner table, their discussion progresses to the existence of God, and Hawking must mitigate his arguments for the forceful insanity (i.e. “faith”) of Jane, who is translating and has Final Say on any views espoused. And the nozzle to his drinking water.

I say again: if he were not wheelchair-ridden, how righteous would be his denouncement of that insanity! Religionists claim atheism is a belief in nothing, when that is totally incorrect. It is actually a pragmatic belief in YOURSELF more manifest than that inculcated in you by a religion predicated on magic and threats. Ironically, Jane’s supposed “strong faith,” and every religionists’ “belief” in religion, Christianity or God – is a belief in nothing!

Suddenly, Hawking has written his renowned tome, A Brief History Of Time; suddenly he is world famous. A few scientific precepts and cosmological theories are floated through whimsical dialogue, but nothing has any context, and even less explanation. The CMB (cosmic microwave background radiation) is mentioned in passing but once – yet it is the most elegant explanation of why the universe has a beginning (i.e. the Big Bang). If you didn’t know any science going in, don’t worry, you won’t know any science coming out. (At least the 2004 TV movie HAWKING included Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, discoverers of the CMB, and explained the CMB’s significance to Hawking’s work. That movie, starring a young Benedict Cumberbatch, also focused more on the hellish reality of his motor neuron disease and muscle deterioration.) The grandiose cosmology precept intimated in the title – the Theory Of Everything, sometimes referred to as Unified Field Theory, Ultimate Theory or Master Theory (not to be confused with the Grand Unified Theory in subatomic particle physics) – is a bait and switch. Because the movie is not about the physics – it’s about the, ahem, love.

But truly, this is not a love story between a man and a woman – it’s between a man and his mind. Like movie critic Roger Ebert held onto life so many years after his loss of speech and health, for the love of movies, we can only explain Hawking’s tenacity in clinging to life as a pathological dedication to physics equations. My mind is agog at the weight of his misery and his heroism in the face of it. To not be able to move, speak or even perform the most banal tasks of maintenance on yourself. And then to have a brain that spirals amongst the cosmos. Through it all, Hawking retains a startling sense of humor, so quick, so… smart. How does he do it? Hawking himself is living proof that there is no God, for how could a benevolent deity do such a thing to one of its most prized creations? Hawking is also living proof that if God did exist, he is a sadistic prick, straight up.

Over the tragedy of his lost voice, the amusing aside of his now-iconic voice modulator, as he and his family are shocked to hear it has an American accent…

How long can a human’s “love” rally against the onslaught of another human’s physical deterioration? This relentless elephant in the room, this 24/7 emasculation, this destroyer of will, this eroding of humanity. Jane’s patience would eventually wear out. In her defense, she only thought Hawking was going to live two years at the time of their marriage. She never envisioned decades hence, the constant tramp of assistants, caregivers, media as his celebrity increased; booking flights, TV, interviews, lectures, lifting him in and out of that godforsaken chair, wheeling him up and down convention hall ramps; spoon feeding him, dressing him, wiping his genius arse and satisfying his masturbation needs.

Maxine Peake is Elaine Mason, one of Hawking’s caregivers, a flame-haired beauty who reminds us of Ann-Margret in her heyday, who would become his second wife. Movie ends before the dissolution of their 11-year marriage, and focuses on the enduring friendship of Jane and Hawking. Again, giving closure to Jane’s love life with Jonathan and leaving Hawking’s fate open.

And now, at 72, the small part of Hawking’s cheek that he uses to manipulate his voice-modulator and computer is failing. Can there be any greater tragedy? How much more is this man supposed to endure?! At an age when most people are becoming too frail to cling to life, the immortal Stephen Hawking is experiencing the same thing, but in his heightened frailty it means the end of his quality of life itself!

At an age where he could very easily die a natural death, yet Hawking lives, against all odds and speculation, his mind reaching ever further, struggling for that thing this movie forgot he was struggling for – the theory of everything.

END

Order off the Menu.

Nothing’s pulling the carriage, Harry. It’s pulling itself, like always…
— Hermione, ORDER OF THE PHOENIX.

HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX reminds us of how Jor-El’s warnings to Krypton’s elders went unheeded, and how Krypton paid the price. In PHOENIX, the demon wizard Voldemort is back – but no one believes the people claiming this – Harry Potter and Dumbledore. Even using scientific evidence, Jor-El could not convince Krypton their planet was going to explode; how then do Harry and Dumbledore prove Voldemort’s return with only the amorphous, pointless, rule-less faculty of magic to aid them? I don’t blame the council of old farts for not believing.

ORDER OF THE PHOENIX exhibits the same problems of disjointedness as its predecessors, not because it omits material from J.K. Rowling‘s book of the same name – but because the filmmakers (new screenwriter Michael Goldenberg, and new director David Yates) do not structure their movie as a stand-alone tale. They rely too much on audiences having a priori knowledge of the Harry Potter universe, so the movie just barges along with no thought to setups, exposition, foreshadowing or payoffs.

The two major plot threads in PHOENIX are the return of Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) to battle Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), and a totalitarian witch (Imelda Staunton) ousting Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) as headmaster and taking over Hogwarts school. When these two plotlines are followed, the story chugs along swimmingly. As soon as movie deviates from these threads for the sake of inserting book material for diehards, it’s like Hermione says, “It’s pulling itself, like always”…

Movie opens very grimly indeed, as Harry and his bullying step-brother Dudley (Harry Melling, replete with goombah gold necklace) are attacked by Dementors. Harry uses magic to deter the beasts and is put on trial for using magic openly. These scenes are dark visually and metaphysically, not least because:

Sky turns from sunny to overcast in mere seconds to reflect the encounter;
A strange woman tells Harry she was sent by Dumbledore to watch over him;
The court of wizards ignores all sanity and reason;
Dumbledore ignores Harry in a disturbing manner, even whilst defending him in court;
Richard Griffiths (Harry’s stepdad) is now so morbidly obese in real life, he looks like he’s gonna die any second – and that’s truly disturbing.

The tone remains pretty dark like this, to the movie’s credit, but it just… meanders sometimes.

At Hogwarts, a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is hired, Dolores Umbridge (Staunton), a Republican absolutist in a vomit pink dress who is institutionally insane. Forget the black-robed special effects, the most terrifying horror of all is the old white woman with the closed mind in the position of power.

With waves of her wand Umbridge battens down on the dress code, on students kissing in public, on the desired distance between them, on a hundred other codes that she posts outside her office. When she punishes Harry by making him write lines, each line he writes is simultaneously inscribed painfully on his hand!

When she tries to arrest Dumbledore to banish him to Azkaban prison, he claps his hands above his head and in a blast of dramatic phoenix-fire, disappears. Which raises the question: How do they apprehend ANYONE to take to Azkaban prison?

Students rebel against Umbridge’s totalitarian regime and gather in a secret room, electing Harry their new magic tutor. Harry (now a true teen, short-cropped hair, voice broken, balls dropped) seems to be the only person at Hogwarts to have achieved anything remotely cinematic – killing the Basilisk, defeating 100 Dementors, etc. – and we gain a perspective on his accomplishments; without him, this motley collection of witches and wizards would be called St. Crispin’s School for the Terminally Mundane. He teaches them that the hardest part of casting spells like “Expeliamus” and “Expecto Patronum” is admitting you’re gay.

With his newfound masculinity, Harry stupidly makes a move on the Asian-American chick (Katie Leung); “stupidly” because Hermione is still in the wings, being ultra-hot, but mitigating that hotness with her lack of understanding on how to grow into her role as a young adult; I’m saying she’s a terrible actor. Harry’s and Katie’s lips actually touch, but the camera makes it a point to pan up their bodies to ensure Republican parents that their bodies do not.

Evanna Lynch is Luna, a bottle-blond creepy chick who sees dead horses. David Thewlis is back, as is Gary Oldman, both in a secret Order of the Phoenix (mentioned once then forgotten), amassing to do battle with Voldemort. Helena Bonham Carter is a bad witch; in and out of the story for no reason. Emma Thompson has a small cameo as the useless soothsayer. Brendan Gleeson brings his mad eye. And Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy struts around with his hair set on Charlie’s Angel.

It’s lucky that all the stars and B-characters retained their looks and shapes as they aged. None of them turned into fat, ugly people or had limbs replaced or joined a cult and got face tattoos. What are the odds that such a large production could retain so much of its main onscreen cast like this?

Apparently, you can only see those emaciated horse specters “only if you’ve seen death” like Harry and the creepy chick. That’s why Hermione couldn’t see the specter pulling the carriage and thought the carriage was “pulling itself.” Later, all the kids – including Hermione – are fly-riding those horse specters to London. You lost me at Making It Up As You Go Along.

Climax sees massive posedowns between Voldemort and Gary Oldman, Voldemort and Dumbledore, Voldemort and Hansel (he’s so hot right now!) – in the best lightshow a computer can regurgitate, Volde cheesing it up and Dumble matching him pound for pound in Limburger and Swiss. In the end, everything peters out because – magic.

It’s pulling itself, like always…

END

Azkabana-fo-fana.

Harry Potter’s getting on to “that age.” At the opening of HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN, we meet him in bed under the blankets, playing with his wand.

And Hermione is – how shall I say this without sounding as perverse as the rest of you who deny you’re looking? – budding…

And Ron is still a mourning-faced creature.

But you know what this movie needs? More Gary please!

The great Gary Oldman almost stars in HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN as Sirius Black, a wizard escaped from Azkaban prison, on his way to kill wizard prince Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe). “Almost” because the whole movie is spent talking about him or seeing his face on a Wanted poster; and when we do meet him in the bedlam third act, his only meaty interaction with the other characters involves shouting action lines and being a werewolf half the time, so it’s a tragedy for us – and for the movie. We can see he’s been taking “oily” lessons from Guy Pearce, and he hasn’t bathed since he was Beethoven.

Expecto a batho.

Still, the HARRY POTTER franchise lifts itself slightly with this third installment (following CHAMBER OF SECRETS), helmed by dark lord Alfonso Cuarón (Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN), instead of milky waif Chris Columbus. As the three child stars are older, the rating has moved from G to PG-13, so even as Sirius Black tracks Harry, we are afforded more sinister scares with the ominous specters called Dementors tracking Black.

Also, Lord Voldemort has re-entered the Potter tale, as a menacing presence in the background, whom Black is allegedly courting by killing Harry.

So the film is more mature than its predecessors, yet PRISONER OF AZKABAN retains a confused and contradictory forced tapestry of characters and motivations that I’m sure their demographic are too young to apprehend. Throw in a time-travel denouement and this confounded tale buckles under its own weight. As the emperor said in AMADEUS: Too many notes…

Film once again opens in the home that Harry shares with his unloving step-parents, where Harry is goaded into expanding his annoying aunt into a zeppelin that floats out the window. Thankfully, like the Hulk, her knickers stay on. Harry should apparently be penalized by the Wizard Assemblage Neon Knights of English Royal Society (W.A.N.K.E.R.S for short), but is spared the humiliation, and given special dispensation by the Accidental Magic Reversal Department (yeah, and that one I didn’t make up).

He runs away from home, and is picked up by a magic bus, which seems to be a part of the real traffic environment, yet can alter itself to circumvent the environment, as when it needs to squeeze through traffic. Again, no rules, ergo, no tension. How does inertia keep affecting it when Harry is thrown forward as it brakes hard? Why steer?

I hate magic.

Harry is dropped off at an inn where he meets Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson). Is author J.K. Rowling making this up as she goes along? Why are Ron and Hermione at this inn? It’s not like everyone ran away from home and needs a transitory shelter before heading back to Hogwarts. Halfway through the first act and you’ve already lost my emotional investment. Even with chest buds.

On the way to Hogwarts, a Dementor attacks the train. It’s looking for Sirius Black but it’ll kill anyone for being black and nearby. Kinda like cops: we’re looking for criminals, but we’ll use violent force on anybody during business hours.

At Hogwarts, there’s a new Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) because sadly, Richard Harris went to that great wizard party in the sky. Dumble warns the children that Dementors are patrolling the school grounds, on the lookout for Sirius. Does anybody else think Dumbledore exhibited unbounded irresponsibility in allowing Dementors on school grounds; beings that he admits are so incognizant they cannot or will not discern between Sirius and a passing school kid? Someone call Child Services on this senile goat!

David Thewlis commands the best role in this film. As new Professor Lupin of Dark Arts, he doesn’t seem stunt cast – like Branagh in the last film, or Emma Thompson in this film, as eccentric soothsayer Sybil – he seems born to be a wizard, like Alan Rickman (Snape) or Gambon. A well-rounded character that is a boon to Harry, ready with knowledge and a helping hand when needed. And a Patronum, whatever the hell that is.

We can safely say this movie is where all the Expecto Patronum started. Expecto Patronum! Jeez, can you make me feel any dirtier? Lupin also teaches the kids the Riddikulus charm; I’m biting not only my lip but my whole face: a spell that you use when confronted with a terrifying thing, to turn it into something comical. Oh my god, there’s not enough soap in my grocery store to wash off this dirtiness I’m feeling right now…

Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) introduces his class to a winged eagle-horse called a hippogriff (which is an appropriate name, as hippo means horse in Latin, and griff means that big dumb galoot from BACK TO THE FUTURE II.)

Sybil teaches the kids how to read tea leaves and finds a “grim” in Harry’s cup, wolf-shaped leaves that presage his death. Royt… the fact that he lives through five more films is irrelevant – prophesy is always right, right?

During the Quidditch game, Dementors attack Harry, because again, so dumb they can’t tell a wizard’s elbow from his arsehole. Since Quidditch has no rules anyway, and anyone can do anything at any time for any reason, no one figured the Dementors shouldn’t have been on the field of play – not that they were on the field of play, because there is no defined field of play in Quidditch; and no one could tell they were sucking out Harry’s soul because every Tom, Dick and Draco tries to do that during every Quidditch game anyway. Only when Harry falls off his vaginal broom does Dumbledore stand and gesture, “Arresto momentum!” He didn’t really just say that, did he? By now, I’ve sunk so low in my seat out of embarrassment, it looks empty. Or should I say it looks Evacuo Chairo.

Harry’s broomstick breaks in the fall. Lupin: “I’m sorry to hear about your broomstick. Is there no chance of fixing it?” Harry says no [needle scratch]– Are you kidding me? You’ve just been thigh-humping this broomstick like a personal jetpack against all the laws of physics, Dumbledore just arrestoed your fall from 1000 feet; a supernatural wraith tried to suck out your life essence – and THERE’S NO WAY TO FIX YOUR VAGINA-HUGGING BROOMSTICK? Have you tried Elmer’s Glue and some frickin’ nails?

Harry uses his cloak of invisibility – but if it’s not to spy on Hermione, then I don’t really care.

The twist is that Sirius is not really trying to kill Harry but shout a few action lines and pick up a paycheck. Harry saves Sirius’s life saying Expecto Patronum so many times that *I* almost disappeared in embarrassment. Then a white stag appears and chases away the dark specters. Yay. For no reason. Even when we discover how the white stag appeared, it still has no reason to be a white stag. Unless, of course, there’s a deeper phallic meaning, or a cry for help from Harry over how Rowling is slowly making him too douchey for words…  I love reading all the apologists debating over why a white stag, why a Patronus, why a time loop, why no girls will touch them…

Over and above all the expecto boolshitus adventures, there’s Hermione’s time traveling/shark jumping. Woven into the story like an OCEAN’S TWELVE post-exposition, only the nerds care whether her chrono anomalies jigsaw into the body of the tale; everyone else is just happy to see Hermione in that jumper and those jeans –cough, chestbuds–

As we’ve already discovered, all these kids are at “that age”; gearing up to be swatted flat with hormonal discharges enough to knock over an elephant. Inevitably the question of “romance” will arise in this episode – in the most surprising, offhanded manner. I think everyone in the world took it for granted Hermione and Harry would be an item. How shocking then, during a traumatic moment, when Hermione instinctively embraces RON WEASLEY instead of Harry! Harry moves up behind Hermione like a third wheel and tries to… uh, uh, spoon her meaningfully, but the moment has been lost and it is forced and embarrassing. It is staged in this way on purpose; to set up Ron’s future relationship with this world’s greatest spinner. In one small move, Harry has been emasculated and excised from the emotional loop. You might think this intimate move is nothing consequential, but a move like this is always consequential. To paraphrase Vincent Vega in PULP FICTION, “We act like it don’t mean somethin’ – and that’s what’s so cool about it – but it always means somethin’!”

This ruins the franchise. Our hearts are just not in it anymore. By 2014, even Rowling would regret not bowing to convention and simply pairing the two leads; at the very least, she might have created sexual tension between them until they were of legal age. Now everything that comes after that hug looks obtuse and pointless. When Harry and Hermione ride that wild, frothing beast from BACK TO THE FUTURE and Harry makes a comment to Hermione, no matter what he says, he’s stuck in the Friend Zone now, never to return, so nothing he says can be taken seriously anymore.

Is this what Sybil actually meant when she predicted the death of Harry Potter in the tea leaves? Is this the hidden meaning behind Harry unable to fix his broom?

Coitus Patronum Interruptus, Harry! Even the Accidental Magic Reversal Department can’t save you from this one…

END

The Book of Duderonemy.

All The Dude ever wanted was his rug back.
–The Dude, THE BIG LEBOWSKI.

Thus it begins. Two low-rent thugs mistakenly terrorize shiftless stoner Jeff Lebowski (aka The Dude) instead of the rich mark they were meant to threaten, also named Lebowski. They pee on The Dude’s rug for good measure, precipitating the rug’s demise. That rug really tied the room together. And by Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Dude shall have restitution!

Jeff Bridges brings a breezy effortlessness to The Dude that is the heart, soul and hash pipe of this culture-gasm called THE BIG LEBOWSKI. He doesn’t just “make” the movie – he IS the movie. They say John Wayne was tilting towards Rooster Cogburn all his life. The same is true of Jeff Bridges subsuming himself in Jeff Lebowski, nay, The Dude. No matter how many more films Bridges may make in his lifetime, he will forever be remembered as The Dude, or His Dudeness, or Duder, or El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.

El Duder Cuker

And he can claim to his grandchildren that he once did a whole movie in his pajamas.

The first three viewings of THE BIG LEBOWSKI will wash over you before you realize it even has a plot, as you wallow in the headrush aura of Bridges playing The Dude as if these lines are just occurring to him as the camera rolls.

Set in the art-and-porn surfer-bowler underbelly of Los Angeles’s Venice Beach locale, by the fifth viewing, you will realize there are other actors sharing the lens: John Goodman as The Dude’s high-strung Jewish gun-toting, ex-war vet, bowling buddy Walter (“I don’t roll on Shabbos!”), Steve Buscemi as their mousy sidekick Donny, whom Walter has no patience for (“Shut the fuck up, Donny!”); David Huddleston as the Big Lebowski of the title, the billionaire whom the low rent thugs should have visited. If they had, we wouldn’t be here right now, with a revolution of in-gags and cult quotables.

Comes Philip Seymour Hoffman mewling in the middle background as the billionaire’s liege; Julianne Moore as Maude, avant-garde, elitist artiste who re-kidnaps the Big Lebowski’s rug after The Dude takes it as restitution for his own demised centerpiece; Tara Reid as the billionaire’s trophy wife Bunny Lebowski, who is the person actually responsible for the whole mess leading to the micturating on The Dude’s rug…

Ben Gazzara makes a cameo, as does Sam Elliott’s Mustache, bringing Sam Elliott with it as The Stranger, narrating in that baritone velvet, “The Dude abides.” (That mustache recently insured Elliott for a million dollars with Lloyd’s of London. It knows it just wouldn’t look the same without him.)

And there is John Turturro as rival ten-pin bowler, the ball-tonguing, ambiguously-Mexican The Jesus. Not pronounced “Haysoos” and not just “Jesus” – The Jesus.

A plot happens while no one is looking: a kidnapped girl (“They’re gonna kill that poor woman!”), a cut-off toe (“You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me”), a porn king (“Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man!”), a ransom drop gone horribly wrong involving Walter’s underwear (that’s the ‘horribly’ part), and some nihilists led by Peter Stormare and Flea (“We believe in nussing, Lebowski. Nussing! And tomorrow we come back and we cut off your chonson”). But the plot itself is merely McGuffin, in the parlance of our times, wending its way like a stream of consciousness film noir pulp novella only to prop up the cannonade of one-liners, white Russians and a nice marmot.

Dude-splaying.

As convoluted as the story gets, it threatens derailment at every turn with subplots and left turns: an hallucinatory dream featuring a Kenny Rogers song from his days of dropping acid (Just Dropped In), tracking the thief who stole The Dude’s car (“Is this your homework, Larry?”) and Julianne Moore making men uncomfortable, saying “vagina.”

When The Dude recovers his stolen car, he pops some sweet Creedence in the tape deck, and some old, familiar lyrics (“Doo doo doo, lookin’ out my back door”) take on a new timbre, as they conspire with the context of the film and kinda sound like: “Dude dude dude, lookin’ out my back door…”

Being a Coen Brothers film, things don’t always go as expected: someone dies, someone conceives, and someone just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.

Is it the best film ever made? The reviewers will revile, the purists will pule, the Church of Lebowski will effuse. One thing is certain: It’s good knowin’ he’s out there; The Dude. Takin’ ‘er easy for all us sinners.

The Dude abides.

END

Frances O’Connor and two boobs.

Space-Time Continuum Saved by Surfer Dude & Community Theatre Actress.

TIMELINE makes the execrable indecency of THE CORE look like a scientific masterpiece. With costumes borrowed from a traveling Renaissance Festival and actors borrowed from the local community theatre, even the brainless idiocy of FROM JUSTIN TO KELLY reads like CITIZEN KANE when weighed against this bone-chilling waste of resources which could have gone towards fueling that political lie of making hunger a memory in Africa.

A bunch of young archaeologists, led by Paul Walker, must go back in time to medieval France to rescue his dad, who inadvertently shot himself back in time through the cunning use of exposition.

From the modern-day blue-tinted laboratory (replete with grailed platforms, flat-screen monitors which display nothing but cack and shoot Movie Sparks when they explode), to the chain-mailed medieval riders (wielding unwieldy swords and speaking in modern English accents), to the populace of 14th-century France (outfitted in clean rags and milling aimlessly everywhere for atmosphere), every aspect of this movie simply oozes inauthentic. The appalling acting doesn’t help.

Notably pathetic in her role is Frances O’Connor, who performed spectacularly as the troubled mother in A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, yet who has forgotten how to stop “indicating” in this movie – her every move an overt caricature of an emotion, like an acting student who has just learned how to “not look at the camera.”

Poffy’s Cesium Sundial

Paul Walker, who held up well as a supporting actor alongside the talented Steve Zahn and the delectably sweet Leelee Sobieski in JOY RIDE, cannot seem to inhabit his leading man role here with any conviction, as his onscreen presence is constantly overpowered by any day-player, mule or piece of rock which accidentally shares the screen with him.

For Billy Connolly, as Paul Walker’s McGuffin father, I’m sure he’ll glean a lot of material for his next stand-up tour. For Gerard Butler, as an archaeologist, he was just waiting for the time machine to deliver him further back in time to Sparta.

Written by Michael Crichton (whose stories have become as hit-and-miss as Stephen King’s when translated to the movie screen), the plot centers around some boring English-French war in 1347, into which our modern heroes are dropped. Usually when this plot device is utilized, the modern-day protagonists exploit their knowledge of history and modern technology to bode them through their escape from the “past.” In TIMELINE, what we get are time-traveling amulets which never work – and lots of running. And plenty of unbelievably deplorable acting from Frances O’Connor.

While one of the modern “scientist” characters is tripping over his line-read trying to convince us that he’s not talking PURE bullshit (but merely a watered down version thereof) regarding how the “time-machine” functions, Walker’s character actually interjects, “Personally I don’t care about the hows and the whys” – and we realize that neither do the film-makers. Immediately, all attempts at explanations regarding the machine’s logistics, complexity and ingenuity cease and it is no more than a bus depot between time-zones.

To inspire some shred of dramatic tension (which could not be culled from the inane characters alone) the machine delivers Our Heroes to the past and promptly blows up, due solely to the WELL-TRAINED MARINE who went along as supposed protection, but whom we realize is simply a plot-device, when he steps out into the French Middle Ages presenting himself as an easy target to a bowman, then teleports back immediately with a grenade that conveniently blows up the time machine. The other Well-Trained Marine was killed even quicker. Semper fidelis, jackasses!

In a movie like this, when the protagonists’ only means of escape is destroyed, there is not one shred of doubt that, by the time the “ticking clock” has reached the final few seconds, some other specious plot device will come into play to Bring Them Back Safely. And it does, due to their whining geek physics pal.

Every so often we flashback to “the present”; to the destroyed lab where all the B-characters (led by David Thewlis) ineffectually bicker over how to reconstruct the time-machine, taking opposing sides simply to create dramatic tension, rather than because they really know what they’re talking about. Ethan Embrey is also here in the middle background, his presence only taking us out of the film to ponder on how he passed the audition to be here. Then we see Frances O’Connor again, and it all makes sense.

At about the time someone screams, “Night arrows!” the movie becomes unwatchable. Pointless to describe banal plot contrivances and indescribably vapid acting performances when the movie is literally glutted with both. And one of the biggest surprises is – it’s Richard Donner at the helm! This is the director behind THE OMEN, SUPERMAN, LETHAL WEAPON. What drove him to this low state? Did he really think that the generational drawcard of Paul Walker would hold up the indolent story and lackluster directing, not to mention the unmentionably insensate acting of Frances O’Connor?

Then there’s the French woman who can’t hold onto any particular accent, and who for no discernible reason disguises the fact that she can speak fluent English until the laziness of the plot makes it convenient for her to do so.

Have I mentioned that Frances O’Connor’s acting makes Hayden Christensen look like Sir Lawrence Olivier?

The titular “timeline” has nothing at all to do with anything, as these characters in no way seem concerned about altering history for better or worse. As far as we can see, they have no stake in anything except transporting Billy Connolly back to the present, all the while arguing over their time-amulets and shushing each other, whilst a silly and lazily-directed war that doesn’t concern them in the least roils around them.

If I failed to mention Frances O’Connor’s dung-heap of a performance, I’d like to add that even George Lucas, with his talent for bringing out the absolute non-actor in human beings, could not have fashioned a more stilted, stunted, immature and uninformed line-read.

Time travel should exist for the sole purpose of being able to go back and stop this movie from being greenlighted.

Night Arrows!!

END