The Cat Burglar

Warning: Cutesy-Wutesy Kitty Story

KJ has been making pendants out of clay. When working with clay, she wooden tools. When she's not using them, she keeps them in a plastic bag, held together by a rubber band:

She keeps this downstairs, on the living room table. For the past few days, Sybil has been picking up the bag and carrying it around the room. I don't know, it must be a cat thing. We just keep taking it away from her, and putting it back on the table. So this morning, our precious Sybil brings KJ this as a present:

The plastic bag, still held together with the rubber band, minus the tools. She brought it to KJ as a gift, the same way a cat might bring its owner a dead mouse. But where were the tools? We looked all over the house, under every piece of furniture. We were dumbfounded. It seemed like there should have at least been a trail. I can picture her playing with them around the house, and losing them under furniture, as she often does with Q-Tips and milk rings. But there's nine tools in that set, we should have at least been able to find one of them.

In the end, it was Sybil who showed KJ where they were. Upstairs, in the bedroom, under some shoes. And neatly organized, for a cat.

Sybil was a bit protective of them, and didn't want to give them up. She kept complaining about us taking away her toy, and she keeps trying to get at them again.

Hancock

I'd really rather review the reviewers than the actual movie, if that's okay. Or even if it's not okay - it's my blog, so nyahh!

Dear Tennessean: Next time you don't do your homework, bring a note from your mother.

I read half-a-dozen reviews for this movie, and none of them were very positive. A typical review:
"Hancock starts out as a hilarious anti-hero movie, showing the flipside to the tired comic book formula. Unfortunately, halfway through the movie Hancock finds his morality, and from there it turns into the very type of movie it tried to parody - the standard formulaic super hero movie."

These reviewers are wrong. They're nuts. And worst of all, they're liars - they reviewed the trailer, not the movie. I know this because that's exactly the kind of review I might have written if I'd only watched the trailers. However, this is one of those cases where the actual movie bears very little resemblance to the trailers, which makes the reviewers flat out liars.

Regarding the first half of the movie, the reviewers are fairly close. Granted, they don't say anything you couldn't have found out from the trailers, but they're partly right. The Hancock character is a superhero who isn't very heroic, or rather a drunken slob who just happens to have super powers. There are a lot of gags to be had from this, but for the most part Hancock is just too much of a jerk for the jokes to really be funny. There is a blurry line between grungy anti-hero, and super-villian, but Hancock blatantly crosses it. He could save the world 100 times over, and I'd still want him locked away.

The second half is where the reviewers get it all wrong. From the trailers, I'm sure you thought that Hancock has a magical change of heart, and suddenly becomes sappier-than-Superman, and spends the rest of the movie helping people until he finally saves the world from some evil menace. Apparently the reviewers thought so too, because that's what they wrote. In actuality, it never becomes anything even close to resembling a typical formulaic super hero movie. What it does become is a bit of a mess, something harder to classify. But I will say that rather than fighting a final boss or having to move mountains to save humanity, it becomes more about Hancock's own past catching up with him. Spoiler alert, but how many superhero movies are resolved by having the hero literally run away from his problems (and, where it's actually a noble thing to do)?

It would be one thing if I'd only read people's blogs & message board posts. But a couple of the reviews I read were from actual papers, including my local paper. To be fair, in the case of the Tennessean, it might have been one of those national reviews that the local paper reprints. I've tried to find that paper again to see if that was the case, but it had already been thrown away. But regardless of where the review came from, someone was paid to write it, someone who didn't even bother to see the movie first. I've rarely seen such a clear-cut case of sloppy journalism. Telling people you saw a movie when you actually didn't, is the same as not doing your research on any article.

This is not a case of "I liked the movie, and reviewers didn't, so the reviewers suck." I have a few of those ready (Ask me about Starship Troopers sometime. Or Fantastic Four.), but this isn't one of them. I actually feel about the same way the reviewers did - lukewarm. Hancock is a decent matinee (though we got charged full price for a matinee due to Regal's new policy... but that's another rant altogether). The movie is flawed and uneven, with some cruel humor and some nonsensical plot twists. Some of the character motivations seem forced, as if the writers were so intent on it playing out a certain way, they didn't consider whether a certain character would actually do such a thing. But these flaws are not quite enough to make it a bad movie, and the good stuff makes up for the bad, IMO. Your mileage may vary.

But it doesn't matter that the reviewers and I agreed overall. The point is, that I actually bought a ticket (paying too much, Damn you Regal... *ahem*) and watched the thing, while the other guys got paid to write a review and didn't watch it. Maybe it's because I'm out of Cymbalta, but I think these reviewers should be shot, then fired, then shot again. Personally, I would love getting paid to watch movies and then write about them, and I know several people who would consider it a dream job. Can't these people see how good they have it? I might not be the best writer in the world, but if I were hired, I promise I would actually see the movies I'm paid to see.

Bottom line: Don't trust the reviews. And while we're at it, boycott Regal until they change the matinee times back.

Mario Kart Wii

I love my Wii, and I love most of the games I've played for it so far. Of course, the best of the best - Wii Sports, Zelda, Metroid, Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros Brawl - are the ones made by Nintendo themselves. They're the only ones who really know how to get the most out of their system. So it's no real surprise that Mario Kart is a hit.

But what a hit... I can honestly say that this is the most fun I've had on the Wii so far. Of course the game is fun, it's Mario Kart - they could have repackaged Mario Kart 64 with some updated graphics and I'd have been happy. And to some extent, that's what they did - there's really not a whole lot of new content here. But the overall package is so enjoyable, that I can't complain.

Well, okay, I can complain. There are a few major flaws that would absolutely cripple it, if it were a non-Nintendo title.

For one thing, I hate the way you lose your items whenever you crash, get hit, spin out, get electrocuted, fall, burn, blink, sneeze, or think about cabbage. In the older Mario Kart games, it was a good strategy to hoarde the best items when you get them, and use them at just the right moment. For example, if you fell off the course but you happened to have a mushroom boost on you, then you could get going again in a flash. In MKW, falling off the course makes you lose that mushroom. It's so easy to lose your items in MKW, that the best strategy is to try to use your items as soon as you get them, before somebody hits you with their items.

And you will get hit often. Which brings me to my next complaint - the newest items are just too powerful. And since it's now 12 racers instead of 8, items are getting used constantly. The way MKW is programmed, the player in the lead gets the worst items, and those bringing up the rear get unblockable psycho-uber WMDs. In theory this is a good idea. In the older MK games, if you found yourself in 8th place in the third lap, then there wasn't much chance you'd place above 7th. With MKW, there's always hope. Now you can go from last to first in the final stretch of the last lap, just by getting the right powerup. And everybody targets the guy in front. So now, when you're the kart in first place, you spend most of your time flattened and shrunk, with a storm cloud over your head, a shell on your ass, and a squid in your face. You're almost better off staying in second for most of the race until the finish line is in sight.

Sometimes it bothers me that I'm not feeling the speed. Often I don't feel like I'm moving any faster than you can run in any given Mario game. And with some of the game's gimmicks (the one where you bounce off mushrooms comes to mind), I almost feel like I'm playing something besides a racing game. Maybe Nintendo needs to make a "Wii Fan" peripheral that blows air in your face, depending on how fast you're going.

Unless I'm missing something, there's seems to be no two-player GP mode. That's too bad, because I always enjoyed unlocking the cups with a friend. You can still race other people, both online and off. But without working towards something, those kind of matches feel a little empty to me. MKW has a lot of new characters and vehicles to unlock, but you have to switch to single player to unlock most of them. And when you unlock things, it only unlocks for the player who unlocks them. So KJ and I will each have to master every GP and time trial by ourselves, if we both want all the characters and vehicles. There's a lot of stuff to unlock (14 characters and 18 vehicles, I think), so doing it twice is a pain. And from what I've read, a few of the characters/karts are going to be a downright pain to unlock.

But despite my complaints, most of the time I'm having too much fun to care. I've seen some mixed reviews of MKW so far... Well, most reviewers have loved it, but a few have made the same complaints I mention above. Also, Nintendo has been accused of just going through the motions for this one, and saying that this is actually a step down from the much more innovative "Mario Kart Double Dash" for the Gamecube. I never played MKDD, so I can't really say if that's true. In fact, I haven't played any of them since the N64 version, so I can only see MKW as a huge improvement.

Sidetrack - Should reviewers base their reviews on previous games in the series? After all, if MKW is only a disappointment to those who played Double Dash, then how many people is that, really? The Wii console has probably outsold the Gamecube several times over by now. This question has bothered me for over a decade. When Capcom released "Super Street Fighter II" for the SNES, EGM gave it a bad review because they were tired of Capcom re-releasing the same game over and over, with only a few improvements. While I agree with the sentiment, I think a game should be reviewed based on its own merits. If a game receives a high score, then a few months later they release a version that's the exact same except for a few improvements, how can it get a lower score? That's letting personal politics get in the way of your review. There might be someone out there who didn't buy the previous versions of the game, who is trying to decide between the second or third version. Then they see that the second version got a better score than the third version, and don't realize that the reviewer was just trying to punish the game company with a bad review.

Another example, and one that never fails to piss me off: When a game is released for a couple of systems I don't own, and gets killer reviews. About a year later, it finally comes to the system I do own, and every review I find says, "Well, it's as good as ever, with a few improvements even. But we've already played it on Systems A and B, and we've moved on. We've beaten it so many times that we're bored with it now, so we're giving it a low score." WTF? Not everybody owns all three current consoles. How about a review for those of us who haven't played it yet? I'm a late adopter. I tend to wait for the prices to come down before I buy something. So I don't mind playing games with last year's graphics. Heck, I still regularly play games with last decade's graphics.

Anyway, sidetrack over, back to MKW. The online mode is a lot of fun. It's hard to say what's different, except that real people are a lot less predictable than computer AI. And knocking someone off the track is somehow more fulfilling when you know there's another human at the controls, than when it's just another bot.

The wheel works a lot better than I thought it would. I personally do better with the classic controller, as it's what I'm used to after all these years. But I have played with the wheel, and it's pretty responsive and a lot of fun. KJ does great with it, and it's all she uses. I just might have to buy a second wheel when I get the cash.

So if you have a Wii, and you've enjoyed any of the Mario Kart series in the past, you should pick this one up. It's flawed but fun. I wouldn't buy a Wii just for this game, but I wouldn't buy a Wii without it.

Anyway, if any of you also have a Wii, and want to add me to your friends list and whatnot, here's my Nintendo codes. Like Smash Bros, Mario Kart Wii requires its own code, different from the Wii console's friend code. Remember that I have to add yours as well, or nothing will happen. So if you put in my codes, you also have to send me yours.

Wii Console Friend Code:
7045 1920 7172 8881

Smash Bros Code:
4468 0854 8798

Mario Kart Wii:
Matt 0387-9165-2538
KJ 1504-6091-8383

The Batblog

There's really no point in making a long blog about The Dark Knight. If you're reading this, you've probably already seen it. If not, you've probably read some of the many glowing reviews of it. If you're on the fence, seriously, see it, you won't regret it. Beyond this sentence, I can't promise there won't be spoilers.

It's very intelligent. Not just "smart for a comic book movie", but smart for any genre. It didn't miss a trick, throwing out ethical questions just as often as explosions. It was a little overlong, but that's my bladder talking. There's not a lot of scenes I would have removed.

The Joker is incredibly well-done. He's morbidly funny, but more importantly, he's crafty and scary. Part clown, part Hannibal Lecter. He is a true psychopath, unpredictable and unremorseful. His machinations are brilliant, making the movie feel more chess-like than most similar attempts I've seen. I can not tell you how much I hate that Heath Ledger died, and how guilty I feel that I'm so glad he finished this movie first, and how selfish I feel for wishing he was still alive for a sequel. It's like saying, "It's okay for most people to die, but not the ones that entertain me." But I didn't know him, and thousands of people die every day, so I can only process his death in the ways that it effects me personally. Still, as much as I admire Ledger's performance, it is copyable. Another actor could do it, with practice. With a thorough enough casting call, they could get another actor to replace Ledger if they're determined to put the Joker in a sequel. It helps that he wore clown makeup for the entire movie.

Two-Face was awesome. Yeah, yeah, the makeup/CGI blend was incredible, yadda yadda, but the writing is the key. He didn't go around pulling two-themed crimes and strapping Batman to giant coins; actually, he didn't have much time to do anything silly. Instead, his tragic tale is told very realistically (given the parameters), and given just the right amount of screen time. Some people were disappointed that his entire story is done as the movie's "B" plot, but I'm glad they did it this way. I don't think Two-Face (at least, post-accident) is a strong enough character to carry a 2.5-hour movie, nor do I think this version of the character had much farther to go. He experiences a tragedy, his mind snaps, and he seeks a quick and violent (though misguided) revenge. A longer movie would have had him become a crime boss, and that's just not what this version of Two-Face was about. His motivations were better served by a quick ending. He probably would have died from infections before too long anyway.

After the realism of the first movie, I was a bit worried that having colorful over-the-top villains would cheapen this one. It doesn't. Though I still don't want them to deluge us with sequels, throwing in every silly animal-themed villian from the Penguin to Killer Croc.

And that's maybe the only problem I have with this series. The movie itself is smarter than the concept. I'm watching the movie and thinking, "Hey, that's a good line... Hey, that's a brilliant plot twist... Hey, that's a deep character... Hey, the hero is dressed like a freaking BAT!" I love Batman, but that is hard to get past. His main schtick is creating an air of superstition around Gotham's underworld, making the bad guys wonder, "Is he real? Is he a man or a monster?" This strategy can only work for the short term. Once Batman gets more exposure - getting caught on film, speaking in public, etc - that part of his career is over. Criminals will no longer be afraid of him, or at least they won't fear him any more than they fear the police. He'd still be an effective detective and prime crime fighter, but at that point he might as well lose the silly ears and wear something more like a ninja costume. Or (*gasp*) become a legitimate detective and fight crime legally!

That's what bothers me about the comics & cartoons. They can start his origin over and over, but any time the same series has lasted long enough to be handled by enough different writers, then eventually the "legend" part dies and he's just another guy in animal jammies. Sooner or later he starts fighting in the day time, working with groups like the Justice League, making television appearances, telling kids not to do drugs, and so on. And that turns him from scary to silly. The comics will have you believe that the Batjet can be seen fighting off an alien invasion alongside Superman and Captain Marvel, as the world watches on TV... then the following week in Batman's own comic, the criminals still fear the mysterious Bat, who may or may not exist, who could be watching them at any time.

So one of the reasons the Dark Knight movie works for me, is that it appears to take place shortly after the first one. Therefore the legend hasn't had a chance to die. If they make a third one, I hope they continue to give it a short timeline. I just can't believe that a fear-based hero would work for very long. In the Dark Knight movie we already see a couple of villains who are no longer intimidated by Batman's song-and-dance, and I have to believe that this familiarity would spread quickly, reducing any fear the criminals have of the Bat.

I would like to see a third movie, but only if they actually have another intelligent story to tell. I don't want them to go into it thinking, "This is a money maker, so we have to hash out something" the way some movies do. I don't know which villian I would want to see. Batman's enemies are too flashy and silly, and while they're great fun, they just don't fit in this movie series. I don't care how serious they make him, nobody is going to fear a crime boss called "The Penguin". The Riddler is just a knock-off of the Joker. Most of Batman's enemies are insane, but we've already done the "Batman fights an insane person" plot. And the ones with super powers like Clayface are right out. First person who suggests King Tut or Egghead gets kicked in the nads.

I wouldn't mind seeing Bane, but only if they do it right. Forget the movie and cartoon versions, and give him the intuitiveness and craftiness he has in the comics. Give him a personality like John Malkovich in Con Air, and don't comically overdo his strength. I want the Bane who was raised by the prison system from birth, the one who figured out Batman's secret identity just by "knowing his enemy", the one who masterminded the Arkham breakout just to make Batman tired. But that's just me. (Edit: I also wouldn't mind Lady Shiva.)

I don't want to see this series turn into another villain-of-the-week battle, the way most superhero movies do. After all, one of the best parts of the Dark Knight movie is that it's not the same plot as Batman Begins. Not to put down other superhero movies; everything has its place. They can make 30 Spider-Man movies for all I care, each one siller than the last, each one the exact same movie with a different bad guy pasted in. I'll still see them all, and have fun doing it. But the Dark Knight isn't about finding flashier enemies and CGI effects. It's about having a great story, and telling it well.

If there is a third movie, I would like an ending that deals a major blow to Gotham's crime problem, thus eliminating the need for Batman. Have Batman retire at the end of the movie, and fade away into legend. Let Bruce Wayne concentrate on corporate means of making the world a better place. Didn't they say that most of Gotham's crime issues come from the corrupt cops? Do you honestly believe Bruce Wayne isn't powerful enough to have these cops removed and replaced with more honest officers? That combination of intelligence and wealth doesn't need a cape & cowl to be scary.

Then... when the time is right... make a fourth movie that takes place 20 or 30 years later, when the Batman is needed again. We could call it something like... "The Dark Knight Comes Back"? No... "The Dark Knight Unretires"? No.... Oh, I don't know, ask Frank Miller.

Jumper / Vantage Point / Cloverfield

Spoilers abound, so I'll sum up first:
Jumper - Not bad, but not memorable.
Vantage Point - Pretty decent, but it's been done before.
Cloverfield - Awesome, but nausea-inducing.

Jumper:
Nothing memorable - you're not going to go out afterwards and buy the video game - but it's still a pretty good time. Hayden discovers he can teleport. No real scientific explanation is ever given, but random people are discovering they have this power. Sort of like X-Men, except everybody's Nightcrawler. What annoyed me most was the Paladins - a secret society of fanatics who know about the Jumpers, and want to kill them for no particular reason. The motivation of the Paladins was paper-thin - "Because no one should have that much power." - that might be enough to justify a few nutjob vigilantes, but a whole secret society? Plus, the concept that for every secret group, there's another secret group that knows about them. Like the Watchers on Buffy. Or the, uh, Watchers on Highlander. Even Anne Rice's Vampire books have a Watchers-type group.

If you want to see it just to make fun of it, there's plenty of humor potential in the "Anakin Skywalker Vs Mace Windu" theme. Jackson even uses an electric shocker stick that looks sort of lightsabery. Hayden's acting skills have improved some, but he's still not great.

Vantage Point:
This is not the movie I thought it was going to be from the trailers. My Supposition: The president gets shot, investigators find that six people in the crowd had video cameras, the footage is recovered, and the rest of the movie is a dramatic investigation in JFK-style. The Actual Movie: From the TV station's point of view, the President is shot and a bomb goes off. Then the movie rewinds the 23 minutes you've seen so far, and replays the same event from a different character's point of view, this time giving you a bit more insight. Then they do it again. It's the same story six times, from different characters' POVs, each going a bit farther and revealing a bit more of the plot.

Sitting next to me, Bryan kept thinking of that Star Trek episode where the Enterprise keeps blowing up. I kept thinking of Groundhog day, so every time the next segment started, I had to stop myself from singing, "You put your little hand in mine..." And for some reason, I whenever the action rewound to start the next segment, I wanted to say, "Previously on 24"... even though I've never seen 24.

I would call this movie groundbreaking and brilliant, if I hadn't seen the concept done before on various TV shows. I think there's even an episode of the Batman cartoon series that was done this way. And while Vantage Point is a pretty good movie, the gimmick is really all it has going for it. The story isn't very deep or interesting, and if it was shown straight through like a normal movie, it wouldn't have even made it to the theaters.

A pet peeve of mine: The trailer for this movie contains a major spoiler. It shows that the president is actually still alive, even though the movie audience doesn't find out until at least halfway through the movie.

Cloverfield:
This one get summed up as "Blair Witch meets Godzilla", and it's really not much deeper than that. And it's true what they say about the shakiness - if you get nauseous easily, you should definitely take a Dramamine first. Comparing action movies to amusement park rides is cliche, but this time it truly fits. Cloverfield is like one of those roller coasters that really makes you sick, but you ride it anyway because it's worth it. And Cloverfield is definitely worth it. I've seen plenty of "giant monster destroys city" movies, but I've never actually thought they were scary. But seeing it through the victims' eyes really does sell it. Never has a giant monster looked more menacing, because never have I seen a giant monster from this angle.

Some minor nitpicks, because it just wouldn't be me to call a movie perfect: The opening is a bit long. There's some very good reasons for it, and I don't begrudge the director one bit for giving us so much background on the characters. But when this puppy hits DVD, I'm fast-forwarding to the action. Some of the characters show superhuman toughness that can't just be chalked up to adrenaline. And... okay, this is really nitpicky, but... It's two thousand frikkin eight. Is there really anybody out there who has never held a video camera? And even if you've never touched one, are they really that hard to figure out?

Yes, I'm talking about the shakiness. This is the one type of movie where I not only forgive the use of a shakycam, but I even encourage it. But they still overdid it. I understand that when you're being chased by monsters, you're not going to worry about getting good footage. And even when standing still, if you're in a life-or-death situation, you still might have the shakes. But even at the beginning of the movie, when he's just walking around the party, he's shaking it, tilting it in odd ways, zooming badly, and so on. The amateurs on "America's Funniest Home Videos" possessed better camera skills 15 years ago.

But overall, Cloverfield is an awesome movie, and defintely worth a little queasiness. It relies heavily on the "what you don't show is as important as what you do" method of storytelling, and it leaves the audience with a lot of questions - but in a good way. Now I'm hearing rumors of other movies in the works using the same "found footage" format. I hope this doesn't become a genre. Once or twice is innovative, but beyond that it's just annoying.

Three Movies & Six Minutes

Alien Vs Predator: Requiem
This is the type of bad movie I usually love. Good action, nice gore effects, bad script, bad acting. I had a lot of fun. But there's really not a whole lot to be said about this movie. If you like the AVP universe, it has some nice eye candy. After seeing the Aliens in mostly isolated sci-fi settings, it's pretty surreal to see them running around a modern day city. Spoiler alert (not that this movie has a lot of twists): There's only one Predator in this one, so it's not so much the war scenario we saw in the AVP, and more similar to the hunter scenario of the original Predator movies. And the hybrid Alien/Predator is pretty neat, but the action figure is cooler looking.

Sweeny Todd
According to Wikipedia, the Broadway musical Sweeny Todd opened in 1979. It was based on a 1973 play, which in turn was based on a 19th century legend. Well, I don't care. It was written for Tim Burton. This story fits Burton's style so much, that I can't picture anyone else filming it. KJ and I saw the play about a year ago, and loved every minute of it. However, the movie blows it away... which is not something I would usually say. It's like saying, "The movie was better than the book" - it's just not done, at least not by those who consider themselves intellectual. And I'm sure that we didn't see the best production of Sweeny Todd ever made; it was at a small playhouse with a low budget. But I can't imagine any play being able to capture the mood of Burton's theatrical version.

It's funny, if someone had simply told me, "They're making a movie version of Sweeny Todd", I wouldn't have had any thoughts about the casting. But if someone had told me, "Tim Burton's making a movie version of Sweeny Todd", I would have immediately known: Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. And they both do fantastic jobs. A warning, the movie is a musical (for those who hate musicals) and it is very, very, very, very bloody. It's an unrealistically bright red blood that artistically offsets the lack of color elsewhere in the movie, but it can still be nausea-inducing for those who don't deal well with gore.

While not my favorite movie of all time, this is one of those few movies I consider "flawless", in that I really can't think of anything I would change.

I Am Legend
Great movie, but I don't think I'll see it again. This is the third movie based on the Richard Matheson novel, but variations of the plot have been used in dozens of other movies. So one way or another, you've probably already seen it. This is one of the better versions of the "last man on Earth fights mutants" story, but it's a little uneven, and I think a lot of the movie will be boring on repeated viewings. Also, the computer effects could have used a little polish. I hear that they decided to use computer-rendered mutants at the last moment (they tried makeup but it didn't look right), and it shows. It wasn't bad enough to pull me out of the movie, but it was bad enough for me to think, "Isn't this 2007?" Overall, I highly recommend the movie, especially if you see it on IMAX, where you'll see...

The Dark Knight preview
As much as I enjoyed "I Am Legend", this six minute preview of the upcoming Batman movie was better. You can find it online if you look hard enough, but seeing it on the IMAX screen was just awesome. It basically shows a bank robbery pulled off by the Joker's gang, with several plot twists already showing how delightfully devious the new Joker is going to be. Based on this preview, I really don't know if they're going to be able to keep the realism that I loved so much in Batman Begins... but I still think this movie is going to rock.

By the way, Happy New Year!