Play: Mama Mia!

Mamma Mia is an excellent play. It is essentially a story written around a stuttered medley of Abba disco songs. You can tell they created the plot primarily based on the lyrics of the songs but they mesh together in an almost seamless format. There was one minorly uncomfortable moment where the main female young lead sings what was clearly written as a love song but with ambiguous lyrics to her father “What’s the name of the game” in a much more different context, but in the end it managed to work well. The play itself is just plain fun and contains a high amount of energy. The costumes are well done. The set is fairly minimalist but since this is a quasi surrealistic musical it doesn’t really need stunning vistas. More over, they are able to cram an extremely large number of characters into only almost two hours and still make them dynamic, believable and quasi realistic. I highly recommend seeing it if you get a chance.

Movie Review - Terribly Happy

Terribly Happy is an interesting move entirely in Danish. The showing that we saw had a bizarre bit of Danish Film Festival propaganda about how cool Denmark was and how they were essentially the center of all things cultural, without actually seeming arrogant about it. It wasn’t really that bad but it was an interesting chaser right before the movie.

The basic premise of the film is that an out of favor cop from Copenhagen is sent to the middle of nowhere (and they spend like, the first three minutes of the film showing just how in the middle of nowhere it is) to be given a second chance and ‘do his time.’ The film states that it is based on ‘actual events’ however a careful search on my part could find absolutely no indication anywhere what those events were. I’ll explain below.

On the whole I enjoyed the movie. I found the actors and the plot moved at a reasonable clip and it had enough twists and turns that it easily drew you into it. The self described genre of the film is ‘Thriller’ and I found that appropriate. It has also been compared to Twin Peaks meets Northern Exposure. I think it has a little bit more Northern Exposure than Twin Peaks, because while there are no supernatural elements they do do a very good job of portraying just what life would be like in a very small Danish town in the middle of Southern Jutland (which is apparently the middle of nowhere.)

(Spoilers follow)

So, I spent like 30 minutes looking everywhere I could find on what the hell these ‘actual events’ were. The movie was based on a Danish novel called Frygtelig lykkelig by Erling Jepsen. After googling all of these people there was nothing mentioned about the actual events. Was it just a few events, like the fact that people died and they made wild speculation about it, or was it pretty damn close to the bizarre plot of the movie? The reason I wanted to look this is up is because, quite frankly, there is absolutely no explanation about how anything is discovered.

I know I said spoilers, but I don’t want to give too much away. But people DIE in this thing and the bodies are discovered, and the killer and many people involved end up going on their merry way (and yes, that’s not by itself the biggest spoiler of the damn movie….). So how did anyone see anything? As near as we can tell, the little girl who witnessed everything might have put the pieces together when she grew up and written a tell all or gone to court?

Who knows.

TV Show: The Wire - Season 1 and Season 2

This program was originally made for HBO. It has a lot of swearing, a lot of graphic violence and a lot of nudity. With the exception of the swearing, however, it is not as gratuitous as some of the other original programming they have in the 'look, we're on cable and we can do this stuff' that I've seen with some of their other programs. (I'm looking at YOU Sex and the City). More hints and shadows. What makes The Wire so good is the writing. The writing is excellent which happens to be coupled with excellent actors and very competent directing.

The series for its first two seasons does an excellent job of basically showing the realistic obstacles, life styles and challenges of a police department in the city of Baltimore Maryland in dealing with criminals who are far more strategic in their thinking and in their level of sophistication. It is particularly adept at showing how society is harmed by the petty bureaucracies that often exist in our society and within the law enforcement community itself. Anyone who despises or wants to reform government would be well off studying The Wire to learn that the government can do a lot of good but that it is all about how the system itself is designed. People are human and are going to behave like human beings, which is to say good, wonderful, flawed, horrible and greedy.

Even the most heroic characters have their flaws, and even the most vile villains have their good side. This is largely the truth and the screen rarely wastes our time on cartoon characters or two dimensional characters. This is the way Law and Order was meant to be done and perhaps would have been done if it didn't have to be made for the lowest common denominator on Network Television. This is particularly ironic really since the very people the networks hope to capture the attention of are portrayed far more realistically in the Wire. People say "The suits" mess things up, but the truth is, that they really do.

And when you compare "The Wire" to "Law and Order" you really begin to see why.

Movie Review - Fortress (1985)

This delightful little tale is a class example of a story that inspires children. As a parent, this movie is for you if you want to:

*Have scenes with the teacher disrobing in front of her student to swim in a cave.

*Have repeated double entendres from the teacher and others involving the use of spears.

*Teach that children and teachers should lie to law enforcement.

*It is an acceptable form of revenge to cut the beating heart out of your kidnapper and display it in a pickle jar at the back of your classroom.

However, aside from the terrible acting, terrible script, terrible characters and supremely predictable plot, there are some very nice shots of Australia.

Oh. Right. I should say something about what the movie is about. A teacher and 9 students are kidnapped by four insane guys who bring them to a cave and leave them down there alone while they slide a rock into the cave. They light a magic fire that runs on magic fuel while Teacher and Author Avatar Young Boy go to find a way out. Teacher disrobes in front of student who does not seem to mind him not looking away (not reacting at all really) and then swims out. They traipse through the wilderness and get to civilization where the bad guys are waiting. The bad guys then foolishly lock them alone again in a barn, only now they send in one guard who is trapped and accidentally shot. The kids then go to the wilderness and create a fortress with sharp sticks. In a brief struggle, the bad guys end up dead. At the end, the students and teacher are singing songs (there are a LOT of songs in this movie) and the police ask about irregularities in the body. The teacher says, "are you arresting us?" The police inspector says, "No." "Then shut up and mind your own business!"

The movie ends showing a human heart in a pickle jar.

It does, however, have a nice lord of the flies scene in which small children, big children and teacher are spearing a bad guy to death and enjoying it.

Fun for the whole family really.

Movie: The Fantastic Mr. Fox

This movie is based on a 40 page book by Roald Dahl.. It was thoroughly enjoyable. The basic plot is about a fox that lives with his family and promises to 'go straight' when they have kids. He does that for a while but decides to take on last job where he robs three farmers. This causes problems for all of the animals and the farmers psychotically try to kill them all. Mr. Fox must get them out of trouble.

The thing about the animation and the script is the general feel of the movie. It is unique and a thorough pleasure to watch. The dialog is well written as is the pacing. Small children and adults should enjoy this. I highly recommend it.

Movie: 2012

2012 was a mess, but it wasn’t as bad of a mess as I expected. Normally I would not have seen this movie in the first place, both from the bad reviews I read of it and because of the “Killer Ice” in “The Day After Tomorrow” by the same director. When Ice chases people down corridors it is pretty ridiculous. So obviously I am not unbiased on this. This is actually worse; since I’m not really a fan of the Disaster Genre, or a fan of movies that exist for Special Effects. I mean, what’s the point? Do you want pretty things on screen or explosions? Well sure, I like explosions but its generally the context of the explosions and the story that matters to me. After all an explosion affecting a children’s hospital is a lot different than the evil alien spaceship.

The reason I don’t generally like disaster movies is because to me they’re the same thing as those people who slow down in the opposite lane of traffic to rubber neck at an accident. I HATE those people. How, exactly, does hoards and hoards of people dying constitute something artful and uplifting? Indeed, you could make more of an argument that horror decries the dangers of evil more than a disaster flick. Of course, the trope of a disaster movie is that it tries to show the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity. I admit, I like this, a lot. And in that context, 2012 has some interesting things to say.

As a fit of destruction over and over again, it is utter rubbish. As a profound statement on the greed and disgusting behavior that humanity often exhibits, it is excellent. Thus, while I despise the genre, and the marketed purpose of the movie, it managed to have some winning points in spite of itself.

The basic premise of the movie is that secret Killer Nutrino Particles are heating up the Earth’s core to the point that it moves things around. The director decided to one up himself even more by pretending that science doesn’t even matter (like it ‘kind of did’ in the Day after tomorrow) and just say that India and China can move 2300 miles in one minute…just cause. Lots of people die. The heroes scatter from place to place trying to not die. They go to the secret location of the arcs and get on board. IE, pretty much the plot of Independence Day + Day After Tomorrow. This is their bastard step child.

The thing I like about the movie, however, is that the ‘lottery’ that takes place in Deep Impact is shown as the farce that it is. There is no lottery. There is no ‘best and the brightest’. They sold seats on the Humanity Gets to Survive boat…to rich people. Now, the movie brings up an interesting point. You can’t fund a multi trillion dollar project secretly using public funds. See, there are these things called laws, and you can’t move large amounts of money secretly without people noticing. Private people can. I find it interesting that they get the finance aspect right and the science so totally wrong and ridiculous.

But whatever.

Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsch

I think that there is a lot in this book that is worthy of attention. Since my own spiritual paradigm has changed a lot in my life, I am always open minded to hearing new perspectives. I think that Mr. Walsch has some very good insights into the nature of god, some of which I agree with, and some of which I do not. Since this is a review blog and not one focused on my own internal philosophy or musings, I shall focus first on the nature of the book itself. The entire thing is essentially a platonic (in the sense of this is a literary device used by Plato betimes in The Republic) conversation between the author and God. As a character Walsch's god is both very human and very kind and wise. He has a different perspective than most, and also have very human traits like humor, whimsy and sarcasm. For the most part, the book does an excellent job of conveying the author's philosophy and the underlying tale. The underlying tale, such as it is, isn't much, in that it is basically that the author is down on his luck and washed up, and lost in life and that he has a voice in his head that calls itself God, with whom he converses on a piece of paper by asking all of the questions that he wanted to know. Walsch's idea of god and realize are spelled out piece by piece and bit by bit in a fashion that is internally logical and intruiging.

The thing that fascinated me most about Mr. Walsch's god is that it (since it claims to be neither masculine nor feminine) is the way it is and that humanity is the one constantly attributing traits to it. This does make sense largely, since a common theme of all the major spiritual texts of humanity is exactly this; God is the way He is, not the way he wants us to be. Like any pervasive spiritual philosophy, some of the hard questions are extremely vague. For example, at one point the text implies that there is no right or wrong or good or evil and that God isn't going to judge us. At the same time, the text implies that if we're really trying to be like God, we judge ourselves and that if we're really trying to be like It, we're going to be good people anyway. The book does do a fairly good job of finding the logical holes in most monotheistic faiths, particularly that, if God is a jerk, is He really worth worshiping and is it really fitting to play games of theological riddles that we have to solve for His convenience. I should note that I do not agree with all of these philosophies, but this is skillfully narrated in the book.

Still, while I do find elements of the philosophy quite interesting, I think this book is best read (from my perspective) as a philosophical tome rather than a spiritual one. Spiritually speaking, it might connect with you, but it will probably cause just as many questions as it will answer. Philosophically, I found its insights into the question of want (ie, if quit wanting for things and instead merely hope and strive for them, a subtle but important difference) and relationships (ie think of them as an opportunity to be your best self rather than a question of what you can get out of said relationship) to be extremely insightful and interesting. I recommend reading it, but I do so suggesting that it be done with a hearty grain of salt.