Sudden loss of former colleague leaves co-worker with lingering regret

"Regrets. I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention."

That was the line from "My Way," by Frank Sinatra. It's that line I have been thinking most about this week. If there is one real regret I got right now, it is that I didn’t take the time to get to know certain people I have crossed paths with throughout my life, especially with some of those from my previous I.T. helpdesk job that I left in August 2008.

The recent email I received from a former colleague through Facebook Monday night letting me know that a co-worker I knew named Michael LaFever passed away Feb. 21, 2010 brought up that lingering regret.

I spoke to Michael off and on at my previous I.T. job. It was, however, most always when I was on the phone troubleshooting hardware or software issues and needed an immediate answer in a quick attempt to get the caller off my phone.

Though I didn’t attempt to get to know him on a more personal level, I was able, seeing since my cubicle was right near his, to make a good enough assessment that Michael was a Hell of a nice guy.

He was always smiling and upbeat and never lost his patience with anyone no matter how moronic the idiot on the other end of the phone was.

I got to know Michael more this past year by connecting with him on Facebook. Actually, he connected with me sometime last year.

Michael was always posting things on Facebook. When he one day wrote on his page how his girlfriend said yes when he proposed to her, I was happy for him, if not a little jealous and envious because I have yet to find a significant other.

Perhaps in my case, that’s all my fault because I haven’t bothered to go looking and the times I have searched, I have found they were already attached to someone else. That’s what makes the Oscar nominated film, Up In the Air, in particular, the ending when George Clooney’s Ryan Bingham learns the real truth about the woman he falls in love with all the more depressing, if you’ve seen it.

As I browsed through Michael’s Facebook page the past few days, which sadly now resembles a memorial guestbook people sign at wakes with comments of condolences from friends and family members, I took note of one comment Michael said on his page back in late December last year.

“If you ever get bored just go out in public and make small talk with a stranger. You just might get a kick out of it. I know I do sometimes. People are amazing!!”

I don’t believe for one minute Michael was lying. That’s just the type of person he was. He had that kind of friendly, easygoing personality who wasn’t afraid to talk to anyone, even if he just met them.

It’s that kind of magnetic personality that would have made Michael a perfect candidate if he planned on going into journalism.

It was by mere accident when I spoke with him briefly online through AOL’s instant messaging back in November 2009. We briefly argued politics, Obama, "Dubya," and catching each other up on our latest jobs. I was about to sign off AOL when Michael suddenly asked me for advice on how to get into writing and getting himself published. He said he had a knack for writing opinionated political type columns.

I thought to myself, all this time I thought he was going for a corporate career working for some company's Information Technologies department either doing troubleshooting or training. I even gave him the Dallas County Community College District's website to check for I.T. job postings which are listed every Friday.

I told him thanks to the Internet, anyone can write their own blog. If he was, however, looking to actually get himself published, then he’d have to go back to school, major in journalism, and write for the college newspaper.

Michael said he had been considering going to back to school. I told him about how I write brief film reviews and sometimes columns for the Blitz Weekly, a local publication in the Dallas area and gave him the editor’s contact information. I told him they are always looking for stuff to publish and the possibility existed that if he has anything he’s written in regards to sports, food, entertainment, politics, or anything pertaining to “male only” issues, the editor might consider running them in a future issue.

Michael never contacted them.

A couple months later, I got an invite from him on Facebook letting me know he was having a get together on a Saturday, a few days after his 36th birthday Jan. 14 and invited all the former employees and managers. Unfortunately the invite was too short notice for me to get the day off work. Like most everyone that knew him, especially those who knew him better than I did, the thought never crossed my mind that if I had gone, that that would have been the last time I had seen him.

Now that he is gone in what is a life unfinished, I am left wondering what kind of promising future Michael might have had if he had chosen writing.

What kinds of opinionated columns would he have published?

In his instant message to me back in November last year before signing off, Michael wrote if he gets let go from his current I.T. job, “Maybe I can take up writing... but I would just piss off everyone and have no readers by the time my 1st article was done…lol.”

©2/25/10

2009 Mini film reviews (an alternative for those who don't want to read my essay-long criticisms)

Avatar: There is no doubt Oscar winning director James Cameron’s long awaited science fiction epic is an astounding computer generated fantasy that’s beautiful to look at on the big screen. The film is filled with images of multiple planets in the night skies, floating mountains with waterfalls, exotic vegetation, and flying alien insects that light up when touched. I can see how to some want-to-be filmmakers and gifted digital artists with dreams of doing what Cameron has done here, Avatar’s visuals are the equivalent of a computerized wet dream; a never-ending orgasm that lasts over 160 minutes. The same, however, cannot be said for the predictable storyline, which has been done countless times before. You got the villains boasting all their military might with futuristic fighter jets and laser cannons versus the blue skinned Na’vi of the planet Pandora who only have bows and arrows as weapons and fly around on prehistoric winged serpents. Logically, if not technologically, one would think the military would be the ones who’d come out victorious. There is nothing surprising when the opposite happens. The film may be big on digital eye candy, especially if you are seeing it in 3d or on IMAX but unlike Cameron’s Titanic (1997) where I kept hoping the ocean liner wouldn’t sink and shed tears for the film’s characters, Avatar is not only emotionally empty, but it plays out more like a digital show and tell piece. Cameron's epic is yet another disappointing example of how far digital technology has destroyed today’s movies where eye candy now takes precedence and enticing us with memorable characters and an engrossing premise comes dead last, if it’s even given a thought. Before long, the film’s visuals become an attempt to wow us by saying, “Look how far we’ve come in terms of filmmaking technology since the 1970s!” PG-13, 162m. Reviewed 1/7/10. ««½

2012: Every doomsday film that’s been made up to now that’s threatened humanity’s existence featuring giant meteors (Deep Impact and Armageddon both from 1998), aliens with bad attitudes (Independence Day & Mars Attacks both from 1996, War of the Worlds - 2005), nuclear war (The Day After - 1983, Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe both from 1964), and meteorological disturbances (The Day After Tomorrow - 2004) pale when compared to the cataclysms that happen in 2012. The year, in particular the date Dec. 21, has to do with the end of the Mayan calendar, and what seems to have most people believing, if not Hollywood, that the world will end three years from now. Picture someone ordering a Big Mac, fries, and coke and instead of it being at a local McDonalds, you are asked by director Roland Emmerich at the theater if you would like your disaster movie “super-sized.” On that level, I can’t say he didn’t deliver. At its worst, 2012 wreaks of familiar soap opera plot clichés done in countless other recent disaster movies. At its best, what 2012 offers is the emotional element. As silly as it may be, seeing various characters bidding farewell to loved ones and looking back regretting at how they didn’t make things right with family members in the past as the end drew near left me with the notion at how short life is and how one shouldn’t wait until the last minute to tie up loose ends. I swore I saw a guy sitting a seat away from me wiping his eyes, but I could be wrong. If that’s the best piece of originality 2012 could come up with, then I got my money’s worth. PG-13, 158m. Reviewed 11/13/09. «««½

The Fourth Kind: Milla Jovovich branches out from her Resident Evil movies playing Dr. Abbey Tyler, a psychiatrist who interviews patients who may have experienced being abducted by aliens while sleeping. The trouble is director and screenwriter Olatunde Osunsanmi knows nothing about how to tie supposed facts into fiction and make it into a compelling thriller. Instead, he combines supposedly actual interviews with the “real” Dr. Abbey Tyler and her patients with reenactments featuring the cast. The sequences don’t work and what’s especially insulting is the way each cast member is introduced in the reenactments that say “Will Patton – actor” playing Sheriff August and “Elias Koteas – actor” playing psychiatrist Abel Campos. It’s as if Osunsanmi thinks the audience is so stupid that he feels he needs to tell us when a reenactment is happening, like we can’t figure that out for ourselves. The bottom line is the film, as a whole, is a complete fake and raises three times more questions than it does answers. Other than supposed 911 recordings of people calling in saying they’ve seen a UFO to police or to radio talk shows as the end credits roll, The Fourth Kind offers no solid proof that there even was a Dr. Abbey Tyler to begin with, much less an incident where her blind daughter was abducted by aliens. PG-13, 98m. Reviewed 11/11/09. «½

The Box: Director/writer Richard Kelly’s (Donnie Darko-2001) latest science fiction nonsense based on author Richard Matheson’s short story, “Button, Button”, has to do with a “box” placed on the doorsteps of Norma and Arthur Lewis (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) by a mysterious gentleman named Arlington Steward (Frank Langella). Steward makes them an offer they can’t refuse. They can either do nothing and walk away, or receive $100 million upon pushing the button on the box. The gist is someone they don’t know will die. With numerous plot twists, The Box keeps you guessing before falling apart in the final act where I wasn’t certain if the climax was really the big payoff. I better stop here and give it three stars just for the film’s out of this world original premise alone over the lower two and a half star rating The Box actually deserves. PG-13, 116m. Reviewed 11/6/09. «««

Where the Wild Things Are: I get real skeptical when every film critic in America embraces a movie like this and I can find absolutely no one out there in the entertainment media who dislikes it (remember how much they loved The English Patient – 1996). I think the only reason critics loved this movie is not so much the film as it is their love for its director, Spike Jonze whose previous movies Being John Malkovich (1999) and Adaptation (2002) received Oscar nominations. Just because Where the Wild Things Are is based on Maurice Sendak’s nine page children’s story about a bratty little kid named Max who conjures up a fantasy world of his own where he is king doesn’t mean it’s for kids, much less adults. I have read how some young ones below age 10 were scared of the creatures and I can’t say I blame them. From a kid’s perspective, the creatures in Where the Wild Things Are really do look scary. From an adult point of view, I found them all incredibly ugly, annoying, and repulsive. Seeing these furry characters, I could not help but be reminded of that Sid and Marty Kroft kid’s show from the late 1960s called The Banana Splits which featured a group of adults dressed up as ugly looking adult dogs named Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper, and Snork. PG, 94m. Reviewed 11/2/09. «½

Amelia: Oscar winner Hillary Swank is no doubt a dead ringer for real life aviatrix Amelia Earhart in terms of appearance. Screenwriters Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan who base their script on the biographical books, East to the Dawn and The Sound of Wings, along with director Mira Nair know the notes. They capture Earhart’s private life with publicist George Putnam (Richard Gere) and her brief affair with TWA founder Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor). In between these dramatic moments is the black and white newsreel footage showing the real Earhart’s successes and sometimes failures as well as her publicity stunts promoting various products and being an inspiration to women everywhere. The filmmakers just don’t know how to put any of this to music. Swank’s character is so emotionally distant, it’s like spending almost 40 years with someone you’ve fallen in love with and by the time they have unexpectedly passed on, you are unable to shed any tears because you haven’t really gotten to “know” them. PG, 111m. Reviewed 10/26/09. «½

Law Abiding Citizen: If the filmmakers were attempting to make a controversial point about how the justice system has often failed the victims, that point is gone within the first 30 minutes. When his wife and daughter are brutally murdered during a home invasion, Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) decides to take matters into his own hands delivering his own violent brand of poetic justice, from behind prison walls, against the ones responsible for letting his assailants go. In particular District Attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) who handled one of the killer’s plea bargains. You can sense what’s going to happen to Shelton’s prey a mile away, just like you can foretell who will come out the winner and no, it isn’t Shelton. Good performances by Foxx and Butler as well as memorable supporting roles by Oscar nominee Viola Davis (Doubt - 2008) as the city’s troubled mayor and Colm Meaney as a chief investigator are not enough to overcome the film’s unbelievable premise. R, 122m. Reviewed 10/28/09. ««½

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant: Based on a comic book series I never heard of, I had to go to Barnes and Noble’s website for verification. Don’t be fooled by the talented cast of Circus Freak characters that includes Willem Dafoe as a decades old vampire, Salma Hayek as a Bearded Lady, Ken Watanabe as the circus conductor, Mr. Tall, who boasts an incredibly large forehead, and John C Reilly as Vampire Larten Crepsley. I didn't care one bit about the story in which a young kid (Chris Massoglia) chosen to be Crepsley’s “Vampire’s Assistant” and gets into a war between the circus freaks and another group of vampires called “Vampanzees”. I think I loathed The Vampire's Assistant almost as much as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and yet I give it a higher rating than the NO STARS I bestowed on Revenge of the Fallen. The saving grace here is the film's dark, macabre production values. Otherwise, this might just be the first Vampire movie where I wished a coffin was around that I could crash for a good hour and a half after losing interest within the first 20 minutes. When it comes to trying to hold my attention, Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant literally sucks the life blood out of you. PG-13, 109m. Reviewed 10/24/09. «½

Paranormal Activity: This is the kind of “ghost-umentary” I wish The Haunting in Connecticut, which was supposedly based on true accounts, had been. Paranormal Activity proves the best way to make an effectively intense ghost story is to NOT base it on true–life accounts but make them look as though they did happen. You might call this one “horror-reality television” about a woman (Katie Featherston) who may or may not be haunted by a demonic spirit that terrorizes both her and her live-in boyfriend (Micah Sloat) in the early morning hours between Sept. and Oct 2006. Like The Blair Witch Project (1999) or Cloverfield (2008), everything seen is caught on a hand-held camera. The visual effects are so realistic that you are left wondering if what you are seeing on camera is really the work of an unseen demon as Katie is dragged from her bed by a supernatural force down the dark hallway. The final shot is the equivalent of seeing something unexpectedly horrific and the image stays with you long after the film is over. R, 99m. Reviewed 10/10/09. «««½

Zombieland: Rule #1: Cardio. Rule #2: Double-Tip. Rule #3: Seatbelts. Rule #4: Beware of bathrooms. Such are the rules college loner Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) lives by, and many others when it comes to surviving in a world overrun by zombies. Along with a gun-toting redneck named Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) and a pair of older and younger sisters who happen to be con-artists (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin), the four are off to Hollywood, California to take refuge at an amusement park where word has it, the area is zombie free. We know otherwise. What works here is the screenplay by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick that offers a lot of comedic quick wit that Jennifer’s Body so desperately needed. R, 88m. Reviewed 10/5/09. «««

Capitalism: A Love Story: Whether you love or despise left-wing documentarian Michael Moore, one thing is certain about the bulky Flint Michigan native dressed in his trademark blue jeans, sneakers, and baseball cap. It’s hard not to ignore his assertions that make one want to do their own investigating to find out if there is any truth to what Moore says. His latest target here is corporate America laying the blame on last year’s housing collapse, mass layoffs, and the stock market mess on every Republican president beginning with Ronald Reagan. Reviewed 10/2/09. «««

Jennifer’s Body: Diablo Cody’s follow-up to her Oscar winning screenplay, Juno, (2007) offers only half as much of the clever wit that won her the gold statue. “Jennifer’s evil,” says Needy Lesnicky (Amanda Seyfried) of her “best friend forever”, Jennifer Check (Megan Fox). “No, I mean she’s actually evil. Not high school evil.” Jennifer goes from being the most popular cheerleader in school to becoming a voracious maneater, literally, after being sacrificed by a satanic band who mistake her for being a virgin. Jennifer's Body has no message and the only selling point, ok, two selling points are the chance to see Fox swimming naked in a pond and the lesbian make out scene between her and Seyfried. R, 102m. Reviewed 9/23/09. ««

Fame: This remake of the 1980 original directed back then by Alan Parker is a cross between American Idol and a promising pilot for a new drama/musical series based on the 80’s television show Parker’s film inspired bearing the same name. Watching perspective students audition for various instructors in the film’s opening moments in hopes they will be accepted into New York’s School of Performing Arts is like watching supposedly talented singers perform live on network television in hopes of avoiding a critical drubbing from Simon Cowell or Paula Abdul. You will get no argument from me that these characters and their situations reek of familiar clichés. The soundtrack is forgettable and unlike the original Fame, you won’t be seeing any of the songs on the list of contenders for Best Musical Score or Best Original Song at next year’s Oscars. Still, the movie grew on me and I liked the performances by the young cast as much as I enjoyed the brief scenes of student interaction between the faculty instructors played by Charles S. Dutton, Kelsey Grammer, Megan Mullally, and Bebe Neuwirth. PG, 107m. Reviewed 9/25/09. «««

Halloween II: Michael Myers, the masked indestructible, inhuman, towering serial murderer of director Rob Zombie’s unnecessary remake of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) continues his bloody mayhem in this sequel to Zombie’s 2007 follow-up. Like the 2007 version, Halloween II is not scary, suspenseful, or fun. The film is instead a disturbing, tragic take on what happens all too often in real life murder cases. An echo on the life of twisted serial murderers and a tabloid take on how authors make money writing best-selling crime books about the subject without any thought for the victims. R, 101m. Reviewed 8/28/09. «½

District 9: District 9 is a cross between those interactive computer games where part of the game tells a story and then when that chapter stops, the player uses their mouse to do battle in hopes of winning so the story can continue. On another level, the film is like watching one of those in your face documentaries like NBC’s Dateline where various officials are interviewed about a tragedy that unfolded in some country. We meet officials and engineers working for the corporation, Multi-National United (MNU), who are interviewed about how space invaders named “Prawns” arrived over 20 years ago stalled and hovering over Johannesburg in a rundown spaceship that, unlike the Millenium Falcon from the original Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983), really does look like a piece of junk. The citizens of Johannesburg no longer want the Prawns around and MNU has decided to put agent Wilkus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) in charge of getting the aliens evicted. Director Blomkamp based District 9’s idea on his childhood experiences living in South Africa during apartheid’s racial segregation between 1948 and 1994. The difference here is instead of putting human beings into racial groups, it’s aliens from space who are being put into their own classes. On that level, District 9 is an originally clever idea, making it an interesting place to visit but I sure as Hell wouldn’t want to live there. R, 112m. Reviewed 8/19/09. «««

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra: The two words that best describe G.I. Joe is “no imagination.” The film’s supposed $175 million budget is the equivalent of giving a kid a 5,000-plus piece exclusive Lego set that had to be special ordered. Without instructions, the kid would have no idea what to build. I am not even going to address the plot except to say the characters here are as soulless as the plastic ¾-inch and 12- inch Hasbro action figures you see littering the store shelves of Toys R’ Us. The only saving grace is Sienna Miller’s The Baroness villain who acts like she secretly knows just how ridiculous a movie this is but decides to make the most of a lousy situation anyway. She chews up the scenery, firing machine guns in both hands, struts around in leather boots or expensive black pumps, engages in catfights with a female redhead “Joe” named Scarlett O’Hara (Rachel Nichols), and utters lines like “Nice shoes,” as she throws a woman out of an elevator at a Paris mall. She’d make a great James Bond villainess should she ever want to venture into other action adventure roles. I wonder how Miller would react upon my telling her I didn’t agree with the comment she made to the entertainment media recently where she said "G.I. Joe is not going to be the best acting work I've ever done.” PG-13, 118m. Reviewed 8/10/09. «½

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: I will not be surprised if Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen goes down as the number one worst reviewed film of 2009. The film deserves the honor so much so that I actually hope it gets nominated for several Golden Raspberry Awards at next year’s Razzies and wins. This sequel to the 2007 summer blockbuster is critic proof and wasn’t made for movie critics. The picture was made for dumb, slow-witted audiences who have no sense of adventure and imagination, and for kids whose idea of adventure is to watch a lot of things get blown up. Whereas the original was kid friendly, which I considered a good thing, Revenge of the Fallen is just annoyingly loud and vulgar filled with unfunny sexual innuendos. PG-13, 150m. Reviewed 6/29/09. NO STARS

Star Trek: I admit I was a little worried about h

ow this new Star Trek movie would turn out. I have always believed the best remakes are the ones that remain true to the original. Star Trek“XI” may be a redo of the original series than it is a remake of an older film, but it still retains elements that made the classic series which ran from 1966 to 1969 work. Trek alum Leonard Nimoy’s cameo as Mr. Spock appearing with a younger cast who take over the roles once held by the series’ originals might be seen as saying the torch has now been passed to a new generation. We’re introduced to Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy, Uhura, Chekov, Sulu, and Scotty during their early cadet years in Starfleet before they are called into service aboard the Enterprise to do battle with the Romulan Captain Nero (Eric Bana) in a time travel storyline that doesn’t quite make sense, at least to me that is. Then again, what mattered most to me with this film was the camaraderie between the characters. Everything else came second, in particular the laser battles in space and inside Nero’s starship that clearly look like they are echoing scenes from the Star Wars movies. I am not quite ready to say this new reboot of the Trek franchise will “live long and prosper” as the previous Treks. The film is at least a positive step in the right direction. Then again, Star Trek “XI” wouldn’t be Star Trek without hearing those familiar words in the end of “Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise” as she warps off on another adventure. PG-13, 127m. Reviewed 5/8/09. «««½

Battle For Terra: If this clever, animated science fiction film has any flaw, it’s that the space battles look as though the filmmakers are channeling the Star Wars movies. What works here, though, is the story where the remains of the human race, who after our home planet is destroyed, attempt to take over an alien Earth like world as a means of survival. In other words, we’re the villains. I’d love to see a $100 million live action remake of this done with real actors and expensive digitally enhanced visual effects as opposed to hearing the voices of Evan Rachel Wood, Brian Cox, James Garner, Danny Glover, and Mark Hamill. Now that’s a redo I wouldn’t mind seeing get made. PG, 85m. Reviewed 5/6/09. «««½

The Informers: Now I understand what a friend of mine meant when after sitting through Leaving Las Vegas (1995) about a guy who drinks himself to death, he felt like putting a bullet through his head. Based on Brett Easton Ellis’ book about the early 80s sex and drug culture, which was also chronicled in his books Less Than Zero and Bright Lights, Big City, both of which became movies in 1987 and 1988, The Informers is a depressing, sleazy exploration into the rich, sordid, unhappy lives of several Los Angeles residents played by Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke, Winona Ryder, and Billy Bob Thornton. When the spoiled young rich kids are not busy engaging in threesomes, sometimes with the same sex, they’re doing drugs and asking themselves why their friends have begun noticing strange cancerous scabs on their skin and are always feeling under the weather. If this isn’t the immoral abyss of Hell, it’s got to be Purgatory. R, 98m. Reviewed 4/29/09. «½

Fanboys: Fanboys is a humorous but often times, unnecessarily raunchy look at how die-hard fans of the now classic Star Wars trilogy (Star Wars - 1977, The Empire Strikes Back - 1980, Return of the Jedi-1983) excitedly prepared themselves for the new prequel, Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace, the year before its premiere May 19, 1999. To be more precise, the story focuses on a group of childhood buddies, Eric (Sam Huntington), Hutch (Dan Fogler), Windows (Jay Baruchel), and Zoe (Kristen Bell) who take their dying friend, Linus (Chris Marquette) on a cross country trip to George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch near Nicasio, California with plans to break in and steal a copy of The Phantom Menace. Fanboys works best when it parodies the gang’s dedication to Star Wars acting out Jedi mind tricks and arguing about the characters from the original trilogy. PG-13, 90m. Reviewed 4/24/09. ««½

Observe & Report: Midway through Observe & Report is a scene where anti-hero Ronnie Barnhart (Seth Rogen), a mall security guard with dreams of joining the police force is set up by a detective into thinking he passed the officer’s exam when in fact, he failed. The joke backfires when another detective hiding in the closet walks out saying, “I thought this was going to be funny but this is just sad.” Therein explains the mood of the entire film. Observe & Report is a racist, raunchy dark side of Paul Blart: Mall Cop, the hit box office comedy earlier this year that starred Kevin James as a lovable, overweight mall security officer who takes on terrorists. By comparison, there is nothing to like about Rogen’s Ronnie Barnhart, a loser who suffers from bipolar disorder and lives with his alcoholic mother who makes it his mission in life to track down a male flasher that’s been running around the local mall showing off his private parts. In fact, there is nothing funny about mental illness. R, 86m. Reviewed 4/13/09. «½

Taken: Taken has all the ingredients of a CSI episode, minus the fact none of the villains are ever brought to justice and that we never see graphic displays of how a bullet, illegal substance, or electrical current went through flesh killing the victim or how a bomb went off. What makes Taken entertaining is watching Liam Neeson as a retired CIA agent and divorced father turn become a walking, no nonsense killing machine who goes after the ones responsible for kidnapping his daughter overseas. Rest assured the sleazeball villains get what’s coming to them. PG-13, 94m. Reviewed 2/23/09. «««

Push: The advertisement makes one think this might be a fun rendition of NBC’s Heroes about people with exceptional powers wanted by the government. Push is anything but fun but it is laughable. The film takes place in Hong Kong and features villains who yell at the top of their lungs so loud, it not only affects the heroes’ hearing but also causes a good number of aquariums that house live seafood to shatter and litter the streets. The heroes led by Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning might as well be called Jedi Knights from the Star Wars prequels since they are either able to predict what will happen or perform telekinesis. Fanning, now 15, who has been in a number of popular television shows and box office hits like War of the Worlds (2005) provides a show stopping performance of her own getting laughably drunk on Sake and drawing pictures of dead people she sees. I wonder if she is the long lost sister of the character Haley Joel Osment played in The Sixth Sense (1999) who often said he sees dead people. PG-13, 111m. Reviewed 2/18/09. «

(This list will be updated regularly).

©Last update: 1/13/10

Avatar - beautiful to look at - but emotionally empty and predictable

Avatar ««½
PG-13, 162m., 2009

Cast & Credits: Sam Worthington (Jake Sully), Zoe Saldana (Neytiri), Sigourney Weaver (Dr. Grace August), Stephan Lang (Colonel Miles Quaritch), Michelle Rodriguez (Trudy Chacon), Giovanni Ribisi (Parker Selfridge), Joel Moore (Norm Spellman), CCD Pounder (Moat), Wes Studi (Eytukan). Written and directed by James Cameron.

I dozed off at various times sitting through Avatar when I first saw it Dec. 19. This was the result of my coming down with either the flu or a sinus infection. Those moments where I did wake up, I found I didn’t miss much. Paraplegic marine hero Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) was still disguised as a tall blue male member of the alien Na’vi tribe on the planet Pandora attempting to fit in with the natives.

If I had reviewed Avatar then, I know it wouldn’t have been an honest review since I fell asleep through half of it. The only justification of my reviewing it at that time would be if I said the reason I dozed off was because I was bored watching director James Cameron’s long awaited sci-fi epic.

What I saw the first time didn’t impress me. Of course, reading all the conservative right wing negative commentary and film reviews on bighollywood.breitbart.com didn’t help. I can’t say the conservative naysayers are wrong. From a right wing standpoint Avatar boasts the usual liberal Hollywood “I hate America” message with its notions that American corporations and our military are evil and that we should not be marching off into other countries infiltrating their land and destroying the environment, in particular Iraq, and plundering its precious resource, which in our time is oil. At one point, I started thinking the military Colonel Quatrich (Stephen Lang) in Avatar had an uncanny resemblance to “Dubya”.

By comparison, the precious resource those evil corporate minions, military leaders and mercenaries want in Avatar centuries from now is a special mineral that will help solve Earth’s energy crisis.

“That is why we’re here, because this little gray rock sells for twenty million a kilo,” says the lead industrialist (Giovanni Ribisi).

If only grabbing that mineral were so easy. The resource lies at the very heart of where the Na’vi tribe live and if Sully can’t convince them to move peacefully, the military is going to step in and do it by force.

Well it’s been over two weeks and that’s more than enough time for me to put those negative conservative viewpoints aside and except Avatar for what it is, just a movie. Too bad Avatar is just that; only a movie and not a particularly great nor memorable one either; regardless of what’s being touted by the entertainment media.

Watching it, I wished I could do what scientist Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) tells Sully before he goes off into his Na’vi body.

“Just relax and let your mind go blank,” she says. I’ve relaxed and allowed my mind to go blank many a time this year watching such fun popcorn films as Up, Star Trek, 2012, and Paranormal Activity to name a few.

There is no doubt Avatar is an astounding computer generated fantasy that’s beautiful to look at on the big screen. The film is filled with images of multiple planets in the night skies, floating mountains with waterfalls, exotic vegetation and flying alien insects that light up when touched. I took special note of the theater’s stereo sound system as far as the soundtrack was concerned. Sitting in back, I was near one of the speakers and was able to hear the sounds of those flying insects and other alien voices in the background.

I can see how to some want-to-be filmmakers and gifted digital artists with dreams of doing what Cameron has done here, Avatar’s visuals are the equivalent of a computerized wet dream; a never-ending orgasm that lasts over 160 minutes.

Like the scene where Sully and the scientists are looking out in amazement at the flying mountains and one of the pilots (Michelle Rodriguez) says, “You should see your faces,” I could easily picture director Cameron saying the same thing given how the film’s North American box office gross so far of over $350 million, $1 billion worldwide.

The same, however, cannot be said for the predictable storyline, which has been done countless times before. You got the villains boasting all their military might with futuristic fighter jets and laser cannons versus the Na’vi who only have bows and arrows as weapons and fly around on prehistoric winged serpents. Logically, if not technologically, one would think the military would be the ones who’d come out victorious. There is nothing surprising when the opposite happens.

The minute Sully is asked to infiltrate the Na’vi tribe, I knew where the climax was headed, just as I knew who would come out the winner. Avatar may be big on digital eye candy, especially if you are seeing it in 3d or on IMAX but unlike Cameron’s Titanic (1997) where I kept hoping the oceanliner wouldn’t sink and shed tears for the film’s characters, Avatar is not only emotionally empty, but it plays out more like a digital show and tell piece. Before long, the film’s visuals become the equivalent of what director Peter Jackson did adding all the prehistoric special effects in his remake of King Kong (2005) making the running time unnecessarily three hours. They become an attempt to wow us by saying, “Look how far we’ve come in terms of filmmaking technology since the 1970s!”

The reason why I own Cameron’s previous works like Titanic, The Terminator (1984) and Terminator II: Judgment Day (1991), Aliens (1986) and The Abyss (1989) director’s cut edition on DVD and Blu-ray is because they had a good story and characters you cared about. Yes the special effects were as good as the stories but they came second.

Avatar is yet another disappointing example of how far digital technology has destroyed today’s movies where eye candy now takes precedence and enticing us with memorable characters and an engrossing premise comes dead last, if it’s even given a thought. You need examples, look no further than the Transformers movies and for those who despise George Lucas for ruining the original Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983), you got the less than stellar Star Wars prequels (1999-2005) to bitch about.

Seeing Avatar is like going out on a blind date where you find out the woman, or if envisioning a tall blue female Na’vi alien helps you, is an attractive, hot looking blond with a large pair of breasts and nice long tanned legs without the hose on. She is beautiful on the outside but before the night is over, you find there isn’t much to her inside from an emotional standpoint. You eventually come to the conclusion that something is missing inside that $500 million dollar digitally enhanced computer generated brain of hers.

©1/7/10

"Apocalypse now!"

2012 «««½
PG-13, 158m., 2009

Cast & Credits: John Cusack (Jackson Curtis), Amanda Peet (Kate Curtis), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Adrian Helmsley), Thandie Newton (Laura Wilson), Oliver Platt (Carl Anheuser), Thomas McCarthy (Gordon Silberman), Woody Harrelson (Charlie Frost), Danny Glover (President Thomas Wilson), Liam James (Noah Curtis), Morgan Lily (Lilly Curtis), Zlatko Buric (Yuri Karpov), Beatrice Rosen (Tamara). Screenplay by Roland Emmerich and Harald Kloser. Directed by Roland Emmerich.

If The Towering Inferno, Irwin Allen’s 1974 all-star pyrotechnic three-hour epic about a raging fire in a 135 story high-rise was considered the big daddy of disaster movies of the 1970s, director Roland Emmerich’s 2012 is definitely the great grandfather of all doomsday flicks.

Everything that’s been made up to now that’s threatened humanity’s existence featuring giant meteors (Deep Impact and Armageddon both from 1998), aliens with bad attitudes (Independence Day & Mars Attacks both from 1996, War of the Worlds - 2005), nuclear war (The Day After - 1983, Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe both from 1964), and meteorological disturbances (The Day After Tomorrow - 2004) pale when compared to the cataclysms that happen in 2012.

Picture someone ordering a Big Mac, fries, and coke and instead of it being at a local McDonalds, you are asked by Emmerich at the theater if you would like your disaster movie “super-sized.” On that level, I can’t say he didn’t deliver.

What aliens did to the White House leaving the nation’s capitol in ruins in Emmerich’s Independence Day he returns in 2012 to finish the job sending a giant tidal wave along with the remains of the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier hurtling towards the Commander In Chief’s place of residence.

“I’m coming to join you, Dorothy,” President Wilson (Danny Glover) says watching the oncoming wave as he prepares to meet his late wife in the afterlife.

Practically nothing is safe in 2012 from complete destruction. Viewers get a taste of what could happen to California when “The Big One” hits as the state sinks into the ocean. Yellowstone National Park erupts into an active volcano much to the joy of Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson), a conspiracy/doomsday nut who delivers his end of the world sermons from his trailer home.

“It’s kind of galling when you realize that the nutbags with the cardboard signs were right all along,” says White House Chief of Staff Carl Anhauser (Oliver Platt).

Forget REM’s song “It’s the End of the World As We Know It.” 2012 is “Apocalypse Now!”

Like the disaster movie genre that began with a bang in the early 70s with such Oscar nominated all-star box office hits as Airport (1970), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), and Earthquake (1974), the same genre reinvented itself back in the mid-1990s that started with Twister (1996) thanks to the digital wonders filmmakers can conjure up now using computers.

The 70s catastrophic genre, however, went out with a whimper with the such laugh riots as the Airport sequels, The Hindenburg (1975), and courtesy of Michael Caine, The Swarm (1978) and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979). It’s one thing if the acting and dialogue are awful. They can be forgiven so long as filmmakers supply the audience with the visual effects. Fail on that promise and they’ve lost their audience.

By comparison, I wondered if the reinvented genre has not begun to run its course watching 2012. The story has practically the same opening setup as Deep Impact (1998) where instead of an astrophysicist learning a giant meteor is on its way to Earth, it’s a geologist (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who learns in 2009 that radiation from the Sun is melting the planet’s core that will ultimately cause earthquakes and tidal waves and alerts the president, who in turn, alerts all the world leaders. To the viewer, thankfully all this happens within the first half hour which is how long it takes for three years to go by as the big screen becomes black and boasts the year “2012” in big giant numbers.

Somewhere along the way, if audiences are not familiar with the film’s doomsday premise already, or have never heard of the internet much less the controversy surrounding the date Dec. 21, 2012, they’ll learn this has to do with the end of the Mayan calendar. Instead of a new era beginning, the film’s events are a disaster of epic proportions, much to the viewer’s delight thanks to those damn Mayans.

At its worst, 2012 wreaks of familiar soap opera plot clichés done in countless other recent disaster movies. The filmmakers would be neglecting their duties if they didn’t give us such type casted characters here that we’ve seen in other films like John Cusack as Jackson Curtis, a divorced father of two and skeptical science writer, not to mention chief rescuer who is estranged from his wife (Amanda Peet) and her new husband (Thomas McCarthy).

Apparently, there must be some unwritten law in Hollywood that says it’s perfectly ok to kill off as many characters as they want, so long as they spare the dog. You know no matter how perilous the situation is you can always count on “Man’s best friend” to either escape a fiery conflagration from an alien laser beam as in Independence Day or make its way on a metallic tightrope that connects to a giant ark carrying humanity’s survivors in 2012.

Perhaps I should quote the dog. After all, he or she is a character too in this film. “Arf, arf!”

At the same time, you can almost tell which characters are likely to survive before the film is over. Hint: It usually always is the ones who think only of themselves.

I suspect all there is left for filmmakers to pursue if they are to make any more films where humanity bites the big one is if they do one about the Sun dying out that engulfs the entire solar system. For all I know that idea is probably already in the works and if not, I want story credit and a share of the profits when they do one. Then again, humanity did go up in flames in Knowing earlier this year.

At its best, what 2012 offers is the emotional element. Yes, I admit I shed a tear or two as “Nearer My God to Thee” was being played as the Titanic was sinking in James Cameron’s 1997 epic. I also shed a tear for the assortment of type casted characters waiting for death near the end of Deep Impact. As silly as it may be, seeing various characters in 2012 bidding farewell to loved ones and looking back regretting at how they didn’t make things right with family members in the past as the end drew near left me with the notion at how short life is and how one shouldn’t wait until the last minute to tie up loose ends. I swore I saw a guy sitting a seat away from me wiping his eyes, but I could be wrong.

If that’s the best piece of originality 2012 could come up with, then I got my money’s worth.

©11/13/09

SHAME ON YOU MR. PRESIDENT! Fort Hood was the most important story Nov. 5...not your presence at The Tribal Nations Conference!

Like most, if not all Americans, who whenever a national tragedy hits home looks to their president for consolation that things are under control and that we, as a country will prevail, I was actually proud of President Obama responding so quickly to reporters in the hours after the Nov. 5 massacre at Fort Hood that left 42 wounded, 12 servicemen and one civilian dead.

That pride lasted less than 24 hours.

Those who know me, and know how fed up I am with President Obama and his socialist agenda would probably call that a world record in terms of how long I spent not criticizing his actions and decisions.

That all ended around 10:30 a.m. Friday morning when a military serviceman called in to WBAP’s The Mark Davis Show to say how embarrassed he was at the President’s remarks Nov. 5. The serviceman said President Obama didn’t even address the shootings late Thursday afternoon until two minutes into his speech at The Tribal Nations Conference.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The moment I got home I immediately went to youtube.com to see if there was any videos of the entire press conference.

Watching the Thursday news conference, I couldn’t believe my ears. There was President Obama at 5:02 p.m. EST opening his comments from the transcript I got off a website saying, “Let me first of all just thank Ken and the entire Department of the Interior staff for organizing just an extraordinary conference. I want to thank my Cabinet members and senior administration officials who participated today.”

“I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow was around, and so I want to give a shout-out to that Congressional Medal of Honor* winner,” President Obama said. “It's good to see you.”

This was followed by applause in the audience.

“My understanding is, is that you had an extremely productive conference. I want to thank all of you for coming and for your efforts, and I want to give you my solemn guarantee that this is not the end of a process but a beginning of a process, and that we are going to follow up.”

More applause.

“We are going to follow up. Every single member of my team understands that this is a top priority for us,” the President went on to say. “I want you to know that, as I said this morning, this is not something that we just give lip service to. And we are going to keep on working with you to make sure that the first Americans get the best possible chances in life in a way that's consistent with your extraordinary traditions and culture and values.”

It is after these comments that President Obama discussed the Fort Hood shootings. The serviceman who called in to The Mark Davis Show Friday said he almost expected the Obama to start giving high-fives.

If you check out any online news article written Nov. 5 about the shootings, you will find the President’s consoling remarks saying “These are men and women who have made the selfless and courageous decision to risk, and at times give, their lives to protect the rest of us on a daily basis. It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas. It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil."

Now if I were editor or a writer for that matter covering this story, I definitely would have put in there somewhere about how Obama didn’t respond immediately at the conference about Fort Hood until two minutes later. This is the equivalent of those mock news conferences I attended for the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association years back when I was serious about pursuing journalism. I signed up to cover a fake news conference and sometime during that conference, something unexpected would happen that would make everyone go cover that instead. Why? It’s because that was the more important story.

Fort Hood was the most important story here Mr. President!

I guess I should not be surprised about President Obama’s delayed response to the Fort Hood incident, nor am I the least bit surprised at how the Obama controlled state run media are not reporting much about it, if at all. They love this guy and to the drive-by’s, he can do no wrong.

If former President Bush had opened up with remarks about a Tribal Conference when this happened, the drive-by media, late night talk show hosts, and the entertainment industry would have had a field day. It would be the My Pet Goat incident on 9/11 all over again and all the untruths many people, the young in particular liberal high school and college students stupidly embracing Michael Moore’s 2004 laugh fest riot, Fahrenheit 9/11, which I call the funniest film since Airplane (1980).

I have heard a lot these past few months from the hard right who have said President Obama is a narcissist. Up until Nov. 5, I refused to believe it. Now I believe otherwise. Even if he isn’t a narcissist, he sure as Hell doesn’t know how to cover it up. Not when he fails to address a national tragedy immediately. Not when he is off in Denmark in hopes of landing Chicago the Olympics when the Derrion Albert incident was making national headlines at the end of September.

Not when he promised during his presidential campaign last year that the situation in Afghanistan would be top priority and he has yet to commit to anything. In the meantime, we have soldiers there in harm’s way, the death toll is rising and the American people, most of who now say they are not for the mission, have forgotten the entire reason we’re there to begin with started on Sept. 11, 2001. Somewhere in that region, Osama bin Laden is loving every minute of this.

If I were president and this had happened on my watch, I would have immediately been on the phone to the top military officials at Fort Hood to find out how soon I could visit the base, the troops, the wounded, and perhaps even the families of the dead on that Friday, maybe even Thursday night if possible. President Obama, however, was too busy to do so. He spent the weekend staying on top of Congress making sure his health care bill was passed and then went off to Camp David for some much needed rest and relaxation.

So who visited Fort Hood in the hours following the tragedy? President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush that’s who. But don’t worry America. President Obama did delay his trip two days in Japan so he can attend the funeral services for the Fort Hood victims Nov. 10 and as an added bonus ordered all American flags to half staff through Veteran’s Day, which is something any president would have done. There is nothing extraordinary about this unless you call him signing a $24 million bill to extend jobless benefits a good thing, which I DO NOT.

If this is how the President of the United States handles a national tragedy where over fifty people are killed or wounded, I can’t help but wonder what his response will be if terrorists hit the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington during a Sunday football game where hundreds are killed.

Will he start out his press conference on the golf course thanking his staff for the opportunity for some recreation that was ruined by another terrorist attack worse than 9/11?

©11/10/09

Bad things come in small packages

The Box «««
PG-13, 116m., 2009

Cast & Credits: Cameron Diaz (Norma Lewis), James Marsden (Arthur Lewis), Frank Langella (Arlington Steward), James Rebhorn (Norm Cahill), Holmes Osborne (Dick Burns), Sam Oz Stone (Walter Lewis), Gillian Jacobs (Dana), Celia Weston (Lana Burns), Deborah Rush (Clymene Steward). Written and directed by Richard Kelly based on the short story “Button, Button.”

The plot build-up of The Box is equivalent to the kind of mass media entertainment hype that gets people excited about an upcoming movie set to open months from now. I equate this kind of hype with the excitement Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) unleashed almost a year before it came out. Upon the film’s release, fan and critical reaction to the movie wasn’t exactly positive.

By comparison, The Box offers up lots of intriguing little subplots and twists that begin just before the opening credits as a memo from an unseen person is typed out. The memo explains that a missing person who left a military hospital has been reported leaving a mysterious box on the doorsteps of people’s homes.

I was hooked right from the beginning and couldn’t wait to see how The Box would end. In addition to the alarming memo, there is mention of National Security Agency experiments, NASA missions to Mars, notions about Heaven, Hell, and how life on Earth is humanity’s Purgatory, wind tunnels, lightning strikes, nosebleeds, and government agents in big black cars. At least I think they are government agents. This is the kind of film where just when you think you have the story all figured out, something else occurs and you are back to square one.

There are also dazed humans with accusingly blank stares who say nothing and reside at an out of the way hotel. When they aren't milling around a swimming pool at night that boasts a bright blue light, they are reading at the public library and get distracted the moment someone, who is not one of them like NASA engineer and husband Arthur Lewis (James Marsden), walks in. There the head librarian is some sort of angel, (again, I think) who tells Arthur to pick from three watery time portals. One could lead to damnation, the other leads to eternal bliss.

This film got so weird early on that when a rude student asks Arthur’s wife and private school teacher, Norma Lewis (Cameron Diaz), during a class discussion if he could see her bare foot, I wondered if screenwriter/director Richard Kelly had the same kind of foot fetish that director Quentin Tarantino employs in just about every violent movie he makes.

That particular “foot scene” also has something to do with the story here as well, which I won’t explain here. All this will no doubt feel strange to the viewer but I am sure these plot elements are right at home in director Richard Kelly’s world.

Other than The Box, which is based on a short story by Richard Matheson called “Button, Button”, Kelly has also done Donnie Darko (2001) which has become a cult favorite featuring Jake Gyllenhaal as a troubled teenager whose visions of a macabre looking bunny rabbit make him commit murders. I did not know what to make of that film when I saw it and am scared to see the extended director’s cut out of fear my still not understanding it will only aggravate me further.

I am still debating on whether or not to see Kelly’s critically panned end of the world-apocalyptic mess of a supposed comedy called Southland Tales (2006) that featured The Rock’s Dwayne Johnson. I suppose I will see both one of these days when I have time trying to make sense of the film’s storylines.

At least with The Box, I was able to follow along in what at first seems like a simple story where a mysterious gentleman named Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) leaves a box on the Lewis’ doorsteps. Inside is just a finely, crafted wooden “box” with a big red button. Steward later arrives to make Arthur and Norma an offer too good to refuse. They can push the button and upon doing so, receive one million dollars cash, all in crisp $100 dollar bills. The gist is someone they don’t know will die.

If the Lewis’ had said no this film would have been over within thirty minutes, the normal length of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone (1959-1964). I don’t think I need to tell you the decision Norma makes except to say I am reminded of that line a character says in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (1987) about money.

“The thing about money is it makes you do things you don’t want to do.”

What follows are all those little plot elements I mentioned. As I said, I was hooked, almost right from the beginning. In addition to that, I loved the setting which takes place in 1976. We see people sporting long sideburns and wearing multi-colored slacks to work. The Lewis’ kitchen is covered with laughably bad spotted circled wallpaper that would give anyone a headache just looking at it. This is like taking a trip down memory lane to the way things were back then where people watched Johnny Carson on late night. The shot of the couple’s living room television set shows just how much has changed in terms of technology where most everyone now has flat screen high definition TV sets. There is even a commercial of the World Trade Center as the Star Spangled Banner is playing.

What I didn’t care for is the way the film fell apart in the final third act. I am still not certain if what happened was really the climax. I thought everything I had seen was going to lead to some big unexpected surprise. My only response to all this near the end was “Huh?” “This is it?” The Box exhibits almost the same issue I had with Knowing released earlier this year, the end of the world mystery thriller that also boasted notions about religion, faith in God, and aliens. The religion and faith in God issues I could deal with. I am not going to buy what filmmakers are selling when they start bringing aliens into the mix as reasons for the upcoming apocalypse.

By comparison in The Box’s third act when the Lewis’ home is flooded with water, I have a hard time accepting that it was all the result of a time portal Arthur stepped in versus the fact maybe the upstairs toilet had a massive back up or someone left the bathroom water on for days. From that moment on, The Box lost me. Now I know how all those die-hard fans of the original Star Wars trilogy felt after sitting through The Phantom Menace and having all their hopes and dreams shattered that Episode I would be as good as Star Wars (1977) was.

I can’t argue, however, that for almost two hours, The Box did not take me on an enjoyable little roller coaster ride as it played with my mind and wondered where this film was going. I enjoyed the ride. I just didn’t care for the solution.

On that note, I better stop here and give The Box my recommended three star rating. If I irritate myself any further about how this film screwed me over in the end, I’ll award The Box the two and a half star rating it really deserves.

©11/6/09