Innocent Bystander

The War (2007)

I watched the first installment of The War, the documentary by Ken Burns, last night. It was, as is always the case with Burns, fascinating, well-done, and over-done. The first episode is two and a half hours long, mostly because of the tacked-on added footage saluting Latino soldiers. At first glance, I thought this was going to be more focused on the four towns Burns picked to add as back home backdrops for his multi-part series, Mobile, AL, Sacramento, CA, Waterbury, CT, and Luverne, MN. Those people in those small towns do humanize this entirely inhuman war, adding names, faces and personal stories to this sprawling epic. But Burns doesn't stint on the war coverage. The first part has a ton of footage, some of it horrifying, of the rev-up to war and the initial battles, especially in the Pacific.

The over-done part comes in the editing. While it's a fascinating, epic story, told wonderfully, it's too damn long. And beyond that, do we really need Norah Jones singing some kind of love theme to America? Burns at times personifies my personal mantra, which applies to so many things: just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

But my biggest gripe about The War has nothing to do with Ken Burns, it's with PBS. Once again, we have a multi-part series with no coherent broadcast schedule. Part of it is PBS's hippie-like, laissez-fare (or just plain lazy), allowance of letting local stations program what they want, when they want. Even this broadcast schedule at PBS.org is impossible to follow when it comes to figuring out which episode is first-run and when it first airs (not to mention that HD times are different than regular broadcast times). Would it kill them to mention first-run first with an additional listing tied to it that read "rebroadcast at..."? At the very least, could they number the episodes on the schedule? Burns tells us in each one which episode number it is.

One thing that (pleasantly) shocked me: just about everyone interviewed on camera seems way too young-looking to have been in World War II. Are we building better-looking, longer-lasting people these days?

First thing in the morning, this scares me...

I caught a glimpse of this in the checkout line yesterday at Ralphs. I know they're just "making a movie," but this scares me, because evidently this guy just can't keep it in his pants if he's with a woman named Jennifer.

Should we steel ourselves for another round of broken hearts, tearful accusations, tabloid headlines, and "Bennifer" comments? If so, I want to know NOW, so I can opt out of participating.

I STILL miss Tower Records...

Today I drove past what used to be one of two Tower Records here in San Diego. Now it's a "3-Day Suit Broker," a concept I just can't wrap my mind around. The marquee sign out front proclaims its open 4 days a week. So where does the 3-day part come in? Does it take them 3 days to negotiate a suit for you? Is that the broker part? I'm obviously confused, but that's nothing new.

I miss when that building was the big yellow home of Tower Records. Situated opposite the Sports Arena in San Diego, all remnants of its former tenant are erased now. No longer yellow, the building's windows sport giant pictures of men's suits.

Not so in NYC, where two weeks ago I walked past the building on Upper Broadway that housed Tower Record's megastore. It sits empty, with scaffolding out front, and rental signs in the windows. You can see the remnants of the familiar Tower Records red sign above the door, but it wasn't turned on, of course. That store still pops up on Internet searches when you look for things like "New York City DVD stores," proving that the World Wide Web has a longer memory than most people.

I never really bought a lot at Tower, so I suppose I'm as much to blame as anyone for their demise. The world of purchased audio and video entertainment has certainly changed, and I think it will change even more in the coming years. When I first moved to San Diego--GASP!--nine years ago, that particular Tower Records (there was also a bigger one in La Jolla), had two buildings across the street from each other. The smaller one of the two housed their video store and rental operation, and was eventually torn down to be a part of the Home Depot parking lot. When the video operation moved into the main store, it stopped rentals.

Tower always had an amazing selection of DVDs, but their prices were outrageous compared--for the most part--with places like Best Buy. I loved to LOOK in Tower, but rarely purchased there, unless something was on sale. After I purchased an iPod in 2003, most of my music purchases occurred online at the iTunes store. I was never a proponent of liking one or two songs and being forced to buy a dozen others on a CD. iTunes revolutionized how we buy music, in more ways than one, that's for sure.

Tower also had a great magazine section, including many 'zines (like the thoroughly disgusting but thoroughly enjoyable Cinema Sewer) that you couldn't find anywhere else in staid, old San Diego (maybe in LA, SF or NYC, but not here). It was a traditional Friday night stop for me. When I worked up on Kearny Mesa, I'd take the 52 over to La Jolla...when my job changed and I moved over to La Mesa for work, I'd take the 8 to the Sports Arena area, and combine my Tower browsing with grocery shopping at Ralphs across the street and a visit to the Target in the same strip mall for other essentials at a bargain price. I still go over there, but Tower is gone, just a memory, and barely that. I have yet to develop the desire to go 3-day suit shopping on a Friday night.

Next (2007)

It's too bad you can't channel Nic Cage's power in this movie. If you could, you'd be able to see over the next 90 minutes what a colossal, muddled mess Next is. Seriously. I don't think I've ever seen a film more convoluted or confusing.

Cage is a Las Vegas nightclub magician who has the power to see into the future, 2 minutes at a time. There's a catch, though. It's only HIS future, no one else's. Except sometimes it's more than 2 minutes. And with Jessica Biel it transcends time. Personally, I buy that part. When it comes to La Biel, I can see for miles and miles and miles...oh, yeah.

But I digress. There's a terrorist plot against the US and the FBI, led by the crankiest, meanest agent ever, played by Julianne Moore, who evidently liked the gun and cap so much in Hannibal, she decided to don both again, wants Cage to use his power to find the bomb and stop it. Again, seriously. I can see Cage and Biel getting caught up in absolute drivel like this. Cage also produced, and he's know for crap like this. Biel is a relative youngster and on paper, a movie with Cage and Moore sounds good. But Julianne, oh, Julianne...you should know better.

Okay...terrorists. Nuclear bomb. Need for someone with the ability to see into the future. Somehow Moore knows Cage can do this. So do the bad guys. It's never explained how they discovered this. And even though Cage's power supposedly only allows him to see 2 minutes into HIS future, he somehow saves the day. Or does he?

Confused? Wait 'til you watch this thing...and I strongly urge you do NOT do so. Not only does it show the same scenes time and time again, and then suddenly shifts backward to reveal Cage was just THINKING about what could happen. You don't know what you're watching.

The premise--which comes from yet another Phillip K. Dick story, the patron idea saint of recent scifi films--is pretty cool. And you see glimpses of it actually working, especially in one or two scenes where Cage escapes from his captors. He can see his own future, so how do you stop him? He knows your every move, he knows exactly what is about to happen and how to avoid it...and he does. But that premise is pissed away repeatedly when the film continually changes the rules of engagement. Near the end, Cage suddenly has a physical reaction to what he sees, something akin to bad shrimp. For the beginning 7/8s of the film, he shows no reaction at all. Now he grimaces in pain. Beyond even that point, in the final few minutes, he splits off into multiple Cages, each exploring one possible outcome of his actions. Sorry, folks. One Nic Cage is more than enough for the world to handle.

So, here...I've done the heavy lifting and prognostication for you. No need to strain your brain peering into the future. If you're in the video store or on Netflix and you come across Next, promptly skip over it and silently yell "NEXT!" to yourself. You'll be glad you did.

My Fall TV viewing, so far...

Boy, this is dismal. I watched four news series, liked one, found another to be mediocre and hated the other two.

I liked Chuck, the new NBC Monday night series that gives us an every-nerd hero for the new millennium. Chuck is a "Nerd Herd" staff member at a Best Buy type of store who gets a boatload of government secrets downloaded into his brain. Different things trigger them, and he has the ability to "save the world" as need be. I found it charming, funny and liked all of the actors involved.

Also on Monday, The Big Bang Theory over on CBS has it's own ration of nerds who are beside themselves when a hot new girl moves in next door and befriends them. I saw this once. I don't need to see it again. I get the feeling every subsequent episode will be a variation of the same theme. On a brighter note, out of total curiosity, I finally watched a complete episode of How I Met Your Mother, and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I may be adding that to my DVR list.

I was curious about Back To You, the new Fox comedy set in a Pittsburgh TV station newsroom, a locale in which I spent close to 18 years. Along with this interesting hook, the show comes with two of America's top of the heap sitcom stars, Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton. I recorded Wednesday night's second episode and made it all the way past the first commercial break before I erased the entire show. There's absolutely nothing to see here, folks, so please move along. With the amount of money Fox must be paying Heaton and Grammer to return to TV, this series probably has to stay on as long as Frasier and Everybody Loves Raymond COMBINED to get a partial return on their investment. Good luck with that.

And then there's The Bionic Woman, a show NBC has been trumpeting all Summer long. And boy, does it suck. Horribly miscast with the wonky Katee Sackoff as the bad Bionic Woman, and the wimpy and ineffectual Michelle Ryan as the new improved version 2.0, it's been a long time since I've seen this many bad performers mouthing so many bad lines. Why the writers decided to make the accident that spawns the creation of the new Bionic Woman to be anything BUT an accident is beyond me. And I know they're going for an "every woman" vibe with Ryan, who is attractive--but not too--but you'd never believe she's capable of anything super-heroic. It's also another one of those Lost/Heroes/24 type of series that tries to be cryptic and just ends up being silly. Very few series can carry off this long-form, season-long storyline thing, as we learned last Fall with the quick demise of series such as The Nine, Smith, and Kidnapped. Bionic Woman tries and fails miserably. I'm usually of the mind that TV series tend to grow on you, but I know right now I have absolutely no desire to watch this again.

In other viewing, I found the season 2 premiere of last year's favorite new show, Heroes, to be disappointing at best. I'm already done with the little girl, Molly, and I can live without Greg Grunberg, too, whose character last year seemed to be the most unfocused of the bunch. They would have been better off leaving him to die at the end of last season. I'll keep watching, but I'm suddenly hit with the realization that if I miss an episode of this show this season, it'll be no great loss.

First (incredibly evil and cynical) thought of the day...

If Hitler somehow magically came back to life and found himself on trial for crimes against humanity in a Los Angeles courtroom, it would end in a mistrial. That is if he hadn't skipped town because they released him early due to jail over-crowding.

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

I actually saw 3:10 to Yuma weeks ago, while in NYC, but I've had a hard time bringing myself to write about it. Don't get me wrong, it was a very enjoyable flick. The minute I heard this remake starred Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, I knew I'd go see it in the theater.

But somehow, I have some kind of blogger's block when it comes to writing about it. So if we all talk about this, openly and honestly, maybe we can work through it. And how does that make you feel?

3:10 (which I saw at 5:20, by the way) is a Western. For those of you reading this who are younger, a "Western" is a movie that takes place in a bygone era, usually in the American Southwest (but more often than not, as far north as Idaho and Montana and Wyoming), and features fictional tales about people in the latter half of the 19th Century (but also into the first 20 or so years of the 20th Century). Most of the protagonists are men, and they ride horses, a popular means of transportation in those days, and they carry guns, because the West was wild. They even called it "the Wild West." Trust me on this.

Once upon a time, your "Western" was one of the most popular forms of filmed entertainment, existing both on the movie theater screen and the TV screen at home. But that's fallen a bit by the wayside. Every once in a while, someone (see also: Clint Eastwood) makes a new Western, and the genre makes a tiny comeback.

3:10 probably won't contribute to that happening this time around. While Russell Crowe single-handedly caused a revival of the sand and sandals epics with Gladiator (and begot a regrettable round of stars dressed in frilly Roman/Grecian garb), it ain't gonna happen here, pardner. 3:10 is a great little film, though, one definitely worth your time and money, but it's not a barn-burner (although they do burn a barn down in the opening scene--funny, huh?), and it's easy to see why Crowe and Bale signed on for it.

Crowe actually plays someone likable for once--a bad guy nonetheless, but likable. He's Ben Wade , a dastardly old West career criminal who's made his living and name by big heists. He gets caught this time, and it's up to a small posse of locals to make sure he gets on that 3:10 to Yuma train to the Federal Prison before his trigger-happy gang comes along and tries to set him loose. Dan Evans (Christian Bale--do these character names get any more outdoorsy, simple and rugged?) is a down-on-his-luck rancher who helps capture Wade and volunteers to help do the dirty escorting deed, solely for the 200 bucks. Along the way, Wade plays with Evans' mind and the two beat the crap out of each other on occasion, but a begrudging respect develops. Crowe is charismatic in his role and Bale is taciturn and perfect in his.

But the real revelation is Ben Foster as the scary and devoted henchman, Charlie Prince. Truly creepy with an attitude that would just as soon shoot you as listen to you, Foster gives an Oscar nomination worthy performance as the MVP (Most Valuable Psycho) of the film. There are other fine supporting performances by Gretchen Mol (Bale's wife), Peter Fonda (a Pinkerton man), and Alan Tudyk (the town doctor). 3:10 is fast-moving and suspenseful, with nary a wasted moment of film. It's also a remake and I have the original from 1957 on my Netflix queue. It stars Glenn Ford in the Crowe (bad guy) role and Van Heflin as Dan Evans. I can't imagine Ford as a bad guy, especially in a Western, but I can't wait to see it...because the ending just CANNOT be the same as this one. (And please don't tell me how it ends...PLEASE!)

There...I guess that wasn't so hard to write. Thanks for helping me through this block.

Murder, he wrote...

It's a strange sensation when you realize someone you know has been arrested for murder. And while I'm a firm believer in that benchmark of justice--everyone is innocent until they're caught--it's strange the way your mind wraps around such knowledge.

I'm not going to mention any names here. Suffice it to say, someone I knew back in my east coast days has been arrested for murder. The case is a cold one, happening close to 20 years ago. This is categorically NOT someone I knew well. The person was just an acquaintance, someone I periodically dealt with, but knew enough to say hello and to have a brief "how's it going?" conversation every time we met up.

But like the little old lady on the news who talks about their neighbor, the recently arrested serial killer, the sun slowly rises when you think about this person. The old adage for such cases is "he was very quiet, kept to himself, kind of a loner..." and then you think, "Yeah! That's exactly what a serial killer would be...I KNEW IT!" This person isn't a serial killer, it's a single--but nonetheless shocking--case. But it made me think back on my encounters with said person and how I remember that person now.

I was talking with a friend who dealt with this person on pretty much the same basis as I did, and we both came up with the same observation: the person in question was always nice, always civil, but there was always this underlying edge, this curbstone of anger that was just waiting to be crossed. Seething is not the right word...but simmering would be appropriate.

It all makes me wonder. Did both my friend and I really "recognize" this facet in this person's make-up, or is it retro continuity, a result of hearing what allegedly happened almost 20 years ago and that coloring our memories? If it was there all along, why didn't we acknowledge it then? Or did it take the act of murder for us to confess our own misgivings--if they ever really existed?

I'll probably never know the answer to that one, but at some point, I will know the answer to this one: guilty or innocent?

Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

Heartsick, the first-time thriller by author Chelsea Cain, is one of the best-reviewed novels of the year. After reading rave reviews in both the New York Times Book Review section and Entertainment Weekly, I couldn't wait to get my hot little hands on this book. And sadly, I came away a bit disappointed.

Heartsick is the story of scarred and scared police detective Archie Sheridan, called off of sick leave to investigate a new series of abduction-murders in Portland, Oregon. Sheridan is the famous cop who solved the "Beauty Killer" case, another series of murders, this one led by a maniacal serial killer named Gretchen Lowell. Yep, a woman, and a beautiful one to boot. Archie was Lowell's last victim, the one that got away in more ways than one, whom Lowell kidnapped and tortured for days. When Sheridan comes back to head up the new task force, charged with finding the "After School Strangler," so named because he kidnaps schoolgirls heading home, he brings along local newspaper reporter Susan Ward, to profile himself and the case honestly.

Heartsick derails there, at least in my eyes. Susan is a great character (as is everyone in the book) but she becomes too much of a plot point, a deus ex enabler that helps move the story along a little too conveniently. Another troubling point is comparisons of serial killer Gretchen Lowell to that other great fictional murderer, Hannibal Lecter. A number of reviewers point out that Lowell is the most fascinating--and perverse--killer since Thomas Harris introduced us to the fava bean eating crazy. But everyone seems to ignore how derivative Heartsick is, at times, of the Harris books. From the absolute perversion of the killer to the jailhouse visits between cop and captor, Lowell is a little too close to her fictional inspiration.

Don't get me wrong, Heartsick is an enjoyable read, but I wasn't propelled through it like I was two other mystery/thrillers this Summer, Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn and The Shotgun Rule by Charlie Huston. It'll make a great movie, and I have no doubt there'll be sequels (Cain has a 3-book contract), although the author has said she won't be telling us about the formative years of serial killer Lowell, ala Hannibal Rising. In fact, Cain states in this interview, she hopes someone will take the pen from her hand and stab her in the throat if she goes down that road. She's also a little clueless when it comes to how much she's really walking in Thomas Harris's footprints. Heartsick is a good read, but it's not the great white hope of serial killer thrillers everyone makes it out to be.

Coogan's Bluff (1968)

Each and every movie is a time capsule, a little piece of the reality of the era it takes place in. Coogan's Bluff is one of those films. The first American studio film to star Clint Eastwood in the lead, Coogan is a little piece of a time and place long gone, the late 60s in New York City. More importantly, it's a view of the hippie lifestyle prevalent then in some of the bigger cities, a view undoubtedly skewed through the fractured lens of the writer's own misconceptions.

It's a cop thriller with a concept that was later stolen for the popular NBC-TV series, McCloud, starring Dennis Weaver. Clint Eastwood is Arizona Deputy Sheriff Coogan (no first name given in the movie, but according to IMDb, it's Walt, thank you kindly, m'am), sent to New York City, all cowboy hat, boots and lean, lanky and mean as a rattlesnake, to extradite James Ringerman (Don Stroud). While there, he bumps heads with a NYC cop, played by the actor who seemed to specialize in cranky, Lee J. Cobb. He also beds Ringerman's girlfriend, a hippie chick named Linny Raven, played by hippie chick specialist Tisha Sterling, and police probations officer/budding psychologist Julie Roth (Susan Clark, playing a mini-skirted and boot wearing clotheshorse). Coogan runs up against the whole fish out of water syndrome and everyone in NYC is a jerk, something that may or may not have been true in the late 60s.

Much of the film, which was produced and directed by Don Siegel, starting a decade-long collaboration with Eastwood that included the films Two Mules for Sister Sara, The Beguiled, Dirty Harry and Escape from Alcatraz, was filmed in NYC, including an extended climax in the Cloisters. This was Eastwood's first solo starring role in an American film, after becoming an international star with Sergio Leone's spaghetti western trilogy.

Coogan is unintentionally funny at times, though. Like I mentioned, everyone in NYC is an asshole, from the cabbies to the cops, from the hotel manager at the front desk to the aging bellboy who tries to hook Coogan up with the hotel hooker. The hippie scenes are a hoot with Tisha Sterling's beguiling Linny Raven high all the time and a proponent of the whole "free love" movement. There's a swinging nightclub called "The Pigeon-Toed Orange Peel," into which Eastwood strides like the Mayor of Squaresville. It's definitely an aging white man's version of hippiedom, stereotypical at its best, out and out funny at its worst.

Coogan's Bluff would eventually find a similar life as the TV show McCloud, but the film itself--minus some nudity and excessive violence--could pass for any of Universal's made-for-TV movies of the same time period. The NYC location shooting adds some luster to this otherwise lackluster-looking film, but it's definitely a byproduct of a studio in a certain era, an era where the majors were torn between hating TV and embracing it. Universal was, I believe, producing the highest amount of TV programming at that time. Coogan's Bluff pretty much fits right in with the look and feel of all of it.