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Director: David Silverman
Cast: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer
(Fox, 2007) Rated: PG-13
US DVD release date: 18 December 2007 (Fox)
by Jesse Hassenger At long last, after nearly two decades of waiting, it’s here. A cultural event long thought limited to the daydreams of diehard fans has finally seen the light of day: the DVD commentary track for The Simpsons Movie.

Oh, and the movie itself, which came out last summer, was fairly anticipated, too. But the pop-culture hype cycle has reached cruising speed, and last summer’s culmination of a two-decade buildup fades into the standard four-month, theater-to-home turnaround. The quick DVD rebirth of The Simpsons Movie, while absolutely standard, somehow feels a little sad, too—an admittance that this cultural event was as fleeting as any, a reminder that you rushed out and saw it on its first weekend, laughed a lot, and then it was all over.
cover art

That’s where the commentary track comes in. Hardcore Simpsons nerds have learned to anticipate new DVD box sets even when they lack all-time favorite episodes simply because Matt Groening and company have set out to provide informative and funny commentary tracks for every single episode of the show ever produced (currently numbering somewhere in the 400s). The opportunity to hear an all-star (for the nerds, at least) round-up of Simpsons brain-trust members, including Groening and producer James L. Brooks, longtime writer-producers Al Jean and Mike Scully, and cast members Dan Castellaneta and Yeardley Smith, talk about the show’s first foray into theaters, then, will be the dominant interest for most fans.

They won’t be disappointed; though it was recorded, like many feature commentaries, prior to the film’s release (and Jean promises a future post-release commentary full of “finger-pointing and apologies”), the lack of hindsight is almost worth it for the fresh-off weariness we get instead. Fans will be especially happy to hear about earlier incarnations of the movie’s thousand or so gags—stuff that was tweaked, replaced, or outright scrapped during the script’s dozens upon dozens of rewrites—though they’ll also feel a little disappointed to find only some of those excised bits on the DVD’s collection of deleted scenes.

The endless writing process comes into broader play, too, when the crew discusses shaping the story of the film. One of the commentary’s best features is that the producers occasionally pause the film so they have time to elaborate on how and why they decided that the Simpsons would be leaving Springfield for Alaska, or the delicate balance of coarseness and sweetness that was apparently tipped more towards the former in earlier drafts.

Though the film does indeed harness a strong emotional core, none of the writers quite acknowledge that it is a story used in about a season’s worth of previous (and, presumably, future) Simpsons episodes, here writ extra-large: Homer loses Marge’s trust, putting their marriage in jeopardy until he can learn to be less selfish and win her back.

Even after all those episodes, this story works remarkably well in the film; it’s just hard not to think about how its impact would’ve been even greater ten or even five years ago. Jean’s note that this movie was intended to work just as well, if not better, for people who aren’t particularly familiar with the television show may be a tacit concession of the story’s familiarity, but that’s all we hear on the subject.

For the more technically inclined, there’s also an animators’ commentary in which the artists go into greater detail about the creation of the film’s strikingly, almost startlingly beautiful widescreen animation. The intentional simplicity of Groening’s original drawings have been polished, two decades later, into something downright stylish, and the movie benefits from the kind of animator attention twenty-two-minute episodes can’t afford.
Another additional DVD content mostly debris from the summer promotional blitz: Homer on the Tonight show, the American Idol family, and so forth; amusing, but more propaganda than tangents and fittings for, say, Will Ferrell or DVD Judd Apatow. In a brief deleted scenes add a few easy jokes, mostly in the center around Springfield in the origin of chaos after the prisoner in domed quarantine, but it is more familiar ground, as “The Simpsons always succeeded in entering society reference to a potential fire mob rule, but more epic proportions.

This is actually The Simpsons movie in a few words, it may be familiar, but it’s more and visually richer than what we are for, as well as funnier than many of the recent episodes of the show (though not as brilliant as any 90 — minutes from season three through eight). If, after a few months, he feels a bit anticlimactic, it is still remarkable that these characters can still make you believe it at all.

Director: Des McAnuff
Cast: Rene Russo, Robert De Niro, Jason Alexander, Piper Perabo, Randy Quaid, Kel Mitchell, Kenan Thompson, voices of June Foray and Keith Scott
(Universal, 2000) Rated: G
Moose and Squirrel

At one point during the endless-seeming shenanigans of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Robert De Niro, embodying the cartoon character Fearless Leader, faces the camera, smirks, and utters a few familiar lines: “Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me? Well, I’m the only one here….”

Would that he were. But no, as Fearless Leader, De Niro is surrounded by minions and in fact, speaking not to his mirror but to the most famous minions, Boris and Natasha via a video-cellphone. Outfitted with a monocle, cigarette holder, and prosthetic chin, De Niro gives an appropriately bloodless performance as this minor cartoon villain. And while this moment might conceivably evoke a sense of nostalgia or even in-jokey geniality, it’s more likely saddening to see the mordant cultural resonance of Travis Bickle has descended to cheap gaggery. Certainly, this joke or a similar one has come up before; Taxi Driver‘s signature psycho-line circulates freely in pop culture. And De Niro is a famous good sport about his own oversized image (for example, the psychotherapized gangster in Analyze This). But Fearless Leader — well, the trick is tired before it begins.However De Niro’s self-mimicry strikes you — and it’s likely that it won’t strike you at all if you’re the film’s ideal 10-year-old viewer — the humor in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle never develops beyond this puerile and rather retro level. This despite the fact that its first few minutes are all about its own datedness. A brief introduction recalls the TV series’ cancellation in 1964 as a momentous event equal to LBJ’s reelection or the New York World’s Fair, after which you see the resulting economic and spiritual decline of Rocky and Bullwinkle’s hometown, Frostbite Falls, Minnesota. According to the narrator (”voice mimic” Keith Scott, who also does Bullwinkle), this toontown has been “crippled by years of reruns,” to the point that he’s been reduced to “narrating the events of his own life,” demonstrated by a snarky play-by-play description of his mother basting a turkey.

Such wise-assness is short-lived, however, and The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle quickly devolves into a slow-moving save-the-free-world plot. Rocky and Bullwinkle are summoned by U.S. President (James Rebhorn), when Fearless Leader and his most famous minions, Boris and Natasha (fleshed out by Jason Alexander and Rene Russo) concoct a plot to zombify TV viewers with RBTV (Really Bad Television), transmitted from NYC. Um, yawn. Perhaps needless to say, the ex-George Castanza in half a mustache and black spy-hat doesn’t offer quite the same camp factor that the cel-animated Comrade Badenov did back in his heyday. This is partly because the original TV series’ Cold War humor doesn’t hold up, and partly because the script, attributed to Kenneth Lonergan, is lame times 12. The plot, such as it is, involves Boris and Natasha trying to destroy “Moose and Squirrel.” To this end, they run about in Keystone Cops-ish fast-motion, grouse and fall down some, and repeatedly exhibit their ineptitude with some cartoon-killer app called CDI (Computer Degenerating Imagery, or something like that). Meanwhile, the good guys dispatch FBI Agent Sympathy (Piper Perabo) to carry our heroes to New York in her Volkswagen bug because only they can stop Fearless Leader’s dastardly RBTV transmission.

During the ensuing road trip, you’re left with far too much time to wonder how this movie got made. It’s true that the original series was never quite squarely aimed at either children or adults, and might be understood in this way as a forward-thinking precursor for sassy shows like The Simpsons or King of the Hill. The film, however, remains boggled in a demo-neverland, appealing only to the very zombie audience it thinks it’s satirizing. Everyone knows it’s hard to act with blue screens, and the humans throughout this exercise appear baffled and disconcerted, especially compared to the much livelier Rocky and Bullwinkle, who inexplicably remain animated while everyone else turns into flesh-and-blood. While it’s obvious that up-and-comer Perabo signed up for the film because it is a) produced by De Niro’s once high-minded Tribeca Productions, and b) has a raft of Big Name Talent attached, including depressing appearances by Jonathan Winters, Janeane Garafolo, John Goodman, and the ever-hapless Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell.

Not to mention Whoopi Goldberg’s weak appearance as “Judge Cameo” in a courtroom scene, where Bullwinkle wears a white powdered wig and interrogates Agent Sympathy. It’s hard to know what to say about this particular embarrassment, except to note that, at least Goldberg didn’t produce the film, like someone else whose initials are Robert De Niro.

It may be that “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle to suffer from a kind of timewarp similar to the one that was beaten down Flintstounov two films, which is to say, that when something funny no longer.” Or perhaps that the film suffers from a very Standard film problems, tedious characters and situations, bad rate, lackluster direction (by Des McAnuff, once director whose first film was overheated costume drama Cousin Bette). Adventures But Rocky and Bullwinkle actually more misleading than conventional film such a list allows weak - . What may be most disturbing about The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle is that, like Howard with ducks or some such legendary Hollywood disaster, it is clearly negligent, and therefore deliberately turn a blind eye to his crimes.

This is even as the film offers a wide-winky look at how movies get made. To suck Rocky and Bullwinkle in three dimensions, the agent must penetrate Sympathy in the studio and many decked in LCD Tom Cruise-stealth together, the way to make it a “Green Light Tower. Here, the mystery of how inane and expensive projects are “greenlighted” the little joke, as you look Sympathy select multiple genres and throw a few high leverage to get that done. Such self-sometimes passes for understanding. In this case, however, is what it appears to be noise, and the impact that is not so much at all.

Review
by Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters Film and TV Editor

Jackie Chan’s The Myth
Director: Stanley Tong
Cast: Jackie Chan Solon So Barbie Tung Willie Chan Buting Yang Albert Yeung
(Sony, 2005) Rated: PG-13
US DVD release date: 30 October 2007 (Sony)
UK DVD release date: 30 October 2007
by Bill Gibron
Film & TV Columns Editor

Legend in His Own Mind

He remains one of the most misunderstood martial arts action stars in the world. Though he’s enormously famous, richer beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, and essentially an economy unto himself, Jackie Chan seems to suffer from something akin to Woody Allen syndrome, i.e., fans enjoy his ‘earlier, more stunt-oriented’ efforts rather than his recent dilution at the hands of Tinsel Town.

Some argue it’s the icon’s own fault. As he ages (he’s 53, as of this writing), he’s unable to perform many of the amazing feats that earned him his original reputation. Even worse, there are hints that ego and unchecked hubris have hindered some of his more promising productions. Take The Myth, for example. Though directed by long time Hong Kong titan Stanley Tong (Rumble in the Bronx, Police Story 1 & 2), the stars imprint is all over the wacked out action epic.

Our story begins when a princess, promised as a concubine to the ruling emperor, is hijacked by a former beau. He claims the lady as his own, both betrothed when they were young. Living up to his majesty’s mission, General Meng-Yi (Chan) promises to protect and serve the maiden. A carriage chase ends up with everyone teetering on the edge of a cliff.

Fast forward several centuries, and tomb raider Jack (Chan, also) is contacted by old friend William. Seems he needs the fabled historian to help him locate the secret to antigravity. Sure enough, in a remote region of India, they find a mausoleum festooned with strange stones. The rocks, when aimed correctly, give objects (and people) the ability to levitate.

Fall back to medieval times, and Meng-Yi and Princess Ok-soo are getting better acquainted. She is falling in love. He is determined to live up to his charge. Jump back to present day, and Jack is searching for a hidden cave behind a famed waterfall. While William wants to help, his greed has led him to double cross his pal. Former professor, and no good evildoer Mr. Koo is waiting to see what Jack uncovers – and take advantage of it any way he can.

Part period piece, part extremely surreal modern action movie, The Myth is like Raider of the Lost Ark restaged in feudal Asia. Telling two supposedly interlocking tales, we get Chan as a noted archeologist and, when flashing back to the past, a brave military general. It sets up an intriguing dichotomy within the film, since it basically allows for the star to compete against himself. One of the odder elements of this movie is the implied battle for honor and courage between contemporary Chan and conqueror Chan. One has amazing larger than life battles. The other returns to the tricks that made him an international legend.

Which one is best depends solely on what you value more: do you like sweeping sword spectacle, performers falling off horses and clanging together sabers with blood thirsty abandon? Then you’ll cotton to General Meng-Yi. He’s literally a one man 300. If, on the other hand, you prefer well choreographed fisticuffs, location and logistics adding to the miraculous parameters of the melee, then celebrated scientist Jack is the guy for you.

There’s really not much else here. All the other characters are pushed far off into the background, limited in screen time, dimension, and in some cases, purpose. Gorgeous Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat is supposed to be a yoga practicing, martial arts wielding, butt kicking sidekick to Jack while he’s in India, but aside from a couple of minor fights, and an erotic dance, she’s in and out of the film within minutes. Similarly, Ahou Sun’s Mr. Koo doesn’t make an appearance until an hour in, and when he does arrive, his intent is all inference and unexplained history (Jack and William know him, but we barely learn when and how).

The Myth likes to do this—introduce new elements right in the middle of establishing exposition. The story of the Princess and her role as concubine is jarringly interrupted so talk of an immortality pill can be offered. William and his collegues will discuss plans for their anti-gravity device, only to take a side trip to the Museum of Qin Terracotta Warriors to discuss the pilfering of a country’s national treasures.

Even the signature action scenes seem strangely out of place. When chased by Indian police officers into a local glue factory, Jack and his opponents end up playing out a classic bit of ‘stuck to the spot’ slapstick. It is a truly amazing sequence, and definitely one of Chan’s more memorable. Equally unforgettable is General Meng-Yi’s one man stand against a legion of disloyal soldiers. Using fists, swords, knifes, poles, and anything else he can wield, our brave leader takes on all comers, and the brawling is massive in scope. There’s even a little arterial spray for those who like their cock-ups soaked in blood.

Oddly enough, the finale, set within a gravity free afterlife, is a tad underwhelming. Not enough is done with the physics defying realm, and even when employed, Tong cuts the situations way, way down. It’s been said that this version of The Myth (released by Sony a full two years after its Hong Kong debut) has been severely edited. The original running time was over 122 minutes. The Region 1 release comes in at a scant 96. Somewhere, there is another near half hour of material.

Apparently, some of it has been relegated to a section of deleted scenes, offered as part of the DVD’s extras. Though only 11 minutes in length, we do get more backstory on Jack and William’s friendship, additional material with the Princess, and a visit to an Ice Cave. None of the footage helps us with the frequent narrative gaps, however.

In addition, there are a couple of featurettes (focusing on the film, swamis, and Chan’s charitable work) as well as a genial audio commentary from the star himself. Happy to discuss how much he loves the final product, there are long gaps in the discussion as our hero simply sits back and admires his efforts. It’s a shame that we can’t get as much satisfaction out of The Myth as he does.

As with any new proposal from the plaintiff, critics call the standards assessment of the Chan (insert here), and they did everything. Indeed, over time, the authenticity and admissibility of the date is pushed further and everything behind. At this pace, experts are proud to say that no matter what is on the screen, nothing can beat the brutal Boxer Chen.

Of course, every performer is ready to cooperate with Chris Tucker not once but three times, deserves the reputation of being less particular about their parties. But you can say is considered a masterpiece of modern myth, the wuxia ask someone too late for the genre. Even with CGI horse antics, floating royalty routine, and excellent sense of time and place, this is a movie that can not fulfill his legacy. Instead, the myth goes from the first demolition peacefully in the air, was never heard from again.

Director: Sean Fine, Andrea Nix Fine
Cast: Akena Dominic, Alimo Rose, Achen Nancy
(ThinkFilm, 2007) Rated: PG-13
US theatrical release date: 9 November 2007 (Limited release)
by Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters Film and TV Editor

I like singing. Everything feels okay again, like I’m home and not in the camp.
—Nancy

“Most people in the world think this is the way people live in Africa,” says 14-year-old Nancy. She’s referring to shots of refugees at northern Uganda’s Patongo Camp, jostling on line for sacks of meal and cans of vegetable oil, delivered by trucks that come once a week. “But I want to tell them that this is not the way that people in Africa live. I miss my old home in the village.” Her revision, echoed in the stories of several other Acholi children in War/Dance, focuses not on how people suffer, but on how they survive.

For Nancy and her fellow refugees, survival is an ongoing process, a diurnal, conscious effort. As Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine’s documentary frames it, this process is also political and moral, a struggle to sort out the frankly unimaginable horrors that have shaped Nancy’s existence. The titular slash construction indicates the two concepts in tension and alignment: the Patongo children work through war with music. Performers in the government-protected camp’s primary school music troupe, they have won a recent regional contest and are headed for the national finals. Singers, dancers, and musicians, they describe their dire histories and also look toward possible futures, forging a sense of community and identity in art. As 14-year-old xylophone player Dominic puts it, “In our daily lives, there must be music.”

On its face, War/Dance documents their progress, their rehearsals with local instructors such as Jolly Okot (who observes, “Music is a big therapy”), as well as professional teachers, who mean to give the group a kind of extra polish as the finals near, to “uplift their standard.” This part of the documentary is more or less straightforward: the camera follows the kids as they practice their parts and also perform their usual chores (sweeping, cooking, washing clothes). They work hard, their dances are precisely choreographed, strenuous, and beautiful, shot with handheld cameras and exhilarating to see.

Beyond such standard documentation, at once inspiring and picturesque, the film also includes the children’s recollections of violence and trauma (they have lived in war zones all their lives), illustrating their stories with harrowing, sometimes strangely gorgeous imagery. Dominic remembers an attack by the Lord’s Resistance Army, a force at war with the Ugandan government for some 20 years now. “I was nine years old when I was abducted,” he says, the film showing shadows and a close interior as he remembers hiding with his brother in his village schoolhouse, where they hoped they would be safe. “At midnight,” he says, “Someone was trying to get in the door with a bayonet,” and he and his brother were “scrambling to find anyplace to hide.” You see a spider, hanging on a thread, as Dominic narrates, “Everyone was so quiet, the only noise was the sound of an axe cutting the window.”

As difficult as this story is to tell, the film makes visual the children’s fear, with images less linear than impressionistic. A shot from behind Dominic’s head, looking out at a dark schoolroom, cuts to a blurred, surrealish image of his eye in extreme close-up. He doesn’t know what happened to his brother, who was beaten. But Dominic and other boys were forced to become child soldiers: “I haven’t had the courage yet to tell anyone what happened,” he says. Similarly, the film illustrates a story told by Rose, a singer. Initially, the camera takes her point of view, running through a field in the sunlight, her hand trailing over the tall grasses. This pleasant perception is interrupted when Rose recalls LRA soldiers taking her to see a large pot, near a “big tree” swarmed by ants and flies: “It was so ugly,” she says, as the camera shows close-ups of bugs. “The soldiers,” she says, “removed heads one by one from the pot. I recognized my parents. When I saw my mother’s head being pulled from the pot, I felt like I was losing my mind… There is nothing more I can say.”

These depictions are not conventional documentary images: War/Dance doesn’t show maps or revisit all the sites of devastation, it doesn’t chart trajectories or detail dates and numbers. Instead, it poses a fundamental question: how to represent such horrors, so they are not only “true” to specific experiences, but also comprehensible to viewers without personal touchstones for understanding. While viewers of documentaries about war-torn regions are typically exposed to images of brutal aggression, destruction, and/or loss, such representations can never be commensurate to the experience, but can only approximate.

The distinctions and similarities between representation and experience constitute a definitional problem for documentary as a genre. Even if reality TV has trained up a generation of viewers to distrust reality on screen, documentary remains a genre based in faith that images can convey truths, however they may be composed, edited, or accompanied by soundtracks. War/Dance complicates such tradition, trying to express events that seem beyond expression. Illustrating memories and recreating events, it expands on its witnesses’ stories in order to communicate what they’ve lost and what they hope for.
… end of review read on Popmatters.

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Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) begins again. When The Bourne Ultimatum opens in mid-chase scene, the ever stressed Bourne is eluding CIA agents on a moving train en route to Moscow. He leaps to the ground and makes his way to a hospital, where he grabs an emergency kit and finds a sink where can wash and treat his own bloody injuries—again. Within seconds, he’s tangling with Russian officers: he takes out the first and considers the second, pleading for his life. Bourne lowers his weapon. “My argument,” he says, “is not with you.”

In this third film based on Robert Ludlum’s novels, the terms of Bourne’s argument turn exceedingly clear: he’s set against the U.S. program that produced him and now wants to eliminate him. The onetime asset has become a self-aware mistake. “Something happened to me,” Bourne says, “And I need to know what it is.” In a mash-up of Robocop and Manchurian Candidate, he seeks not only his identity, but also the individuals responsible for his extraordinary altered state. The state has its upside: trained to kill and survive, he repeatedly rises from crashes and explosions, bloodied and lurching, then pushing forward to full speed, on to the next unbelievable stunt.

Bourne’s unkillability is a function of his amnesia (he has nothing to lose, only his mission to fulfill). But it’s also thematic. He’s the logical product of the secret CIA program that made him, the dark routes by which a desire for surveillance and security gives way to brutal dominion and extreme measures. “Decisions made in real time,” explains CIA Deputy Director Noah Vosen (David Strathairn), “are never perfect.” And so, in “real time,” Vosen terms his quest for Bourne a matter of national security, covering over its imperfections, the incidental corpses and errors in judgment.

Bourne makes such mistakes manifest, because he embodies them and because he’s determined to “right” them to the extent he can (he’s found, in Bourne Supremacy, that apologizing to targets’ relatives is not especially productive). It’s ironic and typical that Bourne, so damaged and pragmatic, remains idealistic. And he’s entertainingly fierce about it, if not precisely vengeful. (To maintain his sympathetic mien, he leaves the overt payback to others, with his violent retributions framed as excitingly edited bouts of self-defense.) Bourne’s journey spans continents (from Torino, Paris, and London, to Tangier and Manhattan, each picturesque location yielding a piece of his puzzle) and times. At first his flashbacks are odious and cryptic (”Will you commit to this program?” barks a shadowy interrogator), but they’re increasingly legible, leading to the moment when he re-sees his first, terrible kill.

The Bourne Ultimatum’s perspective shapes particular scenes in the present as well. He finds clues to himself in a London Guardian article by “security correspondent” Ross (Paddy Considine). Their meeting at Waterloo Station becomes an elegant, exhilarating cat-and-mouse exercise, reminiscent of the mall scene in Minority Report: Bourne leads Ross—using a comparatively low-tech prepaid cell phone—through Vosen’s intricate surveillance network, Ross responding to Bourne’s perfect, in-the-moment calculations. Sharply edited to show close calls and Bourne’s flabbergasting ingenuity (”What the hell just happened?” exclaims Vosen more than once), the sequence is all about Bourne’s training, anticipating, and intuiting, besting the CIA at its own game.

Even as Bourne sees so ultra-accurately, the film complicates the very concept of perspective. “Funny how different things look,” says Vosen, “depending on where you sit.” Skeptical CIA specialist Pam Landy (Joan Allen) sees such language as self-serving and self-deceiving. Like CIA undercover Nicky (Julia Stiles), she once hunted Bourne and now seeks to help him. Their changed perspective becomes yours, admiring Bourne’s brilliance but also appalled by his ferocity. The difficulty of this doubleness is visible in another setpiece (this one in Tangier), where Vosen sets an asset after Bourne and Nicky. The sequence is multiply layered, with Bourne eluding cops across rooftops and Desh (Joey Ansah) chasing Nicky through close apartments and alleys below. Bourne and Desh’s inevitable throwdown is all visceral slam-bangs and smash-cuts, punctuated only by ambient grunting and thumping, no music to prettify the action. Watching the mayhem, Nicky’s stunned face mirrors yours. If Bourne’s pitiless antics are entertaining, they’re also often dreadful.
But if Bourne is a stone-cold death, it is also a victim. Sort of. This perversity develops ultimatum, in order to make their political affairs. If Paul Greengrass previous film, United 93, indicts USA unpreparedness official (at least when it is not necessarily stresses fictionalized heroism of passengers and crew members), it indicts the U.S. official self-respect fictionalized differently. In the beginning, “says Bourne Vosen year design program was” carefully monitoring program, now in its “umbrella” for all kinds of dastardly absolutely necessary and black ops. “We stick sharp end now,” says proudly Vosen, that makes us unique.… No more red tape We need these programs now. ”

Too bad if, as Landy protest: “This is not what I signed up for it is not us.” Such Dick Cheney-ish rationale occur in the ultimatum. Bourne thinks himself antithetically, too self-aware, and indeed, to blame too, to keep red tapeless process. But his desire inevitably leads him to see himself again. His memories outbreak showed not only his tortured trainers (caps and waterboarding referring to the much-documented tactics dollars), but also its commitment in the end. While he looks for those who made it, he saw, finally, as the coach puts it, “you into who you are. You came to us, you voluntarily. You said, you need to do all that is needed to save American lives.”

This is a devastating revelation, undermining the very idea of Bourne decision “volunteers”. His commitment to the “program” is, you know, all along, based on lies. When he finally finds himself, he saw, he must define his motives, did not believe in someone else’s.

It would be truly fantastic if I could announce that there was “more than meets the eye” to Michael Bay’s triumphant two-and-a-half hour robot melee, Transformers. Alas, this is not the case. However, when the director is the hyper-presentational Bay, what meets the eye is quite a lot.

This is not to say that there is not a plot hidden beneath the gears and sheet metal of this film. Rather, it is a simple admission that Transformers achieves little more than an extended flurry of sparks and mutating metal action. Then again, does anyone go to a film about robots fighting looking for a philosophical treatise? Of course, any such agenda would ruin the entire viewing experience.

Transformers tells the tale of Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) who buys, or is rather chosen by, a beat-up yellow Camaro which turns out to be a good-guy alien robot (known as an Autobot) sent to protect the young boy from the forthcoming mecha-war on Earth. The reason for this special security is a pair of his great-grandfather’s spectacles, which have encoded upon them the location of the Allspark, a magic cube which created the Autobots and their enemies, the Decepticons.

A tough (but friendly hearted) crew of fellow Autobots gather around Witwicky to explain the dire importance of finding the Allspark to prevent the Decepticons from obtaining its power and transforming earth machines into an alien army that will ravage the universe. Meanwhile, the Decepticons decimate American armored forces in their parallel pursuit of the Allspark. Robot war ensues.

It would be unjust to say that the plot and characters are paper thin. Despite how fashionable it is to decry Bay as all flash and no content, he makes a strong effort to keep the film human. The wonderfully charming LaBeouf delivers an incredibly sophisticated and amusing performance and, overall, Bay succeeds in maintaining a warm spirit in the film. It is no small accomplishment for such a core to be preserved beneath the many layers of steel, testosterone, and robo-geekery. At the end of the day, Witwicky is the film’s protagonist and not the lead robot, Optimus Prime. Cheers.

Up to this point, the visual effects and “cool” factor have been lurking in the periphery of the review but the question demands to be confronted, “Are the robots jaw-dropping and does the action make you pump your fist with enthusiasm?” Put simply, it is by sheer force of will alone that I uncurl my fingers from their cheer long enough to type this review. CGI has never looked less cheesy, a commendation owed not only to the animation wizards at Industrial Light and Magic but to Bay, as well, whose will to actually blow up as many things as one man possibly can serves the movie’s realism wonderfully.

The detail of the models is incredible and the minutiae of the transformations, incomprehensible. Consider how impressed you are when you think about the patience and time it must have taken for a kindly old tinkerer to have built a ship in a bottle. Now imagine a fully functional Spanish Armada in a snow globe. That is what Bay and his visual effects wunderkinds have created in this film.

Furthermore, Bay’s frenetic camera hurtling through miles of dolly track finally seems at place within this movie. The hyper-technological character of the film is well served by such cinematographic slickness, the viewer often feeling as if their viewpoint is as precisely articulated as their robot heroes.

Does this film have flaws? Of course, it does. Despite her heartbreaking gorgeous looks, Megan Fox (as Mikaela Banes) has her performance devoured by the far more adroit LaBeouf. How one quirky, curly haired boy could rob an audience’s eyes from Fox is mind-blowing and a true testament to his chops.

There are some directorial gaffes, as well: Who thought it would be anything short of farcical to have Josh Duhamel sound a warcry as he slides on his back over concrete between a robot’s legs? If this doesn’t sound ridiculous, watch the movie and try not to laugh. However, when all is said and done the film easily spackles over its faults with “Wow” and nothing about its action disappoints.

Complimenting the feature on the two-disc special edition, are some of the most polished special features recorded on DVD. A wealth of interviews and making-of’s populate the second disc, all edited razor sharply and introduced with glossy, glowing menus. The featurettes only heighten one’s awe for this film as one is privileged to the gargantuan undertaking. LaBeouf proves to be equally affable in real life as when acting, and Bay’s enthusiasm makes you forgot the man just directed the film. This special edition truly sets the bar for fat action volumes.
Review by Erik Hinton

007 View to a Kill, A | (1985, UK, USA)

Genres: Action | Adventure | Thriller
Actors:
Roger Moore James Bond
Christopher Walken Max Zorin
Tanya Roberts Stacey Sutton
Grace Jones May Day
Patrick Macnee Tibbett, Sir Godfrey
Patrick Bauchau Scarpine
David Yip Chuck Lee
Fiona Fullerton Pola Ivanova
Manning Redwood Bob Conley
Alison Doody Jenny Flex
Willoughby Gray Dr. Carl Mortner
Desmond Llewelyn Q
Robert Brown M
Lois Maxwell Miss Moneypenny
Walter Gotell General Gogol
Directors: John Glen

IMDB Rating: 6.00 out of 10 (9863 votes)

007 returns from the USSR with a new computer chip; one that is invulnerable to the magnetic pulse of a nuclear explosion. The chip is being manufactured by Zorin Industries, headed up by a sociopathic businessman named Max Zorin (Walken) who is planning to corner the world microchip market by using explosives to cause an earthquake in the San Andreas fault that will wipe out Silicon Valley - and the millions who live and work there! Bond must face not only Zorin himself, but the equally twisted May Day (Jones) and Scarpine, another one of Zorin’s henchmen. Assisted by San Francisco City employee Stacy (Roberts) Bond goes after the would-be computer magnate in a series of frightening confrontations - including fire in the SF City Hall, a wild chase through the city with Stacy at the wheel of a fire department ladder truck, and finally in a hand-to-hand fight atop San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

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007 The Spy Who Loved Me | (1977, UK, USA)

Genres:       Action | Adventure | Thriller
Actors:
Roger Moore         James Bond
Barbara Bach         Maj. Anya Amasova
Curd Jürgens         Karl Stromberg
Richard Kiel         Jaws
Caroline Munro         Naomi
Walter Gotell         Gen. Anatol Gogol
Geoffrey Keen         Sir Frederick Gray
George Baker         Capt. Benson
Michael Billington         Sergei Barsov
Olga Bisera         Felicca
Desmond Llewelyn         Q
Edward de Souza         Sheikh Hosein
Vernon Dobtcheff         Max Kalba
Valerie Leon         Hotel receptionist
Directors:     Lewis Gilbert

IMDB Rating:     7.00 out of 10 (9446 votes)

Both the British and Russians are amazed when a submarine from each country disappears and the only link is a microfilm detailing the movements of the British submarine meaning that somehow a submarine can be tracked via it’s “wake”. The British sends agent James Bond and the Russians send Major Anya Amasova, otherwise known as “Triple-X”. After first fighting against each other over the microfilm, the two agents are ordered to work together against the real enemy, mad shipping billionaire Carl Stromberg who plans to use the submarines to destroy the world via nuclear missiles so that any survivors are forced to live in Stromberg’s dream world beneath the sea. However James must also defend himself against Anya as she finds out that James had killed her lover on a previous mission…

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 007 Moonraker | (1979, UK, USa, France)

Genres:       Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Thriller
Actors:
Roger Moore         James Bond
Lois Chiles         Dr. Holly Goodhead
Michael Lonsdale         Hugo Drax
Richard Kiel         Jaws
Corinne Clery         Corinne Dufour
Bernard Lee         M
Geoffrey Keen         Sir Frederick Gray
Desmond Llewelyn         Q
Lois Maxwell         Miss Moneypenny
Toshirô Suga         Chang
Emily Bolton         Manuela
Blanche Ravalec         Dolly, Jaws’ Girlfriend
Irka Bochenko         Blonde Beauty
Mike Marshall         Colonel Scott
Leila Shenna         Hostess (Private Jet)
Directors:     Lewis Gilbert

IMDB Rating:     6.00 out of 10 (10777 votes)

James Bond Adventure. A space shuttle is stolen enroute to London and M sends 007 out to apologize to the shuttle creator - billionaire Hugo Drax. While visiting Drax’s estate several attempts are made on Bond’s life, making Drax himself the number one suspect. Bond also meets Dr. Holly Goodhead, a NASA scientist who is also a CIA agent investigating Drax. Their investigations lead Bond to discover a plot to murder the world’s population so that Drax can repopulate the planet in his image. The chase takes Bond all over the world - California, Brazil, the Amazon Jungle and, finally, to Drax’s huge space-city over the Earth. Drax, meanwhile, has hired a old friend of Bond to take care of any problems - the steel-toothed killer Jaws

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007 Man with the Golden Gun, The |(1974, UK, USA)

Genres: Action | Adventure | Thriller
Actors:
Roger Moore James Bond
Christopher Lee Francisco Scaramanga
Britt Ekland Mary Goodnight
Maud Adams Andrea Anders
Hervé Villechaize Nick Nack
Clifton James Sheriff J.W. Pepper
Richard Loo Hai Fat
Soon-Tek Oh Lieutenant Hip
Marc Lawrence Rodney
Bernard Lee M
Lois Maxwell Miss Moneypenny
Marne Maitland Lazar
Desmond Llewelyn Q
James Cossins Colthorpe
Yiu Lam Chan Chula
Directors: Guy Hamilton

IMDB Rating: 6.50 out of 10 (8819 votes)

Bond must find the missing “Solex Agitator,” a device that will harness the sun’s radiation and give awesome power to whomever possess it. But, also vying for the prize is Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee), a world-class assassin who brandishes a distinctive golden gun. When 007 discovers he is to be Scaramanga’s next target, he is hurled into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse, continuing the search as he evades the killer on his trail. Bond must also contend with Scaramanga’s exotic lover Andrea Anders (Maud Adams), and Nick Nack (Herve Villechaize), whose small size belies his lethal abilities. Even as 007 enlists the aid of sensuous Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland), he must overcome ferocious odds to survive an explosive showdown on Scaramanga’s remote island.

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