I went and did my part last night for the war economy by buying the following things at Best Buy:
X-Men 1.5
The Very Best of Sheryl Crow
Afterglow by Sarah McLachlan
OK, so having finished the DVD, I'm left wondering how the thing went by so fast. (Answer: It's a short movie, stupid.) Blah blah prejudice and fear, blah blah all the subtexts about Ian McKellen making this a movie about hating homosexuals or the like. The other side of the coin (i.e. the public policy question about how one keeps the good people of the United States (be they mutant or be they homo sapiens) safe while constraining the bad people and all under the Constitution is never really addressed. Admittedly, this isn't the action point of the movie, but I still would have appreciated something other than the fumbling attempt at tying Senator Joseph McCarthy to Senator Robert Kelly. (Never mind that history as culled from the archives of various Soviet agencies seems to have born McCarthy out in large part.) On the other hand, kudos to the director for not labeling Bruce Davison's character outright as a Republican, a swipe that most Hollywood types probably wouldn't have avoided.
Anyways. Captain Picard faces off against Richard of Gloucester and the results are worth watching. Patrick Stewart's one of these guys you pretty much can count on for a solid performance no matter the material, so he pretty much owned the role of Professor Charles Xavier. I just wish he'd said 'Engage!' at least once. Magneto seems like a man with a competing ideal, not merely the 'BWAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHA! DEATH TO ALL! MUAHAHAHAHA!' type of villain that I usually don't go for. McKellen's portrayal is effortless and thoroughly ruthless; Magneto seems completely at home with a fearsome level of control over electromagnetic forces. It's impressive to see McKellen own the screen in Richard III, The Lord of the Rings, and then here.
On to my favorite X-Man (er, woman): Famke Janssen's Jean Grey. I dunno why I'm particularly interested in that character, but she caught my eye back on the old Fox cartoon in the mid-1990s, right about the time of the Dark Phoenix thing, or somewhere shortly before. Anyways. I enjoyed watching her on-screen and was as usual pleased by Miss Janssen's performance. This makes the third or fourth flick I've seen her in (starting with, what else, Goldeneye) and I've yet to be disappointed. I hear the Phoenix angle starts to come out in the second movie, so I'll be picking that up on DVD soon. I'd almost want to get into the whole Phoenix comic saga, but I have this vague notion that I'd be spending a lot of money, and I'm not up for that.
Two short notes: The much bemoaned "what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning?" quote makes sense in a comics context. Think about how you'd have it in a mag, and the line becomes more credible. Box 1: Storm comes up the elevator shaft and Toad looks back. (Uh oh...) She asks, "Do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning?" as we see her come up the elevator shaft, electricity brewing around her. Box 2: THE SAME THING THAT HAPPENS TO EVERYTHING ELSE! as a text box as a massive bolt of lightning drills the Toad through a wall or something out into space, or has him writhing around like Luke Skywalker on the second Death Star as Emperor Palpatine tries to fry him. Alternatively, use some sort of "voice over" from the narrator of the comic to say the punchline, because I'm not sure that a character can deliver it right. In any event, I'm not sure it belonged in the movie.
UPDATE: I've gone back and watched this sequence a couple of times (best part being Wolverine's single-finger salute to Cyclops as they enter the museum) and I think the line works. In a way, Halle Berry's laid-back delivery of that punchline's the thing that makes it. I'd rather see 'laid-back' than 'all-out' in the delivery, and I suppose that's the reason I'm favorable to it. We now return you to your original blog material.
Now I'll have to lay out more money for the second X-flick when it's out on DVD and then catch the next one in theaters, especially since it's reportedly supposed to center more around Famke Janssen. Woo hoo.
Moving right along, it's been a while since I've willingly listened to Sheryl Crow. I got somewhat irate with her over the buildup to war with Iraq, and had in effect banned her from personal listening. I wasn't sure if it would be permanent or not, but I was definitely going to do something. Er, right. I'm sure she cares. It just seemed to be awfully convenient that she was all gung-ho for Kosovo and kept her mouth shut during Operation DESERT FOX, but the minute Bill Clinton wasn't calling the tune for war, she decided she didn't like the military. Nice. I had already dismissed C'mon, C'mon as a banal attempt to somehow catch the current market in music (namely the bad parts thereof) in a way that I didn't like, and thus shelved the thing after a single listen. Yep, I thought it was that bad.
So anyways, I approached the decision to buy The Very Best of Sheryl Crow with some trepidation. I had to basically be convinced by a buddy of mine who's big into Bruce Springsteen and Johnny Cash, so this was a somewhat surreal experience. The disc has seventeen tracks, so it's not short, and the version I paid extra for had a DVD with 13 of her videos. It's not bad for $22.99 plus Virginia tax. (Woo hoo, 4.5%, suck it Tennessee!) I'm still listening to it, and I'll get back to the readership with a review later. Meanwhile, there's a de rigeur essay in the liner notes, along with a bunch of photos of Miss Crow over the years. The American Spectator once named her "the thinking man's sex symbol", and hey, who am I to argue with the guys at TAS? Warping Laura Ingraham's formulation, shaddup and look good or sing, Sheryl. We're not particularly interested in your latter-day Streisandian political "thought". Suffice it to say, however, that she still passes the Butt-head test. Huh huh huh...uh...huh huh huh...
I haven't listened to any of Afterglow yet, but if/when I do, I'll get around to posting some sort of a half-wit review. Then I've got to get my hands on Dido Armstrong's latest, which ought to be good. Yikes, it's like my college days all over again---now if only law school were as easy as my undergraduate years.
Posted by Country Pundit at November 9, 2003 10:02 PM