The End of the Page

Welcome to Pandora’s Tea Party!

Poster Board = $2.00, Two Sharpie Markers = $3, boiling down complex issues into a fictional comparison of choice = priceless.

There are two mostly unavoidable facts going into the first midterm elections for President Obama. One, the first midterm election after a new president takes power almost always sees a loss in the seats for his (or someday, her) party. This is commonly referred to as “buyer’s remorse” where the enthusiasm for the president’s party wanes after the win and they sit back on their laurels, while the losing party rallies harder and louder to try and come back from the embarrassing loss of the big seat. Two, in terms of this specific moment of economic hardship, the party in power is held to blame and again they lose more seats. It doesn’t matter where the problem started and how far back the blame can be placed. Most voters will only turn their calendars back so far before deciding that the current governing body had enough time to fix whatever ails the country. True, that sounds a bit illogical, but politics and logic are very, very long distance friends.

So as the Republican party looks to gain seats across the board during this so-called anti-incumbent rage, they are now seeing a quite different landscape over the horizon. There are still blue states where they were before, but now the red states are getting…redder. The fervor they helped whip up has bitten them much deeper and much sharper than the Democrats. Now heading into Nov. 2 the right wing of this nation has to figure out what they can do with a handful of wildly conservative, if not radically so, candidates which have to be groomed for the national stage. They opened a political Pandora’s Box and what rushed out has pushed any moderation in the Republican party completely out of the picture. Here’s just a snippet of what they are working with:

Sharron Angle (R-NV):

• she is an extreme pro-lifer, extending her anti-abortion stance even into cases of rape and incest. When asked her reasoning for those viewpoints she said “two wrongs don’t make a right” and when directly asked what she would tell a 13-year-old girl who was raped by her own father, Angle likened it to turning a “lemon situation into lemonade”
• she has repeatedly referred to unnamed members of Congress as “domestic enemies”
• after numerous attempts to help her back away from this statements, she has stood her ground on stating that if things don’t go the right way in November, the citizens have a right to fall back on their “second amendment remedies”. Yes, she means guns.

Christine O’Donnell (R-DE):

• in 1998 she made an appearance on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher and espoused how truth is always the best route to take in any situation. While this is a morally upstanding belief, she was pressed on it and further clarified by saying she would not even lie to Nazis if she had Jews hiding in her house because “You never have to practice deception. God always provides a way out.”
• she founded a group called SALT (Savior’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth) which lobbies the government on the basis of tightly followed Christian morals. At one point in a MTV interview she was quoted saying, “It is not enough to be abstinent with other people, you also have to be be abstinent alone. The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery, so you can’t masturbate without lust.”
• In a continued defense of bringing religion into every facet of society, she once said, “We took the Bible and prayer out of public schools. Now we’re having weekly shootings. We had the 60s sexual revolution, and now people are dying of AIDS.”
• In fact, since I can’t list all of the amazingly dangerous and inane stances she holds, here’s a link to an incredibly thorough list put together by Think Progress.

Joe Miller (R-AK):

• joins Angle in believing that abortion should be outlawed completely, even in cases of rape or incest (no word yet on his feeling about lemonade.)
• believes Medicare and Social Security should be phased out completely (no word yet on how he plans to help seniors pay for those benefits on their own.)

Those are only a few of the hard right wing extremists to swing out of the hurricane of anger and disappointment over the current state of affairs in this country. I’m not saying that the anger isn’t justified. The country is in rough shape, but this incoming flock of proposed candidates is talking about legislating by religion over democracy. They view the Constitution not as a document written by men, but one deemed to be written by God (the bitter irony being that many of those very men were defiantly against the idea of combining God and government.) There is a small, but loud and proud, group of people who are trying to split the country like the Red Sea, with Christian believers on one side and all others, known as “enemies”, on the other side. They say America needs to be brought back to its non-existent roots as a Christian-only nation. O’Donnell goes even as far as to say the idea of “separation of church and state” came from Hitler first (is there anything that guy can’t be connected to?)

Barbara Streisand said it best in the title to her Huffington Post piece: Stop. Think. Breathe. (You should truly take a peek.)In my own words, I would warn that if we are not careful as a country about where we let this flood of anger and fundamentalism takes us, we will find the country wiped clean, not of our sins, but of our freedoms.

Resident Evil – Afterlife 3D: A Visually Stunning Mess

Tell me one more time how I violate the dress code of this “white” party.

Rating: 5 out of 10

From the moment of inception each film runs the gamut of a seemingly endless series of choices before the final product shines its way onto the silver screen. One choice in that clamoring multitude is whether to attempt an overall balance of effort through each aspect of the film or puts all your eggs in one basket and let the rest fall where they may. Most people might think the clear answer is to go for the balanced approach, maybe reach a broader audience and critical support – that is a very logical suggestion, yet for certain films with a pre-built fan base they find their needs are much more specific. In the video game adaptation realm, in most cases the number one desire is to bring to life the video game essence, which these days means incredible visual elements. Crank that knob to eleven, drown out the rest and you just might find yourself the number one movie of the weekend, like the subject of this review. Will it gain lasting cinematic glory, not likely, but why glow forever when you can burn big and burn out? Sometimes the money is exactly the same.

Resident Evil: Afterlife continues the revenge fantasy of Alice against the evil Umbrella Corporation. This time she follows an emergency beacon to the long sought after safe haven of Arcadia, supposedly a city in Alaska where the deadly T-Virus has not yet reached. Once there, Alice finds the pieces of civilization she expected are not so easy to put together. She finds her way to a prison in the middle of Los Angeles, where she leads a small group of survivors to what she hopes is the real promised land.

It has been said that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all, but as any editorial reviewer would tell you, that would make our job all but moot. Yet, I will say I find it sets up a nicer flow to begin with the good before delving in to the muck, so let me explain where nearly all five points in this rating came from…the visuals! Afterlife put all its money and talent into this one facet of the movie and it really did pay off. Bright colors that pop right off the screen and 3D effects that never make you second guess paying the ridiculous extra price for those glasses, specifically in the scene halfway through the movie featuring my personal favorite character, crazy-sack-head-super-duper-axe-pounding-stick-guy. The possibly overused, but perpetually enjoyed, mixture of 3D with bullet-time technology really painted this picture with a slick glossy coating that was hypnotizing to say the least. Even the set design was expertly crafted to shine, ranging from the picturesque outdoor landscapes to the stark white rooms of the secret Umbrella hangars, brought together a visual experience worth talking about after the final credits disappeared.

But every campfire rendition of “Kumbaya” must come to an end, and so I must bring in some of the downsides to the continuing adventures of our incredibly limber video game heroine. First off, the entire movie leaves you with the impression that director and writer, Paul W.S. Anderson, the video game adaption king, watched The Matrix one day and thought, “Man, I wish I’d made that. Oh wait, I can just do it again and name it something else!” Sure, the deep philosophical monologues about reality are missing here,  but the opening action scene bore more than just a passing resemblance to Neo and Trinity storming the building. Even more of an homage was made with the character of Albert Wesker, played by Shawn Roberts, but could’ve easily been a digital photocopy of Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith, even down to the bullet dodging in the final fight sequence. So much of the action rang unoriginal that it dissolved some of the magic from the highly powerful visuals. I’ve got nothing against picking up a technology or style where one film leaves off, but you have to show us something new. It’s even worse when the audience begins to feel the original film did it better, even eleven years ago.

Moving beyond the lack of originality in action, the rules created by the universe seemed tossed away from five minutes in. After Alice, played once more by Milla Jovovich, goes through what should be a physical and existential change to her character, she proceeds through the movie as if nothing is different about her. It would have exponentially more interesting to see her try and deal with those changes while still attempting to be the superhero and save everyone, but that idea was not even hinted at.  Ali Larter, continuing in the role of Claire Redfield, also undergoes significant emotional and mental shifts throughout the movie, but the script never gives her an opportunity to fully explore that side of her character. The same problem existed for Wentworth Miller, who is new to the revolving cast, but failed to find a single place in the movie to change the one, single expression on his face. Also, I don’t know if anyone else will find the irony, but I liked the idea of the character found locked inside of a portable prison cell is the same actor who starred in the TV show Prison Break. The only moments in interesting character development were between Jovovich and Boris Kodjoe, who played basketball star Luther West. Some may find the romantic sparks unnecessary and trite, but I actually felt they were played well and provided a good break from the monotone being pushed up to that point.

The End of the Page Recommendation: Resident Evil: Afterlife already brought in enough money to greenlight another sequel, but the franchise is now finding itself relegated to the video game version of the Friday the 13th series. People will watch, but mostly out of novelty and a gross curiosity to see if it got any worse.

Crazy For God: More A Memoir For A Real Father, Not The Heavenly One

Isn’t it amazing how lifelike my new puppet looks?

Rating: 8 out of 10

One of our history’s most prized and famous sayings is, “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover.” It’s oft repeated because the truth in those words is evidenced nearly every day of our lives. Sometimes you get something far less than you hoped for, which is a unique and terrible type of disappointment. Yet, on luckier occasions, you just might find something unexpected and surprising under that front facing disguise. On the surface this book seems to be about the dangerous mix of politics and religion, coming from the viewpoint of  someone who was there in the beginning of this recent flare up of the religious right wing, but what you find in these pages is far less about politics and far more about family.

Crazy for God is a memoir by Frank Schaeffer, who grew up in a very conservative religious household, one that physically roamed throughout his childhood until they landed in their own commune for people to come and learn their holier-than-most viewpoints. What began as a evangelical camp for those looking to escape or rebound from the peace & love generation, Frank witnessed his parents become religious dignitaries at a level they never expected, causing internal strife  about what they wanted to be, healers and teachers, and what they had become, weapons.

Having an interest in politics and especially the dangerous mixing of that with religion, the title of this book grabbed me, but politics is merely the context for a much deeper story here, the one between Frank and his family. While finding himself imprinted with his parents views on God, the Bible and the true reason for living, Frank found himself at odds with himself. His internal voice did not match the outer voice he using to appease those around him. Eventually, as his parents find themselves in the middle of this religious revolution in politics, Frank breaks with the family’s creed and has to deal with the consequences.

While I was hoping for more insight into some of the backroom deals made to further the religious right and episodes of hypocrisy in the face of their proposed beliefs, what I got was a profile of a son watching his father lose himself in a movement far beyond his control. The memoir, while being from Frank’s perspective, is more about his father and the toll inflicted on him by the far-right conservative block he helped build with his teachings. It was almost ironic that it grew to something he couldn’t even recognize or control, because that seems to be the fate of almost all religions. I wonder day after day what the early prophets would think of the religions they helped start all those years ago.

In opposition to his father, Frank’s mother revels in the power and glory that the movement grows to and takes each and every chance to bask in the glory of the powerful people in her orbit. The relationship between his parents is another area where the story dives underneath the waves of religious fervor and shows the strain and tension wrought upon people when they are thrust from normalcy into celebrity. What they preach to their followers in the open air of their living room and lecture halls is utterly and totally tossed out the window behind closed doors. It became increasingly impossible for both parents to feel they were doing the right thing when the definition of that was in total contention.

Another chasm that opened widely between Frank’s father and the movement was his treatment of the gay lifestyle. He believed that you can be gay and still love God, but those that rose in the ranks of the religious right alongside him were aghast at the idea. Frank’s father relegated himself farther and farther away from the spotlight, which after many years had begun to burn. By this point Frank himself had turned against the teachings of his parents and while still having his own personal faith had come to the conclusion that his parents’ methods were far from anything he wanted to pass on.

The End of the Page Recommendation: In the end, Crazy for God will resonate less with the political and religious crowd and more with those who have ever had to break the tethers of their parents and blaze a trail in complete opposition to what they were brought up to believe.

Machete: Not Sharp Enough

Sorry, kid. I’m fresh out Rolex.

Rating: 4 out of 10

Every genre has rules and that includes homage, which is basically a genre impersonating other genres. Doing a send up of past movie styles, you must decide right off the bat whether you are going to run faithful to the original content or celebrate it with a sense of humor or possible mockery. Trying to do all of those can lead to a sense of confusion for the piece and leaves the audience wondering whether they should be taking anything they see seriously. With such an overwhelmingly positive lead-in, you might already get the gist of my opinion on this 70′s-style mexican-sploitation flick (Is “brownsploitation” a word? Guess it is now.) For more detailed reasons, keep on reading.

Machete tells the terrible tale of a former Mexican federale who witnesses his wife get decapitated by a notorious drug lord. Surviving the fire he was supposed to have died in, Machete makes his way across the border to try and make a new life for himself, but he soon finds the past hardly ever stays in the past. Colliding with the heated battle over illegal immigration, he finds himself a pawn in a much larger game, but one he is determined to finish.

My biggest issue with this flick is the one thing in the description that does not belong, actual politics. While some movies are built and bred for commenting on the real world outside the theater, exploitation movies parody that world instead of making serious commentary. Machete dives way too deep into the political firestorm of immigration policies and finds itself trying to make a real statement, while still keeping the boobs, blood and blades. That kind of balancing act throws the entire experience for a loop and derails the silliness that should’ve been running through every moment of the script. The opening five minutes were great and emblematic of what the following ninety should have been, but for some reason a decision was made to attempt a meaningful plotline. Wrong move.

Also, this movie was basically an experiment in growing something for a very specific fan base. The original trailer for Machete was created as a fake movie trailer in the Tarantino/Rodriguez double feature, Grindhouse. The context and application were perfect back then, but splitting it out and creating a new feature film out of it might have been one step too far. Parts of it felt like Machete director, Robert Rodriguez, just had so much fun making the trailer that he didn’t want to let it die there. While I fully support people working on stories and projects they have a passion for, sometimes there needs to be more reason to do it than, “It was fun.”

For those who read even deeper between the lines in the Hollywood lexicon, this film also was supposed to represent the inevitable and well deserved top billing of Danny Trejo, a character actor who so many know by face, but so few know by name. I fully stand behind finding a leading role that Trejo could finally take to the screen and get some hard earned credit for, but Machete felt thin and hollow in comparison to his earlier cameo and side appearances. I hope Trejo gets another shot at taking the starring role, but if you are looking for that great stepping out into the spotlight moment, it’s not here (try The Visitor instead, where the amazing Richard Jenkins got his starring shot and received incredible amounts of nominations, all well deserved.)

Surrounding Trejo was a handful of random names, each meaning to drive the audience further into a novelty frenzy, but as the scenes wore on, very few really made any real impression. Jeff Fahey (who many know as the virtually insane Lawnmower Man), Steven Seagal (from numerous martial arts actions movies bearing three word titles, Marked for Death, Above the Law, Hard to Kill, etc…), and Jessica Alba (if you don’t know her, well, you probably don’t own a computer), they all make an effort to keep the tongue-in-cheek mentality alive, but when Alba makes her big “the border crossed us!” speech in the movie, the rising tide crests and breaks against the shores of overdone filmmaking. The worst of the bunch was Lindsay Lohan, which has now become a perfect example of what happens when your off-screen infamy distracts from your on-screen fame. Her entire role was a joke commenting on her real life, which only made it worse. If she wants to get back into the good graces of the movie watching audience, she needs to take something with a bit more meat to it and prove she’s more than just a faded child star. The only person who actually got some good screen time out of this was Hollywood rebel chic, Michelle Rodriguez. She really did embody a revolutionary leader persona and it made me wish Steven Soderbergh had found a place for her in his biographical epic, Che, about the Cuban guerrilla revolutionary leader. While she might have had some rocky times in the shiny city of Hollywood, Rodriguez is beginning to remind people what she is capable of (which if you are one of those in need of reminding, please go watch Girlfight.) Maybe she could teach Lohan a thing or two?

The End of the Page Recommendation: Machete cut itself down with too much politics and not enough limb-chopping. For a better example of exploitation homage, check out Black Dynamite instead.

Some Hear Explosions: It’s Our Time Now

Seriously? Yes, we would like the appetizers first. That’s why they’re called appetizers.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Los Angeles is a mecca for up-and-coming rock bands looking to make their name in the ever changing musical landscape. Many roam these streets from one dive bar to the next, coating the pavement with their sweat, pain and tears, paying dues the industry seemingly demands for any type of future recognition. Then the moment comes when their hooks floats into the ears of one random person, sending a jolt straight into their brain because they know it’s something special, something unique, and most importantly, something completely marketable. One phone call later the ball rolls and those lucky musicians are on their way, granting their early fan base the snooty (but amazingly fun) ability of saying, “I knew them before they were huge.” If you’ve never experienced the sheer joy of holding your musical knowledge above those of other mere mortals, follow along and I’ll give you that opportunity right now.

Some Hear Explosions is a goth/pop/rock fusion outfit that brings the flavor of David Bowie, the angst-y yells of Marylin Manson and the edge of early Garbage all in one extremely fashionable package. Catchy hooks ride on an electronic pulse, bouncing their way through the album, one moment making you crave seeing those fists pumping in the air, then the next moment taking it down a notch, displaying heart and thoughtfulness sometimes lost in modern-day radio play.

Making up the band are Bay Dariz, Ambre Leigh and Joe Herrera. Dariz and Leigh wrote much of the music together and their collaboration has definitely borne tasty fruit for music lovers everywhere. Dariz is all over the instrumental map playing guitar, bass, keys and programming, on top of lending his vocals, which bears a creepy and high-quality resemblance to Marylin Manson (just a touch happier). Leigh takes control of the mic as lead vocalist. Her sound brings images in my head of beautiful femme fatales from the film noir days of the twenties, gangster ladies stepping out of darkened cars wearing black suits and black hats, controlling everyone around them with a simple word from their lips. Herrera keeps it all on track on the drums, knowing internally when to pound down and bring the pain and when to gently tap the skins and bring things back from the rocker’s edge.

Getting down to the track level, there are a number of songs that deserve mention, but the one that I played on repeat when I first got the album was Beep. Insanely catchy, Beep stands out to me as an instant single that should climb almost any radio chart lucky enough to have it listed. It has the hook, the chorus and the rhythmic movement that all make for a great track. Hell A on the other hand delivers solid rock power and a lyrical kick making it not only a stand out on the album, but one to certainly look forward to during live gigs. It could also very well become a mantra for those who have the grand fortune (or misfortune) to actually call this infamous town home.

On the softer side, we have become ever-so-used-to the idea that all rock bands must provide a ballad on their album, something to sweeten those delicate ears who would normally avoid anything on the stereo missing the word “lite”. Those perfunctory tracks, padded in aural downy softness, can often come off as forced and almost trite, but this time we are lucky listeners indeed. Amazing is delicate, relaxed, honest and memorable, making it everything that people love when they’re sitting in their car, stuck in their cubicle or just having that glass of wine in their living room. It instantly makes you think of that person, that time in your life and connects those frayed moments back together, if only for a short period of time. Other notable tracks filling out the album are the marching beat of All Your Gravity, the dark corner romance of Baby Won’t You (kiss my lips) and the slithering sonic smackdown of the album’s moniker, It’s Our Time Now.

If you like what you hear from their site or on iTunes, check their schedule because they just might be swinging through your town soon. Take the opportunity while you have it because next time the tickets won’t be so easy to come by.

The End of the Page Recommendation: From top to bottom, It’s Our Time Now by Some Hear Explosions is a wicked debut album from a band destined and determined to make it.

The Last Exorcism: Twisted in a Bad Way

I don’t understand why using the dryer to dry the cat was so wrong. It’s called a DRYER!

Rating: 5 out of 10

Anytime you change the game, those who follow you will be forever compared to your moment of brilliance. How brilliant that moment was is completely objective, but it really doesn’t matter if it was the best or worst decision you ever made, just that you made it before anyone else did. The same goes for movies and when a film comes along and surprises a global audience with a new take on a classic genre. It is not only bound to make a mark, but it is bound to make some copies as well. If one person strikes gold, dig where they dig, or so it goes. Many people are comparing The Last Exorcism with The Blair Witch Project and the connection between the two is quick and easy to notice. While Blair Witch was not the first film to use the method of hand-held filmmaking and inclusion of the cameraman into the cast, it was the first to do it in quite a long time to such an incredible effect. Did The Last Exorcism recreate some of that power and fright? Let’s see…

The Last Exorcism plays out as a documentary starring Cotton Marcus, once a poster boy for the Evangelical market and a wunderkind who performed his first exorcism before 10 years old. Now Cotton fights against the whole idea of exorcism and has devoted his life to debunking the practice. A small film crew decides to go with him on a trip into the backwoods of nowhere in order to watch him prove how easily the idea of possession can be explained away. Yet Nell, the afflicted little girl, proves to be more than Cotton has ever encountered before.

***SPOILER ALERT – IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE END OF THE FILM, STOP READING NOW***

OK, had to get that out of the way because the only way to tell you why this film only gets a 5 out of 10 is to talk about the ending, but let us build our way there. Choosing to shoot this film as a fake documentary gives certain benefits right away. The doc style has a subconscious effect on the viewer, making them believe what they are seeing is real. We are so attuned to flashy editing and that filmic look that when we see home styled video camera images, which are more common to documentaries, they bring us directly into the doc mindset. We instantly feel we are there to learn or be shown something incredibly unique, so this works perfectly in favor of the director because his audience is just a little more down that rabbit hole. With that being said, there is one big caveat to this method and that is you instantly have to make the camera operator a member of the cast and you must justify why the audience gets to see anything and everything on screen.

This is where we run into a problem.

In Blair Witch this was handled with amazing creativity because there was more than one camera, so the POV could change whenever they feel they needed to, but in The Last Exorcism there was only one camera, therefore only one point of view for the entire film. That’s not always a bad thing since it can increase the audience feeling that they are indeed one of the characters (personally I felt this worked quite well in Cloverfield also), but one thing the others did was think all the way through to the very end before hitting ‘Record’ for the first time. The Last Exorcism feels like they painted themselves into a corner and their big twist ending, which truly wasn’t even needed, was further ruined by the continued justification of where the camera was.

***LAST WARNING – HERE COMES THE BIG TWIST***

The big demon birthing ritual was wholly unnecessary and actually devalued what up to that point was an interesting and creepy pic, but if they felt the need to go down that route, I want to see the big fight at the finish. Here we spent a whole movie watching the hero try and debunk the existence of real demons, but now that he is standing right in front of one, choosing to fight, trying to earn the evangelical praise that was heaped on him his whole life, at that critical cinematic climax, all we get is a bouncy running camera shot because there was no way to logically keep the camera there, since the guy holding it was surrounded by crazy cultists. As much as I am a stickler for following the rules of logic set up in the world of the film, this is one case where that rule bites you in the ass. The running, panting and eventual collapse of our viewpoint in that world (also done before and done better by Blair Witch) left the audience reeling in disbelief that all the time they had put in came to nothing but a split second CGI-creation of a fire demon. On top of that, there also seemed to be no need to add Nell’s brother, Caleb, into the cult. It just came off as another random twist in an already convoluted ending.

The real shame of the poor delivery at the end of the film is it washed away some really great moments earlier on. Ashley Bell did a commendable job portraying the home-schooled Nell, balancing her wondrous innocence with the truly eerie possessed nature she developed throughout the film. The shot of her last second terrible smile as the door closed in front of her gained the highest creep factor out of the entire experience. Patrick Fabian also showed some real range as Cotton, the preacher caught in between his fictional religious beliefs and the seemingly real demon possession standing in front of him. I actually wanted to see more of his struggle between what he believed and the stories he relegated to nothing but hocus-pocus from his dad’s old books. There was a really nice world created here, but in the end it faded into a ridiculous genre pic that leaves viewers wondering if they paid too much.

The End of the Page Recommendation: The Last Exorcism had potential, but they failed to scare up anything in the end.