Southprose

Well, since I last posted on my health in December, and I promised more info than I delivered, let me say that it's been a busy couple of months and I haven't posted anything since early January.

In short, all is well. My cholesterol numbers are way down, my weight is down about 10 lbs from when I was hospitalized and I'm working out almost every day. I'm seeing the doc for a follow-up next week and expect a clean bill of health.

Thanks to all for your thoughts and prayers!

Failure To Launch

Mini-review by Dan A.

OK, so it's a stretch. Actually several. Let's examine the stretches:

1) Terry Bradsaw is married to Kathy Bates. Right. Even though he's been telling everyone she's a good kisser, it's still a stretch.

2) Bradshaw & Bates hire Sarah Jessica Parker to lure their 35 year old son (Matthew McConaughey) into (finally) moving out of their home.

3) McConaughey gets bitten by a chipmunk, a dolphin and a chuckwalla (lizard) all within a few days.

4) Parker's character is so well informed, so hip in fact, that she can fake knowledge of just about any subject she needs to in order to convince her vicitms that she's actually interested in them.

You know what? It works. Fairly well in fact. It's a strange combination of romantic comedy or "chick flick", certain aspects of "guy film", and a healthy dose of screwball comedy.

It also features Zooey (pronounced Zoey as in Joey) Deschanel as a guy-weary shut-in who loses sleep over a noisy mockingbird. She has played characters like this before (Big Trouble, others) and is in serious danger of becoming typecast, but man, she's really funny in that character. And Tyrell Jackson Williams as young Jeffrey has a future in films if this performance is any clue. Bradshaw and Bates are in fact just about perfect as the retired parents who just want to be left alone. Or do they?

Just about the only thing that didn't click for me was the original score, a bunch of forgettable wanna be "hip" rock tunes that annoyed rather than complimenting the film.

In summing up, this is a movie where the stars and the jokes are more of a draw than the story, but the whole thing comes off rather well and it's a pleasant diversion. Better seen with someone of the opposite sex, but you won't be embarrassed if you're a guy and see it with your buddies.

Starring Jim Caviezel, Joan Plowright

I AM DAVID, from the novel by Ann Holm, is the story of a boy (Ben Tibber) who has lived most of his life in a forced-labor camp (gulag) in Bulgaria in the early 1950’s. David was separated from his parents at a young age when they were arrested by the state for being "unpatriotic". He witnesses atrocities that no adult should ever see, much less a young boy.

Jim Caviezel plays “Johannes”, David’s only friend in the camp. Johannes only appears in flashbacks, an unselfish role for Caviezel as an actor. David is told to escape the camp and make his way to Denmark, where he must open a sealed envelope only upon his arrival there. The envelope holds the key to his freedom. He is told he must trust no one. He has to get to a seaport nearby and get on a ship bound for Italy. If he were to try overland he would surely be caught since the neighboring areas are Communist controlled. He stows away on a freighter and eventually begins his land journey in post WWII Italy amongst free people, who are the first he’s ever met. Most are trustworthy, some are not, but what David doesn’t know yet is that virtually all of them have his best interest at heart. He just cannot trust anyone.

There is an element of that same feeling as you watch I AM DAVID. You can’t let yourself believe all will turn out well (see LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, Roberto Benigni) because it often does not. I don’t know whether author Holm or director/screenwriter Paul Feig intended this, but it is part of why I was hooked by this story. I had to know.

While there are some outrageous coincidences and plot holes in the film, I AM DAVID has a beautiful look and feel. The cinematography is gorgeous. The movie was shot entirely in Bulgaria, which passes for Italy since it is in the same Mediterranean latitude.

The original score, with some haunting and beautiful passages, was written by Stewart Copeland (The Police) to atmospheric effect. Many of the films songs, both original and classical, were performed by Bulgarian singers and musicians.

Also starring in I AM DAVID is Dame Joan Plowright, widow of Sir Laurence Olivier, as Sophie, a kindly artist who befriends David and eventually wins his trust, leading to the film’s surprising and cathartic conclusion.

It is truly a shame that this film was not more aggressively marketed, resulting in its release to DVD in April 2005 only four months after its theatrical release. Virtually no one saw it in theaters.

A special feature on the DVD is a catalog of text stories of real-life modern day “David”s, children who have lost their parents or families through often horrific atrocities in places like Iraq, Somalia, Myanmar (Burma), Sudan, and Afghanistan. Reading these heart-wrenching stories of children having to journey to foreign lands to survive is difficult, but it provided a context for the film that might give some of the more cynical movie reviewers pause to ponder the reality of David’s plight, if not the details.

I AM DAVID is generally aimed a younger viewers, but it has its own rewards for the adult audience too. Give it a shot. We rented it at Blockbuster.

Starring Johnny Knoxville, Brian Cox



When I first heard the premise of THE RINGER it could be said I was not interested. When I learned who starred in it I vowed to ignore it. Then I learned that the people who organize and run the Special Olympics were *promoting* it. Hmmm...

Johnny Knoxville's character "Steve/Jeffy" is goaded by his sleazy uncle (Brian Cox, who steals every scene he's in) to fake being developmentally disabled and win the Special Olympics. The uncle will thus win a bet and give Steve the money to pay for an expensive reconstructive operation for a seriously injured friend. The uncle's motive is that he already owes the bent-nosed-thug bettor a large amount of money and will get his knees broken if he doesn't pay up or win the bet, against which he has pledged his own house.

If this were not a movie largely about the Special Olympians it might have gone straight to video, such is quality of typical MTV humor. Knoxville was the creator and star of "Jackass" the TV show and movie. Enough said. But the redeeming facet of THE RINGER is that it was produced by the Farrelly brothers, who make it a point to use disabled people in their movies. Not being a big fan of most of their previous work, I had been unaware of that fact until now.

While several disabled roles are filled by non-challenged actors, a few key ones showcase the considerable talents of some of the Special Olympians.

Steve/Jeffy's rommate "Billy" is played by Edward Barbanell, a 15-year Special Olympian who is also a Shakespearean actor. John Taylor has also been a Special Olympian, actor, and Congressional witness for Downs Syndrome advocacy. He has appeared opposite Demi Moore in THE SEVENTH SIGN, and has worked as a DJ, using his encyclopedic knowledge of 70's and 80's pop & rock music. Leonard Flowers, a multi-medal winning Special Olympics veteran of 16 years, makes his film debut as "Jimmy", the top Special Olympian whom Steve/Jeffy attempts to beat in order to win the bet.

The plot is ordinary, the jokes are sometimes crude and there is vulgarity and lewd talk, but overall the movie's heart is so much in the right place that I will give THE RINGER my recommendation with the caveat that it is not for younger people or those whose sensibilities might be offended.

Will somebody please tell Mel Brooks he isn't funny anymore?

Brooks has had some serious distractions of late, and it may not occur to him that he should rethink his comedy. After all, he's nearly eighty years old and recently suffered the loss of his wife and soul mate of over forty years, the fabulous Emmy, Oscar and Tony award winning actress Anne Bancroft ("Mrs. Robinson"). That very rare triple honor is also shared by Brooks, making this team possibly the only husband-wife couple ever to accomplish this.

I have been a fan of Mel Brooks' comedy for longer than he was married to Anne Bancroft. This is the man who created "The 2000 Year Old Man" and was a primary writer on Sid Caesar's legendary "Your Show of Shows" in the 1950's. He also co-created "Get Smart" with Buck Henry, one of the all-time TV classic 1/2-hour situation comedies. But by the late 60's and early 70's he often missed the mark and as a result mostly little old Jewish ladies were his main audience. The original "The Producers" won an Oscar in 1968 for Best Screenplay and nominated Gene Wilder for Best Supporting Actor honors, but it was a box office disappointment.

The original "The Producers" has since earned a deserved reputation as one of the funniest films of all time. The American Film Institute ranks it #13, behind "Young Frankenstein" at #11 and "Blazing Saddles" at #6. Most of Brooks' other efforts from that time period were flops and remain obscure, though "The Twelve Chairs" with Dom Deluise has its moments.

But after this creative drought, in an incredible twenty-year run of creative comedy beginning in 1974, Mel Brooks wrote, sometimes directed and even starred in a series of films that cemented his lofty place in filmic history. "Blazing Saddles", "Young Frankenstein", "High Anxiety", "History of the World: Part I" "Spaceballs", "Robin Hood, Men in Tights" and "Dracula, Dead and Loving It" all achieved at least some box office success and have continued to be shown on TV for decades to appreciative audiences. Are all so much better than the new 2005 musical version of "The Producers" that it is hard to believe the same person was responsible.

While some of the aforementioned are decidedly inferior to Blazing Saddles or Young Frankenstein, all had some seriously funny stuff in them and did acceptably at the box office. During that entire time he had only one real flop, 1991's "Life Stinks". I paid money to see all of them except "Stinks", which again brings up "The Producers". It stinks too. My two friends and I walked out at about the halfway point and we obtained free passes to see any other movie in lieu of a refund.

During our screening of "The Producers" we noticed a certain segment of the audience was howling with laughter at even the lamest jokes. It turned out there was a very high percentage of older women in the audience. Some even looked like they could've been cast members from the painfully unfunny musical sequence where a couple dozen identically dressed blue-hairs with walkers do a song & dance. Looks like we've come full circle.

It has been learned that Brooks is working on a film version of "Get Smart" and a sequel to "Spaceballs", one of the films of the "hit" period that "missed" just about as often as it "hit". One can only wish that inspiration again finds a home in Mel Brook's creative synapses before those two come to pass. After seeing "The Producers", it would be fair to ask of the hit Broadway production: "What was all the fuss about?"

To get to the nub of the matter, almost all the jokes in "The Producers" seem stale and fall flat. The usually reliable, if annoying, Will Ferrell presents a mere crumb of the inspired performance of Kenneth Mars as playwright "Franz Liebkind". Matthew Broderick unfortunately can't "do" Gene Wilder as "Leo Bloom", and it is a shame he was asked to, because he can be very funny. The luscious Uma Thurman is absolutely wasted as "Ulla" the sexy Swedish secretary who can't speak English. I say, CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH! Whatever induced Brooks to have her speak so many lines in a patently fake accent? (Ferrell's was equally bad.) And her part was way over-written. The original "Ulla" (Lee Meredith) was on screen for mere moments but evokes a strong memory of giggly hotness.

Nathan Lane simply tries too hard as Max Bialystock, though he is a trouper and gives it his all. Come to think of it, almost everything about this movie tries too hard. Perhaps the musical numbers worked on the stage, but they seem rather pointless in the movie. They also make it far too long at two and a quarter hours. They are an exercise in self-indulgence.

In the past, one of Mel Brooks' favorite comic devices has been to have a character say one of his/her lines twice, as in the sequences in "High Anxiety" where Brophy (Ron Carey) keeps trying to pick up a heavy object, exclaiming, "I GOT IT! I GOT IT! .... I ain’t got it!" If you've seen enough of his films you'll notice it. Sometimes it works, at others it doesn't. It probably stems from the old Vaudeville theory of "hit them over the head enough times and they'll eventually get the joke." In "The Producers", Brooks seems to have made a film that is one gigantic repeat of itself.

This was brought home to me recently when listening to an interview where Brooks talked about the film. For what seemed like the one-hundredth time in my life, he brought up the subject of "a little old Jew trying to sing 'Dancing in the Dark' in the wrong key" at which point he demonstrates in a squeaky high old voice and you're supposed to laugh. There was a time (perhaps even after hearing it twenty times) when it was still funny.

Mel, I'm sorry. It just isn't funny any more. Enough already!

And thanks to all who voted for me in the Hugh Hewitt blog of the week/win a Crosley radio contest. Out of forty-odd entries I finished fifth, which I accept with humble gratefulness.

In any event, my wonderful wife bought it for me as a Christmas present.

Happy Holidays to all!

Last weekend I suffered chest pains and wound up having my second angiogram, a process where a surgeon inserts a catheter into an artery in the groin and uses it to explore the heart with contrast dye and X-ray video. My first such procedure was five years ago. The surgeon then performed a balloon angioplasty to open up some blockages and implanted three devices called stents to hold those areas open in one of the arteries supplying blood to my heart muscle.

I now have eight stents, which might sound bad until you learn more about the advances being made almost daily in the field of coronary intervention; this certainly beats open-heart bypass surgery. I walked out of the hospital the next day and went to lunch with my wife. I have had few if any side-effects, other than some anxiety and fatigue plus 2-3 days of low grade fever which is now gone. Even the incision site is pain free, a vast improvement over last time.

The stents are coated with a drug which improves the chances of a successful outcome, an innovation which was still experimental when I had my first angioplasty. I am lucky to live in San Diego, where the Scripps Hospital Cardiac Catheterization Lab is one of the busiest in southern California. I'm doubly lucky that my insurer, Kaiser-Permanente has a relationship with Scripps that results in their policyholders getting some of the finest heart care available anywhere.

The same doctor who did my first procedure performed this one. He was visibly elated to report to me that his earlier work had weathered the five years with no problems and that there were no further issues to be addressed. This was by no means a certain outcome with the non drug coated stents he used last time.

I still have not had an in-depth interview to discuss the finer details with my health care providers, but will be doing so in the coming days and weeks.

Over the next week or two I'll be adding to the story and updating the knowledge base. Suffice to say that I'm feeling much better and look forward to posting more about this almost miraculous process, which approaches Star Trek medicine.

If you can get past the thought of a talking beaver in an armour breastplate, you will probably enjoy the "Chronicles of Narnia". Trust me, the beaver’s actually pretty cool. Best of all is the magnificent Aslan the lion (voiced by Liam Neeson). While the filmmakers actually used a live lion, its face was computer animated to stunning effect. For the first time in a film the talking animals aren't phony. Cheers to the folks who brought it off. The first time you see and hear the malevolent wolves they might induce a shiver.

The story begins with four children being sent to a country estate in WWII England to escape the London bombings. Little Georgie Henley (as Lucy) is one of the most engaging child actors I have ever seen. She lights up the screen when she smiles and for a moment the world seems to have no troubles. She is without guile or put-on. The other child actors are also superb, but she can't help upstaging them.

One day while playing in the mansion Lucy steps into a wardrobe. Suddenly she finds herself in a snowy land of impossible beauty. There she meets Tumnus, a faun, who is almost as trustworthy as Lucy is trusting. Almost.

Brother Edmund also enters Narnia and is met by the “Queen”, who is actually the evil witch Jadis, who has condemned Narnia to a perpetual winter. Edmund is captured by the witch and held as bait for the other children. A prophesy has predicted that the four children will liberate Narnia from its eternal winter and that they will rule as sovereigns. This of course doesn't sit well with the witch-queen, so she plots to kill them.

Reams have been written about Christian themes in C.S. Lewis' works, but he doesn't hit you over the head. Aslan is obviously a Christ figure, and the fact that he sacrifices himself for the redemption of the Narnians is an obvious allusion to the crucifixion of Jesus. But there is no preaching; rather, there is a quiet undertone of "doing the right thing" throughout the story, and it is why it’s so powerful.

Lewis' own stepson, co-producer Douglas Gresham says: "C.S. Lewis' main idea about writing for children, included the theory that if a book is worth reading when you're five, it is still worth reading when you're 50." Gresham contends that he has yearned for decades to put his stepfather's works on the screen, and with this film he declares his satisfaction.

There is some realistic looking violence in the film but there is also little blood. The "hack & slay" combat looks as flesh-rending as anything in Gladiator. You just don't see any heads rolling. Because of the strong violence smaller children should stay home.

Coming up against Peter Jackson's “King Kong”, "Wardrobe" will have its work cut out to "bring home the bacon" for Disney. I don't think it will have much trouble.

Saw the new production of this Jane Austen classic tonight. Slow starter but grows on you very much within the first half-hour. Beautifully filmed.

Rating: well worth your time.

Fuller review when I settle some computer bugs.