Religulous Review

Let me say this before I start. I like Bill Maher. And, I have a vested (academic) interest in documentaries of this nature which deal with how and what people believe. That out of the way, you should know that I was really excited for the film to come out. Maher's dealings with religion are brutally honest, sometimes smug, sometimes genuine, but always entertaining. Unlike other religious critics like Richard Dawkins, Maher's criticism manages to make sense on a common sense level rather than Dawkin's snobbish put down of religion and religious people. Maher may be smug, but he at least attempts a dialogue. And of course, we all remember that last movie Larry Charles did where someone went into places and attempted to talk to people...

Sitting in the theater, my inital fear was that this was going to be a drawn out "Real Time with Bill Maher." Thankfully, the film manages to escape that through clever editing, interspursing costume-drama religious films throughout the movie. Besides providing a ready respite to a movie that is essentially about Maher talking to people, these montages have the effect of correlating religious beliefs with some sort of Hollywood hocus-pocus. It's classic Maher comedy, pointing out the utter ridiculousness in what we think by turning common sense on its head. A tactic that most religious folks take offense to. And there's a lot of that in this movie.

Charles, having attacked the ridiculousness of rabid American nationalism in Borat, turns his directorial eye to the ridiculousness of fundamentalist faiths. Only, this time there's not a character to hide Maher behind and on more than one occasion, Maher is recognized and cast out for his prior deeds and anti-religious stances. And, whereas Borat had Cohen's search for Pam Anderson, Maher's search in Religulous is rather, well, aimless. He travels from the halls of the Senate to the site of Armegeddon to Holland to a Trucker's Chapel and everywhere inbetween.

Each of these interviews is punctuated with Maher's sarcastic comments filmed while travelling. What Maher is trying to bring to believers is doubt and he manages to set folks on their heels, without ever convincing them of everything. It's a rather insumountable problem that translates over to the audience as well. Walking out of this film, you can't help but feel that like most of the other folks there, you agree (at least moderately) with what Maher says, but those who don't believe what he says probably aren't going to see it.

Oddly, some of the best parts of this movie are rather overlooked like Maher's conversations with his mother and sister about his own religious upbringing or Maher's flirtations with religion throughout his life. These poignant and rather probing moments of one of the worlds strongest advocates of doubt are practically overlooked for a larger political stance that, when Maher makes it at the end of the film, seems overblown, overdramatic, and non-personal. Sure, religion is a destructive force and represents a serious threat to our lifestyle, esp. when extremitsts like Bin Laden advocate getting a nuke to back up their faith. But, when we get to this dramatic end, it seems full of itself and detached from the actual believers. Maher's attack is the religious beliefs, but you can't help but wonder if he's forgotten about the people who believe what they do.

7.0

True Blood Review

KRISTIN PARKER-STONE:

I admit it.

That show about the liar/murderer/drug-dealer/mob boss/total douche-monkey who is inexplicably likable?

I love that shit. I eat that shit up. I like my male protagonists felonious and cruel, like the escapist version of that asshole boyfriend you know better then to have in real life, even though he's dangerous and manipulative and exciting.

And Alan Ball's True Blood promised a world full of people who by their very nature (undead) are the types your psychiatrist strongly suggests keeping a safe distance from.

So it's really too bad that most of them are unlikable.

True Blood takes place in an alternative version of New Orleans, two years after the world's Vampires have decided to "come out of the coffin" and just start hanging out in bars and shit like it’s no big thing. The action mostly revolves around Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), an unfortunately named waitress who also happens to be telepathic, and the events surrounding her first encounter with a Vampire, Bill Compton (Stephan Moyer, of Fuck, Where Do I Know That Guy From? Fame). The series is based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris, and while I respect Alan Ball's intention to remain true to the source material, I respectfully assert that that was a big fucking mistake.

For a few months prior to True Blood's premiere, HBO aired a clever little advertising segment: a fictional broadcast news investigation of the events surrounding the initial emergence of the Vampires into the Human World. And it was a fascinating cross section: a Dana Perino-type Vampire rights lobbyist who remains reasonable, charming, and logic-bound in the face of her monstrous condition, a misguided young woman who expounds on the joys of sex with the undead, as well as the Japanese scientist responsible for accidentally inventing “TruBlood”, the blood replacement beverage responsible for bringing Vampires out of the shadows. And while these personalities were interesting, it was the tone that strung them together cohesively: This is the world we live in. Everything is the same, except that now, we have vampires. The Call Is Coming From Inside the House!

And I strongly believe that would have been the magic formula: give us interesting people from various places within the world we know, and make them potentially horrifically dangerous sometime in the near future. And they were so close.

Instead, none of the characters from this promo are significantly used, if used at all. True to the source material, we are stuck in a bayou world so insular, you wonder which door at the bar where Sookie works might turn out to be one of the sound stage’s exits. Anna Paquin’s accent is about as subtle as being fisted by a panda, and she is one of the better performances. The gay people are really gay. The red necks are racist and ignorant. Even Sookie’s sweet elderly grandmother, Adele, (Lois Smith) while charming in an ‘Oh, Old People!’ kind of way, seems detached from the vampire situation in a way that makes me wonder if she’s doing double duty on the Oxycontin.

As a result, what we have is a very limited and truly inaccessible view of this world. We have mountains of bad character behavior (including one successful murder, and another decent attempt), but it's random and thoughtless; the antagonists have all the depth of a Koopa Trooper. And the clincher is that Vampires are not responsible for ANY of violence that occurs in the pilot.

Despite all this, I’ll give it another shot on Sunday. There’s enough camp here where it makes me think they might just take the plunge and go for the humor, full out Ann Rice style, and True Blood could benefit from not taking itself so seriously. Anna Paquin, despite not being very good as Sookie, is strangely interesting playing herself. And despite dialogue that makes me close my eyes in embarrassment at points, I’m very interested to see where they take Stephen Moyer’s vampire, who is, despite a very crowded cast, the only vampire we have yet to meet. Albeit underused, he’s darkly charming in a way that makes me not want to blame him for the source material just yet. 

And also, it’s Alan Ball. There’s something to be said for brand loyalty, even if it means sitting through vampires randomly moving in double-time for no apparent reason.

Provisional Grade: C

True Blood airs on HBO on Sunday at 9/8 CST, and re-run throughout the week. Did not premiere as well as John from Cincinnati, and we all know how that went, so catch it now while you can.

FOX's Fringe - Unexpect the Expected

RYAN:

Close your eyes for a second, and think back to the beginning of Lost. Sure, it looked cool, and sure, J.J. Abrams had a built-in Alias fan base, but was there really any hype? Did anyone have a clue of what to expect from such a risky, high concept show?

Of course not. ABC was rolling the dice, in desperate need of a new pair of shoes. Lucky for them, Lost came through big time, cleaning up with viewers and critics alike, taking home the Emmy for best drama, and changing the very landscape of television.

Now, fast-forward four years to Fringe. It’s FOX’s turn at the table, only this time, they’re convinced that J.J.’s dice are loaded, that there’s no way they can lose.

This is exactly what Fringe has going against it.

Nobody expected Lost to be the next big thing, but everyone’s expecting Fringe to be the next Lost. Viewers of Lost were set up for a pleasant surprise – viewers of Fringe, for disappointment.

That said, it’s not nearly as disappointing as it should be. In fact, it’s pretty good. Without all of the billboards and buildup, without the ninety-minute spectacle of a premiere, it might have sneaked up on us, and been one of this year’s pleasant surprises. But there’s nothing surprising about J.J. Abrams these days, not even how good he is, or how much he likes surprising us (or trying to, anyway – the show starts off with an in-flight disaster….sound familiar?)

Regardless, the show itself is decent, and certainly worth watching. It dives into the world of the paranormal with just as much spooky, icky glee as The X-Files, but still manages to root the weird stuff in enough psuedo-science and modern technology to keep you from rolling your eyes. The story has a few nice twists, and leaves the door wide open for die-hard fans to start crafting their own elaborate hypotheses as to who’s good, who’s bad, and what the hell "the pattern" is. It’s fun, which is a lot more than 90% of television programming can say.

But fun isn’t everything. The characters aren’t nearly as captivating as they could be, certainly not as much so as on Alias, or Lost. Anna Torv, for instance, who plays our heroine, is a little wooden at first (the material is more to blame than her performance.) Thankfully, by the end of the episode, with a couple of twists under her belt, we get the sense that she has enough to work with to take her character to new, more interesting levels. I only wish I could say the same for Joshua Jackson, who has all of the subtlety and nuance of, well, Joshua Jackson.

On the other side of the coin, though, there’s Lance Reddick, who fans of The Wire will be happy to watch in any role, as well as a near perfect turn by John Noble as a brilliant, mumbling, quite likely insane fringe scientist, a character who serves as the show’s much-needed sci-fi anchor.

All in all, Fringe is well-crafted entertainment, a dark, glossy, sci-fi serial that will leave you curious about where the hell it’s headed, which, in science fiction, is way more than half the battle. Try not to hold all of the hype against it, and you’ll enjoy it.

Grade: B

Fringe airs Tuesday nights at 8/7c on FOX, with an encore presentation of the pilot scheduled for this Sunday, September 14th at 8/7c.

Pineapple Express Review

ZACH:

Being called the Casablanca of pot comedies is not necessarily high praise considering the quality of most pot-related films of the past (with the exception of Dazed and Confused). The film is as simple as it comes: a process server (Seth Rogen) witnesses a murder and goes on the run with his dealer (James Franco).

With the straightforward plot, the film takes on way too many stories and characters to give them the attention they deserve. Everyone has their mini problems: Rogen is dating a high school girl who he keeps letting down and Franco wants to find a friend…how touching. These two problems don’t really add anything to the film; rather, just when you’re accepting the fact that this film is nothing more than a fun joy ride, these plots pop up and suck all the funny out of the film. Rogen is typical Rogen, a yawn for me, while Franco runs the show with his lovable, often confused, pothead act.

My favorite part of the movie was any scene featuring Danny McBride as Red. After seeing The Foot Fist Way (the best comedy of the year), I've been telling anybody with ears that he is the next big comedy superstar. His performance in this film confirms my notions and I can't wait to see him again in two weeks when Tropic Thunder hits the screens.

It’s hard to write a long review for this film because there isn’t much there. The laughs are great and they come often, but check story sense at the door. It’s just episodic event after episodic event, adding up to an entertaining journey that struggles to find its own voice. This is disappointing considering the previous works of David Gorden Green. I feel like Green fell into the Apatow world and made the same mistake all Apatow films are guilty of: the use of the one-liner joke. Yes, this is why I didn’t like Superbad, that damn rolling off of somewhat perverted, oh, you crossed the line jokes. I’m all for witty dialogue, but I follow the school of thought that great lines should come out of reactions to plot and situations. Green, like Apatow, places his characters anywhere and lets them foam at the mouth with often hilarious, yet shallow dialogue without telling the cast and crew that maybe we should move on.

When leaving the theaters after one of these films, the conversation is never about the twists and turns, structure, or interesting photography (if you want bland photography see any of Apatow’s films). It’s all about quoting your favorite ball joke. With all this said, I enjoyed the film and recommend it to people for a bunch of laughs, but, in the end, there is nothing special about Pineapple Express.

6.6