Bale is opposed by Ledger in the next Batman film

Go ahead and enjoy this knowing that I won’t be able to for at least a month. Try not to spoil it for me in your review, okay?

Penelope came out in the Spring and, like Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, did not gain much of a theatre audience. But it deserves a life on DVD, much for the same reasons: a tale told for the sake of telling, chaste and whimsical, managing to address coming of age issues with dignity and poise, whatever that age for coming of is.

What other movie released in 2008 boasts such winsome actors as Christina Ricci, James McAvoy, Peter Drinklage, Catherine O’Hara, and Simon Woods? The movie was produced by Reese Witherspoon, who has more than a cameo in this modern fairy tale that takes some twists and turns and looks like it will be a Little Mermaid type parable, but shifts gears and avoids being merely a feminist tract. In some ways, it is a reverse Cyrano story.

Christina Ricci is extremely watchable as the pig-nosed and allegedly cursed daughter of a well-to-do family who thinks, or rather her mother thinks, can only be liberated when someone “of her own kind” marries her, and a series of horrified suitors run away at first glance. (The truth is, Ricci looks better with a pig nose than Witherspoon looks with her own—but that is satirized about in the movie already.) All except Max (McAvoy), who has his own identity problems. He’s a musician, see, and. . . well watch the movie.

The movie is not perfect and seems to me at times to be missing a scene or two, but since the DVD comes with no deleted scenes, it must have been written this way on purpose. Thus, and so, the flaws are not fatal—only minimally annoying. What could have been an A is merely a B+ and that’s plenty enough to divert and delight (including the intermittent soundtrack) on a hot summer’s night in Bowling Green OH after a great meal of mostacholi and a run to Starbucks to get their new expresso-based banana chocolate smoothie.

This book won the Hugo award in 1963. Not only is it an excellent work of science fiction, it is an excellent work of fiction, and a purely excellent written work, at that.

Philip K Dick is among my favorite authors of all time. This isn’t to say that I read copious amounts (at least, not anymore). But science fiction has always been my ‘favorite genre’ of the printed word. However, in a rather interesting twist we no doubt owe to fantastical nature of the subject matter, hardly any science fiction is dually considered to be ‘literature’. This is one of the very first issues Lawrence Sutin takes on in his excellent PKD biography Divine Invasions.

Phil Dick used the junk props of the SF genre- the tentacled aliens, alternate worlds, and gee-whiz high-tech gimmickry- to fashion the most intensely visionary fiction written by an American in the 20th century. In Europe and Japan, Phil is widely regarded as one of our most original novelists, period- SF and mainstream labels be damned.

The Man in the High Castle is one of the very best examples of what is popularly referred to as ‘alternate history fiction’ in which the author imagines what the world would be like, if… and begins with a certain point of divergence to tell their tale. The point of divergence in this novel begins with the successful assassination of FDR in 1933. Because of this re-imagined event, the U.S. adopts a strict isolationist policy with regard to the Second World War, and thus is eventually invaded and conquered by the Axis Powers.

Graphic novel-hyper-realism, Danny Elfman-scored adventure fable of medieval assassin fraternity who get their bad-guy targets from a 1000 year old loom whose missing threads trigger a binary code that identifies the victim. That’s a sure date night movie for me and my wife, the weaver, I tell you! It’s the old Hollywood formula you’ve seen a million times: woven fabric + curved bullets + Mr. Tumnus now with muscles and feet for hooves. Why, they remake this movie practically every year!

Ok, what to talk about so as not to give away anything? What—there’s something to give away! Yes, of course, it’s The Happening, except something actually happens. You don’t think you could build a whole movie of just shooting people from a distance do you? No, there’s much more, and since I have no inkling of the comic book world from whence it came, it was one roller coast ascent and descent after another, not just in plot, but in the kills, the escapes, and the Office Space put down of cubicle life that frames it all.

Don’t think about this movie—during or after, that’s not why it’s made, just put your $2.50 down, keep your eyes moving, and make sure you don’t stand up during the ride. And close your ears, because you’ve never heard James McAvoy (or Morgan Freeman) use such coarse language before. Or, well, maybe you have. It’s just I haven’t; and not a trace of Scottish brogue in the former’s enunciation, just like Ewan MacGregor in Big Fish. No, the movies have nothing in common, except Dads.

GRADE: As a B-movie: A+

Take my word for it, you can spend a lot more money this summer for a lot less entertainment in bypassing Get Smart, but you would be missing a nice little movie that both honors and improves upon the original TV series. Steve Carell is a much better Maxwell Smart than Steve Martin is an Inspector Clouseau, and Anne Hathaway proves she can do physical comedy as well as, well, as well as that other princess, Amy Adams. There are mindless sight gags but also some clever wordplay, and the Rock proves again he can satirize his own image with aplomb.

The script is almost as complex as a season of 24, but it only takes 110 minutes to experience, and there are almost as many impressive special effects and body kicks. There are some amusing cameos, and don’t miss Patrick Warburton’s appearance as “Hymie,” an acerbic robot on the tv series. We saw a matinee for $2.50; honestly, it was worth $7.50 at Levis. Much, much better than it had to be, the actors seem to really care, about their lines and what the audience will think, and, when preceded by the smarmy-stupid trailer style of Wes Farrell’s next movie (”The Step Brothers”), emerges absolutely as a small treasure that will have you smiling when you leave the theatre. This and Iron Man almost make up for Prince Caspian.

The Final Season is a quiet, little prize of a small-town baseball movie “like they used to make.” It has no tricks up its sleeve, tells its story straightforwardly with almost no suspense, and yet succeeds because it has no pretensions about being anything except a celebration of what baseball “means” (or used to) in nonsuburban America. It is set in the non-mythical town of Norway, Iowa, which had won 12 straight baseball championships in the smallest division (19 in all).

Like Hoosiers, a superior film to this one, it focuses on all the reasons we want to believe a small town and a small school is better for raising a family. Sean Astin (who executive produces) plays the second-hand coach who steps in when the legendary coach steps aside because of a school board dispute that will merge little Norway with the larger Madison school district, effectively ending Norway High’s identity as a baseball team. The compromise is one, last season; the movie implies Astin’s character is hired because it is presumed his team will lose—and that will make the merger easier to swallow. His team will have a say about that.

Not surprisingly, it had almost no theatrical release and I knew of it primarily because last summer it showed up featured as a click-per-view ad on ESPN’s MLB site. It finally showed up as a download for my AppleTV and I had an enjoyable evening absorbing its anti-ironic narrative unfold, with its angry town meetings, its skeptical barber shop conversations, its dad-who-is-too-sick-to-be-at-the-big-game-but-comes-anyway, and its gentle way of reminding that baseball is not a sport for giants, and even a diminutive kid can get the big hit. It’s from the director of another nice baseball movie, The Sandlot. And both could be rented in one evening for quite a double bill. You don’t have to love baseball to enjoy these films, but it helps.

Heaven by Mobius Band if you couldn’t tell

I’m Late for Dinner on this one (out Oct 07). I picked this off iTunes the night before I left for Kenya on a whim based on their cover song of Baby, We’ll Be Fine by The National, which I had grabbed off of Matt’s community iTunes in San Diego the night before I left CA.

If you can’t tell, I see this personal stumble upon discovery as a meant-to-be, where-have-you-been-all-my-life find of mythical proportions of the last second kind. Maybe. Sort of? Not really. But still:

Anyone who offers a free EP of cover songs of bands I like will get my ear.
(Super highly recommend getting this right now as you read more!)

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