And I admit it, over the years I’ve become such a hater this pronouncement felt like some huge chain had fallen from my limbs. Like a refreshing drink of cool water after being lost in the desert, or that feeling you get when a good friend finally breaks up with someone who was abusing their relationship. Yes, I am indeed one of those horrible fanboys Lucas is referencing when he complains:

“Why would I make any more, when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?”

Am I sorry that it’s come to this? I searched my feelings, and came to the conclusion that, no, I’m really not. Make of that what you will, but when Lucas confirmed he was going to make Phantom Menace 3-D happen, combining two of my greatest pet peeves in recent cinema, it was hard not to feel like he was personally out to punch me in the dick. So my dick already feels much better.

Star Wars does not equal Lucas. It’s easy to adhere to that fallacy, and certainly Lucas himself has made little effort to share credit with all the others involved in taking his early ideas and making some compellingly dramatic sense of them… but let’s face it, the best Star Wars stuff since 1983 has often seen a direct correlation to how little Lucas is involved with the project. I’m not a huge fan of the EU efforts, but there was some rich background woven up there which he decided to completely ignore, culminating in the prequel novels where cycles of writers desperately tried to justify and make sense of fundamentally retarded ideas, only to see it all undone by the next movie and its fresh shotgun load of nonsense. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad.

And speaking of hilariously sad...

So yeah, if Lucas has finally decided to wash his hands of Star Wars and Indiana Jones and head back to art films like THX-1138 where no one will really care about pacing, bizarre non-sequiturs or wooden direction? I think that’s best for everyone. Good properties based on the IPs can and will still be made, without the man who didn’t find anything narratively questionable about the idea to have Darth Vader build C-3PO and grow up on Tattooine. Or who put together a thick dossier just to convince Spielberg that Indy surviving a nuclear explosion in a refrigerator wouldn’t look horribly silly.

When I told Lucas that Spielberg had accepted the blame for nuking the fridge, he looked stunned. “It’s not true,” he said. “He’s trying to protect me.”

In fact, it was Spielberg who “didn’t believe” the scene. In response to Spielberg’s fears, Lucas put together a whole nuking-the-fridge dossier. It was about six inches thick, he indicated with his hands. Lucas said that if the refrigerator were lead-lined, and if Indy didn’t break his neck when the fridge crashed to earth, and if he were able to get the door open, he could, in fact, survive. “The odds of surviving that refrigerator — from a lot of scientists — are about 50-50,” Lucas said.

Watching the interviews with Spielberg regarding Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I got the feeling he had passed into the realm of I-don’t-give-a-fuck-anymore. He was done with the Indiana Jones character and had better things to do than argue with Lucas anymore on what would make good cinema.

"Fridge, sure, whatever... hey you know what's cool? THESE babies!"

I’m sure it’s not you, George, it’s us. You said as much. Like a certain POTUS of 2000-2008, you stick by your mistakes without apology or even acknowlegement, at best quietly sweeping them under the rug (what happened to all that Midichlorian talk after Phantom Menace? Wasn’t that an important plot point to you?). This is especially ironic considering you felt the need to go back and fix your “mistakes” in the original movies now that you didn’t have anyone to tell you no. I’m surprised you didn’t redub C-3PO as that sleazy salesman you first wanted.

Maybe you, like Bush Jr., will be more forthcoming once you’ve retired. Of course, the looming problem with that is you’ve apparently announced retirement more times than a pro wrestler, including the intent to go back to “small, experimental films“.

I would like to believe you’re sincere this time. I think it will be better for everyone. Maybe on your way out you could even authorize a remastering of the original theatrical films, instead of trying to bury them away as not fitting your “vision”.

But I have to admit, a man who apparently had such a monkey on his back about “his” movies that he felt compelled to screw with them on fundamental storytelling levels doesn’t exactly fit the profile for graceful retirement. To this day you can’t even stop tweaking, and it’s gotten to the point it seems like you’re just fucking with us because you can. Because you feel we’re being spiteful and mean, so you want to be spiteful and mean right back. Even if you feel like we deserve it, perhaps you could take a page from Alan Moore on when he quit writing for DC Comics:

“When you find out you’ve been standing in shit, you don’t jump up and down on it to punish it, you walk away.”

Also, no matter our falling outs, I really don’t want to see you end up like pop culture adventure/sci-fi’s version of Ric Flair.

A man who just can't retire.

 
Just walk away. 

We will give you safe passage in the Wasteland.
Just walk away and there will be an end to the horror.

We await your answer.

Like this, but not as handsome.

Irene “Renie” Lake is our titular tough girl. We know because she lives on a smoggy street in the inner city, dresses in a Canadian tux, sports a black eye from her mother’s boyfriend, and packs a switchblade. For anyone who came of age in the ‘90s or later, switchblades used to be a common indicator that someone was a hoodlum, to the point that combs resembling switchblades enjoyed a brief renaissance, presumably because people thought that properly terrified hair was manageable hair. Though perfectly capable of performing makeshift tracheotomies, knives were generally employed as intimidation devices. The hood would hit the button, the blade would flash out and whatever hapless tool would hand over his wallet right before Charles Bronson capped the tough guy in the back of the head (back in the ‘80s, Charles Bronson was the leading cause of death for hoodlums, street toughs and vandals). The weird thing is, guns had been invented at this time, but for some reason, movie hoods stuck with the switchblade. Maybe they were sentimental. It was, after all, an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.

Renie’s only friend is Gary, who manages to look exactly like Chest Rockwell. And I mean exactly. As in, PT Anderson watched this episode when designing the look. We’re talking vest with no shirt, thick carpet of chest hair, topped with a John C. Reilly fro. Gary has a Quixotic desire to drive to Arizona, which he believes is a hundred thousand miles from where he presently is. Which means he thinks the Grand Canyon State is about halfway to the moon. The problem is that Gary is driving a stolen car and carrying a bag of weed, which predictably results in his (and Renie’s) arrest.

I kept hoping he’d nunchuck someone.

At Renie’s court date, we meet her mother and boyfriend, and these two don’t look like they would even know each other, let alone be doing the four-fingered push up. The boyfriend, with his loud Hawaiian shirt and even louder crazy eyes, is a street level sleazeball, while the mom is a Kitty Foreman clone who only looks out of place because she’s not holding a tray of muffins fresh out of the oven at that moment. The man I initially took to be the lawyer turns out to be Renie’s father, who ditched Renie and mom several years ago and somehow transformed himself into a successful businessman. The judge gives Renie a simple choice: dad’s house in the suburbs or reform school. Personally, I would have gone with the latter, if only for a grainy era-appropriate skin flick with feathered hair (tops and tails) and copious pillow fights. But this episode isn’t about me learning women are not objects, so she picks dad’s house.

I know what you’re thinking: this is the story of an estranged father and daughter reconnecting, putting the pain of the past behind them and forging a new relationship. Nope. Dad practically vanishes from the episode, except for a single cryptic scene in which Renie overhears a muttered conversation that in no way effects the plot. Renie’s two mother figures are equally absent: her biological mom never reappears (presumably too busy making meth muffins for her weirdo boyfriend), and the stepmother is little more than a vaguely cheerful presence at the edges.

There’s the barest glimmer of a snobs versus slobs plot when Renie goes to her new, ritzy high school. Her stepsister Gretchen is the prototypical mean girl, something a helpful and bespectacled girl points out. “Aha!” I thought. “This is Renie’s geeky friend who will show our tough girl that reading is cool, their homoeroticism only expressed through a mutual crush on Jack Lord.” Nope. This friend appears in literally one scene, delivers some gratuitous exposition (“Gretchen is mean and popular”) and promptly disappears. I was beginning to think there was some kind of spider hole where the minor characters could hide while the episode passed by overhead.

The bulk of the running time is devoted to Renie’s relationship with Jan, a deaf apprentice veterinarian. Jan is also a dude, so don’t get too excited. Their feelings are clearly romantic, yet they never so much as hold hands. They mostly go on farm calls, where Renie serves as assistant. Jan eventually gets accepted to college, which was previously a big hurdle due to his handicap. Hilariously, his school of choice is Penn State, so things probably do not end up well for old Jan. Renie reacts poorly, but even after turning over her new leaf, doesn’t profess her love to him.

As it turns out, identity is what the whole episode is about, given away by the title of the YA book upon which it is based: Will the Real Renie Please Stand Up? Now, if you’re anything like me, you now have an Eminem song going through your head. The title comes from something Renie says to her court-appointed therapist. Perhaps echoing the relationship between Judd Hirsch and Timothy Hutton in the previous year’s Ordinary People, Renie has a breakthrough when she explains that she sees herself as three different people and has no idea who the real Renie is. The end of the episode presents her with a choice: go to Gary to Arizona (and deal with the very real dangers of space exploration in a stolen Cadillac) or return to town. Jan isn’t an option because this is about Renie’s identity, and it is imperative she have one independent of a boy.

Hint hint Stephenie Meyer

The most perplexing part of the episode is the end, where Renie gets out of Gary’s car and begins the long walk back to down. It freezes, and credits. I hoped for some kind of resolution, but there was nothing. She figured out who she was, but whether that was a veterinarian, a bank robber, or Batman was ultimately unclear. Maybe she just wanted to find that spider hole and wait the rest of the episode out.

Next up: “The Night Swimmers” in which a girl becomes a surrogate mother to her two little brothers, managing to create an even more unsettling oedipal complex.

That wasn’t always the case. As a kid in the Bay Area in the late 80s and early 90s when the Giants, A’s and 49ers ranged from competitive to dominant it was hard not to be a sports fan. And I was a huge fan. Will Clark and Jerry Rice posters. So many Starting Lineup figurines.

But I got older and I met girls and by the middle of high school I just stopped paying attention to sports. In college I had season tickets to Cal basketball games but that was the extent of my interest.

In the last couple years though, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing two of my childhood teams unexpectedly go all the way (Giants) and pretty damn far (49ers). And I’m not ashamed to admit that I didn’t pay a damn bit of attention until the regular season was 90% finished.

Look, there are a lot more important and interesting (to me) things to do than watch men in spandex run around but when the season-long bullshit shakes out and games actually have stakes–most important of which is the big fuck you to the absurdly biased east coast sports media when a west coast team wins big.

But am I going to watch regular season Giants or Niners games next season? Only as much as I did last season, which is to say, not very much.

So call me a fair weather fan or just an lame-o who doesn’t care much for sports. I’m okay with it.

Title: Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire

Release Date: November 18th, 2005

Objection: By this point, I was alone. All of my friends had amicable relationships with the Wizarding World. Prompted by the quality of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the remaining holdouts got caught up and waited with bated breath for the return of He Who Must Not Be Named in the film’s fourth entry.

At the time, I was also tired of seeing Ralph Fiennes in movies, so his casting as Voldemort was met by an epic shrugging of the shoulders. Like I mentioned in the last Potter entry, my ambivalence toward the series veered into antipathy with the release of a new film or book. In this instance, I armored up and told people that I hated the whole enterprise and wanted nothing to do with it.

I now own a Lego Diagon Alley. The years can be funny that way.

The Film: With the arrival of year four, Hogwarts hosts the Triwizard Tournament — a series of baffling, reportedly grueling ordeals that are undertaken by representatives of three magic academies: Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, the Durmstrang Institute, and Hogwarts itself. The contestants are chosen by the titular Goblet of Fire. After it produces the three names for each school, it bellows forth Harry’s name as another champion. His dubious inclusion sets little in motion except for Ron’s half-hearted jealousy.

Of course, other troubles abound as Voldemort’s private army — the Death Eaters — return and disrupt the Quiddich World Cup (which, really, makes them seem like an okay bunch of people). Harry also has a recurring dream about the Dark Lord making plans with a follower who bears a striking resemblance to a certain fashion-plate Time Lord of Gallifrey.

I understand he invades a lot of people's dreams.

While the other champions apparently train for the first challenge, Harry is introduced to the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Alistair “Mad-Eye” Moody. He’s clearly off his rocker, but appears to take an interest in Harry winning the Tournament. Now that I think about it, I should probably tell you about the other contestants:

1. Cedric Diggory -an upperclassmen in Hufflepuff who, we’re told, is a much more accomplished wizard than Harry. He seems like a stand-up and friendly fellow as he helps Harry out on occasion and apologizes for the anti-Harry/Pro-Diggory buttons circulating around school. His resemblance to the vampiric subspecies of the American Northwest is completely coincidental.

2. Viktor Krum – Champion Quidditch player and Hermione-fancier, Krum is a man of few words. We’re told he’s more “physical,” but also appears to be a good egg — at least, from what little we see of him. He also takes Hermione to the Yule Ball, of which I’ll have more to say later.

3. Fleur Delacour – She’s female, French, and has a sister.

Seriously, that's all the film says about her.

For reasons that are never made clear to me, the tournament will take all year; necessitating the presence of the other two schools’ delegations throughout. With them also comes hormones as the fourth year students all seem to hit puberty at the same time. Harry and Ron reveal this by growing their hair long. The Patil Sisters say “Hi Harry” in a flirtatious way whenever they pass him. A new character, Cho Chang, is introduced as Harry’s first crush. In the most pleasing development along this theme, Neville Longbottom is revealed to be a natural dancer.

The real hero of "Harry Potter."

While this starts out as a subplot, it quickly becomes the focus of the film following the Dragon Challenge. Harry and Ron notice how difficult it is to ask a girl out to the Yule Ball — a traditional dance that comes with the Triwizards Tournament. When Harry finds the courage to ask Cho Chang, it turns out Cedric got there first.

"I'm the world's most dangerous predator. Every thing about me invites you in. My voice, my face, even my smell."

Ron apparently yells his proposal to Fleur while passing her in the hall. Granted, we never actually see this on-screen, so I can’t really confirm it. When the Ball arrives, Harry has secure the Patils as dates for Ron and himself. Hermione shows up with Krum and, despite the music of Jarvis Cocker, the whole thing resembles an episode of “The Facts of Life.”

After A HALF HOUR of Yule Ball business, the second challenge finds the contestants underwater as they do something that puts me to sleep every time I try to watch this movie. Honestly, I’ve gone through this film four times now and the Yule Ball sequence numbs me so much, that I disconnect from the story until the third challenge. I just watched the movie last night and I can’t tell you what happened between Harry diving into the water and the discovery that the champion’s cup is a portkey.

So … the champion’s cup turns out to be a portkey, an object that can teleport wizards to random locations, like the cemetery where the bones of Tom Riddle’s father are buried. There, Harry and Cedric find Peter Pettigrew (who is now referred to as “Wormtail” for some reason) and a snake-man baby who just might be the Dark Lord. Pete– I mean, “Wormtail” kills Cedric and concocts a spell that restores Voldemort to life. Back in form, he spends a few minutes admonishing his follows (who have shown up because their bitchin’ Death Eater tattoos summoned them to Tom’s side) when he suddenly remembers that Harry is there.

The two fight, briefly, when the ghosts of Harry’s parents and Cedric appear and give him the few seconds he needs to use the portkey and escape. Cedric also asks Harry to take his body back to his own father. Upon his return to the tournament stands, Harry is escorted back to Hogwarts by Mad-Eye Moody — who turns out to be an imposter(!)

It seems the whole time “Moody” has been Barty Crouch Jr, the son of an important ministry official and the very same person Harry was dreaming about at the start of the film. Dumbledore and the other instructors burst in, saving Harry and releasing the real Mad-Eye Moody from the prison Barty Jr. put him in at the beginning of the year. Just when everything seems wrapped up, Dumbledore tells the students that Cedric was killed by Voldemort and that they should hold onto the bonds of friendship they forged during the past year as they’ll become more important in the times ahead.

Also, the delegations from the other two schools leave amidst applause.

Cough.

I’ve been told the actual Goblet of Fire novel is rather episodic and I can believe that from the film. It never seems to find a real cinematic focus. While it maintains the darker look and visual grammar established in Azkaban, the plotting, pacing, and characters all reach back to Sorcerer’s Stone for their inspirations. While I understand the novelistic reasons for J.K. Rowling to use one book as one year at Hogwarts, it’s becoming increasingly insane for the movies to do so as well. The leisurely pace of the Triwizards tournament robs it of any momentum or excitement it might contain. None of the characters — except Hermione — ever seems concerned with the challenges. This follows through into their actual depiction. Time and again, we’re told they’re supposed to be grueling ordeals that push the champions to their limits, and yet they come off as risky as the “Double Dare” obstacle course.

Add to this lack of concern the caricatures Hermione and Ron have retreated into. Our third favorite Weasley spends most of the film sulking about this or that. Ms. Granger spends a great deal the film haranguing Harry for not being prepared. In the end, both characters are far less appealing than they were in the previous film, but I find it interesting how much they track as extensions of the performances each actor gave in the first film. I’d hazard that director Mike Newell didn’t take the job all that seriously or was uncomfortable directing the young leads. I offer as evidence the crappy Death Eater costumes he approved. See also the performance of Tom Felton, who returns to being the one-note bully character of the Columbus-directed outings. While Daniel Radcliffe acquits himself well by maintaining the pitch from Azkaban, he is definitely adrift at sea towards the end when he inexplicably starts bawling over Cedric’s body.

As though he knew this was Pattinson's fate.

The novel is apparently much longer than the previous books and in lieu of splitting the material into two films, the production made the rather bold choice of not committing to any storyline, character, or idea. Cedric is a perfect example of this. He appears to be Hogwart’s favorite son, but its hard to get a read on him because he is always sprinting across the screen, never stopping long enough for the audience to learn about him. I like the idea of Cedric and would’ve liked to see him as someone even Harry looks up to, but alas, there’s no time for that because we have to get to the world’s most boring dragon chase and then waste 20% of the movie on the Yule Ball.

Now, let’s get one thing straight about the Ball: I’m not opposed to it. It’s an interesting idea and jibes with the overall theme of growing up in a world of magic. My problem with it is structural. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire literally stops for a half hour while Harry Potter and the Yule Ball Jitters unspools. Why couldn’t the Yule Ball be something the kids were already talking about before the dragon challenge? Instead of Ron getting sulky about Harry’s participation in the tournament, couldn’t he be nervous about a.) whether or not he wanted he wanted to take Hermione to the ball, b.) getting the courage to ask someone to the ball, and c.) being nervous about going to the ball? If the material had been interspersed with the preparation for the dragon challenge, it would feel more like an organic element of the tournament than an episode of “The Worst Witch.”

At least the Dursleys are COMPLETELY absent from this film.

You’ll notice I short-changed Fleur in my character description. This is because she has no character in the film. I’m sure she’s great in the books and her reappearance in later films gives me the idea that she’s a person of merit, but all we see her do in Goblet of Fire is smile, cry, and scream. She has, at most, three lines of dialogue.

So, the whole point of everything is to get Harry to the portkey. This is why Barty Jr not only masquerades as Moody, but puts Harry’s name into the Goblet of Fire. It seems like a lot of work with a lot of risk for something that could’ve been easily done more quickly. Now, if there’s an in-story reason why Voldemort had to wait all that time, it would be reasonable (sort of) … but why not just have Barty gain Harry’s trust and then kidnap him?

Which gets us to the weirdest aspect of the film, the low-key return of Voldemort. This sequence is just bizarre for a number of reasons. One: it starts rather dull. Two: Voldemort forgets what is happening so he can chastise his Death Eaters for not seeing the signs of his return. Three: it someone how ends up being the best scene in the movie. You’d think if one character in this series would have a sense of urgency it would be the Bad Guy.

Four films later ...

But just as I’m ready to disconnect again, Harry shouts and Voldemort remembers where he is and the scene, surprisingly, gets good. Between Voldemort’s speech about death, the two characters actually battling for the first time, and the appearance of the ghosts — STUFF ACTUALLY HAPPENS! Imagine what it would be like if the rest of the picture was like this.

In fact, the Voldemort sequence ends up being so good that everything that follows feels like one of those sad “we’re at the Awards show post-party” broadcasts that they do here in Los Angeles. Despite the fact that a few things need to wrap up, the movie is essentially over the moment Harry says, “He’s back.” In fact, the power of that moment robs the Moody reveal of any weight it might contain. Now, I assume this is how events unfold in the book, and that’s sort of forgivable, but why end on the other schools’ delegations leaving? Like the hooray for Hagrid at the end of Chamber of Secrets, watching the kids leave strikes an odd cord.

Verdict: On top of the amount of things I would need to know going in, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a poor example of genuinely good ideas and characters. If, by some miracle, I had tried to watch it back at the time of release, it would’ve shut the door on the series for me.

But it did open the door to the greatest comedy series of the new millennium.

“The Night Chronicles Begin” sounds like a threat.

The trailer was ridiculous. Five people trapped in an elevator. One of them is a killer, and possibly also Satan. With the shaky premise and vaguely recognizable faces, it looks like the kind of straight-to-DVD horror flick you watch on Netflix out of sheer boredom. Somehow enough cash got pumped into this thing to give it a slick blue studio feel. Then the seven words popped up onscreen, making half the audience groan and the other half burst into laughter: “From the mind of M. Night Shyamalan.” This is Devil.

Tagline: Bad things happen for a reason.

More Accurate Tagline: Bad things happen because The Sixth Sense made a lot of money.

Guilty Party: M. Night Shyamalan, whose first two names should be pronounced like Homer Simpson suddenly learning nighttime comes with frosting. Mmmm… night made a huge splash with The Sixth Sense and most importantly the stunning twist ending in which Bruce Willis died in Nakatomi Plaza and was from the future or something. Ever since, Shyamalan has been trying to capture the magic to steadily diminishing returns and increasing evidence that he suffered several blows to the head. Though he neither directed nor wrote the script, the story his his, and he is the sole reason it’s presently rage fucking my brain cells.

Synopsis: Fuck. Okay. No matter how long I look at this blank screen, a synopsis isn’t magically appearing, so it looks like I have to write something down here. Or you could just read Louis’s, which is way more detailed than I’ll ever get.

All right. We open up on Philadelphia, and for a single, blessed moment, I hope to see Charlie, Mac, and Dennis. Nope, instead I get the kind of heavy handed voiceover that informs me I will be watching a Very Important Movie. With a soft hispanic accent (you know, hinting he has some deeper connection to truth or whatever), the narrator informs me that the devil likes to walk the earth and fuck with people, like a dick version of Kane from Kung Fu.

Five people get stuck in an elevator. Because the film is made by a pretentious ass, they’re never credited by name, but they all have them. Except for the Devil. Oh yeah, one of the people is the Devil. Can you guess which? Because it totally doesn’t matter.

My money’s on him.

Anyway, the Devil periodically causes blackouts during which he kills the people one at a time in a completely ridiculous way. Meanwhile, Detective Bowden (he gets a name because… shit, I don’t know), started his day investigating a suicide, but forgets about that to help the stranded commuters. He gradually learns that everyone in the elevator is a Bad Person.

Bowden is also a recovering alcoholic because his wife and kid were killed in a tragic hit and run. He mentions this roughly every ten minutes because the screenwriter is pretty sure everyone in the audience had a mommy who drank heavily while pregnant. Security guard Ramirez (pulling double duty as our narrator), is on hand to explain the religious implications of what’s going on, and helpfully informs Bowden that there’s a reason the Devil picked them specifically as the audience. So we’re blaming Satan for hack screenwriters now too?

Eventually everyone dies except one guy, who gets a measure of peace through forgiveness. I find myself unable to forgive anyone involved in the making of this film.

Life-Changing Subtext: If the Devil wants to fuck with you, God is utterly helpless to do anything about it.

Defining Quote: Ramirez, finishing the Sunday school lecture disguised as narration: “After my mother would finish her story, she would always comfort us. ‘Don’t worry,’ she’d say. ‘If the Devil is real, then God must be real too.’” Real, and apparently real bored at the prospect of stopping human suffering.

Standout Performance: Bokeem Woodbine as Guard. In a performance that combines the electricity of Ben Stein with the raw charisma of an old towel, Woodbine is at turns angry, disoriented, and possibly slightly hungry.

What’s Wrong: I felt a palpable sense of relief every time one of the shrill dipshits in the elevator gets their just desserts. This is a problem if your movie is trying to generate suspense, which only happens when I’m worried that someone might die. You know what might have helped? Believable motivations or dialogue that doesn’t sound like it was mined from a North Korean Neil Gaiman fan blog.

Flash of Competence: The film looks great. Very pretty, a couple of nice, arty shots. Shyamalan is one of the best in the business at gilding a turd.

Best Scenes: “Dwight vs. wildlife” is a fantastic couple scenes. Dwight is the building’s engineer, and it’s his job to get that goddamn elevator running. First he goes down to the bottom of the shaft where a family of raccoons is somehow living. The raccoons clearly debate whether or not to fuck Dwight’s couch, but decide not to. Later on, Dwight surprises a colony of pigeons living in the shaft (elevator, not penile), and they are not so merciful. Wildlife 1, Dwight 0.

While Ramirez is doing his best to be a stereotypical superstitious Latino, he tries to explain why he knows the Devil is behind all this. To demonstrate, he throws some toast on the ground, and aha! It lands jelly side down! The work of the Devil! Or, you know, gravity.

Transcendent Moment: Bowden’s investigation into which commuter is the Devil is based around a single scrap of information: everyone in the elevator signed in at the front desk. Except for one. And that person has to be the Devil!

No, seriously. The Devil. Prince of Lies. Could not be bothered to come up with a fake name.

“Yes, that’s T-H-E-D-E-V-I-L. No, wait. FUCK!”

Devil’s biggest sin is that it’s boring. I could forgive the lazy writing, the bad acting, the stilted dialogue, the… actually, fuck it. This movie sucked. It was a horror movie that only managed one scare: right at the beginning when a vanity card proclaimed this part 1 of “The Night Chronicles.” That’s literally the only scary part.

Regardless, Paso Robles in particular and the Central Coast as a whole was a region largely eschewed by import-oriented wine geeks who looked toward the cooler climates of Northern California and Oregon for their food-friendly and geek savvy domestic wines.

But quite a bit has changed in the last few years and the Central Coast is experiencing something of a Renaissance led by a cadre of young wine makers in their late 20s and 30s. Many of these wine makers are Central Coast natives wh spent their careers working in the cellars and vineyards of some of the region’s largest wineries and are only now beginning to launch their own projects.

There is something to be said about the climate of the Central Coast, especially the more inland (and less expensive) growing regions where many of these wine makers are sourcing their grapes. It is quite hot and, as a result, many of these wines are still higher in alcohol than most imports. Although few are still making wines which routinely exceed 16%, their red wines do tend to be between 14.6-15.2% but with the structure, balance and acid that I found to be absent from the Parkerized behemoths of 2005.

What’s more notable than the nominal decrease in alcohol (I’ve never been one who inherently looked askance at a wine solely for its alcohol level) is the use of unconventional grape varietals and blends other than the Grenache-Syrah-Mourvedre “California Rhone” that had dominated the Central Coast. Spanish and Italian varietals–most notably Tempranillo, Sangiovese, Nebbiolo and Barbera–are becoming increasingly common and oft-neglected Petite Sirah from inland San Luis Obispo County is being made into some of the region’s most interesting red wines. On the blending front, while some are looking toward the Cabernet and Merlot-based “Meritage” Bordeaux blends, most are making their own unconventional blends, experimenting with the Central Coast’s unique climates and microclimates to determine the best Central Coast blends autochthonously, without looking to Old World tradition.

White wine is still a struggle, with thick, flabby Viognier, Roussanne and Marsanne-based blends predominant. Interesting inroads are being made, however, with Chenin Blanc and unoaked or neutral oak-based Chardonnay. Wine makers are also looking to “kitchen sink” white blends, allowing for less ripe, higher-acid grapes to offset the powerfully aromatic but often unfocused nature of the white Rhone varietals when overripe.

This Renaissance is still in its earliest stages; many of these wine makers are only on their third or fourth vintage, but it’s very encouraging to see experimentation taking place which embraces both terroir and realities of 2012 wine making instead of the received wisdom of an earlier, more naive California wine scene. Because really, despite the soil similarities, Paso  Robles simply isn’t the Rhone Valley.

Some interesting wineries new(ish) wineries from the Central Coast to take a look at: Field Recordings, Ethan, Antic, Folkway, Broc Cellars, Atonement Wines, Broadside, Tooth & Nail, Black Sheep Finds (there are a LOT more) and a shout out to a couple of the big(ger) guys doing the same thing: Qupe, Bonny Doon, Tablas Creek (mostly California Rhone, I know) and Liocco.

Please comment below for more info or specific wine recommendations.

Disclosure: I sell wine and I live in California. At points past, present, and future I sold/sell/will sell wines from the Central Coast. Some of the wineries mentioned in this article were/are/will be those wineries. I am also friends with Central Coast wine makers and winery employees whose wineries may also be mentioned in this article. This article is meant to be subjective, informative and biased. Utilize at your own risk. 

While it was certainly the easiest film to follow during a day that included the mess that is Timemaster and the slog of the first Gor flick, Beastmaster II also features my least favorite plot contrivance to befall any fantasy or sci-fi infused property. To put it in ready-for-poster adspeak: “This time, they’re in our world.” You’ll find this happens in a lot of places, Neverending Story III: Escape from Fantasia commits grievous audio/visual harm with this premise. Masters of the Universe also centers around the well known core stable of He-Man characters and transplants them to Anytown U.S.A. where Courtney Cox and that bland guy from “Star Trek: Voyager” actually steal the movie from the title character.

It never ceases to amaze me how wrong they got this.

It happens with such frequency, that by all Yakmala rights, it should be codified, like the Torgo and the Kroker. So let’s dig in a little bit and discuss why filmmakers take fantasy characters to the present day — er, late 20th Century. Seriously, I’m never going to get used to that.Okay, fine, the main reason this plot gets trotted out a lot is money. Specifically, the lack of money required to create the grand visions contained in fantasy environments. Consider the colossal investment New Line put into The Lord of the Rings and its — at the time — obscure Kiwi director. Industry press considered it a gamble and thought openly that New Line’s Robert Shaye might pack his bags after the first film in the trilogy was released to an indifferent and caustic audience. The conventional wisdom of the time was that fantasy films do not work.

Of course, that wisdom came from the very set of movies I’m talking about today.

But back in 2001, the Rings trilogy was not a sure bet. It featured everything the balance sheets said that audiences hated: swords, made-up languages, weird creatures, a bad guy who only appears as a giant eye, and that nervous kid from North. This shouldn’t have worked and yet … it did.

Kind of like how it worked twenty-odd years earlier.

At that moment, I was elated not so much because I finally had a cinematic vision of Tolkien’s world that I could respect, but because its success would no doubt spawn a revival in sword-and-sorcery movies of both the epic and cheap varieties. Instead, all that happened was Eragon, The Chronicles of Narnia, and In the Name of the King: a Dungeon Siege Tale. Yes, I know, there’s a Boy Who Lived in England that could also be considered fantasy, but I was after something specific. In the wake of Star Wars, a cycle of knock-offs both vulgar and sublime followed as producers hoped to catch some of Lucas’s magic and earning for themselves. With only a few viable sci-fi options available, they went down the fantasy aisle as stories could easily — and cheaply — be produced in places like Turkey, South America, and Mexico. These easy to develop properties became the backbone of a fantasy film glut that produced things like the first Conan film, but also gave us Yor: The Hunter from the Future and Ator: The Fighting Eagle.

Into this environment, Don Coscarelli gave us the first Beastmaster. The story is fairly simple: Dar is a wander of the wastelands gifted with the ability to commune with the animals in a way that did not involve singing or illegal sex acts. He also has some sort of destiny and revenge to fulfill as his parents were murdered by the local wizard/priest/king. With him was a faithful bestiary that included an eagle, a black tiger, and two ferrets.

Go ahead … the sex acts joke can go here.

Like many fantasy movies at the time, it’s fairly barren in its aesthetic and much of its sets and props could’ve been bought from a previous production, but as Coscarelli proved with Phantasm, he can make very little go a long way. Thus, The Beastmaster is a genuinely entertaining sword-and-sorcery flick.

Also, it had Tanya Roberts in her very brief prime.

The film came out in 1982, which is the greatest year for genre movies ever. Films also released then include Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, John Carpenter’s The Thing, The Dark Crystal, Blade Runner, Tron, The Secret of NIMH, and Conan the Barbarian.

Even Stallone was inspired.

I don’t think these movies all appearing in one year is an accident. They’re all projects that got rolling because of Star Wars; really, they’re the peak of a wave that began with cheap knock-offs like Star Crash and The Man Who Saved the World and would continue through much of the 1980s with films like Ghostbusters and RoboCop. I’d hoped to see a similar genre renaissance in the decade that has just closed. Instead, the period ended with The Smurfs.

Son of a bitch! This time, they’re in our world! How the hell did that happen? There’s no reason for that. They had the money. They … oh wait … I know what happened.

You fickle bastards.

The genre wave was good business back in the late 1970s and 1980s. The audience was there to support Roger Corman’s foray into fantasy with films like Deathstalker, Barbarian Queen and The Warrior and the Sorceress. The celebrated geek culture of our current era didn’t just spring out of nowhere. We were raised by the late-stage Boomers that made this happen. Some of them had the conviction to paint their love of beefy warriors on their vans. They gave Led Zeppelin their U.S. following. Some remained closeted, but would sneak into their local theater and escape into any cardboard fantasy producers like The Cannon Group or Dino De Laurentiis could muster.

While The Beastmaster did okay at the box office, it’s legend began in its numerous airings on cable where it joined future Yakmala movies like Over the Top and Red Sonja in a heavy rotation that clearly damaged my brain. Then, in 1991, some producers acquired the rights and tried it all again, except this time, he’s in our world.

Like I said earlier, the film manages to hold itself together fairly well considering its low-watt ambitions. The 90s were not kind to the fantasy film. The wave from 1976 had passed and while kids like me thrilled to the product available on TBS and our local independent stations, we weren’t the ones buying movie tickets. Our parents had, for the most part, grown up and let go of the fantastical in favor of so-called mature pictures that talked about infidelity. By the time Beastmaster II was ready to film, the money was gone and all they could do was bring Dar to Los Angeles and pair him up with that early 90s TV sex-symbol, Kari Wurher.

The best that part of the decade could do.

The plot itself sees Dar follow his evil brother into “our time” as he hopes to recover a nuclear device that will allow him to rule all of Skyrim or Hyborea or wherever the hell these Beastmaster movies take place. Both Dar, his brother, and an opportunistic and bosomy sorceress all experience varying degrees of culture shock as they slowly make their way toward the military base where the atomic whatsits is located. Dar stops him and goes home.

Cough.

Okay, let’s move on to Masters of the Universe, which arrived a few years earlier. It features He-Man, Tela, Man-At-Arms and a proxy for Orko as they chase a science-magic object to “our time” and interact with a couple of youths from the period. Eventually, they all make it back to Eternia and confront Skeletor, who falls down a pit.

Um … how about that Smurfs movie, in which Papa, Brainy, Smurfette, Clumsy, and Gutsy are transported to New York and help a young couple with their marital issues. Good lord, the infidelity movies of the early 90s have invaded the fantasy genre!

While these movies are certainly defined by budgetary and reception concerns, I think the recent appearance of the Smurfs in Manhattan highlights something more serious than just money in these portals through time. The Lord of the Rings begot only a few sword-and-sorcery movies that most fans of the genre recoil from. At the same time, we had the Star Wars prequels, which failed to create anything nearly as seismic as its predecessors. In fact, the lasting influence of those films is on the inward looking review shows that contemplate, with great detail, how it all went wrong.

Yeah, that includes me.

The reliance on the characters arriving in “our world” is indicative of just how much we came to distrust fantasy, even as we turned around and commodified it in online game worlds. At the same time, any potential fantasy wave is chocked by the arrival of the Superheroes, who appear in cinematic facsimiles of our own reality. In some ways, that could just be wishful thinking. In others, it’s the height of our most juvenile obsessions. As opposed to the complete escape offered by fantasy realms, we seemingingly want the powers of another reality to invade our own.

But as a cinematic device, a portal through time is, inevitably, a sign of a questionable film. It is a crutch used by filmmakers too hobbled by budget or two lazy to conjure up a convincing alternate world where modernity is turned on its head and we can thrill to simple, uncomplicated clash of swords.

Then again, bringing characters from their milieu to “our world” did work once …

Therefore, studios and their accountants will always hope that it will work again.