Matthew McKibben

Life Before Kids

matthewmckibben@yahoo.com (matthewmckibben) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:11:00 GMT

Anne and I ate at Central Market yesterday afternoon. After eating there regularly for years, it probably had been actual years since we had eaten lunch at Central Market. It used to be a favorite place of ours before Parker and Logan came around and we started associating grocery stores with endless toddler wrangling.

Since Anne and I work about 50 yards apart from one another, we're very lucky to get to spend some quality time with each other almost every day while the kids are in daycare. I've had moments like this before, but it really hit me at Central Market yesterday just how much our lives have changed since those little kids entered our lives.

I love my kids and would go to the ends of the earth for them... being their father has been the greatest thing I've ever done by a factor of several hundred trillion. But I do have to say that parenting really does, sometimes, suck.

It's a very hard life that just goes on and on and on and on. I read an interview with Bill Murray recently where he remarked that all he wanted for Father's Day was the same thing his dad wanted; peace and quiet.To say it's both mentally and physically draining is kind of an insult to drains. It's more like some kind of vast mental and physical exhaustion desert that I'm wondering around in most of the time, only instead of "water," I'm searching for an oasis of quiet and deep rest.

One of the shitty things about death is that after a while, no matter how much you loved someone, you kind of forget what their face looked like. I think the same is true of parenting and the official death of what was once the more laid back side of your nature. I can't even begin to tell you what it felt like to sleep until 10:00am. I don't have a clue. Or what it feels like to have literally nothing to do all day. To go see a movie on a whim and then spend the rest of the evening at Barton Springs. Lying around the house now carried with it the guilt that your kids are just kind of left to their own devices, which is never really possible for long. Going swimming now involves bags packed with snacks and sunscreen and swim diapers, never mind the fact that the pool itself is this place where your main objective is to make sure your kids don't drown.

Maybe it's not a death after all but is instead a kind of coma that parenting brings about, because I'd imagine things really change once your kids become self-sufficient. I guess time will tell...

The Amazing "The Amazing Spider-Man" Review

matthewmckibben@yahoo.com (matthewmckibben) — Tue, 3 Jul 2012 08:56:00 GMT

"The Amazing Spider-Man" is indeed "amazing" in some spots, then frustratingly dull at others, occasionally sloppy and overly heavy in one scene, and then thrillingly dizzying and action packed in the next; altogether leaving a movie that is kind of a mixed bag for fans of everyone's favorite web-slinger.

The biggest issue for me was the tone of the movie. At times it aspired to be a gritty, more realistic portrayal of the Spider-Man lore, but at other times it felt like it was trying to be more of a free-flowing adventure yarn similar to Sam Raimi's movies. The issue is that when it tried to go gritty and real, it felt a little dull, flat, and occasionally boring. But then when it tried to be more fun and free-flowing, it felt like the first two Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies and then I find myself asking myself "What's the point?"

It's hard not to compare this movie to Raimi's movies. Because I have such a fondness for Raimi's movies and because our brains are almost hardwired to make instant comparisons between similar (nearly identical) properties, I did spend a lot of the movie wondering what the point of the reboot was. Sure, the creative team behind the movie was trying some new things and new angles on stuff we had already seen, but so much of the story played out almost identical to what Raimi had already done. Everything from when he gets bitten to when he's discovering his powers by climbing walls, to his awkwardness with his web slinging, to the fights on top of buildings... It all felt too close to stuff that we had not only already recently seen, but seen done really, really well.

"The Amazing Spider-Man" excelled when it would occasionally become a hybrid of the two styles and do something altogether different. The best illustration of this is when Spider-Man takes out the car thief while hurling sarcastic barbs with as much ease as he hurls his web. It brought an edgy vibe to Spider-Man that we hadn't seen before in movie form. There was kind of a corniness to Raimi's Spider-Man films and this movie strayed as far from corny as it possibly could.

I liked but didn't love Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker. He gave him a kind of James Dean like vibe, but at times his performance felt so affected by little quirks and mannerisms that it pulled me out of the movie. Sometimes the little quirks worked, sometimes it just made me feel awkward for the actor still learning his craft. His Spider-Man was a lot more on the money, though. He made it fun (and occasionally funny), without being cheesy and annoying.

Emma Stone's performance was spot on. If I had been making this movie, I would have called it "The Amazing Gwen Stacy," because I felt the movie really came alive every time she was on screen. She brought an awe shucks vibe to her performance, while also seeming very much like the girl next door. It's not an easy rope to walk and she did it wonderfully. The chemistry she has with Peter Parker was palpable. Creating chemistry is not always an easy thing to cultivate, but bringing Emma Stone into your movie is at least half the battle.

Rhys Ifans did okay with what he was given, but his character motivation was probably the movie's most obvious weakness. I didn't buy his transformation from scientist who wanted to do right by humanity to a mad-lizard who wanted to destroy it. If he's resentful that he doesn't have an arm, fine, but you gotta put that in the movie. If you want him to always be psycho and have his transformation to the Lizard be the tipping point into cuckoo land, fine, but you gotta built that up. As it is, he goes from slightly awkward scientist trying to do right by humanity to a crazed lizard who wants to turn everyone in New York into someone just like him.

Denis Leary also did a good job as Captain Stacy. The man's a good actor and he did as much as he could with a part that could have easily been a throwaway part.

Martin Sheen and Sally Field both seemed tailor made to play these roles. I almost wish that they had altered the story up a bit to keep Uncle Ben around a little bit longer. I think the trauma of losing him would have had more impact had it happened later in the movie. It would also have given him a chance to impart more words of wisdom into Peter as he began his crusade around the city, instead of doing it via a recorded voicemail message. Sally Field did what Sally Field does; bring a warm spirit to a part that could have easily been a throwaway role. I don't think she even remotely approaches the greatness of Rosemary Harris's Aunt May from Raimi's movies, but she does a pretty okay job.

The effects work deserves a huge round of applause. The effects used in Raimi's movies were good for their time but they really call attention to themselves now. But the computer and practical effects used in "The Amazing Spider-Man" really do a great job of creating the illusion that what you're seeing is 100% real. Yeah, there were a couple of times when the CGI was somewhat obvious, but I was pretty blown away by what they were able to achieve with the effects work, especially any time they would use a first-person camera angle.

James Horner's score was okay but far from memorable. It served its purpose but I can't for the life of me recall a single musical cue from the movie.

The story bits revolving the parents were more tedious to me than anything else. I hate it when I feel like I'm being set up for something and their involvement seemed to set up very little other than the sequel. Yeah, you had their absence informing Peter Parker's character motivation through the entire movie, and you had his wanting to find out about what they did leading Peter to seek out answers, but I think you could have had all that stuff without setting up the parents backstory.

While I feel the finished result was a bit of a mixed bag, I'd like to see where Marc Webb is able to take this story arc. It's gotta be a huge jump going from something small like "(500) Days of Summer" to a huge mega-budget movie like "Spider-Man," so I can excuse him from some of the poor editing choices and weird directing choices that were made. If this movie does financially well enough to warrant a sequel, I'd like to see what he's able to do when he doesn't have the cumbersome origin story to deal with, all while having one of these big budget movies already under his belt.

Rating: 7.5/10

That's My Boy

matthewmckibben@yahoo.com (matthewmckibben) — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 07:19:00 GMT

"That's My Boy" is a mildly successful return to the style of offensive SNL sketch stretched out to 2-hour movie form that Adam Sandler seemed to perfect with his mid-90's output like "Billy Madison" and "Happy Gilmore." Like a Hall of Fame baseball player whose best days are behind him, "That's My Boy" hits some pretty monstrous homeruns in the laugh department, but like that same ballplayer, it also shows some definite signs of age and fatigue, both in the brand of comedy it employs and in the aging face of Adam Sandler next to the young face of upstart rookie Andy Samberg.

One thing I've always enjoyed about Adam Sandler movies is that his main goal is to go for laughs and laughs alone. Like most of his movies, there are seemingly genuine attempts at heart string tugging and a deeper story at play (these aren't "Airplane!" or "The Naked Gun") but Sandler's movies tend to exist just so he can make jokes about everything from overweight strippers (and strippers with head braces doing lap dances), to tasting semen, to barfing on wedding dresses, to threesomes with octogenarians (with Vanilla Ice natch), to (SPOILER ALERT) incest... yes... incest. It's not hard to imagine Sandler gathering up all of his Happy Madison team, lighting up a bowl of the type of weed rich Californians buy, and just start throwing joke ideas on the wall and seeing which ones stick. With "That's My Boy," seems like not many fell to the ground.

It's because of that very concept that I find his movies kind of depressing when I leave the theater. Despite the laughs, those of us who enjoy a wider variety of comedy sees the Happy Madison formula on screen as it's happening and we all realize as we're seeing it just how played out a formula it actually is. And on top of this, you know that there are more of these to come. If this was Adam Sandler swan song of movies like this, you'd have to stand up and applaud this movie for being pretty funny and for providing decades of sophomoric humor for those of us who enjoy these types of movies. But at this point, these guys have these movies down to such a predictable science, and because they're made for next to nothing and end up drawing pretty big audiences, you know that there are more of these to come. In "Prometheus," pouty leading man guy says to Fassbender's robot David that maybe his creator made him just because he could (to which David replied, maybe that's why pouty leading man guy's creator made him, too). I kind of get that same feeling from "That's My Boy." He made this movie because he could. Not because he actually has anything interesting to say.

When I saw the trailers for this, I thought that Adam Sandler's voice and schtick would get old. It did... but I thought they mixed up enough other things going on with Andy Samberg and the rest of the cast that by the time that we approached the second hour, I was only mildly numb to his schtick instead of painfully numbed to it like I find myself during any of Jim Carrey's latest movies.

Andy Samberg held his comedic own with Adam Sandler, which I think is probably no small feat (quick, name another co-star of any of his movies), but it's hard to tell what kind of career this guy is going to have based on his work in this movie. In some ways, Samberg is like a miniature Sandler (their names are even pretty similar), with their penchant for sophomoric jokes, contorted faces, and career ambitions, but there isn't much in this movie that shows off Samberg's comedic chops.

There were a few moments where I thought the movie was going to shift Samberg's mild mannered ways and start showing off a more tough side, but following interesting narrative leads is not the purpose of Sandler's movies. It's far more interested in sophomorically poking fun at incest and drinking, gold-glove winning priests to actually be anything interesting.

The rest of the cast is largely forgettable, as they are in all of Happy Madison's movies. There's the overbearing brother type (Milo Ventimiglia), the hot love interest (Leighton Meester), the foul mouth grandma type (Peggy Stewart -- what, you couldn't afford Betty White?), and the rest of the Happy Madison/SNL crew who always show up in these movies (Will Forte, Rachel Dratch, Nick Swardson, et al).

In that way, the movie's strength is also its weakness. It's far more interested in providing laughs than it is in being interesting and something that sticks with you when you leave the theater. I hate to hedge bets, but if you're looking for something to make you laugh and laugh alone, I give it a 7/10. But as a comedy that you'd ever watch again (unless you're a frat boy, a guy who thinks incest jokes are hilariously funny, or a 20 year old who smokes ample amounts of weed with other 20 year olds -- ladies and gents, Sandler's demographic), I gotta give it a 5/10.

A Slasher Movie In Which the Slasher Fails to Show Up

matthewmckibben@yahoo.com (matthewmckibben) — Fri, 9 Jul 2010 14:44:00 GMT

We spent the last few days of our Northern California trip in Big Sur, California, a beautiful small town that seems to exist solely for the sake of the tourists who visit there. It's one of those small towns in which the only source of revenue comes from the hotels and the hotel restaurants attached to them. Since I never saw any houses or apartment complexes, I'm also betting that the people who work at the hotels and restaurants also live there as part of a "work for pay and boarding" summer program. I don't know, maybe it's part of a Hospitality and Management degree plan at one of the seemingly countless California colleges and universities.

Regardless of the town population, Big Sur is an absolutely gorgeous town. It's about 10 miles off perhaps the most beautiful portion of the Coastal Highway and is nestled, some would say almost swallowed, by the most gorgeous redwood trees I've ever seen. Because it's right on the coast, the hills and trees seemed to be under a constant blanketing of clouds and fog. One of the most gorgeous rivers snakes its way through the edge of town.

It's amazing that all of the things that make a place endearing can also make a place seem eery and spooky. Minus the backwards talking midget and murdered blondes named Laura Palmer, Big Sur had a very Twin Peaks feel to it.

We stayed in these really cool old wood cabins at the Ripplewood River Resort. My mother-in-law called them "rustic." For a city boy such as myself, "rustic" is almost too 20th Century a word. These cabins look like they had been around since Yosemite Sam stayed there in the gold rush of 1849. They were made of wood (duh!) and I bet that up until about 1950 or so, if you tried really hard, you could peak between the wood slats in the wall into the outside world. The roof was identical to the walls. They were just a layer of wood nailed on top of the structure. There was none of that pink insulation cotton candy foam stuff that we have grown so accustomed to. It was just wood and wood treatment protecting us from the Northern California fog.

Don't get me wrong, these cabins were nice. They're just... yeah, I guess "rustic" actually is the best word to describe them. If I had been born in the era in which Confederate and Union Soldiers were capable of writing eloquent letters, I may have a better word to describe them. There was no TV, no central air, and the floors creaked when you walked on them.

Again, something endearing can also be creepy. Creaky floors when you're watching a stage production of "Little Women" is endearing. Creaky floors when you're in the middle of the woods can be creepy for over active imaginations.

Because this town was a good 30 miles from the nearest large town, there was absolutely zero phone signal? AT&T may brag about their coverage, but I don't think Big Sur got that memo because my iPhone was essentially rendered the world's most expensive calculator for the night.

So what is an iPhone addict like me supposed to do if I can't check the Huffington Post a thousand times per hour? I had some major poop related ideas I wanted to post all over Facebook but couldn't. What was I to do? I felt like a heroin junky licking the plastic bag my now-gone heroin came in for one last taste of the sweetness. I played another round of sudoku and checked out my never used "weight lifting" app and used it for a flashlight once. The battery was soon dead.

Leave it up to my over productive imagination to take a cue from the setting sun and start recollecting every single slasher movie I had ever seen. It's virtually impossible for me to go into the woods and not think of horror movies. The two go hand in hand. Thanks to Steven Spielberg, I do the same thing with dark bodies of water and sharks. And when I was a kid, I had to take a shower with the shower curtain half open, much to the dismay of my dad and stepmom.

Have you ever been in a situation in which you realized that your current situation is playing out in a very movie-like fashion? I was cleaning out our car the other day and had my hands all down the on the floorboard like I was Indiana Jones probing a knight's skeleton for the key to a locked tomb. Well, as I was doing this, Parker started singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." In any other circumstance this would have been adorable. But I've seen Arachnophobia before and I know what's coming by the time Parker gets to the part where the sun "dries up all the rain." This scene ends up with me in a bag and some geeky researcher, turned eventual hero, saying "this type of spider doesn't exist in this part of the world."

I had a very similar experience at this cabin in the woods. No phone signal. The keys to the rental car were with my brother-in-law, who was going out to a bar later that night. Even if they weren't out late, my brother-in-law and cousin-in-law (is that right?) were staying in a completely different cabin down by the lake. We even passed a sketchy looking dude who was watering the garden and joked about it later in the cabin.

They could have used our situation as a textbook for how to perfectly construct a slasher movie and I knew how this would end. Parker, Anya, and I in one cabin. We hear a scream coming from a neighbor's cabin. We go and check it out. Family of four, brutally murdered by an axe. I run back to my cabin and close the door. Anya convinces me to run and get the car key from my brother-in-law. I run across the street and into their cabin, just in time to see him get an axe to the face. I grab the keys and run to the car. I fumble the keys in the car door and drop them. I pick them up and get in the car. The last thing I see is the killer's face in the rearview mirror. That's where my story ends, but Anya and Parker make it out alive because of the local sheriff who had been looking for the escaped lunatic comes in blasting his revolver. The killer springs back to life after appearing dead, kills the sheriff, forcing Anya has to finish the job. AND SCENE!

Thankfully there weren't any escaped lunatics in the area and we survived long enough to be able to enjoy the delicious breakfast at the diner attached to the rental office. Turns out they had Wi-Fi, too. So there you go. 21st Century Rustic style.

Matt

Hey, Hey LBJ, How Many Cleveland Babies Have You Killed Today?

matthewmckibben@yahoo.com (matthewmckibben) — Fri, 9 Jul 2010 10:10:00 GMT

I feel like I should say this upfront, but I don't fault LeBron James for leaving Cleveland. As someone who's had the privilege of living in numerous different cities all around the world, who am I to look down on someone who leaves what is essentially their hometown?

But it's not as simple as all that. There is no sports town as shat upon as Cleveland. If you can find me one, I'll give you my banking account number. The collective futility of the Cleveland Indians, the Cleveland Browns, and the Cleveland Cavaliers is enough to make one seriously wonder if Cleveland is some kind of LOST-like island where bad karma reigns. Like when the sports deities were up in the clouds divvying up which towns would be blessed ones and which ones would be cursed, they accidentally shafted Cleveland.

Baseball God: I love black and red, so give me New York and St. Louis.
Baseball Devil: I'm kind of red myself, so I'll take the Indians. And people always sacrifice goats for some reason, so give me the Cubbies, too.

Football God: I like being able to look down on my team, so give me the Dallas Cowboys.
Football Devil: I like the heat in Arizona, so give me the Cardinals. Plus, they have a helluva immigration law. I'll also take the Cleveland Browns. I'll send my minion Art Modell to look after the team. But you know what, I'm feeling generous so I'll send some Ohio State love their way. And just for good measure, I'll set Lake Erie on fire.

Basketball God: I'll take Los Angeles and Chicago.
Basketball Devil: Give me Cleveland and Sacramento. But I'd like to request that the Basketball God make sure and give us a player that can defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers in the cruelest way possible. Sound good? You take Jordan, we'll take Greg Ehlo.

So as a sports fan, especially one from Houston, which for a while had it's own history of chokes and misfires, I can feel for the Cleveland fan. Sports fans of championship deprived towns have a common bond. We're like Empathetic/Pathetic Brothers and Sisters in Arms.

Like I said above, I don't fault LeBron for leaving. If someone gave us the opportunity to go work side by side with someone who is widely regarded as being the best in the country at our line of work, would we really say no? God knows I've been dying to go worth with Joseph Adeline up in Wisconsin. He's widely regarded as being the best administrative clerk in the country. His filing skills are world class. Women swoon as his words typed per minute rate. Legend has it that he knows a way to type the + sign and the * symbol just off scent alone.

But where I do find fault with LBJ is how we went about this whole process. Did we really need a one hour "special episode" of SportsCenter to get this simple answer of where he was going? There's only so much one can look at Stuart Scott's glass eye without feeling uneasy.

I love that on the same day LBJ had his unnecessary ESPN special, Oklahoma Thunder star Kevin Durant announced via his Twitter, misspellings and all, "Exstension for 5 more years wit the #thunder....God Is Great, me and my family came a long way...I love yall man forreal, this a blessing!" It's official, Kevin Durant is the cute baby puppy of the league.

What's most confusing about this whole ordeal is that LeBron, or King James, or however he likes to refer to himself in the third person these days, is essentially taking himself out of the debate for "greatest of all time." To be the greatest, you have to be the clear cut number one for your team. Pippen was great, but MJ was clearly the best person on that team. Magic Johnson had Kareem at the tail end of his career. Same with Duncan and Robinson. But with the Heat, you have two people who can legitimately claim to be the best player in the league in the prime of their careers.

Either he doesn't care about that discussion and just wants to win championships, which I don't 100% buy, or he's so surrounded himself with yes men that he's lost all sense of perspective. If it's the former, I respect that. But I have a feeling it's the latter.

What he's essentially done is A-Rodded himself. Yeah, he doesn't have the max salary of A-Rod, but he's become the hired gun on a loaded team. Instead of sticking with Cleveland and saying, "I WILL win you that championship," he's opting for the easier route. It'd be like if after Bruce Wayne's parents left, he tried the whole Batman thing for a while but then decided to team up with Superman to fight crime.

Yeah, it's probably going to win him championships, but there's no feeling there. There's no magic. There's no Hakeem Olajuwon crying in disbelief that he finally got his ring in the same town where he played both college and pro-basketball. There's no Michael Jordan hugging that championship trophy in Chicago when he could have bolted for Detroit. When LeBron hugs the Larry O'Brien trophy, it'll be just as shallow for us fans as it was when we saw A-Rod hoist the World Series trophy.

LeBron never went to college, so it's understandable that he doesn't know his gods. Gods don't always succeed. Sometimes they fail. But what makes them memorable is how they're admired. Would we really look down on LeBron if he were to retire trophyless? He'd be loved by nearly every single fan in the NBA as someone who gave it his all and fought the good fight. Just look at the way we look at Stockton and Malone. Or Charles Barkley. As Yoda said, "Wars not make one great." What makes someone great is never giving up on your city, by not taking the easy road.

But I'm just a clown jester in King James's court. What do I know?

Dear Northern California, My Lover

matthewmckibben@yahoo.com (matthewmckibben) — Thu, 8 Jul 2010 14:52:00 GMT

Dear Northern California,

Thank you for the marvelous weeklong vacation. Your parting kiss of cool ocean fed air will haunt me every day that I walk outside and start sweating before I've even taken my first step, as happened this morning. I will always cherish your foggy mornings that turn into the bluest skies this side of Montana and Wyoming. While we were only together for a week, I feel like the memories I've had there will last me a lifetime.

But now it's back to the real world with the love of my life, Austin, TX, or ATX as I affectionately call her. Since you were little more than a vacation, I didn't really have much of a chance to see your warts and your seedy, Ghirardelli chocolate fed underbelly. But Austin, Texas is my home, my one true love.

Who knows, maybe my family's situation will change one day and we will be reacquainted on a more permanent basis. God know I will try to convince my wife to apply at every single California school that there is. But I have to officially sever this relationship before I descend into madness knowing what I left behind.

You're always one to welcome visitors, so I'm sure you'll be fine without me. And please know that it is me, not you that needs to change. Despite what the conservative pundits say, you are a wonderful city with wonderful people who have so much to offer the world. Heck, you're even nice enough to put San Quentin prison within eyeshot (literally) of the Golden Gate bridge. But end this, I must.

From,

Your Lover

ps: Thanks for the Crabs. Err, Crab Cakes. Don't want to start any salacious rumors.

Goonies: Best Movie of the 80's

matthewmckibben@yahoo.com (matthewmckibben) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:17:00 GMT

I caught a bit of The Goonies on American Movie Classics last night. What a great movie that was. I wonder where a movie like The Goonies would rank on a "Best Movies of the 80's" list. The 80's was *the* decade for popcorn films, yet so few of those popcorn flicks end up on the hoity toity "Best of the Decade" lists that people like me obsess over.

Well, I have news for you so called "critics," The Goonies was one of the best films of the 80's. Yeah, I said it. Sure, it didn't have a James Brooks, tear jerking cancer death or have any maniacal Mozart laughs, but it had Rocky Road ice cream in it. And it had all kinds of crazy stuff in it that you'd never seen in movies before and haven't seen since.

I'm talking about things such as:

- Cussing kids. CUSSING KIDS! Kids talking in a movie in the same exact way the kids watching it do. Seriously, when's the last time you saw a movie in which 12-15 year old boys said "shit," let alone talked about a statue with a broken penis? No, seriously. I want to know. If you can answer that question (the first half of that question anyway), I'll do the truffle shuffle.

- Awesome 80's villains! I'm talking mainly about the *actual* villain of the movie; the rich, preppy white dude. Any great 80's movie worth it's grain in salt has a dude that yells, "Andy, you GOONIE" down a well. They even had the requisite 80's villain hijink of him tilting a rearview mirror to look down a girl's blouse. That's straight up James Spader level of douchery.

- Unironic use of "One Eyed Willie."

- Corey Feldman! People forget just how great of a child actor he was. Well, Feldman was the DeNiro of child actors and The Goonies was his shining hour. If his part in Gremlins was his Taxi Driver, then his part in The Goonies was his Raging Bull. Everything he did with Corey Haim (God rest his pimple free soul) was his Meet the Fockers and Rocky and Bullwinkle.

- A physically and mentally retarded man in a Superman shirt, locked in a basement. That story arc would have never made it past the Dreamworks committee that would have made this movie today. Not saying that's a bad thing, but are we so touchy a society that we'd sacrifice "ROCKY ROAD?" and "HEY YOU GUYS!"

- The first lesbian in the history of children's movies. And not only her, but it had a token Vietnamese kid. Seriously, a Vietnamese kid in Oregon?

- Movies in which kids lives are actually in danger. And not just their lives, but their limbs. I don't think I've ever really been able to shake the thought that if the bats hadn't blown right through the chimney floor, they would have put poor Chunk's hand in that tomatoey blender.

- Cyndi Lauper. Yeah, Goonies made today would have a Miley Cyrus song on it. And you know what, the quality of that song wouldn't have been "good enough."

So you can have your Raging Bull, Terms of Endearment, and Platoon, Mr. and Mrs. Critic, I'll stick with the kids that actually changed movies... and then the country... and then the WORLD!

Matt's Incoherent Thoughts on the Toy Story Trilogy

matthewmckibben@yahoo.com (matthewmckibben) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:34:00 GMT

[editor's note: I literally haven't written anything longer than a Facebook status in probably half a year, so excuse any typos or mistakes that may arise]

The moments in which the movie going experience changes irreversibly are few and far between. Just rattling off the top of my head, you can point to the silent-movie to sound conversion, the introduction of color, and the advent of special effects and the summer blockbuster as all changing how movies were made and what we came to expect from the movie experience. One only needs to look at the number of computer generated movies released every year to know that Toy Story belongs somewhere on that list.

No one knew it at the time, but what we were witnessing with Toy Story's release was not only the birth of the computer generated animation movie, but the coming out party of a once in a generation creative force known as Pixar. George Harrison once remarked that he felt the creative "energy" that existed in the Beatles flowed to Monty Python. I like to think this energy now exists in Pixar Studios in Northern, California.

From Toy Story's release on, it's been nothing but home-runs. But not all homeruns are created equal. Don't get me wrong, all homeruns are exciting, but some can seem mundane when compared to other towering and unexpected shots. Pixar's A Bug's Life and Monsters Inc fit into these categories.

And some home-runs are barely home-runs at all. Either they barely clear the fence or they're an "inside the park" home-run. I'd put Cars into this category. Yeah, it was exciting and it got the job done, but if that outfielder hadn't bobbled the ball, it would have been a triple.

But what makes Pixar so incredible is that the rest of their movies (Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Wall-E, Up, and Finding Nemo) have not only been home-runs, they've been towering, epic grand-slams of entertainment. Each one so unique and so special, it's hard to not go overboard when describing them.

To take the strained baseball analogy one final step, the Toy Story movies are the Babe Ruth of the Pixar filmography. They're the ones you're used to, the ones you come comfortably home to again and again, and the ones that, because they kind of came first, all subsequent films will be compared to.

Some people think that Pixar has a perfect hitting streak of movies. I'd take that a step further. I think they have a perfect BEAT streak going on. Every single thing that they really attempt in their movies just works at an astonishing level. I might exclude "Cars" from this on some level, but EVERYTHING WORKS... every joke, every emotion they mean to invoke, every song, every voice actor, every bit of scenery created, etc. In fact, the only thing Pixar DOESN'T do well is cut exciting trailers. That's why after every Pixar trailer is released, people start predicting this to be the movie that finally fails.

I remember how giddy I was after I saw Toy Story way back in 1995. It had an energy and look unlike anything I had ever seen before. Each joke worked. Each gag worked. Each story beat worked. We take it for granted now, but the level of wit and good energy that Toy Story exuded was special. My brother and I would not stop talking about it. We had that urge to drag everyone we knew to see it instantly.

Toy Story 2 (how great is it that they just use a 2 or 3 at the end of these titles and don't resort to forced puns or gimmicks?) is about as perfect a sequel as you're ever going to see. I remember people on message boards comparing Toy Story 2 to the short list of sequels that actually managed to best the original. So it was common to see the titles The Empire Strikes Back and The Godfather 2 in discussions people were having about Toy Story 2. While you can't quite compare The Godfather 2 and Toy Story 2 as movies, in terms of "trilogy" and "follow ups that were better than the original, I think the shoe more than fits.

But I think the Toy Story and Godfather trilogies share more in common than just being trilogies in which the second part is the strongest individual part. I think they're also distant cousins in how their trilogies are structured. The Toy Story trilogy is not a "single quest" trilogy. There is no, "by the third movie, this ring needs to be in a Mordor lava pit" or "the Empire needs to be defeated" arc that has to take place.

Like the Godfather trilogy, the Toy Story trilogy is about the theme that binds each movie together like glue. Yeah, there's talk in the first two movies about Andy getting older and them ending up in the dump, but the characters don't spend the whole trilogy trying to avoid these fates. The trilogy instead relies on themes of friendship and family, abandonment and anxiety.

And just like Godfather 2 could have logically been the final movie of that saga, Toy Story 2 could also have been the final piece of that saga. We didn't have to see Toy Story 3 to feel like the story's resolved. You couldn't have ended the LOTR movies with The Two Towers and had people feel like they'd seen all they needed to see. That trilogy *had* to end to get a story resolution.

But as resolute as the Godfather 2 was, there's also a big part of the movie going audience that wanted to see what exactly happens to Michael Corleone when taken a step further. They wanted to see how the themes of family anxieties and control played out for their favorite characters.

But where The Godfather 3 is kind of a mixed bag of success and lowercase "f" fail, Toy Story 3 is largely a mixed bag of success and epic WIN.

Toy Story 3 (and all third parters) have kind of a built in advantage of not needing to introduce us to the characters once again. While they structured the movie in a way that a newbie would have enjoyed it, it really just picks up logically where the second movie ended. But that set-up can also be a disadvantage, too. A lot of third parters suffer from a case of tire-spinning and "further adventures" syndrome. Because we already know and love these characters, you don't have to take the time to introduce the characters and can basically start the movie running. I think that's often why trilogies feel so tired in the third parts. But what's most amazing about Toy Story 3 is that our affection for these characters is so strong, it's not only survived the 11 years between movies, it's grown stronger.

The first time you see Woody and Buzz (and the whole gang), I was almost instantly reminded of all the good and great things these characters had already gone through.

Like every single trilogy in which a single theme or quest takes place, things finally come to a head and to a conclusion. The themes that had been discussed and marched towards (or avoided) have finally come to a head. The success of a trilogy will be depend directly on how these final moments resolve themselves. Will the answers to the questions we asked earlier in the trilogy pay off in a way that satisfies the audience or will it kind of fizzle out?

I'll tackle this more in my actual review of the movie, but the answers and payoffs in Toy Story 3 are significant and emotionally rewarding. The ultimate success of a trilogy depends on the combination of a strong second movie and an emotionally (or intellectually) satisfying final chapter. In this way, the Toy Story trilogy belongs side by side with all the great cinematic trilogies.

If I'm judging each part individually, I think the second movie is the strongest individual piece, followed by the third movie (I think, this may change after subsequent viewings), with the first movie coming in a close third. But the great thing about great trilogies is that the better the trilogy, the less important individual pieces become. Yeah, one may like LOTR: The Two Towers the most of that trilogy, but you really can't do wrong with any of those movies. You can't say the same for the Matrix movies. That's a relatively weak trailer, so the individual parts become more important.

That's all for now, folks. I'll hopefully have my actual review of Toy Story 3 up sometime really soon!

Matthew

Year of the Samurai: Movies and Shows

matthewmckibben@yahoo.com (matthewmckibben) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 19:41:00 GMT

2010: Year of the Samurai

"I don't make resolutions, I chop heads off."

Samurai movies I've seen in 2010

Sanjuro
Yojimbo
Afro Samurai
Samurai Rebellion
Twilight Samurai
Shogun Assassin
Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto
Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple
Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island
Samurai Champloo (the complete animated series)

Before 2010

The Seven Samurai
The Hidden Fortress
Samurai Jack

LOST Thoughts

matthewmckibben@yahoo.com (matthewmckibben) — Tue, 2 Mar 2010 16:41:00 GMT

Works been crazy busy, so I've fallen way behind in doing my usual LOST episode reviews. In lieu of doing a mass catch-up, I thought I'd post a few thoughts here:

the Flash-sideways

I'm still not completely sold on the "sideways" world. I think the storytelling is strong, but it's been a little...boring. So island Locke is this bad-ass mystical warrior and is on this quest, but sideways Locke is picking out colors for his wedding. I think it works well for the story, but it's not exactly the most soul gripping stuff.

That being said, I think that's kind of the point. And not only is it the point, it's also (I think) a big sleight of hand that will reveal something substantial about the island and the reason the people are there. Yeah, I think we could be headed for some kind of Shyamalan like twist that throws everything for a loop.

By my estimation, and this became clearer after Sayid's episode, FLocke/MIB made an overt promise to Sayid that he'd get to see Nadia again if he'd come with him. Well, I think that with Sayid's flashback showing him seeing Nadia again, I think that we're actually seeing that promise fulfilled. So there's a part of me that thinks that the alternate timelines is actually a timeline caused by MIB/FLocke and less about Jack's exploding the bomb.

MIB/FLocke

At the beginning of the season, I was about 50/50 on whether the MIB is actually a "good" guy or a "bad" guy, although I don't think LOST will actually do use such black and white terms to describe MIB/Jacob. But as the season has progressed, that percentage has dropped considerably to about a 20/80% ratio. There's still a chance that MIB is actually in the right with what he's doing, but mass murder, even in the service of "good" ends, is pretty effed up. <----- understatement of the year? For MIB to be a "good" guy at this point, they're going to have to straight up paint is as the fate of the world is at stake.

LOST in general

I really dig what LOST is doing this year, but this is such a completely different show than it was in the 3 seasons. Part of the reason I fell in love with that show in the first place was because of how awesomely everything kind of tied in together. So you had season 1 Locke banging on the hatch in desperation and having the hatch light turn on, and then the show would have that simple light turning on turn out to be because of something that was going on with Desmond. And you had all these trippy alternate viewpoints of significant things, like Juliet seeing the plane break up after her book club party. But the show now is a little more straightforward. I still love it, it's just a little different.

more on this later.

Matthew

A Discussion on Midichlorians

matthewmckibben@yahoo.com (matthewmckibben) — Mon, 1 Mar 2010 16:36:00 GMT

Here's the text of a discussion I had with my cousin, Jon.

Jon: so i just heard a possible reason for why Lucas brought in the midichlorians

me: yeah?
Jon: if this guy i heard is right, the purpose of the midi-chlorians was to explain why darth vader couldn't do many of the Force tricks that Anakin could do
if the midichlorians are in our cells, and anakin loses so much of his biological structure in becoming darth vader, then he loses many of his midichlorians and therefore has a lesser contact with the Force

me: hmmm
that's just the thing, i mean, it makes total logical sense. even before this explanation, midichlorians made total logical sense...it's just the way the body reads something spiritual. but that explanation kind of pecks and rips at the spirituality of "the force." that something as arbitrary as biology can explain why some people are better at the force than others, instead of it being something ordained by the force/God/the fabric of the Universe.

Jon: yeah
i'm not saying it's a good plot device
but it seemed totally useless and arbitrary to me
now at least it seems to have some purpose in the writing

me: yeah
yeah
it's one of those things that I'll kind of never forgive Lucas for.
i'm as big of a lucas apologist
as they come, but midichlorians were completely ludicrous.
<---- is nerd

Jon: it's kinda like the whole god/science thing
understanding how stuff works does not have to eliminate an appreciation of the spiritual
some people think it does "oh,electricity is caused by electrons and such, not by anything divine"
others think seeing how something works merely
augments their view of the Master's Design
but in star wars, with the Force, it's almost like, i'd rather just preserve the mystical
let the Force be the Force, i don't need a "how stuff works" explanation of it

The One Where Matt Realizes his Uncle Ted is a Jedi

matthewmckibben@yahoo.com (matthewmckibben) — Sun, 7 Feb 2010 16:42:00 GMT

I caught "Silverado" on American Movie Classics (AMC) the other night. From the opening scene on, I was instantly reminded why that movie is a modern classic. That movie is and will always be one of most badass movies ever made. In my humble opinion, "Silverado" belongs right there with "Indiana Jones" and "Star Wars" in the discussion of "best of the era." What "Star Wars" did for the "Buck Rogers" serialized shorts and what "Indiana Jones" did for serialized radio dramas, "Silverado" did for the cowboy movies of the 40's and 50's. It completely brought these age old archetypes out, dusted them off, and tapped into some kind of contemporary sensibility.

Whereas "Star Wars" tapped into the collective national high of the Bicentennial and "Indiana Jones" tapped into the need to see Nazi face melting, "Silverado" is totally a bi-product of the damned dirty hippies from the 1960's settling down and starting families. That's why you have these free-wheeling, uber intelligent cowboys fighting racial injustices and becoming sheriffs and putting up with Rosanna Arquette's bad acting. Only a movie town inhabited by damned dirty hippies would have John Cleese as their sheriff.

Watching "Silverado" really triggered a sense of nostalgia for me. The first time I ever saw that movie was when I was about 9 years old and my Uncle Ted let me borrow his taped recording of that movie, which also had a couple of other movies on it.

My Uncle Ted's always been pretty tech savvy. He's probably the first person I know who had a video camera. He's worked for HP for as long as I've been alive (I think). He's also one of those people who always seems to have "bits and pieces" of anything and everything that you'd ever need. He's also one of those people who always seems to have "bits" and "pieces" of knowledge to pass on, as well. I don't talk to him as much as I used to, but every time I do, he seems to pass something substantial on to me.

That's why my brother and I have declared my Uncle Ted the number one person you'd want to have around if the zombies started invading. He'd be the guy that could instruct you on how to build a motorcycle, tell you how to Eagle Scout some water out of the ground, and then give you some kind of life advice as you went on your way. He's kind of the John Locke of our family.

Being as tech savvy as he was (and still is), he was one of the first people I knew who recorded things off the television with his VCR. We now live in an age in which recording anything you want is easier than ever. I can go home right now and set my DVR to record a show that isn't going to air for another 6 months. But for me, it'll never get any better than that first initial era of recording things.

There's something to be said about deliberately planning your day around being home so that you can be there to manually hit the "record" button on your VCR. You have to plan that out. You have to get a copy of the TV Guide weekly booklet, find movies that you're looking for, and then be there to hit record. I love the deliberateness of it all. And because your VHS tapes could only hold so much, it meant that you really only recorded the cream of the crop, the best of the best.

Nowadays, if I see something cool online, with a couple clicks of the mouse and a few keystrokes, I can send it on to any number of people via e-mail, YouTube, and Facebook. But I just really love the deliberateness of the simple act of my Uncle handing me a video tape with a movie on it that he recorded because he thought it was cool.

And if his 1986 self is like my 2010 self, part of the excitement of seeing awesome things comes with the urge to "pass it on." As in, "man, this is awesome. I can't wait to share this with my XYZ." If we're tying in geek culture here, it's more Obi Wan passing on Anakin's sword to Luke than we are talking about Neo uploading a kung fu program from some kind of database.

I held that tape in my hand. It stayed on the countertop during one of our almost monthly family get togethers. I couldn't *wait* to get home and watch that tape. I had to manually adjust the "tracking" on the VCR.

I think what really hit me the most was that my Uncle was hip enough with movies to know that his 9 year old nephew would have loved that movie. I love that geek culture transcends eras and ages. I love that I may one day show my child or my great-grandchildren movies like "The Searchers" or "Star Wars" and "Silverado" or "Sanjuro." What was cool in 1950 is still cool today.

To take this geek analogy further let's throw some more Star Wars into the mix; my dad was my Master and he taught me so much in my life that I'm still learning stuff from him even though he's been gone for 7 years. Well, Uncles are like the other members of the Jedi Council. They can never take the place of your parents, but they can often teach you things that your parents aren't "cool" enough to get.

It's because they're uncles. I was just an uncle once. They get the fun job of shaking up their sibling's kids and handing them back to their parents when their fizziness is going to explode all over the carpet.

My siblings and I have to be some of the luckiest nieces and nephews around.

Matthew

North and South, Minus the Swayze.

matthewmckibben@yahoo.com (matthewmckibben) — Sat, 6 Feb 2010 14:42:00 GMT

I think I may lose it if I ever have to have another discussion that begins with the following sentence; "you know, the Civil War wasn't really fought because of slavery."

I get it, I get it, y'all. Ending slavery may have been #5 on a list of 5 reasons why the Civil War was fought, but at the end of the day, 1861 = formalized slavery existed and 1865 = it didn't. Sorry, but the war was worth it.

I'm not trying to say that people who start these damn conversations are advocating that slavery should have continued to exist in the South, but figuring out what exactly they're trying to say is like trying to converse with "Passive Aggressive Robot" that's incapable of saying what it is it truly wants to say.

It always seems to me more like people who say this really want to say that the Union soldiers should not be portrayed as knights on white horses, which I'm fine with, but I always also get this subtle vibe that they're trying to portray the Confederate States as being this completely shat upon group of people who were wronged during the "war of Northern Aggression." I'm sorry, but the South sustained, supported, and thrived off a system in which an entire race of people was kept as little more than human cattle, so I'm prepared to give them very little moral leeway.

The only leeway that I'm willing to grant them is that we should honor Confederate soliders. I don't think we should honor the Confederacy in any way shape or form, but many of the people who fought in the Confederacy were poor farmers who got caught into something that they didn't have much control over, much like many of the soldiers in the North had no real say over their fates, either.

Just my two cents...

Matthew

Who Left the TV Off?

matthewmckibben@yahoo.com (matthewmckibben) — Fri, 5 Feb 2010 09:51:00 GMT

So I've been trying a new experiment at home and so far it's paying off. It's really no more complex than no tv during the week (for her, I've watched a thing or two during her non-waking hours) and limited tv watching and movie time during the weekends.

And wouldn't you know it, it's actually helped me become a better dad.

In other news, 2 plus 2 still equals 4.

Rainy and Cold With No Chance of Meatballs

matthewmckibben@yahoo.com (matthewmckibben) — Thu, 4 Feb 2010 17:13:00 GMT

Some coworkers and I had a great discussion about whether people naturally have a preference for colder or warmer temperatures. I tend to think that while there's a natural tendency to prefer somewhere in the middle, obviously, people generally, if given a choice, would choose to live in a warm environment over a cold one.

For me, I'd much rather take a low of 35 than a high of 35. Texas is kind of weird in that we really have the extreme triple digits for much of the summer but then we get lucky and hit some nice upper 20 degree days.

It seems to me that most people who live in places where sub-temperatures hit regularly tend to wear their weather on their sleeve much more frequently than those who live in warmer temperatures. I'm thinking of all my Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ohio born friends mostly, but they often make it seem as if living in these environments is a constant act of survival and an outwitting of nature. As if the freezing of one's spit before it hits the ground and the freezing of one's nostriled snot is a winter merit badge that separates you from your more thin blooded friends.

To me, those people are nuts if for no other reason than they tend to like hockey. But also because it seems like their biologically is out of wack. Humans are born naked for a reason. And unless you're Robin Williams, you probably don't grow enough hair in one's lifetime to be able to sustain the warmth necessary to live in a cold environment.

Just a random thought for this Tuesday. More to come later if I have time.