Blogcritics Author: Chase McInerney
A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously.

• Announcement: Short-content feeds
  Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.
• Osama bin Martian and War of the Worlds
  In updating H.G. Wells' classic The War of the Worlds into modern-day America, Steven Spielberg and screenwriters David Koepp and Josh Friedman conjure up an alien invasion that reverberates with the horrific sights and sounds of 9/11.That isn't to say this latest War of the Worlds aspires to some sort of Big Message. No, this is Spielberg at his most commercial, a big, buttery, popcorn-fed creature packed with enough thrills to satisfy a Knievel family reunion. Even so, Wells' 1898 masterpiece of science fiction has always been remarkably malleable for exploiting the fears of generations. As a staunch socialist and critic of the British colonialism of his time, Wells challenged his country's zest for occupation by imagining that Britain itself endures a Martian reckoning day. In 1938, Orson Welles' infamous radio version seemed all too real in a world witnessing the beginnings of Hitler's quest for European domination. Fifteen years later, Hollywood revisited the Wells novel in the midst of Cold War anxiety.So it's only fitting that this War of the Worlds is thick with familiar imagery. In the wake of the movie's alien invasion, buildings come crashing to the ground while bridges snap like toothpicks. An airliner slams into a suburban neighborhood. As the death toll rises, clothes come wafting down from the heavens. Desperate families search for missing loved ones by plastering handbills along the sides of buildings. The survivors of the attacks stumble about in a daze, covered head to foot in a gray ashen soot.While that might sound a bit too close to reality -- particularly in light of another major terrorist strike -- Spielberg is less interested in parable than he is in purely whiz-bang filmmaking.Tom Cruise takes time out from pistol-whipping postpartum moms to star as Ray Ferrier, a divorced New Jersey dockworker who apparently went to the Spielberg school of problematic fathers. Ray's ex-wife drops off their kids, 10-year-old Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and teenaged Robbie (Justin Chatwin), for the weekend so that she and her current husband can travel to Boston, but Ray is hardly the prepared poppa. His kitchen boasts more car parts than it does food, and the immature Ray barely knows what to talk about to his distant children.Then the aliens arrive -- or, more accurately, they emerge. A freak electrical storm serves as a prelude to the invasion. The creatures pop up from the earth below, piloting long-buried fighting machines that stomp around on three legs and shoot death rays that vaporize victims within seconds (another chilling throwback to the World Trade Center tragedy). Shot for shot, the initial appearance of the itching-for-a-fight spacemen nearly rivals the intensity of Saving Private Ryan's storming of Omaha Beach.Throughout War of the Worlds, Spielberg revels in cinema's possibilities with the same zeal that D.W. Griffith must have relished transporting audiences to ancient Babylon in Intolerance. When the Ferriers flee Jersey in one of the few functioning SUVs, the camera whips around -- and then in and out of -- the vehicle in a dazzling single take. In one edge-of-the-seat scene, an alien probe checks out a dank basement where the Ferriers are hiding while Ray struggles with another survivor, a half-out-of-his-mind fella named Ogilvy (portrayed by Tim Robbins). In a jaw-dropping orchestration of F/X, seat-shaking sound effects and virtuoso camerawork, Spielberg keeps the narrative at a fever pitch. And he wisely makes sure that we see the alien takeover through the eyes of the Ferrier family, rarely moving his camera away from ground level.The guy has still got it.
• Batman Begins
  If there is any justice in the box office, Batman Begins would be awash in moolah. Alas, while it appears to be doing well, its box office still appears to be below expectations (perhaps a real indication that the home entertainment phenomenon is having a significant and lasting impact on movie theaters).As excellent as Memento was, that marvel of indie filmmaking from 2000 hardly hinted at the big-budget confidence of director Christopher Nolan. Taking the helm for this prequel marking a return to the Batman franchise, Nolan presents what some might have thought unthinkable: a quasi-realistic, intelligent and provocative movie based on a comic book hero.Christian Bale stars as our brooding Caped Crusader, the son of a Gotham City philanthropist who was a child when he saw his parents gunned down by a mugger. The trauma spurs his personal odyssey to East Asia, where he apparently bums around the likes of Tibet, living as a petty thief until he falls under the guidance of a shadowy cult, the League of Shadows. It is there he learns to become something of a super vigilante, although Bruce bails once the group's leadership, portrayed by Liam Neeson and Ken Watanabe, start crazy talk about destroying Gotham City.So Bruce returns to his hometown after a seven-year absence. Drawing upon his education from the badasses of the League of Shadows, the heir to the Wayne fortune begins the painful creation of Batman, dedicated to cleaning up this city overrun by mobsters. During such scenes, the movie provides a kick of familiarity in the same way that the final 30 minutes of Revenge of the Sith tickled moviegoers. We are watching the birth of an icon, from the Batman costume (sans Joel Schumacher's plated nipples, thank God) to the Bat Cave to Batmobile. And best of all is that Nolan grounds his story in a veneer of realism.Batman Begins delivers plenty of bone-crunching action and some edge-of-the-seat sequences (particularly a chase involving the Batmobile), but screenwriters Nolan and David S. Goyer conspicuously avoid much of a body count. For all the darkness inherent in the Batman myth, the filmmakers are not afraid to examine timely questions of what separates vengeance from justice. Batman refuses to play executioner.Bale is terrific in the lead, an actor blessed with a tough action-hero presence but one who is also capable of acting. Katie Holmes is fine as Bruce Wayne's childhood pal-turned-honest assistant district attorney; the only downside to her performance is that she's a bit of a distraction in the wake of the TomKat media deluge. But the cast is uniformly top-notch, and cinephiles are sure to appreciate the litany of great character actors: Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Rutger Hauer, Cillian Murphy and Tom Wilkinson all get a chance to shine.
• Marriage Is Hard Work: Mr. and Mrs. Smith
  In the annals of big-budget Hollywood movies -- if, indeed, there are people retentive of such annals -- Mr. and Mrs. Smith is likely to be remembered chiefly for the tabloid coverage surrounding the alleged off-screen coupling of its on-screen couple, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. But leashing it beside such mangled mutts as Gigli and Proof of Life would be a bit unfair, for the movie, while far from a masterpiece, is no dog -- at least, not by the standards of what's shaping up to be a lackluster year at the movies.By now you undoubtedly know that Pitt and Jolie portray Joe and Jane Smith, clandestine assassins who work for competing (and nameless) agencies. The affluent, bored husband and wife have kept their lethal professions a secret from each other, but that changes when their paths cross over a job that both of them bungle. As a result, John and Jane are assigned to kill one another.Like the song says, it's a thin line between love and hate. Mr. and Mrs. Smith is at its cleverest when it riffs on the little secrets that whittle away at marital bliss. Perhaps the secrets harbored by the Smiths involve more of a body count than do those of most couples (we hope), but the resulting detachment and ennui isn't so alien. And so beneath the silliness is a parable of marriage that actually resonates.Well, it resonates some. Simon Kinberg's screenplay doesn't exactly break new ground exploring post-coitus rage. Pictures such as Prizzi's Honor and The War of the Roses boasted much more cutting satire, but Kinberg excels at witty double meanings. "I missed you today," John tells his wife