FIREPROOF - A Lesson For Us All

So my wife and I went, on the word of her mother, to Fireproof yesterday. Now she'd gone on about how amazing a film it was and how any married couple would be doing themselves a disservice by not seeing it. Well, I have to admit I was skeptical... and I believe that's exactly what the movie wanted: those who don't realize that sometimes it takes a powerfully hidden message to do the most work. So, we went. Even after reading the synopsis, assuring myself that I'd like it even less, and doing a shameful job of trying to talk Amy out of it, we went. This is the story of why I'm so very glad I did.

Kirk Cameron plays Caleb Holt. More or less your basic every-man doing his day-to-day routine of working long hours as a fire fighter, finding a bit too much comfort in his job life as opposed to home, and generally missing out on what little bit of a marriage he's awkwardly clinging to. Erin Bethea is Catherine Holt, Caleb's lovelorn wife who has done her very best to put up with her fading husband's verbal tirades, passionless daily encounters, and devastating pornography addiction. Not to put too fine a point on it, but divorce is looming on the horizon.
Caleb has seen and heard all he can take: Catherine shows him no respect, gripes constantly about everything, finds the most irrational problematic issues in every situation, and cares little for the material items Caleb finds most desirable (a boat he's saving for, and, well, his porn addiction). He's sure their rapidly depleting marriage is doomed. On the coin's flipside is Catherine's laundry list of garbage she's had to put up with from Caleb, up to and including her feelings of inadequacy from his PORN ADDICTION (that's a big piece of this shattered puzzle, by the way). Soon, a separation is agreed upon.
Caleb's dad, Harris Malcolm as John Holt, soon reminds Caleb that he, too, went through the exact same situation with his wife and begs his son to try one last ditch effort in order to rebuild the wreckage of their failed lives together if Caleb believes in any remaining glimmer of hope. Caleb, reluctantly and as religiously renouncing as possible, agrees to the challenge. Soon, arriving by mail, comes a book called the Love Dare; a 40 day test to completely step outside the normal, rutted life Caleb has made for himself and reestablish the original love and feelings he had for his wife from the beginning. Each page is a new day, and each day is a new set of ideas that most people, after a certain time of stagnant marriage, completely forget ought to be simple, basic, everyday things. It teaches Caleb how to see his wife, and his love for her in a completely different way. It teaches Caleb, through God can one truly find love. It teaches Caleb that his life is far too full of sin and Godless misgivings (Porn. Yeah, that's a big one for him) to show his wife, in the sanctity of marriage, true love and caring. But for Caleb, this all comes at a new price he'd never realized before: before all else he must find and love the Lord.
Meanwhile, Catherine has merely given up. She's begun to fall for a doctor at the hospital she works for, and has taken to spending quite a bit of her free time with him much to the cackling, grapevine-speaking delight of the resident nurses, but much to the chagrin of an old friend who sees the real trouble. Catherine has become wary of Caleb's attempts to reconnect with her and has looked at each day of half-hearted charades as too little too late. In fact, before she even realized what Caleb is up to, makes the assumption that his full self isn't into whatever it is he's trying to do.
Caleb reaches the half-way point in the 40 day trial with the utter shock of signed divorce papers. He is lost. After he has done everything the book has told him to do, nothing seemed to make a bit of difference. Well, Caleb's dad knows exactly why and pays a visit to his son. The 20th day was the point where a new choice had to be made. It wasn't enough to just pay lip-service to the book's writings and just squeak by with the basic ideas, no, Caleb has to put his heart and soul into the words and, by doing so, offer himself to God, beg for forgiveness, and change his life before anything else can be effective. If this sounds particularly and suspiciously close to how one needs to handle the word of God in the bible, that's because as metaphors go, this is the most powerful I've ever seen. Or felt.
Caleb, through the assistance of his father, finds God and does the work through him. Caleb makes drastic and complete changes, up to and including taking a bat to his 'crutch', the computer. It's obvious Catherine sees this, but blazing a new trail through damaged territory is never, ever easy. Well, I'm not going to spoil the rest, and by not doing so I highly suggest you see this movie if for no other reason than to learn a few things for yourself. If you're married, it should be a no-brainer. Grab your spouse and go on a date. I realized a few things... well, a lot, actually, that need to change in my life as well. Not the least of which is a newer, stronger foundation with God. Not wanting to be any more preachy than I've been, see this movie. You'll thank me for it.

DVD UPDATES!!

A few things hit the Penguin mail slot this week and we want to let you, the public at large what's what. Ready? Let's go!!!!!
First up is SCOOBY DOO AND THE GOBLIN KING. Besides being another in a long line of quality Scooby Doo movies this puppy (sorry about the pun) has a literal ton of celebrity voices. Don't believe me? Try this list on for size. Hayden Panettiere, Jay Leno, Lauren Bacall, Wayne Knight and many, many more are in this tale of Scooby and Shaggy as they try to prevent the second rate carnival magician, The Amazing Krudsky from turning everyone into Halloween monsters. Can Scooby and the gang do it? I'd tell you the answer, but that would be cheating.
Click on this to find out more about the flick and how you can go about ordering one for your very own.



Then it's time for those lovable little blue guys named THE SMURFS. This is Season One Volume 2 and it's more of those adorable little blue creatures trying to foil the evil plans of Gargamel. Really, if you like The Smurfs then this is the DVD set you want to get.
Hit this with the old mouse pointer to get that taken care of.



Finally for all the fans of old school puppet animation Warner Bros. have released the Rankin/Bass tale of that cold weather friend JACK FROST in a fantastic deluxe edition. I remember this from when I was a kid and these old school animation cartoons don't lose their flavor over the decades. Even my kids think these are really cool. (Yeah, I know, another pun.)
You know you want it. Click here to get that done.



That's it for this week of toon delight. Be sure to be here next week when I unveil one of the coolest box sets on the planet. Want a hint? Screech like a falcon and I'll see you here in seven.
I gotta go!

The Weird World Of FLAN!

Many moons ago, my good buddy Stew showed me this site called Strip Generator. Very cool stuff. I did a few episodes of the title of this piece and let it just lay there. Well, now I'm back and have plenty more to do with it. BE sure to click on the comic below to have it whisk you away to my archives. Visit often and be sure to comment as well.

Have a great day!



I know that the comic looks bad on the blog, but it's much nicer at my new blog dedicated to the strip which can be found HERE!

JACK BROOKS: MONSTER SLAYER. I Guess.

I don't know, I guess I was just going into this with some kind higher hopes than this film was rightly going to deliver. I had read about this in Rue Morgue, seen ads from one end of the net to the other, and really built up this degree of what I might see. And, I suppose, all in all, I did see a pretty cool little horror flick that was different from so much of the other glop that's been sliding down the pike of late, but it was literally like watching a kid learn to walk. A little to slow for me. Well, except for the super rubbery, yet super cool monster fight that lights up the first few minutes of the film.

So, it starts off with Jack Brooks (Trevor Matthews), a no-direction plumber who, with all of his other class mates, looks far too old to be in the chemistry class he's in with is girlfriend, Eve (Rachel Skarsten). His professor, Mr. Crowley, a bumbling and slightly milk toast Robert Englund is absolutely the stand out cast member here. Not surprisingly. Jack is a regular with his psych attempting in vein to discover why he flies off the handle at every little thing resulting in anger-fueled tirades and ruthless beatings to those around him. To the audience, but not yet to his shrink, Jack explains that he bore witness to a brutal murder by some kind of hideous monster in the woods that lead to the gory slaughter of his dad, mom, and little sister. Jack ran, and has always felt a bit bad about it. So, Jack, with all of his rough charm and Canadian "Eh" likability is failing his class since he never shows up. In an act of good faith, he offers to fix Mr. Crowley's plumbing.
Jack soon discovers that the ancient pipes and boiler are clogged beyond repair somewhere under the ground and, as curiosity tends to murder the feline, Mr. Crowley digs around on his own only to discover a box near one of the shattered pipes. In a scene so directly borrowed from Jason Goes To Hell, a still-beating, wicked heart finds its way into the poor prof's mouth thereby turning him, ever so slowly, into some kind of hell-spawn.
While ordering up a new part for his teacher's boiler, Jack runs into Old Howard (David Fox) who, in a tour-de-force performance as the best crotchety, memory-lapsing old coot I have ever seen, tells Jack that the very house he's doing work at has an old Demonic curse surrounding it brought on by Old Howard and his deceased uncle. Jack rolls his eyes, and leaves not yet fully aware of the danger waiting just ahead.
Professor Crowley has undergone a serious bit of rearranging that only partially includes massive food consumption and gallons of various-colored vomit. As he finally completes his metamorphosis into a Weird Science-looking "Chet" beast with limitless-lengthed tendrils, Jack knows he can't run from the marauding demon horde this time and off he goes with pipe in hand to save the day.
The fight scenes were pretty sweet, coupled with such obvious Halloween costumes to almost border ridiculous, that the lack of productions is what truly makes this movie shine. If ever there was a spot-on attempt to homage Evil Dead, this was it. Trevor Matthews Canadian drawl is just perfect for this roll and one can only assume he's just as bad-ass in other movies, though I've never seen one. Primarily, the only complaint I have is that it took too darn long to get moving and the way it ends, without spoiling anything, leads one to believe that more are on the horizon. All in all, a fun film indeed.

NICK AND NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST

So, the entire family, Seann included journeyed to the wilds of Plainwell to watch this flick. I like the M-89 Theater because it used to be a grocery store. Probably the most bizarrely designed theater in existence. Anyway, the flick.
Nick just broke up with his girlfriend, but goes to a gig with his band anyway because his favorite band, Where's Fluffy, might be playing somewhere in New York City. The gig goes well except for an obnoxious drum machine and this is where he runs into Norah who asks him to be her boyfriend for five minutes. It seems that Nick's ex is taunting her about not having a date so she takes matters into her own hands. She has no idea who Nick is or that he's the guy who has been making these amazing mix CDs for his ex. She throws them in the trash.
Nick agrees to take Norah and her drunk girlfriend home, but then a clue to Where's Fluffy appears and they decide to look for the band. Nick's band mates promise to take drunk girlfriend home and they lose her in the process.
Now, all of them are scouring the city for Norah's drunk girlfriend while trying to find the ever elusive Where's Fluffy.
This is, above all other things, a teen romance. While we're never sure how old Nick is, we do know that Norah is in private school. Michael Cera makes his character a lot like his other characters, but since he's so damned likable, this works in this instance. Kat Dennings is gorgeous in this film as well as funny and is excellent in the role of Norah.
It almost comes across as a independent film. Almost. The people in it are sweet and funny and real in an unrealistic situation. Looking for an evasive band while trying to find a drunk companion is the equivalent of needle and haystack, but that doesn't stop this band of teens determined to do both.
Even the most minor characters come across as individuals.
Even my eight year old just sat there and laughed at the funny and was quiet through the rest. A true sign of a good movie if he's willing to give it his undivided attention.
Oh and Fistful Of Assholes might be the greatest name for a queer rock band...ever.

ALL ABOARD THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN

The sad truth known to everyone who can read is that solidly and faithfully transferring a book -be it short story or novel- to the screen is almost always met with lackluster, and often times hideous, results. Couple that fact with attempting to birth such masters as King and Barker to the movies and you've got a real issue on your hands. Still, of the two horror authors mentioned above, Barker has had a much easier time of it since, frequently, he's in the driver's seat. So, as we come to Clive's newest outing, The Midnight Meat Train, at least it was only a short story so not too much could go wrong, right? Well, for the most part.
Initially, I was right there with this film. The story was decently adapted and the characters, especially Bradley Cooper as knowing but lost photographer, Leon Kauffman, and the ever imposing and sadistic Vinnie Jones as the 'Mad Butcher', Mahogany, were easily identifiable and even tragically likable. The biggest problem came from leading lady, Leslie Bibb as Maya. Unfortunately she really just seemed to be there as waifish eye candy and supporting tension grabber. Not wholly disappointing, but I coud easily have placed half a dozen other actresses in her role who'd have given it the nuance it seriously deserved. Conversely, acting brilliantly as Leon's new art gallery frou-frou lass-about-town, Susan Hoff, is Brooke Shields whom I'm enjoying more and more lately. She's a dry as a good wine.
The trip opens on a train. No spoiler there, it's in the title so... there you go. Immediately we see Mahogany eradicate a lone passenger with perhaps the biggest tenderizing hammer I have ever personally seen. So now, we've been dragged right into the antagonist's handywork and his brutality. This I liked. Soon we meet Leon and Maya as they discuss Leon's artwork and the prospect of a particularly famous gallery hostess, Susan Hoff, seeing his work. Hoff finds them less than invigorating, but gives Leon a little more than the time of day as well as a little clue to, "not be afraid" and stick around in the forboding situations a bit longer to capture that one moment that is pure "The City". Leon agrees and goes out to find what he can leading precariously to a mild situation where he ends up shooting (with his camera) a near-raping while simultaneously saving the victim and shooing away the trio of attackers. However, his heroic deed does not go without consequences as the lady is rapidly slaughtered by Mahogany.
Exposed clues from the snapped shots lead Leon on a skittish manhunt where he follows Mahogany from one end of the city to the next; to his apartment, to his workplace at a butchery, and, eventually, aboard the late train. As one can imagine, Leon has fallen into his 'work' all the way to his fleshy chest, soon to be carved with symbols as a reminder to back off or risk an even more tragic demise.
Maya screams and begs her lover to bag the trail and get out before it's too late, but all is for naught as Leon manages to drag her in, too. Inside Mahogany's home, Maya and her friend, Jurgis (Roger Bart), search relentlessly for Leon's stolen camera, only to stumble across a virtual library of medical and dental tools ranging from the archaic and horriffic to the standard scalpel collection. Then Maya finds something that even surprised me a bit, even having read the book. Sorry, no spoilers here. She tells the police who only prove to be ultimately useless and potentially in cahoots with Mahogany himself.
As the tide begins to ebb in the story, it rapidly becomes almost too Clive Barker-ian, and this is where it kind of deflates just a bit. It's not that it isn't cool, because it really is, it's just that it's a little to convoluted over all. It was a bit like getting hit with a pie in a hardware store: just not quite what you were expecting, but the pie is still pretty yummy just the same. Anyway, there is absolutely no shortage of juicy gore and very creative kills that, thought not necessarily the most innovative, are satisfying indeed. You will like it, if you enjoy a good Barker tale, as even the modicum of suspense holds up pretty nicely.
All in all, The Midnight Meat Train only 'goes off the tracks' for a bit. For the most part, it's a 'fun ride'. No more puns, I swear.

S. Miller 10-5-08

IRON MAN ON DVD

I was so excited when this came out. Then I found out that different big box stores had different releases of the film. Target came through with a box in the shape of Shellhead's helmet. Ultra freaking cool, right? Yeah, sort of.
We get it home, put the kids to bed and Martha and I hit the hay. We start watching the flick and shortly into it it starts to glitch up.
"WHAT THE HELL?!?"
I new the disc was right out of the package so it must be fine, right? Wrong! I pull out the disc from the player and check the back of it. Hmmmm, there seem to be what appears to be fingerprints on the surface of the disc like some greasy handed idiot grappled with it. In this case I am not the greasy handed idiot. I had delicately removed the disc while only touching the edges of the DVD. This was no my fault. So, I thought we'll just remove the prints with a soft cloth and all will be well. Yeah, that didn't work. The damned things are still there.
Now, we have to truck all the way to Target and return it and hope the ass who packed the next one wasn't a huge dickhead that permanently bonded his fingerprints to the surface of the DVD.
I realize they make a lot of units of these discs, but why do I have to get the one packed by the nasty, sweaty, greasy person who is so damned disgruntled that they have to touch it? Oh well, the case was as cool as my Optimus Prime Transformers box so, that's one thing. I'm sure it will all resolve itself and all will be well in The Waltz Compound once again.
I gotta go.