SUPERVILLAINS, SORCERERS AND APPRENTICES, OH MY!

Oh, and we saw movies and stuff over the weekend. And then we reviewed them and posted them. The end.

Despicable Me

Universal’s first stab at Pixar about supervillain Gru, who needs funding to steal the moon, and adopts three orphan girls only to help him steal the McGuffin that will help him get it.

Great idea on paper, but I have to say it didn’t really work for me. The bizarre gadgets and supervillain rivalry are great fun if you enjoyed the old Spy vs Spy comics in Mad magazine (which I did), but Steve Carrell’s take on Gru made me think of Shrek impersonating Dr Evil, and the “orphans melt supervillain’s heart” angle just seems too contrived to be convincing.

Great Lehman Bros joke, though.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

A segment from Fantasia gets the Bruckheimer treatment, with Nicolas Cage as a sorcerer searching the world for the heir of Merlin – which turns out to be a physics nerd at NYU – who can defeat the evil Morgana le Fay.

The film has “Disney™ Product” stamped all over it, and like everything else Bruckheimer produces, the story is mainly an excuse to blow shit up and employ CGI effects artists. It’s done reasonably well, mind, and the three main players – Cage, Jay Baruchel and Alfred Molina – seem to be having a fun time with it. Which is as well since storywise the plot holes are as big as New York State and the love interest is as throwaway as it gets.

It’s not all that bad, but when they describe certain summer blockbusters as “stupid disposable fun”, this is what they mean.

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AND SO THE WAR ENDED

And there was much rejoicing.



In 1945, I mean.

These days, ending wars is more low-key. The combat troops leave, the president goes on TV, says, “Well, that’s done,” and America is returned to its originally scheduled programming.

Maybe it’s because I’m living overseas and not getting the full picture, but it’s not exactly a ticker-tape parade in Times Square and sailors smooching dames in the street, is it? I’m sure a lot of towns are giving local soldiers a warm welcome home with a ceremony, BBQ and maybe a parade. But overall, Americans seemed in a much more celebratory mood back when the war started, compared to now. Yes, the war is less popular now, but you'd think that would translate into more "Hurrah it's finally over" shenanigans. 

Of course, there are mitigating factors here. For example, a lot of Americans may think the war ended when Junior Bush said it did, and the last seven years have been fine-tuning, mop-up and paperwork (give or take the 4000+ US soldiers who died after Bush declared the war over, as well as the occasional civilian casualty).

There’s also the question of whether “over” is the same as "victory" or “success”. Everyone’s pretty sure we didn’t lose, but that’s not always the same as winning. Still, that depends on who you ask. For example, if “success” = "killing Saddam Hussein and his whole family whether he really had WMDs or not", then yeah, we nailed it. 

Also, there’s the fact that we still have 50,000 soldiers still in the country. Sure, we still have troops in Germany and Japan too, but – unlike the ones in Iraq – there aren’t groups of people still actively trying to kill them.

And, of course, there’s that OTHER war.

So I can see why the official end of Iraq War 2 seems anti-climactic to a lot of people.

Still, it says a lot that in the 21st century, we get more excited about starting wars than ending them.

Res ipsa loquitur.

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