Reay Jespersen

Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is a father who has retired from a special ops combat life in order to try to get to spend more time with his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace). He realized too late that his time in the military kept him away from his family too long. Bryan’s ex-wife (Famke Janssen) has since married to a very well-off man who she and Kim now live with, and encouraged by his former combat buddies, Bryan is striving to connect with Kim in spite of his ex’s jibes.
Bryan signs off on Kim going to Paris despite his reservations about her going abroad, and though things start off well, they quickly turn. Kim sees her travelling companion kidnapped in another part of the palatial apartment where they’re staying, explaining what’s happening to Bryan on the global cell phone Bryan had given her. Kim herself is taken as well, and while recording the ordeal, Bryan has a brief conversation with the kidnapper, explaining that he has a very specific set of skills from a very specific career; that he will find this kidnapper, and he will get his daughter back. “Good luck” the kidnapper mocks before destroying the phone.
Bryan flies into action, uploading the recording to one of his buddies and explaining the situation to his ex-wife and her husband, who gets Bryan on a private jet to Paris.
His friend has pinpointed the group that Bryan is looking for; Armenians who moved into Paris some years before and have since become a criminal force which even local underground groups don’t mess with.
Armed with only his special ops experience, Bryan hits the ground running in Paris. There’s no time to waste. His friend’s research concluded that Bryan has 96 hours before he’ll never see Kim again.

Taken works better than I’d first expected it would’ve. Liam Neeson is one of the least likely actors for making my Top 5 List Of People Who’d Be Awesome Former Commandos (were I to have one), but it’s to his credit that he makes it work, and work well. He doesn’t come across as cocky in everyday life, nor when he’s on the job; he’s just all business. But he’s also not depicted as a superman who can take anything that’s dealt to him and walk away from it unscathed. The man takes his lumps. And it was frankly a refreshing change to see him getting out of breath. Granted, it was only toward the end as the climax was approaching (all the better to draw the audience to his plight and pull for him), but it was nice to see a touch of human limitations in a character with such impressive abilities.

In that vein, a tip of the hat must also be made to writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. Besson has written or been connected to a few of the best action films in the last twenty years, including La Femme Nikita (both original film and the television series), Leon (aka The Professional), and The Transporter. He worked with Kamen on a number of projects, and Taken will surely remain one of their better collaborated films.

All in all, a definite must-see for action film fans.

Echo (Eliza Dushku) is a woman who has agreed to go into a covert ops program in order to make up for - or perhaps get out of jail time for - a mysterious something she’d done previously. We don’t know how much she’s told about the program, but what we soon discover is that it involves people having their memories and personalities wiped clean in order to pave the way for later programming. If a client of the program’s company front needs any kind of professional catered to his particular situation, the company can program one of their agents to fit the bill perfectly.

In this series opener, a millionaire’s daughter is kidnapped for randsom. The millionaire approaches the company, needing a negotiator to ensure the transaction goes off problem-free. Echo is called upon, and programmed with the designed personality and history of someone who would be ideal for this kind of job. Echo shows up at the millionaire’s house and immediately takes control of the situation, clearly unaware that she’s anything except who her memories and abilities say she is. It’s only when the millionaire brings her programmed “expertise” into question that things begin to go wrong: Echo has a couple of flashbacks to seeing another woman in pain, being prepped in the Dollhouse’s programming room.
Meanwhile, we find out that there’s a cop who’s determined that the mythical Dollhouse is a real thing and is getting raked over the coals by his superiors for having gone to dangerous and case-threatening extremes in order to prove it. He’s told to back off and agrees to do so, but only before continuing on the investigation as he had regardless.
When Echo and the millionaire show up to make the exchange of money for the young girl, the problems increase: Echo recognizes one of the kidnappers and starts to come unravelled. It turns out that the personality which was tailor-made for her happens to include the personality of one of the childhood victims of the same kidnapper, who it’s revealed is also a pedophile.
As the covert ops team reels from the blow of this faux pas combined with the client almost being killed during the exchange-gone-wrong, Echo and her former cop handler (Harry Lennix) push forward to help resolve the situation as quickly as possible.
When all is dealt with, Echo is wiped clean again and is put to bed with the other mindless/personality-free agents.
At the very end we get a small taste of things to come, however: the company has become aware of a problem with Alpha, who we find in an apparent residence where he has killed the occupants and is watching a college video of the woman Echo once was as he puts a picture of her in an envelope.

As big a splash as the show had every right to make - Joss Whedon has a number of pop and cult TV shows to his credit - there were unfortunately a number of problems with this premiere of Dollhouse. First and foremost is the fact that the main character, played by Dushku, is effectively a non-person. The only personality she has, save the hinted-at troubled woman off the top, is programmed into her. And when she’s not programmed, she’s a hollow being who drifts dream-like around the Dollhouse, along with all the other agents. That the audience can’t connect with the main character of a new show was an odd choice to make.
Secondly, there were a number of minutes near the top of the show which had Echo and some mysterious guy racing around town on motorcycles; apparently part of his birthday celebration, where he and Echo then danced with friends before he confesses he seems to be falling for her. He gives her a small gold heart on a necklace shortly before she leaves the party. The mystery man, for his part, seemed to be understanding, telling a friend of his that the time was up and she had to leave. But does he know who or what she is? We’ve no idea. All we do know is that this seems to a program she’s playing out, as it then gets wiped out and isn’t referred to again.
And finally, while we get to see a glimpse of Alpha - someone who will apparently be a villain (or at least foil) for the company or Echo personally - it felt like too little a hint to go on. That absolutely everything about this person has to be revealed in pending episodes feels an unnecessary amount of detail to have to wait for. Who is he? Why does he seem to have gone rogue from the company? Why is he focused on Echo? Why does he apparently not mind killing people in the pursuit of that focus? A bit more information to go on would’ve gone far in helping build the foundation of this world. Perhaps the company could’ve mentioned his name earlier, or had a brief discussion in passing about Alpha’s mis-programmed obsession with Echo and how he’s still at large or causing problems for them, or hints that he and Echo had a past together which he’s started remembering and which he wants her to remember as well. Something - anything - rather than just a mysterious someone doing a mysterious something for some reason (with respect to a character the audience thus far can’t connect with) would’ve helped.

I’ll catch the next show or two to see where it takes us. But without any must-see moments to be had or character/story arcs, and unless we get some insight and something to care about and tune in to follow in pretty short order, I’ll take a pass on the series.

While having done some movie reviews for both my website and friends who don’t hit theatres as often as I do, I’m by no means a movie expert. Having said that, I tend to see more movies than most people I know, which gives me at least a bit more insight into cinematic goings on than some. And I’ve got to say, when the Oscar nominations came in, not only wasn’t anything there that particularly surprised me, but nor did any of it even really interest me. Again, I’m a movie fan; shouldn’t the Oscar nominations have generated a least a little interest for a pretty regular moviegoer?

But look at the contenders for Best Picture. I grant Slumdog Millionaire was very well done - and I think both for its small/underspoken origins and the momentum it’s gained over the last few award shows, it’ll take the Oscar as well; everyone likes a Little [blank] That Could story - but there’s nothing else in the contenders that really interests me. Slow-moving dramas and/or biopics? They’re doubless well done, but seriously… meh.

Maybe it’s just the kid in me (the one that will never grow up), but where’s all the… well… cool stuff? Why wasn’t The Dark Knight nominated? Granted, I thought it was a wee bit long (and I realize I seem to be in the minority on that), but at 166 minutes in total, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button clocks in at 14 minutes longer. And Benjamin Button is, by some recent buzz I’ve heard, a very long-feeling 166 minutes. The Dark Knight didn’t feel nearly as long as it was. How does a movie that well done, which so engrosses you that you literally lose track of time, passed by as a Best Picture nominee?

It would’ve been awesome to see a superhero movie nominated for best picture, but given its overall quality, its being passed by makes me wonder if such a thing ever could happen. Does the Academy have it out for superheroes or flash-bang action/thriller pics, even if they still manage to hold their own cinematically despite what genre they’re pigeonholed in? Does something have to be a drama (or combined genre thereof, as each of the Best Picture nominees are) to get the Academy’s green light? A quick check of the last few years of nominations would seem to suggest so.

So if you make a great movie that’s hugely entertaining and rakes in hundreds of millions across the globe from its popularity (which it’s going to owe in part to quality; word gets around and sinks even big name, super-hyped movies in short order if they aren’t well done), it doesn’t mean a thing and will get passed by for Best Picture if it’s not some type of drama? And it doesn’t stop there. The Best Leading Actor and Best Leading Actress categories are also all for dramas (again, as they have been for at least the last few years). What is it about the drama genre that makes an actor/actress somehow more worthy of a nomination than any other genre? To take a quote from arguably my favourite performance of the year, why so serious?

It’s not all about my take on things, of course - everyone has an opinion; in cases like this, based on their own tastes; and it’s the opinion of the Academy that these five movies are the best of the year - but somehow this time around I expected to be pleasantly surprised by the Best Picture nominations.

Perhaps I’m my own Curious Case. The older I get, the less interested I become in some things that older people are supposed to be into, while “younger” things become more prominent. Though doing it for research to help gear some of my own writing toward it, I’ve been reading more kids’ books in the last few years than ever before. And my wife bought me a Nintendo DS for my birthday last month, as another for instance, which I’ve been playing entirely too much. More to the point, however, I’ve got to say I’m more interested in the MTV Movie Awards these days than in the Oscars. Not only standard categories like Best Picture and Best Leads, but Best Villain? Best Comedic Performance? Best Fight? Best Breakthrough Performance?

I don’t know that I’ll care too much if I miss the Oscars this year, but with its more interesting categories and apparently broader scope of what constitutes “good”, when the MTV Movie Awards are on, pass the popcorn and turn up the volume. And hands off my DS!

Based on the book by Neil Gaiman, Coraline opens as the Jones family - Coraline and her distracted parents - move into a spacious new residence. They have part of the main floor of a huge old house, while aging former stage performers Misses Spink and Forcible stay in the basement with their Scottie dogs, and Mr. Bobinsky lives in the attic along with the mice he’s training for his mouse circus. Bored while her parents finish writing their gardening articles, Coraline starts to explore around the new grounds, meeting a local black cat and the offbeat neighbour boy Wybie, who soon gives Coraline a button-eyed doll which looks oddly like her.

When rain moves in and she’s forced to stay indoors, Coraline starts to investigate inside the house, and finds a small door which has been wallpapered over in the unused study. Her mother unlocks the door to show Coraline the brick wall behind it. Meeting the literal dead end, Coraline thinks nothing more of it and distracts herself elsewhere.

That night, Coraline is woken by small squeaks, and finds a mouse in her room. She chases it through the house and into the study, where it dashes behind the small door in the wall, which Coraline opens to now find a tunnel leading to another small door. Ever the explorer, she crawls along the hallway and through the other door to find she’s back in the same house. Only, it isn’t quite the same house. Things are different here, from minor changes to vast ones, including finding her mother at work cooking in the kitchen; something her mother never does. When her mother turns around, however, we see the buttons that she has for eyes. This isn’t her mother, we’re told. This is her other mother. And her father - in this world a cheerful pianist - has buttons for eyes, as well. Yet in spite of the creepiness all around her, Coraline still finds this home oddly appealing. The parents here pay attention to her and feed her delicious food, doing everything to make her feel welcome; to make her feel wanted. It’s only when she goes exploring in the ever-night outside, however, that we get the first word of warning. It comes from the same black cat she’d seen earlier, who talks in this world, and warns her of dangers, albeit done in an aloof style one may expect from a cat.

Coraline travels back and forth between the worlds a number of times, continuing to find the other world more appealing than her own, until she’s finally approached with the option of staying there permanently. It’s her choice, her other mother tells her. All she has to do is sew two big buttons onto her eyes, and she can stay there and be loved for ever and ever. It’s only when she declines that things turn bad. The increasingly horrifying other mother traps her real world parents, so despite her own escape, Coraline has to return to the other world and confront the other mother to release them, along with three other children who have already fallen into the same trap that had been set for Coraline. The cat tells Coraline that the other mother loves games, though she most certainly won’t play fairly. Coraline knows she has no other choice, and challenges the other mother to a game that will risk everything.

Coraline was filmed for the first time ever in a steroscopic 3D stop-motion animation, though the 3D version will only be shown for a short number of weeks after its release this Friday, the 6th. The process took the film crew a number of years to complete, with director Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach) opting to go the old school route of stop-motion - Gaiman’s own preference for this story - rather than using digital animation.

The 3D effect was far from mindblowing, but there are a couple of nice “it’s coming right at us” moments, and there was a definite sense of depth created throughout the film. More impressive to me was the animation itself, and I had to remind myself a few times that nothing we were watching was done on a computer (aside from “painting” some elements). Everything that moved on screen was moved by hand, and photographed, and moved and photographed again, in order to create the age-old illusion of movement. That a movie this well done and highly detailed was completed using that approach is the real feat.

The film is decidedly less dark and more kid-friendly than the book, which Gaiman wrote as a bedtime story for his own children. Even so, parents should - as always - be doing their due dilligence on this material before letting their kids see it. This isn’t a Disney/Pixar release, remember, and its subject matter may end up giving some kids more nightmares than comforting or entertaining them. Eyes sewn over with buttons and the increasingly possessive “other mother” who gradually turns into needle-limbed spider aren’t going to be every kid’s idea of a great time at the movies.

Gaiman’s immagination and execution are excellent in the story, as always, but as much as I enjoy his work and applaud/admire this new fairy tale, it has to be said that this is one of the darker and more unsettling “kids’” movies I can recall. Definitely worth checking out for Gaiman and fantasy fans alike, but parents will definitely want to scout it out before bringing the kids along.

Holy CRAP! There are birds there now! It’s like they’re little winged heralds of irony, showing up mere minutes after I made that birdfeeder post.

Some little white and black-hooded birds came out of nowhere and started using the bird feeder, not only partaking in the (smaller) sunflower seeds from the side, but eating the seeds from the suet squares.

I don’t want to be an alarmist, but birds becoming eaters of meat byproducts may… MAY signify the end of days. Get the word out!

And if you have “beef, sheep, etc.” livestock, for the love of god, protect their loins and kidneys!

… I think toasted, buttered cinnamon raisin bagels and chocolate milk is the breakfast of champions.

That’s what I’m having, after all, and I’m a champion (in my head).

This is the first time I’ve sat in the home office and watched the bird feeder we put out on the back deck. It was a present from a friend of ours. It’s a pretty highbrow affair made of cedar, with a plastic-encased centre chamber for seeds, and two narrow fry basket-type deals on either end for suet and seed squares.

So there are these two little birds - they look like sparrows, but one is pretty red on the head and breast, so I’ve got no clue what they are - that have been hanging out on our deck lately. Thus far, it looks like they’ve only been sharpening their beaks on the berry bush beside the deck (so help me, that’s what it looks like) and eating the crusty snow on the deck railing. I wasn’t sure what they’re eating, but obviously they’re surviving on something. So I thought the bird feeder would be a big hit. In my typical cinematic way of envisioning things, I saw myself putting the bird feeder out and going back inside and turning around to see it alive with birds of all kinds looking to cash in on a free meal. Such wasn’t the case, of course.

So I’m sitting here and looking back there and it doesn’t look like there have been any takers yet, at least none taking any significant amount. And the two little birds just came by, sharpened their beaks on the bush branches, ate some snow, and then - finally - took notice of the bird feeder suspended over their heads. They went to check it out, and the first one up there, rather than noticing the tray of open seeds at its feet, looked like it clonked its head on the clear plastic siding, where all the seeds are stored. Apparently, birds aren’t caught up on the concept of clear plastic.

I was thinking, though, that the sunflower seeds we stocked in the centre silo may be too big for these birds anyway. It would be like a human getting a hamburger three feet wide. But the suet squares on the side cages of the feeder have various tiny little seeds in them. Much better for wee birds, I’d think.

But now I’m wondering about the medium. I could totally see interest in a pressed square of just seeds, but having suet as the glue holding them together? Isn’t suet some kind of animal fat? Yes. Ok. It is. I just looked it up. So offering birds the seeds they so desperately want in these lean winter days but only combined with “the hard fatty tissue about the loins and kidneys of beef, sheep, etc.” seems a bit of a cruel joke.

Birds, unless I’m totally off on my recollection, aren’t big on animal byproducts. Are flocks of sparrows ever seen swarming cows to get to that succulent kidney fat? Not that I’ve ever heard, which is pretty good news for cows (and really, with the lives they lead, any bit of good news will do…) So what makes people think that such a product would be a great substance to put seeds in for creatures that have no interest in it?

It strikes me as akin to marketing a treat product for cats that’s pieces of meat driven into a 2X4. Like, come on… it’s meat! Cats love meat! What does it matter what’s holding the meat together?

There’s also a distinct chance that I’m overthinking this. After all, the bird feeder industry’s been around an awful lot longer than I have, so presumably they’re onto something with the suet concept. All I know for sure is the empirical evidence that’s before me: wee birds who could use a good snack on these chilly days are going for the proverbial 3-foot hamburger instead of the smorgasbord of tiny seeds packed in (now frozen) animal fat.

More updates on this exciting topic to follow!

So I entered a screenwriting contest online last week, deftly submitting it on the last day of the early bird reduced rate. I sent in the one I’ve gotten the most traction with, which I’ve never claimed is brilliant or the best thing ever put to paper or even an Oscar contender but is, I can say as objectively as possible under the circumstances, hands down better than some of the stuff being produced these days. And I’d say that’s a pretty fair measuring stick.
Will it be the best movie ever?
No.
Ok, is it better than some of the stuff bring produced these days?
Hell yes.
BAM.

In any case, the automated system said that I’d hear back within three days if there was anything wrong with the attachment. Apparently such is not the case, as I haven’t heard anything, which means my little screenplay is on its way to certain fame and money-making! At least… such is the case in my head.

So I recently came across a publication called A Thousand Faces, which is geared to stories about real world (or perhaps more accurately, non-traditional-4-colour) superheroes. In the submissions, they mention that they want well-written stories which wouldn’t work if the superhero element were removed from them.

While smacking more than a bit of the TV show Heroes, it also struck me as a kind of cool idea to have anyone from anywhere write their own stories about their own characters, without adhering to an overall story arc.

I’ve come up with several story concepts to send in, of which I’ve nearly concluded one and have just started another.

Hopefully I’ll be able to pass along some good news on the publication front soon.

So Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States yesterday.
Also, he’s black.

There. I said it.

I just wanted to get that out of the way for anyone who wasn’t sure about it, or who felt that it was something that shouldn’t be mentioned, because… um… yeah, it really, really should. How could it possibly not be?

One of my wife’s co-workers mentioned that we shouldn’t bring up the fact that Obama’s black, because that makes it a race thing. My take on it? The man’s the first black President of the most powerful country in the world. It’s not being made a race thing, but you can hardly look past it.

Now, should Obama have won because he’s black? Of course not. No more than anyone’s race should have any effect on what they should or shouldn’t be able to achieve. He was, from what debates I saw (and of course the intangibles of what I felt), the better choice between the two candidates. I wouldn’t have voted for him on the basis of his being black any more than I would not have voted for McCain because he’s white. I’ll always go with the person who strikes me as the one whose platforms most closely match my own views on things, regardless of their colour or gender.

What I hope, but I fear isn’t the case, is that others did the same when it came time to vote a few months back. I’d like to think that Obama was voted in based on his stances on the country’s/global situation; that he was the best man for the job all around, and not that he’s a black man and “wouldn’t it be awesome to see a black man in office?”

In short, the race thing is something that people are very wary to bring up, understandably. But the first black man in history to run the United States? That deserves mentioning. When the first female U.S. President is voted in - and I assure you, it is a “when” not an “if” - that’ll be a big deal, as well.

When we get to the fourth black man to be voted in - or the sixth woman - it starts becoming less an issue. At that point, we should hopefully be more assured that the vote was based on best person for the job, not “oh, it would be so cool to see a [blank] in office!”

In any case, I sincerely hope that he can live up to the crush of weight and hopes that have been pinned on him by people around the world - also arguably undeserved, as well as owing to his colour. The man doesn’t just have a full plate, but a heaping one. I’d hope that anyone stepping into that position would be able to handle their situation, whatever their colour may be.