WCBE 90.5 FM (NPR): "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow," "Ghost in the Shell," "Persons of Interest"

WCBE #183-FINAL
“ITS MOVIE TIME” WITH JOHN DESANDO & CLAY LOWE
“Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow,”
“Ghost in Shell,” “Persons of Interest”
Taped: 4:00 pm, September 15, 2004
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, September 17, 2004
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org.


HIT MUSIC, ESTABLISH, THEN UNDER FOR:

Clay
“Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” is a tribute to action movies and old time radio . . .

John
"Ghost in the Shell"  will bring you OUT of your animation SHELL. . .

Clay
“Persons of Interest” are on trial this week-end at the Wexner . . .

MUSIC UP AGAIN, THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak:
It's Movie Time in Mid-Ohio with John DeSando and Clay Lowe . . .

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER AND SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

DeSando
I'm John DeSando

Clay
And I'm Clay Lowe.

John ("Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow")
Clay, Do you wonder where the spirit of “Star Wars,” “Indiana Jones,” and countless cliff-hanging movies and radio serials went?  It’s been waiting to surprise us at the extreme end of summer: It’s  “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.”

In the futuristic 1939, Sky Captain (Jude Law) is asked to help rid the world of an old-fashioned megalomaniac, who has subjected the world to monstrously large robots and bird-like fighter planes that take down New York City in a New York moment.

Helping Captain is the embodiment of snippy ‘30’s reporter and timeless beauty, Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow), who has a past with the Captain but a present flirtation that is the best of romances—distant, sarcastic, deeply felt, but never an intrusion on the task at hand.

Beyond the perfect pitch of comic book, screwball romance,“Sky Captain” respects our dreams, recreates them gloriously, and slyly reveals that love in the service of mankind will out. See it and love it.

Clay (""Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow"”)
John, "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" took me back to those wonderful days of yesteryear when Saturday matinees cost a dime, plus two pennies, and a big bag of popcorn would set you back a nickel. It was also a time of unbridled optimism, despite the fact that the armies of Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito were savaging Europe and ravaging the south Pacific. Were we fearful? [Were we terror struck?] Well, maybe a little, but our brave president then, told us we had nothing to fear, but fear itself. My, my how the times have changed.

What is refreshing about “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” is that it re-ignites our heroic passions. It inspires us to believe that one man, Sky Captain, with a feisty reporter at his side, Polly Perkins, can make a difference. And it also leads us to the conclusion that it’s moral courage, not might, that makes things right.

Keep that in mind, come November.

John ("Ghost in the Shell")
Clay, While the U.S.’s Dream Works studios animate with a reality that counts the hairs on Shrek’s arm, its international operation has director Mamoru Oshii’s “Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence,” with visuals almost abstract, or at least unrealistic, concentrating on the philosophical underpinnings and quotations of thinkers such as Buddha, Descartes, and Milton. In the year 2032, part Cyborg detective Batou searches for the force behind the recent spate of murders by gynoids programmed to be sex dolls but suspiciously evidencing human characteristics, not to be confused with your former lovers.

The yearning of nonhumans to experience human emotion, and concomitantly suffer death, has been an interest of Mary Shelley (”Frankenstein”), Robert Browning (“Calaban”), and Fritz Lang (“Metropolis”) to name only a few of my favorites.

“Ghost” is worth seeing several times, first for its sci fi ambiance and understated doom, subsequently for deconstructing the numerous scholarly references.  It’s sure not “Tom and Jerry.”

Clay (“Persons of Interest”)
John, “Persons of Interest,” is also worth seeing several times, but it is a difficult and troublesome film. For you will sit for well over an hour and see a parade of law-abiding Arabs and Muslims, whose family members, or themselves have been falsely imprisoned, or deported since 9/11. You will also hear Attorney General John Ashcroft proclaim that his critics who say he is weakening our civil liberties, are actually strengthening the cause of the terrorists.

From Dorothea Lange’s photographs of the Japanese interred in California during WWII; to the theatrical film “Bad Day at Black Rock,” which treated the same subject matter; to Michael DiLauro’s “Prisoners” Among Us,” which documents governmental discrimination against Italian-Americans, during World War II; Alison Maclean’s “Persons of Interest,” sadly demonstrates that we’ve yet to learn the lessons of history: to violate of the civil rights of a few, is to violate of the civil rights of us all.

But enough of this pontifical huffing and puffing, because it’s grading time.

John
Hooray!

HIT DRUMS

John
"Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" earns an “A” for ACTION AND AMOUR , , ,

Clay
"Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" gets an “A” because Sky Captain is an ALL AMERICAN boy . . .

John
"Ghost in the Shell” is a "B" for its BRIGHT BUT BURDENSOME  philosophy. . .  .

Clay
“Persons of Interest” gets an “A” because ALL ARABS ARE not terrorists . . .

John
Clay, Are you going to reconsider the kind of women you admire when you see the difference between the lethal sex dolls of "Ghost in the Shell" and the Polly Perkins doll of "Sky Captain"?

Clay
Sorry, John, I gave up on paper dolls a long, long time ago. Make mine flesh and blood, please.

I’m outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks!

HIT MUSIC

Richelle:
The Award Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is produced by Richelle Antczak in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus 106.7 FM in Newark, WYSO, etc.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

Copyright 2004 by John DeSando & Clay Lowe