WCBE 90.5 FM: "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith"

WCBE#219-FINAL
It's Movie Time
Co-hosts: John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Special Guest: Dan Mushalko, WCBE
Producer/Director: Richelle Antczak, WCBE 90.5 FM

Reviews: “Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith ”
Taped: May 25, 2005
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, May 27, 2005
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org .

The Script:

John
"Star Wars” is a stellar addition to the Lucas empire . . .

Dan
“Star Wars” Lucas' latest entry proves that the franchise is far from Sith and tired . . .

Clay
“Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” is the second movie I’ve reviewed this year that journeys through Dante’s Inferno . . .

MUSIC UP THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak
"It's Movie Time" in Central-Ohio special “Star Wars Edition 2005” with John DeSando, Clay Lowe, and WCBE’s Science Editor, Dan Mushalko . . .

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John
I'm John DeSando

Clay
I'm Clay Lowe

Dan
And I’m Dan Mushalko

John (“Star Wars”)
George Lucas’s Star Wars: Episode III--Revenge of the Sith is second for me to the original now called Episode IV—A New Hope; the original has a clarity, innocence, and spirit even this estimable installment can't eclipse.

More interesting than my nostalgia is the allegorical commentary even Lucas admits is underneath Sith. When Darth Vader tells Obi-Wan, “If you’re not with me, you’re my enemy,” no aware adult can miss the echo of George Bush’s similar challenge. Obi-Wan’s response is a liberal’s rejoinder to the 21 st -century neocons' streamlined mantras: “Only a Sith thinks in absolutes.” Lucas himself, while admitting he started this line of thinking about Nixon and Vietnam with the notion that “the senate could give itself over, could surrender to a dictator,” said recently, "I hope that situation never arises in our country. Maybe the film will awaken people to this danger."

What makes Sith superior to all other sci-fi films, even others in its own canon, is the special effects that are themselves OTHERWORLDLY.

Dan (“Star Wars”)
There's a lot to praise in Episode III of the Star Wars canon, gentle sirs, but there is a lot to be buried, too. At last - at looooong last - Lucas has written a script that lets the wondrous acting abilities of Ewan McGregor and Ian McDiarmid shine as Obi Wan Kenobi and Emperor Palpatine, respectively. These are masters of the force of acting.

Sadly, though, the fulcrum scenes for both play them against Hayden Christiansen as Anakin Skywalker - Obi Wan trying to stop Ani's metamorphosis into Darth Vader and Palpatine trying to bring it on. And Hayden's flat, whiny acting pulls down those scenes enough to pull this audience member out of the fantastic fantasy world Lucas has otherwise created. Seriously, John, Clay: Christiansen makes Keanu Reeves look like Laurence Olivier in comparison!

Some of the science flaws burst the suspension-of-disbelief bubble, but we've gotten enough of that from the Kansas and Ohio education boards lately that it's not a major fiction flaw. This resident geek's conclusion: Lucas finally got it right.

Here is a movie that stands on its own, with or without the other Star Wars films. It's a solid story of a destined descent into darkness with a new hope waiting just around the corner. This is a visual treat with archetypal storytelling that's not to be missed, one actor notwithstanding.

Clay ("Star Wars")
Folks, from the walnut groves of California, to the editing rooms of USC, to the film sets of Francis Ford Coppella, George Lucas has learned to harness his boyhood visions to the most awesome visual technologies in the world.

He’s also a story teller in the tradition of Jules Verne, H. Rider Haggard and Jack London who were all masters of spinning a good yarn. What movie in the 20th Century told a better adventure story than his original “Indiana Jones”? And what movie, with apologies to “Woodstock,” better captured the musical excitement of the sixties than his “American Graffiti (1973).”

But when it comes to dramatic depth his critics have persisted in insisting he’s over his head. His “Star Wars” sagas have never scored as high intellectually as has his intergalactic “Star Trek” rivals who did their sailing into space on TV.

Thus, Dan and John, my final rhetorical question is: Will this final “Star Wars” venture into political allegory raise his stock among America’s egghead critics or will it merely add his name to the lists of Hollywood luminaries conservatives love to hate on the web? Or do his audiences really care?

But enough of spaceships, robots, and wrinkled little rodents, Dan and John, because it’s grading time.

John
Hooray!

“Star Wars” earns an A for its ANTI-BUSH ALLEGORY . . .

Dan
"Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith" gets a B for bad acting from bad boy Hayden Christiansen. . . .

Clay
“Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” gets an “A” because it does what it does with a genuine APPRECIATION for AWE . . .

John
Clay and Dan: Hayden Christensen, who lamely plays Anakan Skywalker/Darth Vader, is thinking of leaving acting to become an architect. We can only hope he may inspire another “gifted” actor, Paris Hilton, to leave and become an oral surgeon.

I’m outta here.

Clay
Well, John, all I know is that I’d rather be in Paris than here in Columbus with you.

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 and 106.7 FM in Newark.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

© 2005 John DeSando and Clay Lowe

WCBE 90.5 FM: "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," "Steamboy"

WCBE#218-FINAL
It's Movie Time
Co-hosts: John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Producer/Director: Richelle Antczak, WCBE 90.5 FM

Reviews: “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room ," “Steam Boy,”
Taped: May 18, 2005
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, May 20, 2005
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org .

The Script:

Clay
“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” one more time, on DVD . . .

John
"Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" warns YOU to be SMART about where you put YOUR investments. . .

And “Steam Boy” is 21st Century sensibility found in 19th century industrialism . . .

MUSIC UP THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak
"It's Movie Time" in Central-Ohio, with John DeSando and Clay Lowe . .

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John
I'm John DeSando

Clay (“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”
And I'm Clay Lowe.

Folks, if you like watching fat cats, crooked publishers, and jaundiced politicians take on local yokels whom they’ve had appointed to the Senate, then Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” now on DVD, is the movie for you. Never mind that it was made in 1939, and never mind that the world in those days seemed more innocent. [It nevertheless took courage to produce it. Just ask Orson Welles what happened to “Citizen Kane” two years later.]

As corny as it gets, the movie’s Oscar winning script had Jimmy Stewart playing a Boy Ranger advisor who was the one picked to replace the state’s recently deceased senator. Selected, of course, not because his character was so simple hearted, but because (when it came to politics), he was so simple minded.

But even though Washington’s rough and tumble immediately drove him to his knees, he managed to get back up (and with a little help from new found friends), took them all on by mounting a marathon filibuster on the floor of the Senate.

His mantra?

“Lost causes are the only causes worth fighting for,” eh John?

John ("Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room")
Clay: "Ask why" was the mantra of one of the most remarkable companies in the history of modern society: Enron. And no one, not even the venerable accounting firm Arthur Anderson, posed that question. So the little energy company that could amassed billions of dollars through deceptive accounting practices ignored by the people paid to know.

Alex Gibney's disturbing documentary, "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," begins with the tragic concept of the fatal flaw, hubris, and applies it meticulously to Ken Lay, Andrew Skilling, and Andrew Fastow, the princes of Enron darkness.

The documentary fails only when it manipulates its audience with background songs that dramatize the obvious ironies, e.g.' "Son of a Preacher Man" plays during Lay's biography. It also regrettably holds back on the cozy relationship between CEO Lay and the Bush family.

One of the talking heads describes Enron as "a house of cards . . . built
over a pool of gasoline." It is enjoyable to see Enron execs figuratively torched in their House of Wax.

Clay ("Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room")
John, “The Smartest Guys in the Room” ended up, of course, being the dumbest guys in the room, but that’s only because they got caught. And you’re right, this documentary should be placed right alongside “The House of Wax” as a fitting film to be classified in the genre called horror.

The lives destroyed, the confidences betrayed, the black marks that have marred the reputations of some of our nation’s most prestigious institutions will be a long time scrubbing clean. HOW it happened has been meticulously documented by the filmmakers who traced the threads that led to the tangled web at the end. But WHY it happened they have left unsaid. Simple pride and greed is not an answer.

Perhaps next week when we devote our whole show to the new Star Wars saga, we might discover that not only has George Lucas asked the question “Why?” He might also have come up with a more definitive answer.

John, science fiction may have more to offer than I thought.

John ("Steam Boy")
Clay, returning to theaters is Steamboy, a Japanese animated marriage of Metropolis and Sky Captain, a fable about the limited and unlimited possibilities of science and invention. This film takes the powerful presence of steam in the mid-nineteenth century and blends it with scientists' and politicians' dreams of transcendence.

The animation is traditional, not fancy, just comic book enough to make you nostalgic, but modern enough to dazzle you with the pipes, dials, bolts, gears, and steam--as Fritz Lang did in Metropolis (1927). When young hero Ray uses an engine-driven wheel to escape a monstrous tractor, the thrills are as effective as those of the best Hollywood chases.

The look of Steamboy throughout is more like Blake’s “dark Satanic Mills” and less like the idyllic counterpoints in Lang’s “Metropolis.” Although at times repetitive and didactic, Steamboy is thrilling and serious about the future of mankind and one of my all time favorite animations.

Clay
Enough of smart guys, dumb guys, and dark satanic mills, John, because it’s grading time.

John
Hooray!

Clay
“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” gets an “A” because Frank Capra’s common folk ARE ALWAYS ALTRUISTIC . . .

John
"Enron, The Smartest Guys in the Room" earns a "B" because BIG BUCKS often BREAK BIG BUSINESSES . . .

Clay
"Enron” gets a “B” because to say BUSINESS is BUSINESS is not an answer to Why? . . .

John
"Steam Boy” earns an "A" because it's ALLEGORICAL ANIMATION at its best . . .

Clay, If I smartly switch my retirement investment from energy to health care, do you think the PRESIDENT will care?

Clay
John, the President will always care, but just to make sure you’d best stuff your bucks in a mattress.

I'm outta here.

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 and 106.7 FM in Newark.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

© 2005 John DeSando and Clay Lowe

WCBE 90.5 FM: "The Ballad of Jack and Rose," Mindhunters," "Crash"

WCBE#217-FINAL
It’s Movie Time
Co-hosts: John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Producer/Director: Richelle Antczak, WCBE 90.5 FM

Reviews: “The Ballad of Jack and Rose,” “Mindhunters,” “Crash”
Taped: 11:00 am, May 11, 2005
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, May 13, 2005
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org .

The Script:

Clay
"The Ballad of Jack and Rose” is “Woodstock” post-mortem . . .

John
"Mindhunters” is a mindless thriller . . .

Clay
“Crash” is the sound of cultures clashing on the streets of L.A. . . .

MUSIC UP THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak
"It's Movie Time" in Central-Ohio, with John DeSando and Clay Lowe . .

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John
I'm John DeSando

Clay
And I'm Clay Lowe.

John (“The Ballad of Jack and Rose”)
Clay, My pick for male Oscar winner so far this year is Daniel Day-Lewis as an eccentric father of a precocious girl in The Ballad of Jack and Rose.

I don’t think the bard suggested incest on the menu for Prospero and Miranda in his Tempest, but in THIS ballad dad and daughter alone on a remote peninsula off the East coast are not fighting just real estate developers and dad’s lovers, they are dealing with incestuous feelings so subtly relayed that even our Christian president might not be offended.

Clay
Shades of Adam and Eve.

John
Not quite that naive.

I am a critic with five beautiful daughters in the healthiest of relationships, but that a man alone with a bright, loving, free-spirited girl COULD go to the dark side is the genius of this parable about the difficulties of living outside societal norms, which sometimes fortunately restrict baser instincts.

Day-Lewis’s conflicted protagonist is a marvelous piece of acting, the best of his career, and the most interesting this year.

Clay (“The Ballad of Jack and Rose”)
Great acting, John? Come on, you gave Charlize Theron your Best Actress vote when she got fat in order to play a serial killer. Now, you’ve cast your vote for Daniel Day Lewis for getting skinny in order to play a dying father. I’m confused.

No matter. Daniel Day Lewis’s performance in The Ballad of Jack and Rose IS what everyone seems to be talking about [after they’ve seen this picture.] And that’s too bad, because in a movie like this one, they should be talking about all of the actors. Especially actress Camilla Belle, who plays Jack’s beatific daughter Rose, who is as equally convincing as an innocent saint as she is as an angry sinner.

In The Ballad of Jack and Rose, writer-director Rebecca Miller has composed a coda for her own father’s sweet-sad screenplay about loners and losers. You know, the one he called The Misfits.

John (“Mindhunters”)
You want MISFITS! I’ll give you MISFITS!

Clay
We ARE the misfits.

John
Second-tier director Renny Harlin’s (Cutthroat Island) Mindhunters about F.B.I. profiler trainees stuck on an island with a serial killer is as predictable as any Die Hard movie (Harlin directed Die Hard II), as bloody as any Friday the 13 th , and as dumb as any Miss Congeniality.

The whodunit aspect of Mindhunters is the weakest because of the inordinate time it takes to explain who the killer is and why (The trainees are knocked off one at a time with military precision in a weak nod to Agatha Christy’s And Then There Were None).

Give me Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter: Now there are new agent and serial killer worth scrutiny. Their imitators will roam eternity hunting minds they never had in plots we always knew. The 106 minutes with this mindless horror-thriller is a cost T.S. Eliot did not envision when he described “free passage to the phantoms of the mind.”

Clay (“Crash”)
Well folks, the phantoms that inhabit the minds of the characters in Paul Haggis’s “Crash,” are the phantoms that generate the qualities of fear and suspicion. And no character expresses their frustration more convincingly than Sandra Bullock’s Jean, who in an emotionally shattering moment, breaks down and desperately confesses: “I can’t take this anymore. It seems that I’m always angry.”

“Crash,” is yet another ensemble drama by the writer of ‘Million Dollar Baby” and is set this time along the busy streets of L.A., as well as within its quieter neighborhoods. There is a good cop/bad cop duo. There is an ambitious D.A. and his society wife. There is a middle-class black couple that ends up being brutalized by police. There is an ill-tempered shopkeeper, an Iranian, who trusts no one, and so on.

The message of “Crash” is blatantly unsubtle but utterly convincing: today’s urban culture is driven by fear, and sooner or later, we all take our turns at playing both victimizers and victims.

But enough of nurtured naturists, mindhunting madman, and victimized victims, John, because it’s grading time.

John
Hooray!

“The Ballad of Jack and Rose” earns an "A" for its ATYPICAL ACTING . . .

Clay
“The Ballad of Jack and Rose” gets a “B” because Daniel Day Lewis is good, but Camilla Belle is even BETTER . . .

John
“Mindhunters” earns a “C” because your mind COULDN'T CONCEIVE how CONTRIVED a film like this COULD be . . .

Clay
“Crash” gets a “B” because it’s a BROADSIDE BLAST at those who use fear to manipulate culture . . .

John
Clay, I met a black Miss Ohio at a party in the Hollywood Hills a year ago. She was lovelier than Halle Berry, and we had much to discuss.

Now see how universal MY race relations are? No "Crash" here!

I’m outta here.

Clay
John, you’ll get no cash for burying your trash in public. And never forget that pride always precedes a fall, even if you’re a Catholic and an Italian-American.

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 and 106.7 FM in Newark.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

© 2005 John DeSando and Clay Lowe

WCBE 90.5 FM: "Kingdom of Heaven," "Kung Fu Hustle," "House of Wax"

WCBE#216-FINAL
DeSando & Clay Lowe
Producer/Director: Richelle Antczak, WCBE

Reviews: “Kingdom of Heaven,” “Kung Fu Hustle,” “House of Wax”
Taped: 4:00 pm, May 4, 2005
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, May 6, 2005
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org .

The Script:

John
"Kingdom of Heaven” is a hell of an epic . . .

Clay
"Kung Fu Hustle” is a comedic take-off on folk tales, Hollywood musicals, and martial arts extravaganzas . . .

John
“House of Wax” heats up the screen with drippingly delightful dumbness . . .

Clay
Columbus is alive this weekend with the Deep Focus Film Festival at the Arena Grand Theatre . . .

MUSIC UP THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak
"It's Movie Time" in Central-Ohio, with John DeSando and Clay Lowe . .

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John
I'm John DeSando

Clay
And I'm Clay Lowe.

John (“Kingdom of Heaven”)
Clay, In Kingdom of Heaven, Orlando Bloom plays Balian, a former blacksmith turned knight, at the siege of Jerusalem in the late 12th century. Director Ridley Scott (Gladiator) takes care to make this knight as ideal as Chaucer made his in The Canterbury Tales. In the process Balian becomes just too perfect, perhaps because of Bloom’s cross gender prettiness and the intonations of his dialogue.

I probably missed a moment of light-heartedness, if there is one.

Scott has forsaken the grittiness of Russell Crowe for the saintliness of Bloom, making Kingdom of Heaven a parable about virtue rather than a hardscrabble tale of violence and intrigue.

Credit the director and writer for balancing the guilt among Christians, Jews, and Arabs. For a history lesson with modern relevances, see this epic; for a lighter touch, see Brian Helgeland’s A Knight’s Tale; to have it all, read Chaucer.

Clay (“Kung Fu Hustle”)
John, from Chaucer, to the Bible, the Koran, and the meditations of Buddah, there’s so much religious fervor on-screen this week that you might be convinced we’ve all died and gone to heaven. Au contraire. Because in both “Kingdom of Heaven” and, believe it or not, in “Kung Fu Hustle,” it is religious zeal that’s behind much of the violence that drives these films.

Thankfully, “Kung Fu Hustle” is clever and funny. Set in the slums of Shanghei in the 1940s, the movie features a Master of Kung Fu, who’s as arrogant as a toad. A passive young girl, who’s in need of constant rescue. And a would-be hero, who when he fails to protect her, takes up with the villains instead.

Then, top it all off with a climactic scene, pitting the slum’s residents against a dancing-prancing band of axe-carrying bad guys, and you’ll find yourself laughing your head off in spite of the violence.

And, oh yes, for the coup de grace, watch to see if Buddah joins in on the rescue.

John (“House of Wax”)
TRASH, I say, PURE TRASH! And I’m not referring just to Paris Hilton. House of Wax, in which she plays a surprisingly stupid, strip- teasing bimbo, is, as the cliché demands, so bad it’s good.

In a year when the best horror films have been Ring Two and Amityville Horror, House of Wax is easily the winner, a meltdown if you will of horror expectations loaded with the usual vacuous young people, false frights, severed body parts, and gratuitous sex, only more of it all.

The climactic scene when everything and everybody take the heat is worthy of the original. Meanwhile, female and male boobs dominate a laughably entertaining slasher with old-fashioned makeup and CGI so effective that a severed finger looks like it came straight from Wendy's.

As the female lead exclaims, “This place is a freak show.” Welcome to the best freak show of the year.

Clay (“House of Wax”)
John, freak show indeed. But best of the year? Come on, has anyone ever told you that, Number One: you overuse superlatives. And, Number Two: how can I say this? You have a tendency to premaTUREly prog-NOS-ti-cate. Sorry, but that’s what buddies are for.

But back to the “House of Wax.” Stylistically, the movie is sharply edited, cleverly shot -the director just loves those overheads, and because he knows the medium-is-the-message, everything he shoots is always on the move. He’s not gotten this far in music video without learning his lessons well: You can never anything go limp or go drag on the screen.

And that lovely cast? My guess is that they are sensual and bland enough to survive longer on TV than they will be on film. Vincent Price, where are you? Your blood curdling movie has become just another dasher-slasher film that’s just one cut above made-for-TV.

But enough of religious zealots, blood-gushing weirdos, and bosoms galore because, John, it’s grading time.

John
Hooray!

“Kingdom of Heaven” gets a B because a BLOOM is not a Crowe . . .

Clay
“Kung Fu Hustle” gets a “B” because its visual effects are brilliant

John
“House of Wax” earns a B because BIG BRASSIERES are only the BEGINNING of the fun . . .

Clay
“House of Wax” gets a “C” because the action is razor sharp but the writing and acting is super slurppy . . .

John
Clay, I wonder if women ever get scared that waxing their legs will make them stupid like Paris Hilton. I'm going to ask the nearest Russian translator for her interpretation.

I’m outta here.

Clay
You’re a leg up on me on this, one John, but while you’re losing yourself in translation I’ll be checking in at the Arena Grand for this weekend’s very first Deep Focus Film Festival . . .

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 and 106.7 FM in Newark.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

© 2005 John DeSando and Clay Lowe