WCBE 90.5 FM "The Da Vinci Code," "X-Men: The Last Stand"

WCBE 90.5 FM:   “The Da Vinci Code” “X-Men: The Last Stand”
It's Movie Time co-hosts, writers, producers: John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Time: 3:01 pm & 8:01 pm, May 26, 2006
Streaming Live on the web and on-demand at: http://www.wcbe.org

The Script

Clay

“The Da Vinci Code” foreshadows Madonna’s “Crucifixion” . . .

John

“X-Men: The Last Stand” stands behind Da Vinci for summer delights . . . .

Dan Mushalko (WCBE Program Manager)

Who am I?  Why am I here? . . .

HIT MUSIC THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle:

"It's Movie Time" in central Ohio with John DeSando and Clay Lowe.''

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

John

I'm John DeSando

Clay

I’m Clay Lowe

Dan

And I’m guest mutant manager of media madness, Dan Mushalko . . .

John (“The Da Vinci Code” 128 words)

Clay and Dan:

“The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” headed for the coast. The Sisters of Saint Joseph had a decidedly different take for this Catholic boy, one that brooked no argument against the divinity of the Son, Jesus Christ.

So with what glee have I read the Da Vinci Code and seen the faithful film version.  Proposing Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene is balm to this critically thinking, Jesuit-trained film critic, whose skepticism the well-wimpled ones punished regularly.

Clay

Dan, even I don’t know what he’s talking about.

Dan

(Quick quip?)

John

Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ dwells overly long on the physical suffering of Christ; Howard and Brown dwell too much on the thrills of the chase. But this is summer, so who cares? Da Vinci Code may turn out to be the best movie this summer.

Clay (“The Da Vinci Code” 127 words)

Well, folks,  I care, and I was not looking forward to seeing this movie.  But surprise, surprise, I got hooked.  I loved the thrills of those chase scenes. Just as I loved the movie’s elegant settings, and exquisitely lit scenes that were more Rembrantian than Leonardian. Nor could I help swooning at the movies’ strong performances.  Ian McKellen’s two-fisted cane-carrying cripple spoke in such authoritative tones I’m sure he could silence a hailstorm with a mere whisper.

Paul Bettany’s self-abusing albino comes right off the pages of a  southern gothic novel; Tom Hanks plays Robert Langdon with an appropriately furrowed brow; and wide-eyed Audrey Tautou plays her part with a dignity both fitting and proper.

What more, pray tell, could you want from a block buster movie?

Dan (“X-Men: The Last Stand” 125 words)

Well, say your prayers, Clay, because Angel and a host of new mutants come to life in the comic-book translation, “X-Men: The Last Stand”.

t’s the latest installment in Tinseltown’s successful adaptation of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby created comic book series. This time, though, the movie moves squarely into the pubescent alienation, teen angst, and adult racism that evolved the X-Men comics under the inspired writing of Chris Claremont.

Like the comic, the movie tackles these issues – especially racism – both head on and in graduating layers…perhaps too many layers for a typical action-seeking American audience to fully grasp. Still, make no mistake, here’s mutant mayhem and artistic action galore. The downside: some overly clichéd dialogue, and a flat ending for you credit walkers.

John (“X-Men: The Last Stand” 123 words)

This last X-Men flick DOES RELY heavily on the allegorical elements that make alternative life styles and George Bush come to mind without much work. As successful as the multiple-approaches are for literary sleuths like me, they are not dealt with deeply enough because the American obsession with graphics almost always trumps the themes.

But this is summer, and X-Men: The Last Stand stands tall with MI-3 and right behind Da Vinci Code for highly entertaining, light fare that occasionally rips itself from special effects to entertain philosophies European cinema takes for granted.

Yes, Dan, our audience should be uncharacteristically American and sit through the very last shot and the credits to see if the future of X-Men can be finally predicted, The Last Stand NOTWITHSTANDING.

Clay

Well, enough of circumSCRIBED Catholics, Kelli-Eyed “Rogues,” and MULTIplying mutants, John, because it’s grading time.

John

Holy Heroic Fanboys, Hooray!

HIT DRUMS, THEN UNDER FOR

John

The Da Vinci code earns an A for ANNOYING the ANNOINTED guardians of Catholic ARCHIVES.

Clay

“The Da Vinci Code” gets a B because it’s BETTER than most critics BELIEVE it should BE . . .

Dan

“X-Men: The Last Stand” earns a B for bad boss’s bantering, but emboldened by blistering bad guy bashing.

John

“X-Men: The Last Stand” earns a “B” for saying good BYE with a BANG

Clay and Dan: I’m going to Paris and sit in the entrance of the Louvre to see if a Mary Magdalene might come MY way . . .

I'm outta here.

Clay

That’s  not a good idea, John, with your PURE white hair and Pale white skin someone’s bound to conclude that YOU’RE the evil Albino .

I’m outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC (“AIN’T WE GOT FUN”), THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle

The award winning "It's Movie Time" is co-hosted, written, and now produced WCBE 90.5 FM:

MUSIC UP AND OUT

Copyright 2006 by John DeSando & Clay Lowe

WCBE 90.5 FM: “The Notorious Bettie Paige,” “Goal!, The Dream Begins,” “Don’t Come Knocking”

WCBE 90.5 FM: “The Notorious Bettie Paige,” “Goal!, The Dream Begins,” “Don’t Come Knocking”
It's Movie Time co-hosts, writers, producers: John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Record Time: 1:00 pm, May 17, 2006
Air Time: 3:01 pm & 8:01 pm, May 19, 2006
Streaming Live on the web and on-demand at: http://www.wcbe.org

The Script

John

“The Notorious Bettie Paige” is a PAGE out of Clay Lowe’s youthful pinup fantasies. . .

Clay

“Goal! The Dream Begins” is the story of a young Mexican illegal immigrant who becomes a world class soccer player . . .

John

“Don’t Come Knocking” knocks the heck out of romantic notions about family and heroes . . .

HIT MUSIC THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle:

"It's Movie Time" in central Ohio with John DeSando and Clay Lowe.''

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

John

I'm John DeSando

Clay

And I’m Clay Lowe

John (“The Notorious Bettie Paige” 124 words )

Clay: as I said a few months ago, The Notorious Bettie Paige is about the most famous pin-up next to Marilyn Monroe.

A fetchingly dark haired Paige is innocently naughty with some outrageous bondage costumes or none at all because Bettie could do it all with a naiveté to make you believe she thought her soft–core, sadomasochistic photographs innocent indulgence for nice people.

Clay

Well, they were.

John

I said NICE people.

Gretchen Mol plays Paige as the perfect embodiment of sex without guile. The Notorious Bettie Page fails only by denying us a look at her emotional life either by herself or with an important man.

From Genesis: “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” When Bettie is naked, she never seems ashamed either.

Clay (“Goal!, The Dream Begins” 128 words)

Well, John, in “Goal!, The Dream Begins” the young hero is not ashamed that his father snuck their family into the U.S.A..  But he is ashamed that his father would rather have him be a gardener than a player of soccer.

Too bad.  For guess what?  A former soccer star sees him playing in a scrub game and immediately knows this kid’s championship stuff.

Sure the movie is riddled with clichés, but what rings true is the lad’s sincerity, that in turn, engenders the sincerity of those around him. Club owners, sports agents, and even his bad boy superstar teammate are smitten by his infectious idealism.

“Goal” The Dream Begins” is a rapid moving, kick ball, bang bang of movie that strongly foreshadows there’s more yet to come.

John (“Don’t Come Knocking” 125 words)

Don’t Come Knocking’s hero is an aging cowboy movie star, Howard Spence (Sam Shepard), who leaves the set of his movie on horseback to seek out the family he left behind decades ago. He finds his ex-girlfriend Doreen (Shepard’s real-life love, Jessica Lange) and children he never knew about.

Shepard’s dialogue is spare enough to make Harold Pinter’s seem wordy: It draws us into the real world of simple people who speak simply, but whose subtexts are filled with the agony of living everyday with departed dads and half-demented kids.

Shepard is capably aided by Wim Wenders, who directed Shepard’s Paris, Texas.

Howard’s mother (Eva Marie Saint) asks him, “How did you get to be such a mess, Howard?” She could’ve asked us all that.

Clay (“Don’t Come Knocking” 132 words)

Oh, John, a fine mess indeed, but who’s to say whose life was the messiest?

Perhaps it was the Mom who lived in that well ordered house full of his childhood memories.

Or perhaps it was the mother of his children who betrayed her orderly life when she dropped her guard and passionately kissed him?

Or perhaps it was his zombie eyed son whose monotonous songs could have come from Blue Velvet.

Sure they were all caricatures, and sure it’s been said before.  Think Altman, Coppola, and Tommie Lee Jones.

What “Don’t Come Knocking” does best, however, is to haunt you with its imagery, and taunt you into believing, as have the best Westerns, that the only answers worth finding are those that can only be found by riding into a sunset.

But enough of naked Betties, soccer boy heroes, and cockeyed cowboys,
John, because it’s grading time.

John

Holy Bettie’s Brokeback,  Hooray!

HIT DRUMS, THEN UNDER FOR

John

“The Notorious Bettie Paige” earns a B because BETTIE is one of the only innocent BABES in cinema. . .

Clay

“Goal! The Dream Begins” gets an “A” because its more about Aspirations then it is about winning  . . .

John

“Don’t Come Knocking” earns a B for sacking sentimentality while BRINGING out the BABY . . .

Clay

“Don’t Come Knocking” gets an “A” because it’s about a movie star who can’t go home again . . .

John

Clay, why don’t I remember Bettie Page as vividly as you do? Is it your rich imagination or your lingering libido?

I'm outta here.

Clay

John, when me and my friends were lusting after Bettie Paige, you were still trying to figure out which end of the bottle had the nipple.

I’m outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC, THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle

The award winning "It's Movie Time" is co-hosted, written, and now produced by John DeSando and Clay for WCBE 90.5. FM

Copyright John DeSando & Clay Lowe 2006