WCBE 90.5 FM: "The Queen," "Running with Scissors," "Borat," "Renaissance"

WCBE 90.5 FM
"It’s Movie Time: "The Queen," "Running with Scissors," "Borat,""Renaissance"
Co-hosts, writers & producers: John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Time: Friday, 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, November 3, 2006
streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org .

Clay

“The Queen" is regal but frigidly rigid . . .

John

“Running with Scissors" cuts and runs . . .

Clay

"Borat" is as politically incorrect as Rush Limbaugh’s riff on Michael J. Fox . . .

HIT MUSIC, THEN UP THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak McCuen

"It's Movie Time" in Columbus 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

Clay ("The Queen" 128 words)

Folks, if there’s a theme to be found in Stephen Frears’s “The Queen,” it could be simply stated: let the Queen be the Queen, let Tony Blair be Tony Blair, and let the Princess Diana rest in peace.

Set in London in the summer of 1997, “The Queen” begins just after Tony Blair has become England’s Prime Minister, and just before the cheeky Princess Di comes face to face with her untimely fate.

An engaging exploration of how the powers of tradition, political ambition, and the resistance to power interact, “The Queen” is a brilliantly written and marvelously acted morality play that reveals that Queens, Prime Ministers, and even Princesses can get themselves in trouble by remaining true to who they are.

Could Shakespeare have been wrong, John?

John (“Running with Scissors” 127 words)

No, only Blair is wrong, very wrong.

"Where do I begin to tell the story of how my mother left me, and then I left her?"

After this promising opening in Running with Scissors, narrated by Augusten Burroughs (Joseph Cross), director Ryan Murphy, adapting the 2002 successful novel of the same name, piles on sometimes funny scenes in the spirit but not the success of Royal Tenenbaums and Little Miss Sunshine.

Augusten samples a fringe life of Freudian scatology and shock treatments for fun. There is no character, not even the narrator (played too remotely) who commands sympathy or with whom an audience can identify. The Tenenbaum love/hate glue is absent.

What does happen, though, is your desire to go to the book to enjoy the faultless deadpan narration that endears readers to Augusten.

Clay (“Borat” 129 words)

Well, John, “Borat” is outrageously funny because he does not go by the book, nor does he play by the rules.

Brit comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s "Borat" also proves that even the smartest among us can be fooled by a pro. It wasn’t till half-way through the movie that I finally figured out that Borat was NOT really a funny filmmaker from Kazakstani TV. Oh, shame.

It remains to be seen whether or not Cohen’s Borat will remain as funny when everyone else discovers his character is only a sham.

But what with recent appearances on David Letterman and an upcoming appearance with Jon Stewart in Columbus, the whole world will soon find out that neither Borat, nor Letterman, nor even Jon Stewart is really that real.

Go figure.

John ("Renaissance" 126 words)

How about ANIMATION figure?

Rotoscoped animation renders actors into comic-book characters in stark black and white, recently exemplified in A Scanner Darkly. The best combination of style, characterization, and imagination was Sin City. Renaissance, with the voice of Daniel Craig as a futuristic cop, does not measure up.

The plot, with Craig’s police captain Karas searching for a missing prominent researcher, has the usual violence and sex and not much more worth mentioning as it follows the formula for animation thrillers and James Bond fantasies. The brilliant black and white often looks like an Edward Munch Scream in motion and the women are, well, predictably babes.

Those seeking a serviceable product of the genre will not be disappointed. Those searching for Japanese anime-like complexity may not find their target.

Clay

But enough of queenly queens, schizoid cut-ups, whacked out comedians, and screaming Munchkins, John, because it's grading time.

HIT DRUMS

John

Holy Royal Highnesses, Hooray!

Clay

"The Queen" gets an "A" because it is deserving of numerous ACADEMY AWARDS . . .

John

"Running with Scissors" earns a “C” because even an Annette Bening Oscar COULDN’T save IT. . .

Clay

"Borat" gets an "A" because AUDACIOUS is as AUDACIOUS does . . .

John

"Renaissance" earns a “C” because “CARTOON CHARACTERS” need originality, too

DRUMS OUT

John

Clay: Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana remind me of Condi and Hillary. I guess you can’t MAKE women love each other-- except for a fiction like Running with Scissors, where in its masturbatiorium they can at least love themselves. I'm outta here.

Clay

Well, John, the love of self is the beginning of wisdom, and the strongest man (or woman) is still he/she who stands most alone. Thank you, Mr. Ibsen.

I’m outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT CLOSING THEME THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle:

The Award-Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is written and produced by John DeSando and Clay Lowe in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus, Ohio.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

Copyright by John DeSando & Clay Lowe, 2006