Serialized And Sharp, The Second Season Of Friends Is A Winner!

The Good: Funny, Good character development, Decent-enough acting
The Bad: Some dumb plots, Light on DVD bonus features for the price
The Basics: A little better than average, the second season of Friends is worthwhile on DVD and has some truly great character moments!


As those who follow my reviews might be aware of, when I began watching Friends with my wife, I was not impressed. Objectively viewed, I thought the first season (reviewed here!) was actually fairly dull, obvious and passe. It surprised me especially that the show was picked up after its surprisingly rocky pilot. Still, as my new arrangement with my partner goes, she picks a season of a show, then I get one, back and forth. As a result, after we finished our viewing of the second (and final) season of Aaron Sorkin's Sports Night (reviewed here!), we soldiered on with the second season of Friends. Of course, she was looking forward to it a lot more than I was as it is one of her favorite shows of all time. For my part, Friends The Complete Second Season is a decent boxed set of half-hour comedies and the only real gripes come in a single episode and the fact that the show is a bit light on DVD bonus features given the cost of the set.

In its second season, Friends essentially continues the story of a group of six friends and their assorted love interests. The show is a rare serialized comedy that works because the actions of the characters have consequences and over the course of the season, the characters grow, develop and learn. This season picks up literally the moment the first season ended and then continues. Still, viewers will not be lost if they have not seen the first season; the characters are pretty clearly established and the situation that the viewer walks into the middle of that opens this season is explained fully within the first few minutes of the season. For those who like sitcoms with a pretty standard, though not overbearing, soap operatic sensibility to them, the second season of Friends is entertaining and engaging enough to pick up and watch several times.

As Ross leaves his plane from China, Rachel is waiting for him and she sees him first, on the arms of another woman, Julie. Rachel attempts to cover her reason for being there and when Ross introduces Julie to his friends as his new girlfriend, Rachel is heartbroken. Still, Ross and Julie begin a very serious and successful few months of dating, while Chandler feels guilty over telling Ross to move on. As Rachel struggles with Ross's new girlfriend, Monica loses her job, Joey and Chandler lose Ross's baby, and Phoebe loses the husband no one knew she had! But when it slips out that Rachel reciprocates Ross's feelings, Ross and Rachel come together, though they are torn apart by it (in no small part because of a pro/con list Ross wrote up).

As Ross and Rachel inevitably move toward a romantic relationship, Monica spices things up with an older man who she is quite serious about, an eye doctor named Richard Burke. Chandler begins opening up to more women by removing his restrictions to all sorts of body type or personality issues and Joey gets the role of a lifetime on Days Of Our Lives. But when Joey makes a comment about how he changes the writers' lines frequently, he is fired and has to move back in with Chandler, whose creepy new roommate makes Chandler's decision very easy.

Friends works very well as a DVD boxed set in that the show is heavily serialized and as a result, one episode usually begins right after the prior episode's end (in terms of story). In fact, the one-hour "The One After The Superbowl" is presented in its original format without any sense of where or when the break in the story would have come (as it is broken up in syndication now). The fact that the show is so developed with plots continuing on and characters actually developing allows the shows to do effortless callbacks to prior episodes (though there are not many outside this season one would need to have seen to understand them) and references to characters who go unseen for long periods of time - like Chandler's ex-girlfriend, Janice. Janice pops up at the end of the third episode in this season and is referenced a few times afterwards.

Unfortunately, though, this makes it far more pronounced when the series takes a turn to do a more episodic episode. "The One After The Superbowl" resurrects Ross's monkey, Marcel (wish they hadn't!), but is otherwise a series of episodic vignettes that has little bearing on the rest of the season or series. Similarly, Joey and Chandler losing Ross's son Ben on a bus is not met with any consequences that we see afterward in this season. Phoebe's sham marriage is only mentioned one other time this season and given that the episode is supposed to have some real emotional impact, this is disappointing. But the epitome of where the show goes wrong with leaning toward episodic half-hour comedy as opposed to long arcs of developing characters is "The One With The Bullies." Near the end of the season, the show put forth an episode where Ross and Chandler are plagued by two bullies and end up fighting and the plot is so hackneyed and lame that it could have come from virtually any sitcom with little or no differentiation to how it is presented here on Friends.

That is, fortunately, the exception to the rule, as long arcs featuring Julie and Richard help to contrast. The recurrence of Ross's ex-wife and her new wife put Friends at the cutting edge (at least of their time) with positive gay and lesbian characters and a generally friendly outlook toward homosexuals. The series is still predominantly white, but Julie adds a nice ethnic flavor for a few episodes. Overall, the show is funny and the characters develop such that their original "types" are not what they are bound to. So, for example, Joey is pretty much the classic idiot, but he is also deeply sarcastic, which is a trait that pretty much defines Chandler. The differences between the two of them are highlighted in episodes like "The One With Five Steaks And An Eggplant" (which should have been called either "The One With The Money Talk" or "The One With The Hootie And The Blowfish Concert"). In fact, anyone who is having trouble talking with their friends who are more financially successful might want to sit them down to that episode as it makes some salient points seldom brought up on television, especially on sitcoms!

But more than the plots, Friends in its second season is more about a very special group of characters. As the most stable sitcom cast in quite some time, Friends offers a stable group of six characters and this is who they are in the second season:

Ross Gellar - Having given up on getting the woman of his dreams, Rachel, he begins dating a fellow museum worker, Julie, who returns from China with him. Upset at missing many of Ben's milestones, he eagerly becomes more involved with his son when time permits. Uncomfortable when Monica, his younger sister, loses her job and starts dating Richard, he flounders around until it is finally revealed how long he has loved Rachel and the lengths he was prepared to go to for her,

Monica Gellar - After becoming comfortable with making more money than Rachel, Phoebe and Joey, she promptly loses her job and becomes pretty despondent. Unhappy over the idea of hitting her parent's up for cash, she struggles to keep her apartment by taking catering jobs and eventually landing a cook job at a Fifty's themed restaurant. She begins seeing her father's friend, Dr. Richard Burke, which offers serious complications from the age difference,

Rachel Green - Oblivious for so long about Ross's feelings, now all she can do is want Ross. When he returns to the States with Julie, she rebounds to Paolo and dates Russ, a guy who looks and acts shockingly like Ross. Her parents begin divorce proceedings and as a result, Rachel finds her mother emulating her and struggling to find anything in common with her jerkish father,

Joey - After years of struggling as an actor, he finally gets his big break. This takes the form of a role as doctor on Days Of Our Lives. The recurring role earns Joey enough money to move out on his own when he and Chandler have a disagreement. Soon, though, he discovers having money is not as fun as having his friend and when his character is killed off on the soap opera, he has to eat some serious crow. Supports Phoebe's search for her father,

Phoebe Buffay - The witless singer reveals her own heartbreak when her gay husband comes out of the closet to divorce her . . . to marry a woman! She is excited by the return of a naval officers, who comes at the worst possible time (when she has chicken pox) and she begins a search for her father, who is not dead. This leads her to discover her half-brother and her music career gets a boost when "Smelly Cat" is picked up by a record company,

and Chandler Bing - Haunted by his recommending Rachel leave Ross alone and the death of Mr. Heckles, whom he finds many commonalities with, he begins to be less stringent about the women he is willing to be with. His dating life goes up and down and professionally he continues to ascend - save for a time he hires Joey to work in a tangential division. Sarcastic and occasionally bitter, he is hurt when Joey moves out of their apartment.

Friends continues to illustrate the acting talents of a surprisingly strong cast. David Schwimmer is wonderful as Ross. He is given a chance to play head-over-heels in his scenes opposite Jennifer Aniston and the woman who plays Julie. He is able to play moody in the scenes he shares with his character's ex- and Marcel. He is also able to perfectly capture the ridiculous joy of a parent in his scenes with Ben when Ross actually gets to be around for one of Ben's firsts. Lisa Kudrow is also wonderfully convincing as Phoebe and her ability to play the fool with heart is impressive. In this season, she comes into her own in episodes like "The One With Phoebe's Husband" where she is given some emotional depth.

But, for me, the one to watch is Matthew Perry as Chandler. Chandler is sarcastic and off-putting and Perry's role is one that would seem to be hard to like. But Perry plays off guest stars like Adam Goldberg perfectly and he is able to reveal a deep enough sense of damage that it seems perfectly appropriate that Perry finish off this season. Anyone who likes decent comedy will find enough to like about this season of Friends. I was surprised when I did!

For other works featuring Jennifer Aniston, please visit my reviews of:
Horrible Bosses
The Bounty Hunter
30 Rock - Season 3

8/10

For other television reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Couldn't Make It To The San Diego Comic Con? Spider-Man Cards Did!

The Good: Good image, Informative, Inexpensive enough, Necessary for collectors, Rare
The Bad: It's a single card and fairly unimpressive at that
The Basics: A very basic promotional card, the animated “Spider-Man Archives” set from Rittenhouse Archives has a fairly valuable promotional card in the SD09.


When it comes to trading cards, rarity is definitely one of the elements that increases value. Sometimes, rarity is all that assigns value to a trading card, in fact. Take, for example, the “Spider-Man Archives” promotional card that was given out at the San Diego Comic Con in 2009. Because collectors had to be at a specific place at a specific time, this otherwise unremarkable trading card is now worth five times what the free promotional card, which is remarkably similar, is worth. Fans of Spider-Man will find this card is now a mild annoyance to try to find and collect, but it is necessary for collectors finishing off their “Spider-Man Archives” trading card set.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, “Spider-Man Archives” was a trading card set focusing on the comic book “Spider-Man” and all the various incarnations and storylines it went through over the past fifty years of its publication. This is not the cinematic Spider-Man and the animated Spider-Man depicted on the front of the card ought to be enough to keep most potential buyers from making such a mistake. That said, outside the rarity of this promotional card, there is nothing special that makes this of any real value to fans of Spider-Man or collectors of trading cards.

To prepare collectors for the release of the "Spider-Man Archives" trading cards, Rittenhouse Archives produced a promotional card. Promotional cards are designed to give collectors a tease of the new set and generate enthusiasm for forthcoming card releases. Rittenhouse Archives gave away only about two thousand “Spider-Man Archives" SD09 promotional cards to collectors who turned up at the Rittenhouse Archives booth at the San Diego Comic Con on a specific day to ask for them. Unlike most promotional cards, these were exclusive, harder to find in the secondary market and were targeting the exact demographic they might appeal to.

Numbered SD09 (on the back) the “Spider-Man Archives" promotional card prepares fans for the style of the common card set for the "Spider-Man Archives" trading cards. As such, this is a standard trading card size and there is no gimmick to it. It has the Rittenhouse Archives standard UV protective coating to prevent fading, and none is evident on mine after a year.

The front of the trading card features an image of Spider-Man running along a wall. The card is in landscape format and advertises “Spider-Man” through writing in the upper right corner. The artwork on the front is very clear and the color contrast is decent, which prepares collectors well for the actual set. Because this is an artwork card, it is not ideal for getting signed, save by chance encounters with artists or writers who might have worked on the Spider-Man comic book.

The back of the card simply announces the "Spider-Man Archives" trading card set, illustrating that it will be a set that includes sketch cards in each box and indicating that it would be available in late 2009 (and it was)! The back features images of two high-level chase cards and mention of sketch cards as well as the number of cards in the common set. But outside the most expensive cards in the set, the card does not tease potential buyers with much information and it is only insinuation and retrospect which lead those looking at the SD09 to know that the common card set followed this style of card.

In the end, this card is underwhelming but nice looking. The “Spider-Man Archives" Trading Card SD09 card prepares the consumer for the actual full trading card set. Rittenhouse Archives gave very few of these away and that is the only way I ultimately recommended this card. While I'm not much of a fan of comic book-based collectibles, this does a fair job at sparking interest in the trading card set it is associated with and those who do like Spider-Man will likely enjoy collecting this as much as anything else.

For other promotional card reviews, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Spider-Man 3 P1
Revenge Of The Sith P1
Garbage Pail Kids Batty Brad promo

6/10

For other card reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


| | |

Nothing Frozen In This "Timescape."

The Good: Acting, Plot, What character development there is, Effects
The Bad: There's not much in the way of character development
The Basics: When the Enterprise is in the process of being destroyed in an area where time is stopped, Picard must deduce the causes and try to save the ship!


There are several reasons why Star Trek The Next Generation remains the strongest grossing link in the Star Trek franchise. In the end, much of it comes down to originality. Star Trek was original, but it was campy by today's effects and acting standards, Star Trek Deep Space Nine was original, but it was adult, serialized, darker and required more of its audience in the beginning than most were willing to give, and Star Trek Voyager and Enterprise were both utterly derivative. Star Trek The Next Generation, though, was a true original with pretty much everything to recommend it to the general television watcher.

"Timescape" is a nice example of Star Trek The Next Generation's enduring cleverness. In the sixth season of the series, we are treated to a distinctly original story that keeps us on the edge of our seats.

When Picard, Data, Geordi and Troi are returning to the Enterprise from a conference, they begin to experience awkward temporal anomalies. Picard freezes in the middle of a story he was telling, as does Troi. The team discovers that the fabric of space has been traumatized in this area of space. As a result, time is moving at different rates at different points in the area. Cautiously, the Runabout moves deeper in, only to discover the Enterprise frozen in time in battle against a Romulan Warbird. After taking precautions to deal with the temporal anomalies, the team returns to the Enterprise to discover an apparent invasion imminent on the Enterprise. One that is likely to cost them Dr. Crusher, who is in Sickbay in the process of being shot, and the Enterprise itself, as there is a warp core breach in progress.

"Timescape" is essentially a mystery in time where members of the Enterprise crew work to piece together how and why time is fracturing while they work to determine how to fix it and save everything. This works well as it is an intriguing dilemma that is quite well put together. The technical jargon is kept to a minimum while they try to solve the problem, yet it still has the feeling of being quite complete and well developed.

Despite being a heavy special effect episode, which it does quite well, "Timescape" relies heavily on the actors to sell the circumstances they find themselves in. The primary cast for this episode consists of Brent Spiner, Levar Burton, Marina Sirtis and Patrick Stewart. Brent Spiner plays the role of relief pitcher here, for a change, not stepping in to steal the limelight until after Burton's LaForge is incapacitated.

For much of the episode, Burton is given the chance to push Geordi forward a bit. He seems to be a genuine explorer here and it is refreshing to see, once again, that the characters have some sense of dynamic to them. Burton plays Geordi with a strong sense of adventure here, something that has been noticeably lacking from his past performances. Similarly, the oft-neglected Marina Sirtis here is lively and charismatic as Troi, something her character seldom was given the opportunity to be. Indeed, early scenes on the Runabout have the feel of a group of people finally talking comfortably with one another after years of getting to know one another. That's the characters gelling and the actors make it appear effortless.

The cast is rounded out by Patrick Stewart who does an impressive job of revealing his range in "Timescape." Stewart gives a surprisingly potent performance as Picard becomes a giggly child as he suffers from temporal narcosis. The abruptness of it is astonishing and the viewer never feels for a moment that they are being pulled out of the episode to watch an expert actor. Instead, we have the feeling of the character snapping.

"Timescape" offers much to the non-Trek fan. It is a fast paced, engaging mystery that keeps the viewer interested in the plight of the Enterprise and the isolated Runabout crew. The tone is one of consistent menace, which will appeal to fans of action-adventure stories. In fact, "Timescape" has something for everyone but fans of religious imagery or romance. The only real strike against this show is that - while it uses some of the actors well or pushes their abilities - it does not challenge the characters significantly. This is a puzzle of the week for them and there is no lingering growth or change as a result of this piece. Still, it is far more than enough to recommend to viewers of all ages. This is an adventure anyone who likes science fiction or mystery will enjoy.

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the penultimate season by clicking here!
Thanks!]

7/10

For other Star Trek episode, movie or DVD reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007, 2003 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Despite The Proportions Being Way Off, The Power Of The Force C-3PO Stands Up!

The Good: Great coloring detail!
The Bad: Poor collectibility, Ridiculous sculpting in the chest area.
The Basics: C-3PO looks a bit more buff than usual in the Power Of The Force incarnation, but the figure holds up surprisingly well through the years!


For those who did not collect the Star Wars action figures beginning in 1995 when the latest product line began with Kenner's Power Of The Force line, you might be unaware of the quirks of late-'90s action figure development. Apparently, back in the day, accuracy was not as important as idea and for some reason, top-heavy action figures that looked more like musclemen were more valued than fidelity to the original source material. Nowhere is that more potentially ridiculous than with C-3PO. The droid, cast in the original Power Of The Force line has broader shoulders and a more bulky upper torso than the beanpole droid ever did in the movies. And yet, the figure holds up fairly well with the tests of time and is actually worth recommending as a cheap C-3PO figure for fans!

For those unfamiliar with C-3PO, he is the droid who opens A New Hope (reviewed here!). The gold metal robot is aboard the Tantive IV when it is attacked by an Imperial Star Destroyer and is boarded. C-3PO retreats with R2-D2 to Tatooine, setting off the downfall of the Empire.

The 4" C-3PO figure from Kenner is cast in beautiful gold plastic and looks good even after fifteen years, though there are later recasts which are more accurate to the droid from the movies.

Basics

C-3PO is the droid seen throughout the Star Wars Sextet and the Power Of The Force figure is his standard, Original Trilogy, gold appearance. The figure stands 3 3/4" tall to the top of his head. C-3PO is a humanoid robot cast in shiny, reflective, gold plastic. The figure is cast inaccurately to have a more bulky - if it were human, it would be muscular - torso and upper body than C-3PO actually had, though otherwise the sculpt is very accurate, with the arms bent.

This C-3PO is cast in reflective gold plastic that looks very accurate to the character. The luster does not fade over the years, so this C-3PO looks very cool, though it will carry fingerprints if one is not careful! Kenner properly colored the stomach area black with blue and red wires for detailing. This is a very clean version of C-3PO.

Accessories

C-3PO is a protocol droid and comes with no accessories.

Playability

The four inch toy line was designed for play and C-3PO is fair in that regard. The figure is poorly articulated and lacks significant articulation, though he also has hands that are cast so he couldn't hold any accessories even if one wanted him to. In addition to low articulation, C-3PO is not poseable at all. If the feet are moved even slightly out of a flatfooted position, this figure tips over, though flatfooted he is remarkably stable for a figure with such a wide center of gravity. He comes with only six points of articulation, all of which are simple swivel joints. As a result, he rotates at the groin socket, shoulders, neck, and waist. The elbows do not extend or bend.

Collectibility

C-3PO is part of the Power Of The Force four-inch series, a series of Star Wars action figures that was incredibly common. C-3PO was ridiculously overproduced, appearing on at least two different cards as an identical sculpt. In other words, C-3PO is a poor investment and it may often be found dirt cheap. But more than that, because the figure has been resculpted several times, the Power Of The Force version has never held its value enough to get back up to its original issue price.

Overview

Despite the issues with the sculpt and overproduction, the Power Of The Force C-3PO is harder to tip over than most figures from the same era and can be a good support figure for those looking to get a shiny protocol droid figure on the cheap!

For other Star Wars: A New Hope figures in the "Power Of The Force" line, please check out my reviews of:
Momaw Nadon
Ponda Baba
R5-D4
Death Star Gunner
Cantina Aliens 3-pack
Garindan
Death Star Escape 3-pack
Luke Skywalker In Stormtrooper Disguise

6/10

For other toy reviews, please visit my index page on the subject for an organized list of all the figures and toys I have reviewed!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

| | |

Modern American Folk: The Rooftop Singers Best Of The Vanguard Years Is Fun Music!

The Good: Good vocals, Decent lyrics, Fun instrumental accompaniment.
The Bad: Repetitive sound, Generally simple music.
The Basics: Energetic and fun, The Rooftop Singers present a very general modern folk sound with roots in the swing tradition as they harmonize on the fun The Best Of The Vanguard Years.


With Pete Seeger as my Artist Of The Month, my father gave me a stack of discs to consider and eager as he was to share his music with me, he threw in a few discs that were not Pete Seeger. Among them was Best Of The Vanguard Years by The Rooftop Singers. Unfamiliar with them until I began spinning this disc, I had some trepidation when I began listening.

That sense of caution almost immediately dissipated amidst the sound of the trio of Erik Darling, Bill Svanoe and Lynne Taylor, better known together as The Rooftop Singers. The Rooftop Singers were active for only a few years in the early 1960s and their big hit appears to have been the album-opener "Walk Right In." The Rooftop Singers were part of the 1960s pop-folk music and they blend socially conscious lyrics with smooth vocal harmonies and minimal instrumental accompaniment. And while this might not be my complete cup of tea, it is certainly fun to hear and well worth recommending.

With twenty-seven songs and a running time of 65:26, Best Of The Vanguard Years is a compilation that presents the creative talents of The Rooftop Singers as both songwriters and performers. Of the twenty-seven songs, sixteen are written or co-written by members of the band and four are in the public domain (songs like "Swing Down, Chariot" and "Ha Ha Thisaway"). The rest are written by contemporaries of the band members and largely the album was comprised of music that was new to me.

That said, The Rooftop Singers present a folk-pop sound that seems to mix between folk's lyrical sensibilities and a minimal sound of swing music. "Shoes," for example has danceable guitarwork and little soulful crescendos that sound very much like muted swing music. If there were more instruments, most of the songs have two guitars and/or a banjo, this would be a big band sound. The result is a sound that is something that sounds distinctly more pop and swing oriented than the classic folk sound. Classic folk tends to be stark, with simple melodies that the listener can mimic to play on their own because it comes from an oral tradition. Songs like "Houston Special" have the men of The Rooftop Singers harmonizing instrumentally with one another and the overall sound is quite a bit richer than the simple, traditional folk sound.

That said, almost all of the music on The Best Of The Vanguard Years features a twelve-string and a six-string guitar with the occasional use of a banjo. The banjo is used as percussion and for those not, traditionally, into banjo music, it harmonizes with the guitars and sounds quite natural with the vocals, so it works, creating songs that are energetic or emotive. Most of the songs feature the guitar, though, and the men of The Rooftop Singers play them. When they aren't harmonizing with one another, the guitars work to create fun melodies that support the vocals without ever overwhelming them. Songs like "Cool Water" illustrate well how The Rooftop Singers used the instrumental accompaniment to support the vocals by helping the singers keep time as opposed to creating melodies that were more memorable than the lyrics. Conversely, the instrumental accompaniment on "Eighteen, Nineteen" instantly energizes the song and the tune is as boisterous as the up-tempo vocal performances.

As for the vocal performances, Best Of The Vanguard Years illustrates how impressive vocal performances can be when your group knows how to harmonize and the vocalists have great voices. The Rooftop Singers have both. Nowhere is this better exemplified than on "Swing Down, Chariot" where one of the men takes the lower range of the tenor register, the other takes the higher tenor range and Taylor harmonizes with a clear, sweet soprano voice. The men sing back and forth to one another and Taylor comes in on the refrain to offer some contrast. The energy to the song is both soulful and peppy and one can hear the connection between the performers while they sing it.

Throughout the album, the songs are presented as melodic harmonizations between The Rooftop Singers and the lyrics are almost all easy to hear and understand as the singers enunciate quite well. The variable element song to song seems largely to be Taylor's vocals and the feminine voice added to the song either blends with the men when she sings low or it moves the song into a different emotive range. "Those Brown Eyes" becomes more flirtatious, for example, when Taylor's vocals enter and the song becomes a loving ballad where one can almost imagine the passion between the singers.

Largely Best Of The Vanguard Years is a romantic folk album that sings about general America. There are love songs ("Those Brown Eyes"), songs about American industry ("Working On The Railroad"), the rebellious culture of youth changing the world ("Mama Don't Allow") and songs about people getting together and connecting ("Good Time!"). The songs are not as political as Dylan or Seeger - there are no explicit antiwar ballads or songs about the Civil Rights struggled, but the album connotes the idea of peace and brotherhood through simple communication ("Walk Right In"). Because there is no unified theme or sense of connected convention, Best Of The Vanguard Years becomes very accessible and inoffensive for any listeners.

The album is largely energetic and tunes like "I'm On My Way" are very easy to get stuck in one's head. Unfortunately, some of the songs get stuck in the listener's head simply because they are so repetitive and they have such simple tunes to them. Fortunately, none of the tracks are truly bad, so it's not the worst place to be. This album is ideal for anyone looking to shake up their musical routine with something new from an obscure group that if fun, smart and sounds good.

The best song is "I'm On My Way," the low point is the unmemorable "Twelve-String."

For other folk music reviews, please visit:
American Favorite Ballads, Volume 3 - Pete Seeger
Any Day Now - Joan Baez
Many Great Companions - Dar Williams

5.5/10

For other music reviews, please click here to visit the appropriate index page!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

| | |

Packing In The Green: Celestial Seasonings' Green Tea Sampler Flops.

The Good: Two good teas
The Bad: Three mediocre or bad teas.
The Basics: With yet another disappointing sampler pack, Celestial Seasonings unloads the mildly flavored green teas on the unsuspecting tea drinkers.


For all of my love of Celestial Seasonings, I often find that I do not enjoy the sampler packs that they produce. I think it is too often the way the company makes a cunning way of getting rid of their slower selling products. In the case of the Green Tea Sampler, I had discovered in my tea sampling that most of the flavors were thoroughly underwhelming and as a result, it was hard to get excited about the sampler that combined them.

Indeed, perhaps part of the reason the samplers are so hard to enjoy is all of the extra waste they generate. Celestial Seasonings is remarkably environmentally friendly, so the added individual wrapping for each tea in this multipack is a marked change from the usual.

Basics

The Green Tea Sampler is a collection of five teas from Celestial Seasonings: Raspberry Gardens, Authentic Green tea, Decaffeinated Green tea, Decaf Mandarin Orchard, and Honey Lemon Ginseng. They are Green teas and some are caffeinated (see "Nutrition" below). The Green Tea Sampler separates the flavors by wax/plastic coated packages that have four each of the Celestial Seasoning's standard stringless tea bags. They are individual tea bags in these packs, not the standard pairs. When I make pots of tea, I tend to use two bags, which means the Green Tea Sampler gives me only two pots of each. The Green Tea Sampler has twenty tea bags total; four of each of the five flavors.

Ease Of Preparation

All five teas in the Green Tea Sampler are teas, which means preparation is as easy as almost boiling a pot of water! Green teas, as the directions clearly state, require water that is not quite boiling. Boiling water cooks the tea leaves and ruins the flavor, so water used for green teas like this one must be kept below a full boil. A single tea bag will make the standard 8 oz. coffee mug worth of tea, though reusing the tea bags yields little more than hot water. These tea bags cannot be reused and even credibly call the result "tea." Indeed, the second pots I've tried were incredibly weak, tasting only like the remnants of green tea. These bags are one-use only. I tend to make my tea using a 32 oz. steeping tea pot and that works well, though it is impossible to get a decent second pot out of the bags.

To prepare green tea, simply heat up some water, and pour it over the tea bags in a cup, mug or steeping pot. This tea is recommended to take three to five minutes to steep and after a couple cups and pots, I've found that with almost boiling water, the tea is ready at the five minute mark and letting it steep longer does not truly change the results. Letting the tea steep more than six minutes does not net any additional flavor, nor does it denature the flavor of the tea.

Taste

Raspberry Gardens, on its own, does not taste even vaguely like raspberries. The green tea flavor easily overwhelms it. Sadly, it is not even vaguely fruity. It is not sour like real raspberries, it is not fruity or delicious, it is dry and bland. Many people complain that Celestial Seasonings teas are more like hot fruit drinks than teas; Raspberry Gardens is very much the opposite of that. There is almost no fruit flavor to this very tea-flavored tea. Raspberry Gardens does have a minimal aftertaste to it that is a tiny bit sour and quite dry. The dry mouth aftertaste is emblematic of most green teas in my experience and Raspberry Gardens is no better or worse in that regard.

Authentic Green Tea might well be one of the teas that is best to talk about in terms of coffee. If one makes a pot of coffee and reuses the grounds, one ends up with a remarkably diluted second pot of coffee that tastes only like the aftertaste of the original beans' flavor. Green tea is like that for tea, but that is how it starts out. If one were to take a standard black tea, brew a pot or even two with the leaves and then brew another pot, you would have a tea that is about as intense and dark and flavorful as green tea. The only taste note of note is the aftertaste. Green teas are notorious for a dry aftertaste. Authentic Green Tea is no exception in this regard; the tea leaves the mouth feeling and tasting dry. It is not distinct or carrying any other flavor, it is simply the essence and taste of dry. It is a pretty worthless drink that leaves the consumer feeling thirsty after drinking it.

Decaffeinated Green Tea quite seriously tastes identical to the Authentic Green Tea. As a result, this is like a weakened version of a standard, bland, no-brand-name tea one might find in a hotel. If one were to take a standard black tea, brew a pot or even two with the leaves and then brew another pot, you would have a tea that is about as intense and dark and flavorful as green tea.

Decaf Mandarin Orchard, on its own, does not taste even vaguely like oranges. The green tea flavor easily overwhelms it. Sadly, it is not even vaguely fruity. There is nothing even that hints at citrus or fruit in this tea; it is simply dry and bland and tea flavored. Many people complain that Celestial Seasonings teas are more like hot fruit drinks than teas; Decaf Mandarin Orchard is very much the opposite of that. There is no fruit flavor to this very tea-flavored tea.

Honey Lemon Ginseng tastes great. There is a subtle flavor to it that balances the actual taste (but not the sweetness) of honey with the tea leaf flavor. The lemon is almost entirely absent, but this also means that the tea is not at all tart. Instead, there is a somewhat generic, ginseng tea flavor to this that is not in any way overpowering. Sadly, that makes it very difficult to describe as well.

All of these teas are enhanced by the addition of even a little sugar. Most of them, however, are not improved enough to overcome their generally weak flavor.

Nutrition

These teas are primarily made of varying proportions of Green Tea and accenting herbs. Ironically, for the flavored teas, most of the primary fruits tend to fall near the bottom of the ingredients lists. Some of the teas have caffeine and some are naturally decaffeinated in this pack. Raspberry Gardens, Authentic Green Tea and Honey Lemon Ginseng are caffeinated. There is no caffeine meter on the box, though to tell how caffeinated they are. The other two teas are naturally decaffeinated.

Were it not for the sugar I add whenever I make pots of teas from the Green Tea Sampler, these teas would be devoid of any nutritional value. They contains no calories, fat, sodium, carbohydrates or protein. Fortunately they have some taste, even if they lack caffeine!

Storage/Clean-up

The Green Tea Sampler teas are easy to clean up after - the tea bags may be disposed in the garbage, or composted if you have a good garden and/or compost pile. The teas are generally fairly light, though they will stain, if one left them on fabric, but mugs that hold the tea rinse clean. Spills ought to be cleaned up quickly to prevent these tea from staining fabrics, though that's a pretty good general rule not just limited to the Green Tea Sampler teas.

Because of the inner packaging of the Green Tea Sampler teas, less care is needed before the package is opened to keep the box in a cool dry place, but once the individual pouches holding each flavor are opened, it is very important to keep them sealed away from moisture as there is no easy to close the inconvenient little packs.

Overall

Sadly, even for pleasing guests, I cannot see having a box of this on hand. There are too many mediocre teas in this pack and I see no reason to not expect the extraordinary from Celestial Seasonings, even in a sampler pack.

For other Celestial Seasonings tea reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Organic Green tea
Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride
Herbal Sampler

4/10

For other food or drink reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


| | |

A Visual Marvel Does Not Mask The Disappointment Of Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.

The Good: Visually imaginative, Moments of character
The Bad: Predictable (obvious) plot, Mediocre acting, Pacing issues
The Basics: Hellboy 2: The Golden Army capitalizes on writer/director Guillermo Del Toro's visual style and love of fairy tales, but gives the viewer little new.


It is a rare thing that I see a movie and review it positively, yet do not look it up well in advance of the release of a sequel. Sometimes when that happens, I check out my original review just to prepare myself for the experience of seeing the new movie. Because I never go back and re-rate my reviews, I am sometimes surprised by what I find when I read my older reviews. This is exactly what I felt going into Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, which I prepared for by re-reading my review on Hellboy (reviewed here!). I remember very little about Hellboy save that the villain became progressively larger and my ultimate feeling was ambivalence.

Still, as I participated in Summer Blockbuster Season (2008), Hellboy 2: The Golden Army sure seemed like a movie I needed to see. After a summer of disappointments and few surprises, I was ready for something good that I would enjoy and might actually surprise me in a good way. Unfortunately, this is not the case with Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, which is sadly average at its best.

As a child, young Hellboy was told the story of a war between the elves and men and the fantastic army of robots that was built for the elves to crush the men. His father read the story of the truce between the two sides and the Elven prince who went into exile rather than accept the peace. There is a crown, split into three parts, which controls the Golden Army and it has been lost to history. As the Bureau of Paranormal Research And Defense struggles to maintain anonymity with Hellboy's antics drawing attention to them, a new director is brought in to establish control.

Around the time the ectoplasmic suit Krauss arrives, there is a brutal attack of tooth fairies that cleans out an auction of prominent citizens in Manhattan at which a portion of the lost crown was being auctioned. Hellboy, Liz, and Abe Sapien find themselves at the mercy of the elf prince. While Hellboy takes on the elf's henchman Mr. Wink and an elemental, Abe discovers the elf princess and pursues her and the last piece of the crown Prince Nuada needs to gain control of the Golden Army. Wounded by a magical spear, Hellboy and Abe must figure out how to prevent the Golden Army from laying waste to humanity and save the life of Princess Nuala, who is mystically tied to her twin brother.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is a visually imaginative film by Guillermo Del Toro, perhaps best known for directing Pan's Labyrinth. The problematic aspect of Hellboy 2 is that it looks a lot like Pan's Labyrinth in the lighting and creature design. There are imaginative beings and the scenes in the Troll Market are fun to watch just for the visual spectacle of the creature design. Del Toro has an imagination and it is one that translates well to film, at least for the sense of visual majesty that a good special effects department can execute.

The problem is that Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is a kid's story in many ways set in a fantastic world, remarkably similar to that of Pan's Labyrinth. There is a similar sense of style and story simplicity that carries through both films. The premise of the entire movie is established in the opening story that Hellboy is told as a child and from the moment that prologue ends, the movie is remarkably uncomplicated and terribly predictable.

In other words, this is not a movie where the plot is going to light the world on fire and it certainly is not one that is going to challenge the viewers. The plot is one virtually everyone has seen before, certainly anyone who saw Hellboy has seen a movie with more or less the same plot as this film.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army almost works best when it is not trying to be serious . . . except at the end when Krauss has a throwaway line that panders to the PG-13 audience's mentality. But in one of the earliest sequences, when Director Manning is walking through the Bureau with Sapien and there is background comedy going on, it is amusing enough.

The problem, essentially, is that when the movie is not trying desperately to be funny and get out the catch phrase punchline that kids might quote or attempting to be visually spectacular in a way that surprises or intrigues the audience, the movie falls flat on the character front. Hellboy is irritable and irritated, Liz has become something of a nag and Abe Sapien is just lonely until both Krauss and Nuala come into his life.

Abe's character makes a great deal of sense then, in that he becomes motivated by love, desire and the strong - understandable - urge to be lonely no longer. He makes decisions that are questionable but comprehensible based on those factors and it works. There is a simplicity to his relationship with Nuala and their mutual ability to read thoughts makes for an intensity that makes more sense than the usual love story in a film. The viewer can easily get the levels that Sapien and Princess Nuala are communicating on in the simple scenes where they put their hands together.

The problem comes in the form of Hellboy and his character. Prince Nuada opens Hellboy up to the idea that humans will never accept or like him. While fighting the elemental creature Nuada unleashes, the elf prince and Hellboy have a great conversation where Hellboy is compelled to acknowledge that unique creatures - when destroyed - diminish the whole. That understanding this vital theme does not lead him to change his perspective or modify his actions becomes incredibly disappointing. Equally disappointing is that many of the moments that could be the best character bits end up as obvious plot points.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army does not change, challenge or modify the Hellboy character. Instead, he does what he does, more or less as he did them before, until the movie ends and he still does more or less what he wants. This is not a film about growth or change, but it has all of the important elements of a movie that could be a great character study where that sort of change does happen.

In fact, it seems like this movie is mostly about setting up the third installment as opposed to actually being substantial in its own right. As important, Liz makes the key decision that sets up future installments in possibly the last decent scene in the film. One might think this enhances her character, but instead this just seems - again - like a plot point as opposed to a character decision.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army might well be a decent flick for those looking for a popcorn movie. I wanted excitement, adventure and something that challenged me and was different from what I have seen before. Instead, this was a very typical fairy tale turned action film with increasingly complex villains who Hellboy and his peers must defeat in order to save the world. Or sell movie tickets. Sadly, this might have been the most expensive movie ticket I ever paid for and it is not worth it. I suppose this movie might work if one has a craving for popcorn during the times the film would be shown as a matinee. But full price . . . nah.

This movie is more like watching a video game for all its substance and predictability. It is stylish, but not substantial and it adds up to an ultimately forgettable film. At least when the third film is released, I won't feel bad about not remembering much about this one.

On DVD, HellBoy 2 features a ton of extras that more or less justify the film's existence (though they do not excuse the imaginative flaws). There are deleted scenes with commentary that add more to the relationships between the primary characters. It's a shame they were not re-integrated back into the movie. There is a commentary track as well as a two-hour featurette on the making of The Golden Army on the second disc. Unfortunately, between the two bits there is a lot of overlap and there is a repetitive quality to them. There is also an extensive look at the special effects and that is pretty cool, but not enough to recommend the movie for a permanent collection.

For other works with Jeffrey Tambor, please check out my reviews of:
The Hangover, Part II
The Hangover
Arrested Development
How The Grinch Stole Christmas

4.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Despite The Initial Expense, The Whirlpool Front Loading Washer (WFW9400S) Is A Great Investment!

The Good: Energy and water efficiency! Gets clothes clean, Easy to use
The Bad: Doesn't include high-pressure tube, Water left in front of unit, Initial cost
The Basics: An excellent washing machine, despite the initial expense. It appears to actually save money on the electric bill as promised!


While I was working for the government last year, I had two homes. The disadvantage of this, of course, is the relative expense. It costs quite a bit to pay for two places. The advantage is that I seem to have twice as many gadgets to evaluate and as a result, I can make some of that back by reviewing new household items in my newer place. One such item is the Whirlpool WFW9400S Front Loading clothes washer in my new place. In my old place, I had a Frigidaire frontloader that I became pretty fond of. In fact, this Front Loading Washer is my first Whirlpool clothes washer that I can recall.

The Whirlpool WFW9400S Front Loading Washer was chosen for me and the only real say I had in it was the color, which is a silver finish. What can I say, I'm a sucker for stainless steel or the closest I could get for this appliance (it's a dull silver-gray color). For those unfamiliar with the basic principles, the front-loading washers have the look of the traditional clothes dryer with clothes being put through a door in the front of the unit, as opposed to the top. As a result, clothes are washed through a spinning motion in the z-dimension, as opposed to an agitating motion in the x/y dimension. In simpler terms, unlike the traditional clothes washer, the Front Loading Washer does not have clothes resting in the water is has made filthy. Instead, water passes through the dirty clothes, into the drum where the dirt, hair and other matter appears to be filtered as the washer drum spins.

My big insistence on a Front Loading Washer was because I wanted to reduce the environmental impact I have on the world through such mundane tasks as washing clothes. The Whirlpool Front Loading Washer is designed to lower the amount of water and electricity used to clean clothes and it certainly lives up on that end. In fact, with no other appliance changes outside the washer and dryer after the first two months of living in my new place, I watched the electric bill drop fifteen percent. The only thing I can account for the change was the change in these appliances!

The Whirlpool WFW9400S Front Loading Washer is a fairly large-sized clothes washer (technically, it is considered medium-sized, but it's larger than any I have ever had prior to this!). It sits thirty-eight inches tall by 27" wide with a front to back depth effectively of almost 32" (the front panel of the washer tub is a clear door that curves outward, adding a little more depth to the front than the unit would otherwise have). The Front Loading Washer has a 3.8 cubic foot capacity and it runs on a standard 120 volt, grounded power supply.

This is a slightly larger washer than I had before (by .3 cubic feet) and the difference in space is about three shirt's worth. The Whirlpool holds a decent amount of clothes in it and it has the ability to get full loads quite clean. So, for example, today I washed two blankets, six pillowcases, a shirt and a bottom sheet all in one load. Everything came out clean and free of everything from stains to cat hair. A standard load that does not overfill the drum allows all of the clothes in the Front Loading Washer to get fully cleaned.

It is worth noting that my Whirlpool Front Loading Washer was professionally installed, so I only observed the installation. Because we had measurements that were precise before the installation, everything seemed to go as planned with no difficulties. Essentially, installation consisted of taking the unit out of the box, screwing in the water supply line and the waste water line and plugging the washer in. Then it was shoved against the wall. I already had a high-pressure line attached to the water inlets and outlets. This was a good thing as one was not included in the unit. Instead, the buyer must be sure that connections to the water supply and drainage will meet the pressure needs of the Front Loading Washer. Any decent place selling this unit will know exactly what one needs in terms of connections and it is better to be overprotected in this area as opposed to under-protectected (and risk rupturing a pipe!). Because I have a very stable floor where this was installed and because I was putting the dryer on top of this unit, I did not opt for the overpriced pedestal attachment that could have been purchased with this. For those not able to haggle it into the cost, the installation guide is fairly well-written and the do-it-yourselfer ought to have no problems installing it, so long as they read ahead for all of the needed materials before starting the project.

Usage is equally simple. The Whirlpool Front Loading Washer has fairly intuitive controls and after a few months of usage, the only function I have not seen fit to use is the time-delay function. In addition to the Use & Care Guide (a pretty obvious collection of notes on how to take care of the washer) there is a whole cheat sheet with Washer Operating Instructions. In truth, though, this unit, which is controlled by a dial for simple settings and a series of push buttons for water temperature, spin cycle and activation, is a remarkably easy appliance to use. As well, if anything goes wrong, there is a little series of LED lights on the side of the panel that give very easy to understand status reports on what the state of the washer is. This Whirlpool seems to follow a sense of an industry standard that tries to make operating these front loading units more or less idiotproof and this is very easy to use and diagnose problems when they occur. Indeed, since the first time I set the unit, I have essentially only had to hit the "power on" and "run cycle" buttons and it goes off!

As the cycles progress, the light moves down the options from "Wash" through "Final Spin" to let users know exactly where they stand. This is easy to use. Simply open the fluid receptacle door on the upper left to put in the detergent, fabric softener and bleach as needed and push the controls to start. It's that easy. Approximately forty-eight minutes later, everything is clean. As well, there is a timer counting down exactly where in the cycle the unit is, which lets one know exactly how much time is left.

It is worth noting that the spinning mechanism to the Front Loading Washer acts much like a dryer and the clothes come out of this washer drier than from most clothes washers. This saves money on the drying process from one's dryer and that, too gives it extra value.

So, what won't you get anywhere else from this product? What should you know before picking this unit up? In addition to being remarkably easy to use, this unit requires special detergents for High Efficiency washers. There is a logo on most brands to indicate ones that will work in washers like this. The reason for this is simple; the washer uses less water than standard washers, so the proportion of detergent to water needs to be altered and that is what the High Efficiency detergents do.

Also not in the manual is the one minor performance quirk of the Whirlpool Front Loading Washer. Water pools in the front of this unit. The metal drum that spins (where the clothes go) is topped on the door side by a flexible rubbery sealer which keeps water from leaving the washer. Unfortunately, it also has a bit of surface area higher than the drum where water can accumulate. I keep a rag next to the washer just to mop this up to avoid rot or mold and if I am putting a second load in after my first, I always use a piece of clothing to mop up the puddle that invariably accumulates there.

The unit is deceptively quiet during the washing and rinse cycles. Indeed, at first it was unnerving to have this clothes washer because I was convinced it was not doing anything save lighting up buttons on the front of the washer and counting down. If it weren't for how clean my clothes always get, I might still believe that.

And then there's the spin cycle. It's not loud, but it does make enough of a sound that if one is in an adjacent room, one is likely to hear the spinning of the drum. The spin cycle works amazingly, though, and clothes come out clean and surprisingly close to dry from the washer.

All in all, there is little or nothing to actually complain about about the Whirlpool Front Loading Washer, except its initial expense. This is an expensive appliance at the outset, but the usage cost seems to help negate that expense, assuming this lasts for ten years. The warranty is only for a year, but given that I use my washer once a week, I am operating on the assumption that it's going to last at least a decade (I'm rooting for two or three!).

This is an excellent, high efficiency clothes washer and if one is looking for something that will actually save time and money on cleaning clothes, it is hard to imagine one that will perform better than this one.

For other laundry-related products, please visit my reviews of:
Frigidaire GLER331A Electic Dryer
Whirlpool WGD5200 Gas Dryer
Purex Complete 3-in-1

9/10

For other appliance reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

| | |

Write Your Own Part, Remember Your Lines: Why Rocky Works!

The Good: Decent-enough acting, Generally good character work
The Bad: Very basic plot
The Basics: Surprisingly heartwarming and actually containing a level of character depth that is likely to surprise some, Rocky is a decent character study.


With all of the movies I watch, it amuses me to think that before tonight, I may not have seen a film starring Sylvester Stallone. In fact, the only sports movie that easily comes to mind that I've seen is Million Dollar Baby (reviewed here!) which I watched for the same reason I watched Rocky. In my zeal to watch every film that has won the Best Picture Oscar, I had to watch Rocky. And while I expected it to be droll and obvious, what surprised me was how well the film does actually come together. Winning the Best Picture the year I was born, Rocky may have elements that are more mediocre than they are truly unique, but the film works well overall.

I'll start, then, by detailing the two biggest surprises I got out of Rocky. The first is that when the opening credits finally rolled, a full chapter in on DVD, the writer of the film was credited to Sylvester Stallone. No, he wasn't the co-writer or credited with the idea, Stallone wrote the film.

The other surprise is that Stallone acts remarkably well in Rocky. For sure, this ought to be obvious given that Stallone wrote the part for himself and he is playing a character who is dim and generally unremarkable, but Stallone sells it. Mumbling through the title role, Sylvester Stallone gives a great performance of a mediocre personality. And for fans of animated comedies like The Simpsons and Family Guy, what I truly enjoyed about Rocky was getting more allusions than I got on the first pass of some of the episodes. But having seen Stallone truly act, now it makes me wonder if I would actually find him decent at all in anything else.

Opening on November 25, 1975, Rocky Balboa boxes at the local athletic club for less than fifty dollars (take home) and nurses his head long into the night. By day, he works as muscle for a loan shark and he tends to his pet turtle. Criticized for not being brutal enough, he tries to flirt with the clerk at his pet store and he wanders the streets of Philadelphia. When prize fighter Apollo Creed comes to the city, he finds himself in the awkward position of not being able to fight the man he came to town to fight (whatwith his opponent having a cracked skull). Apollo comes up with a great marketing idea; give a local boy (preferably white) a chance to fight him for the longshot. Creed picks Rocky as his desired competitor and he woos the never-been to fight in five weeks.

As the world heavyweight champion, Apollo Creed, moves toward the event with little care (though he is educated and quite theatrical). Rocky, on the other hand, takes the impending match seriously and trains hard for the fight. Getting his shot with Adrian, Rocky trains and prepares for the fight that will give him an unlikely shot out of obscurity.

Just as Jaws was not just a shark movie, but rather had a whole capitalist argument, Rocky is deeper than it initially seems. Rocky is a character study in many ways with Rocky trying to bond with Adrian and escape the influences that have their hooks in him. His friend, for example - Adrian's brother, Paul - continues to use Rocky to try to get in with the mob for enforcing work. As the fight looms, though, he begins to find his sense of self-worth and he makes a decent attempt to rise to the occasion. Rocky is very much focused on the character and his journey.

More than just a movie featuring long training scenes with Rocky running, the film is about a man realizing who he is and taking the road he did not take in his past. His trainer convinces him that he could have been more than what he has been for the six preceding years working as an enforcer. From that point on, Rocky prepares with a mindset that this is the lone shot he has in life to change his circumstances. The moralizing Rocky does to take him from his reluctant self to his determined new self is a surprisingly compelling scene and it works.

There is very little actual boxing in the movie, for those who are not a fan of boxing. Instead, Stallone hits more meat than he does opponent. Only the last twenty-five minutes of the film - which is under two hours long - involves actual boxing. The fight is almost incidental to Rocky and the only real complaint about it (though it has some realistic gore for those sensitive to such things) is that it has predictable elements to it. Early in the film, Rocky proudly tells Adrian he has never had a broken nose before so, of course, to illustrate the shocking difference between fighting Apollo and fighting anyone else he has taken on, Apollo breaks Rocky's nose almost instantly.

Arguably, Rocky is really a love story between a mousy woman and a shy man. The sports element of it barely factors in outside the opening scene and the final act. Indeed, squeezed in between awkward scenes of Rocky getting to know Adrian and Rocky slowly divesting himself of corrupt influences, like Paul, there is only a brief notice by Apollo's manager that Rocky seems to be an actual contender.

After an hour of watching the underdog mope around the screen trying to do good, and getting spat on (metaphorically) in the process, Rocky becomes strangely likable and outside the hype and success of the film, there is the sense that anything can happen when the bout begins. It is not the type of story where it is an obvious "underdog rises to the top" story. And like more recent films, like Swing Vote, Rocky is much more about the process than the results.

On screen, Sylvester Stallone is surrounded by some real talents. Carl Weathers, whom I was only familiar with from his role in the first season of Arrested Development (reviewed here!), appears as Apollo Creed. He is charismatic and seems to fill the same niche as Billy Dee Williams and he makes Apollo both likable and reasonably cocky. One of the best performances, though, comes from Talia Shire. Shire makes Adrian instantly difficult to watch with her tight body language and quiet delivery of her lines. As the film goes on and Rocky falls for her character, Adrian becomes more open. Shire does a great job of making the transition subtle and realistic and the movie becomes a pleasure to watch because of her.

On DVD, Rocky has a ton of bonus features. There is a picture in picture commentary track by Stallone as well as a more traditional audio commentary track. The original movie trailer for Rocky is also on the disc alongside three new featuettes, more on the famous supporting actors in Rocky than on the film itself. Still, there is a wealth of background information on the movie for those who enjoy Rocky. This makes decent use of the DVD medium and it was clearly remastered for the DVD release.

All in all, Rocky becomes a good way to kill a few hours and there is an obvious potential for franchise here (which we know happened). The film works and it deserves its place as a pop culture reference, if nothing else.

[As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this film is part of W.L.'s Best Picture Project, online here! Please check it out!]

For other sports movies, please visit my reviews of:
Whip It
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire
Chariots Of Fire

7/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

| | |

In A Small Corner Of The DC Universe, Oliver Queen Tries To Fit Into The Brightest Day: Green Arrow: Into The Woods!

The Good: Artwork, Moments of story.
The Bad: Character is stalled, Story is pretty mired.
The Basics: In Green Arrow: Into The Woods, Oliver Queen teams up with an unlikely ally to protect the forest in Star City, in a surprisingly mundane graphic novel.


Regular readers of my blog know that I am a pretty big fan of Brightest Day and the Blackest Night Sagas in the DC Universe. So far in the Brightest Day Saga, there has only been truly one volume that disappointed me. The rest have actually shown some creative thinking and a level of style I quite enjoy and could have sent the DC Universe in a pretty cool new direction, had they not decided to mire the Universe in Flashpoint alternate-universe stuff instead. With the impending DC Universe reboot, it is unclear whether or not the implications of the finale of Brightest Day will last, but for a while, it looked like a brave new conceptual day was dawning for the DC Universe.

And while it was happening, Oliver Queen - the Green Arrow - was stuck inside the forest in Star City. Such is the story of Green Arrow: Into The Woods and, frankly, it is an impossible-to-recommend Brightest Day tie-in. While others might be discovering Green Arrow as a result of shows like Smallville, my introduction to the character came from Justice (reviewed here!) which he had a decent supporting role in. But following the events of Blackest Night (reviewed here!), there seemed to be a quandary about what to do with Green Arrow and how to reboot his story. So, Green Arrow: Into The Woods anthologizes issues 1 - 7 of his new storyline and, sad to say to J.T. Krul, I don't care.

Following reading Green Arrow: Into The Woods, I read an interview with writer J.T. Krul and I actually thought he had a good concept for the story of Green Arrow that he was trying to write. Unfortunately, I didn't see the same spark in the actual text. Green Arrow: Into The Woods is supposed to be a story of renewal and rebirth, both in a literal sense for Star City and the forest that has sprouted there and in a metaphorical sense for Oliver Queen, who is struggling to find his purpose in the world. But the book doesn't land it; Oliver Queen's story meanders and it feels like a feeble crossover attempt while diluting a main story that is not nearly as audacious as it could be.

Oliver Queen is living in the Star City forest, which seems to be a well-known enough fact that a young woman who is being assailed by a rape mob knows to flee to the forest, as opposed to calling the police. There Green Arrow comes to her aid and, somewhat darkly, lets the forest decide if the villains will live or die as he leads the young woman to safety. With the Star City police commissioner killed and other local politicians ending up in the crosshairs, Green Arrow seems out-of-the way in the forest, though he claims to still be looking out for Star City.

While Green Arrow protects those proximate to the forest, Queen Industries is taken over by a new figure, a woman calling herself the Queen and ruling the company like a fiefdom. While Oliver begins to investigate her, he is hampered by a sidekick, Galahad, a man who actually believes he is an Arthurian knight. As Oliver reflects with Galahad and deals with such things as an arrow through the center of his skull, the Queen makes her move on both Queen Industries and Green Arrow.

Green Arrow: Into The Woods just doesn't work. The story meanders and it comes to abrupt stops periodically for no other reason than to crossover with more important Brightest Day occurrences. So, Oliver Queen is suddenly menaced by The Queen and the narrative stops while Green Lantern makes his visit to the Star City forest, imparting only the information that his power ring doesn't work there. After that otherwise pointless conflict, Green Arrow wanders with Galahad and is shot through the head. But just as he is learning something about himself in the wake of his miraculous resurrection, the Martian Manhunter appears for his cameo. Those crossovers are relevant to the Brightest Day aspect of the story, but otherwise stand out in the volume like blatant advertisements for something else. It simply does not work.

As for the climax, wherein Green Arrow and the Queen have something of a reckoning as Green Arrow is charged with making sure the White Lanterns fail in their mission and then a truth is revealed to Oliver . . . meh. Yup, that's another professional term: meh. It didn't land it.

Most of the artwork, by Diogenes Neves, is good. The colors are rich and the book has some well-detailed panels. But some of the angles are chaotic and the frames do not always have a logical flow, making the book harder to follow in several places than it needs to be. The result is that Green Arrow: Into The Woods doesn't seem like much of a story; instead it feels like a portion of a character's story and it does not connect to the larger story in a satisfying way, nor does it distinguish itself on its own.

For other Brightest Day works, please check out my reviews of:
Brightest Day - Volume 1
Brightest Day - Volume 2
Brightest Day - Volume 3
Brightest Day: Green Lantern
Brightest Day: Green Lantern Corps - Revolt Of The Alpha-Lanterns
The Black Ring - Volume 1

3.5/10

For other book reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


| | |