Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

Unlike the gorgeous double rainbow I enjoyed on my journey from Omaha back to Cedar Rapids on Thursday evening, the thunderstorms I ran into on my way through southern Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee, at the tail end of my journey today, were just nasty, with no redeeming natural beauty. These storms actually reduced visibility to the point where I was forced to go ten miles UNDER the speed limit, for a while, in order not to run into the big trucks whose tail-lights I could barely see though I was only about 20 feet behind them!

I need to write something coherent, one of these days, about the SLAYAGE conference and all, but for now, all I can do is enter my reviews/recommendations for two more movies I saw over the past couple of days: "Raising Helen" and "The Chronicles of Riddick." [no spoilers -- just thumbs-up or -down, basically]

"Raising Helen" -- the one real surprise was the short animation feature which preceded this film (a wonderfully weird and wild piece about a fat-cat named Lorenzo and his love-hate relationship with his tail -- all a bit more Freudian than I want to admit, but fun!). John Corbett was gorgeous as Pastor Dan (if a bit beefier than the last time I saw him in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"), but wasn't given enough to do -- possibly because the focus of the film was on Kate Hudson and her attempts to care for her sister's kids, and REALLY dating the principal of her kids' new parochial school might have taken too much attention away from that central theme. Nice to see Felicity Huffman, Kevin Kilner, Hector Elizondo, and other folks I mainly only know from television, getting some big-screen time, but the script could have been stronger. My friend Karen and I laughed plenty during the film and appreciated its strong points, but agreed afterward that we didn't feel we'd LEARNED anything new or were taking anything of this movie away with us, to enjoy or chew over later. Glad we saw it, but glad we didn't pay more than matinee prices, also.

[Vague Disclaimer: I may have liked this movie a bit more than Karen, simply because of the nostalgia angle. When I was in first grade, my family moved from Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Jamaica, Queens, and after taking one look at the public schools in our part of New York City at that time, my parents enrolled me in an Episcopalian parochial school in Hollis, a good long bus-ride away on the Jamaica Avenue line. I have a lot of fond memories of Queens and of that school, so . . . that might affect my over-all marginal thumbs-up on this film.]

"Chronicles of Riddick" -- I absolutely don't want to spoil anyone for this, so let me just say "YES!" and a whole-hearted thumbs-up! for Vin Diesel (damn, but he's incredibly good when he has a half-way decent part to work with), Karl Urban (Cupid/Caesar/Eomer, nummier than ever in his Necromonger bondage-wear), Keith David (whom I'll always adore as the voice of Goliath on "Gargoyles"), Judy Dench (managing to be both down-to-earth and ethereal at the same time), et al. The previews you've seen in the theater did NOT reveal the whole movie, or even the major portions of it, and this sequel to the surprisingly good "Pitch Black" ([warning: slightly spoilery for "Pitch Black," if you haven't yet seen it] set more than five years after the events in that 2000 film, from which only Riddick, the Imam, and the young girl 'Jack' escaped with their lives, after the pilot of their wrecked ship lost her own life to the monsters while trying to save Riddick -- raising all sorts of fascinating questions about redemption and the value of all human life and the ability of someone like Riddick to form bonds of loyalty and human affection after all those years of undiluted brutality, etc.) is WELL WORTH paying even FULL EVENING PRICES to see, more than once. I honestly can't wait to see it again!

So, to recap: "Raising Helen" okay, but no need to see it more than once; "Chronicles of Riddick" excellent, narratively better than "Van Helsing" (though I enjoyed that film plenty, on the strength of Hugh Jackman's screen presence, if nothing else), and possibly even more re-watchable than "Hellboy", for my money (though I only had time to see "Hellboy" once before it left the theaters -- I'll have to make sure I don't miss my chance for a repeated big-screen viewing of "Riddick," as well).