Note: My weekly review in the TV Guide section of The Marshall Independent.

Lost Girl is a Canadian import, already in its third season in the Great White North, which just premiered on the SyFy channel here. As a reviewer I had the advantage of having just seen the premier episode and a couple of the current ones, so I kind of know where this is going.

First let me make this perfectly clear, I would not let my children watch this. It’s definitely adult entertainment and SyFy only shows it after their bedtime.

The title character Bo (Anna Silk) has kind of a kinky sex life involving a romantic triangle with a man (Kristen Holden-Ried) and a woman (Zoie Palmer,) and indulges in too-casual sex including the occasional threesome. Not an example I want set for my daughter. So sue me, I’m a prude. At least as far as my children are concerned.

Oh, and did I mention that sex with Bo is fatal for humans?

Bo’s sidekick Kenzi (Ksenia Solo) is a thief-with-a-heart-of-gold. And how many of those loveable pickpockets have you ever met? I do not want my children to see thieves portrayed as anything but lowlifes. (Robin Hood is a special exception, a counter-thief recovering stolen goods.)

And in my other capacity as an anthropologist and folklorist I have very ambiguous feelings about media messing with my myths. On the one hand they take serious liberties with classical myth and folklore. On the other hand where else are people getting any exposure to it at all?

Bo you see, is a succubus. A succubus in medieval demonology derived from ancient Hebrew myths, is a female demon who seduces men in their sleep. The male counterpart is an incubus.

The succubus was thought to explain nocturnal emissions. In medieval myth the succubus would then transform into an incubus, using the seed gathered from one male to impregnate a female. I’ve always thought that was a convenient way to explain to your wife why the kid across town looks just like you. “A succubus Honey! I swear it!”

However Bo is an apparently normal albeit strikingly beautiful woman, who grew up in a normal family unaware of her fae origin. Until her first sexual encounter killed her first boyfriend.

In the first episode Bo met and teamed up with Kenzi after saving her from a cad who’d slipped a ruffie in her drink – and killing the cad by draining his life energy. (Bo is not a vampire, but the effect is the same.)

Bo discovers something of her nature as a fae, a Celtic word covering all tribes of supernatural creatures such as morrigans, werewolves, leprechauns, furies, etc. That’s a pretty multicultural bag of myths right there.

The fae are divided into the light side, and the dark side. When they attempt to force Bo to chose her path, she defiantly chooses, “Human!”

The series revolves around Bo and Kenzi’s supernatural detective agency helping humans who run into supernatural trouble, and vice versa. They are aided by Bo’s romantic interest, a police detective who happens to be a werewolf.

And right there is another thing that makes me uneasy, the notion you can be neutral in a fight between good and evil. But then again this echoes myths about the fae that they were once angels who attempted to remain neutral in the war between God and Satan. They fell from heaven, but not all the way.

After having said all of the above, I have to tell you I find the series oddly compelling. Anna Silk is lovely in a distinctive non-classical way with bone structure to die for. Ksenia Solo plays a delightful smart-mouth who frequently natters away in Russian, a beautiful language that always hovers on the edge of intelligibility for those of us who speak any other Slavic tongue.

The stories of the supernatural world existing side-by-side with our mundane world probably owe inspiration to the work of Canadian fantasy author Charles de Lint and have a lot of the same flavor.

So if you have a taste for fantasy you might give this a try. But it’s not for everybody, and it’s definitely not for children.

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Note: This was my review for the Marshall Independent TV Guide.

I wish I had known I was going to like this movie so much before I set out to review it. I’d have started on the novels first.

This was one of those delightful experiences where you try something more-or-less on a whim, and discover a new treat. Like a new restaurant, a new brand of beer, or a new author.

“One for the Money” is based on the first of 18 Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich, published in 1994. Stephanie is a bounty hunter, who stumbled into the profession out of necessity after losing her job as a lingerie salesperson, getting way behind on her rent, and having her car repossessed.

It stars Katherine Heigl as Stephanie, Jason O’Mara as her onetime romantic interest turned prey, and Debbie Reynolds as Grandma Mazur in a small but very entertaining supporting role. Debbie has aged well and is a delight to see again sporting a Jersey accent – and attitude.

After the aforementioned financial misfortunes, Stephanie goes to work for her cousin Vinnie, a bail bondsman, going after FTAs – Failure to Appear. Her first case turns out to be a cop gone missing after being charged with murder in the death of a suspect.

Said cop Joe Morellli, and Stephanie have history. As in Joe was the man who took Stephanie’s virginity and never called her. Stephanie in return ran over Joe with her father’s car, breaking his leg in several places. Over the course of the film Joe saves Stephanie’s life on a few occasions. Stephanie returns the favor and proves Joe’s innocense. (No spoiler, you can see he’s innocent from the beginning.)

Their chemistry is to say the least, interesting.

OK, so why did I like this so much? Especially since I went in thinking, “Oh, another idiot movie which portrays a woman easily besting men in hand-to-hand combat.”

No such thing. Heigl’s Stephanie is a big girl, and does become proficient with a gun eventually, but is no superwoman. She’s more apt to use her street smarts than her muscles.

The villains are not romantic supervillains either. They are like real criminals, scary, brutal, scum. As Dean Koontz once remarked, you could put a hundred of them in a room together and you couldn’t get five minutes of decent conversation.

The neighborhoods are not the Hollywood Hills, but Trenton, New Jersey, like it says. Clothes are Jersey, not Armani, and accents are Jersey, but not overdone.
Heigl shows range some of us never knew she had from watching Roswell, where she was just kind of there, to Grey’s Anatomy where she played a whole different character. For this role she had to guts to go brunette and kind of dowdy, though there’s no disguising that Valkyrie figure.

There’s character development. You see Stephanie start out with her Jersey attitude and a lot of spunk. Under the tutelage of fellow bounty hunter and second romantic lead, Ranger (Daniel Sunjata) you see her start to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to survive, and prevail.

And did I mention the banter? Lots of banter, like we haven’t seen since Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd in “Moonlighting.” The story is partly told with voiceover first-person narration by Stephanie, but there is no breaking of the fourth wall.

Evanovich’s bio said she spent the first few years of her writing career trying to write The Great American Novel before setting her sights a little lower and becoming first a romance novelist, then an action/adventure novelist. Likewise this is not “Gone with the Wind,” but if you have some time on your hands, try it, you might like it.

And you’ll really like Stephanie.

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Note: Published in the TV Guide issue of The Marshall Independent.

I must confess, I am kind of tepid about vampire fiction as entertainment, but as a jackleg social scientist I find the recent social phenomenon of “vampire as good guy” fiction fascinating.

Underworld Awakening is in chronological order the third movie in a series of four of the Underworld vampire/werewolf saga and set in the near future. A prequel, “Underworld: Rise of the Lycans” filled in the back story of the origin of vampires, werewolves, and the war between them back in the middle ages.

The first two movies: “Underworld,” and “Underworld Evolution,” are set in the present. “Underworld Awakening” is set in the near future, when the existence of vampires and werewolves has become known and the authorities have waged a war of extermination against them.

Now in a previous generation of vampire films, that would be taken as a given, “Well duh.”

A lot vampire/werewolf flicks of the past, such as the Hammer films of fond memory, would have a plot subtext of the valiant vampire hunter desperately trying to prove to skeptics there are such things, precisely so we could get together and exterminate them.

In the Underworld world, vampires are a virally mutated species who have learned how to produce artificial blood, or just live off animals, and coexist with normal humans while they fight werewolves (“lycans”) with hi-tech weapons. Except sometimes they yield to temptation and just have to dine on traditional vampire cuisine, a la the Twilight series.

The central character is again Selena (Kate Beckinsale,) a beautiful 300-something vampire trained as a death-dealer, i.e. a superhuman martial arts master who kills lycans.

Selena had previously found out the secret behind the centuries-old war, and the death of her family at the fangs of the vampire elder who turned her. Vampires and lycans it turns out, are sort of cousins, descendants of twin brothers who got bitten by a bat and a wolf respectively. By the end of “Underworld: Evolution” Selena has mutated again to the point she can stand sunlight, and is partnered with the first vampire-lycan hybrid.

At the beginning of “Awakening” Selena has been in cold storage in a laboratory for 12 years, and evidently had a daughter (India Eisley) while she was on ice. The daughter is a hybrid like her father. The lab is run by secret lycans who want to vivisect her daughter Eve (get it? First of a new race, Eve) to create a race of bigger, stronger lycans who are immune to silver.

Selena’s mate, Eve’s father Michael (Scott Speedman) is AWOL in this flick, though present in spirit and presumably will be reunited in the future.
There’s lots of slam-bang action, gun fights, explosions, and hand-to-hand combat in this one. My 10-year-old son loved it of course, “Because I like movies with hotties in them.”

The plot alas, is a bit thin, though to be fair it does advance the series story line in a way that promises more sequels.

The movie ends with Selena, Eve, and a young vampire David (Theo James) escaping just behind and just missing Michael, promising they’ll be back. Back to what is only hinted at, but perhaps to being the secret masters of the world or something. Not an appetizing prospect for us mere humans, but could hardly be worse than the current crop of blood-sucking politicians who run things.

So what is it about vampires and why has the modern incarnation of the legend mutated so far from its origins as a walking, blood drinking corpse?
Well for one, they’re immortal, and they’re super strong and fast. For another, they’re scary when they want to be. If you’re a vampire guy, you can offer the ladies something nobody else can, eternal youth and beauty. And vampire chicks are hot.

Vampires it seems, have replaced Superman as the hero we would like to be. Perhaps it’s because becoming a vampire is doable, while to be Superman you have to have been born on Krypton.

And vampires are powerful in an age when many feel we have lost power over our own lives.

So what the heck, take your kids (10 is about the lower limit I’d say,) they’ll enjoy the action and noise. And dad, watching English actress Kate Beckinsale kick butt in a skin-tight leather jumpsuit is the best English import since Emma Peal in “The Avengers.”

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Note: Published in the TV Guide of The Marshall Independent.

Critical reactions to “The Adventures of Tintin” seem to be either love it or hate it, I confess to mixed feelings.

I have been passingly familiar with Tintin longer than Spielberg actually, because as a boy some of my best friends were French and had the books around. But I was not a fan myself, so the character was sort of new to me, and entirely new to my 10-year-old son.

Tintin was directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson, based on the long-running series of comic books by Belgian artist Georges Prosper Remi (1907 – 1983,) better known by his pen name Hergé.

You’d think a combination like that couldn’t be beat. Indiana Jones meets Lord of the Rings, via one of the most popular European comics ever.
Spielberg became a fan in 1981 when he read a review comparing “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to Tintin. Herge returned the compliment when he declared Spielberg the only man who could bring his creation to the screen.

Tragically, Herge died a few weeks before they were to meet.

The film, Spielberg’s first animated feature, was made in 3-D using motion capture, the technique where the movement is recorded and translated on to a digital model. I saw it on flat screen but didn’t feel I missed anything.

The major supporting character Captain Haddock was played by Andy Serkis, famous for his uncanny mocap performance as Gollum in Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings.”

The film follows young reporter/adventurer Tintin (Jamie Bell) who discovers a secret clue to the location of a pirates treasure in an antique model ship he buys at a flea market. A villain Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine (Daniel “Bond, James Bond” Craig) immediately shows up and attempts to buy, then steal the ship, and then kidnaps Tintin and imprisons him on a ship bound for Algeria. There he meets Captain Haddock and through a series of non-stop action scenes discovers the history of the families of Sakharine and Haddock, the location of part of the treasure, and a map to the rest of the treasure, whereupon the movie ends on the promise of at least one sequel.

The reviewers were right, the action of Tintin is uncannily like Indiana Jones adventures. So much so that I automatically assumed this was Spielberg doing Spielberg with someone else’s character. Not so, it was evidently the meeting of kindred spirits in a match made in Hollywood heaven.

And yet, though I certainly don’t mind movies depicting newspaper reporters as action heros, there was something underwhelming about it. Something I can’t quite put my finger on.

The action was slam-bang, the plot convoluted enough to keep one mentally occupied. There are moments of maddening tension, as when the bumbling Interpol detectives Thompson and Thompson are admiring Aristides Silk’s “wallet collection” and you’re jumping up and down waiting for these two idiots to realize the fellow is confessing to being the pickpocket they’re after.

But I left the theater in a mood not much different than I went in, and my son had nothing to say about the movie from that moment to bedtime.

Steve Rose, movie critic from The Guardian said the film entered the “uncanny valley.”

That’s the hypothetical point at which a robot or 3D computer animation starts to look too human. When a character looks human-like but not too humanoid the theory goes, it inspires affection. At the point it starts to look too human, it inspires revulsion.

Not quite, I think. What I felt was not revulsion.

What I think it was, was that when you see Indiana Jones doing these wildly improbably but barely possible stunts, like doing a balancing act between two speeding vehicles or hitching a ride on a submarine by clinging to the periscope, you can suspend disbelief enough to be thrilled by the danger and excitement.

The trouble is, Tinin is neither cartoon nor human. The action does not suspend the laws of nature like a cartoon. You don’t see any character walking off a cliff and not falling until he notices he’s walking on air for instance. But when he does these Indy Jones type of stunts, I was left with a feeling of, “Big deal, he’s a cartoon.”

Maybe I’m wrong, box office has been great around the world. Maybe I’ll get used to this eventually. But for now, though I’ll probably see the sequel, it didn’t smack me right between the eyes like Raiders or Lord of the Rings.

On the other hand, what else does?

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Published in The Marshall Independent TV Guide

I really didn’t want to like this movie, so it was with some trepidation that I decided to review it, with visions of mobs of angry teenage girls besieging the Independent’s office with torches and pitchforks dancing in my head.

Plus I have met and liked one of the actors (Dimitri the vampire) and it’s kind of touchy critiquing the work of someone you know, however slightly.

But I was trained as an anthropologist with a strong background in folklore studies since childhood. This recent trend in reworking the vampire legends offends me professionally.

Let’s get this straight, a vampire is not Anne Rice’s “dark, Byronic figure.” A vampire is a corpse risen from the dead. In some legends reanimated by a demon. They could be victims of other vampires, atheists, illegitimate children, or other outcasts and undesirables come back from the dead to exact a geek’s revenge on society.

And they have bad breath.

Admittedly there have been some pretty good modern reworkings the vampire theme, discarding much or most of the supernatural elements of the legends. One is vampirism-is-a-disease, inspired by theories that vampire legends may have drawn on observations of victims suffering from pernicious anemia, porphyria, or rabies. The “Blade” series is an example.

Another is that vampires are another species that prey on humans from their position one link higher on the food chain. Good examples of this are “The Vampire Tapestry” by Suzy McGee Charnas, and “Fevre Dream” by George R.R. Martin.

The “Twilight” series falls into the vampirism-as-a-communicable-disease camp. If you can call an infection that makes you stronger, faster, and gives you psychic powers and everlasting youth a disease. There is that overwhelming desire for human blood thing, but evidently that can be controlled by strong self-discipline and animal blood, according to author Stephanie Meyers.

There is so much about this movie that grates. To begin with it drags, if you’re not in the mood to watch beautiful scenery (Oregon and Rio) while waiting for the action to start. And for those of us who have actually been present for a partner’s pregnancy and delivery, it makes one kind of queasy as Bella’s life-threatening pregnancy advances, and definitely gross when she drinks human blood and delivers by Caesarian section performed by amateurs.

And oddly, since Robert Pattinson (Edward) and Kristen Stewart (Bella) are reportedly a real-life couple, there is something missing from their on-screen romance. Edward is 80-odd years older than Bella but we don’t see a hint of the tensions, misunderstandings, and sweet poignancy couples with a marked age difference experience. It is mentioned Edward struggles between his love for Bella and his desire to murder her for the blood in her veins, but again it doesn’t show in their performances much.

(Russian-English actor George Sanders once remarked, “It is impossible to be in love with a woman without experiencing upon occasion, a desire to strangle her.” I suspect women feel a different urge than strangulation, and am quite certain it’s more than occasionally.)

But all that said, I have to say the popularity of the Twilight series among young people fascinates me.

I think all thoughtful people must realize this is a bad time for lovers in our society. We are conflicted about what the nature of real manliness is, somewhere between the extremes of wimpiness and brutality.

What I see here are young, and not so young, girls longing for manly strength, gallantry, and lustiness tempered by honor and discipline. A man who could tear apart anyone who threatens them, but who wouldn’t willingly harm a hair on their head. A man who is stirred by their femininity but can keep his hands to himself. A man in whose arms they’d feel safe jumping off a high cliff into a tropical pool.

Teenage Bella is courted by not one, but two such men. Bitter rivals who it appears will become fast friends. And it is strongly hinted, the rejected suitor will become the hero her newborn daughter will need in a dangerous world.

I see the wish-fulfillment fantasy of every girl becoming a woman, in a society unsure of what a man should be. And I wonder what it means that this is presented as a fantasy.

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Note: Printed in the Marshall Independent TV Guide

What you first see when you tune into “Knights of Mayhem,” a new reality show on of all places the National Geographic Channel, appears to be a bunch of smack-talking, foul-mouthed rednecks with egos bigger than their outsized selves. Then you see them in 130 pounds of plate armor mounted on 2,000-plus pound horses, charging at each other with 11-foot wooden poles at 30 miles per hour.

What they’re doing is called “jousting” which was what men did in the Late Middle Ages instead of football.

Jousting originated as a combat sport for mounted knights in the High Middle Ages. By the 15th and 16th centuries it had evolved pretty far from its martial origins, using specially designed jousting armor much heavier and less articulated than armor for warfare.

This by the way, is what led to the popular misconception that a knight unhorsed and lying on the ground could not get up due to the weight of his armor.

The death of King Henry II of France in a joust in 1559 is generally held to mark the end of jousting as a sport. Since then there have been periodic revivals, mostly of what is called “theatrical jousting,” where the joust is carefully choreographed with a pre-determined “winner.”
This isn’t that. These guys in the Ultimate Jousting Championship engage in the real thing, breaking lances on each other’s armor and trying to knock them off their horses.

It’s worth mentioning that in 2007 a jouster in England was killed in precisely the same way as Henry II when a splinter from a lance got him right through the eye-slits of the helmet. Concussions are common, as are injuries to the hands and shoulders.

The UJC is the brainchild of Charlie Andrews, who founded the organization in 2010 with the intention of popularizing jousting as the Next Big Thing in extreme sports. Charlie was taught jousting by Patrick Lambke, aka “The Black Knight,” onetime mentor and now bitter rival.

Charlie, to put it mildly, has an ego. He’s proclaimed that it is vital for the future of the sport that he win the World Championship.

Considering the “World” in this case is no more than a dozen guys who meet at various venues around the country, that tends to grate on people’s nerves.

Charlie is a tad obsessive about jousting. He’s admitted he’s gone broke and lost his family trying to promote the sport.

Add to that a lot of typical reality-show bickering, and talk like, “If you put my grandmother up on a horse I’d knock her on her…” and you’ve got a pretty high irritation factor.

Plus, jousting is actually a very sophisticated sport requiring superior horsemanship and fine point control of a long lance that is not light while atop a bouncing horse. The uneducated eye will not see the subtleties of technique and become easily bored.

Not to mention jousting is expensive. It requires a full suit of custom-made plate armor, a carefully-trained horse only slightly smaller than an elephant which consumes massive amounts of grain, not hay, and the rig to haul it all around in. Factor in training time and that $20,000 purse for the championship doesn’t look all that big.

So who does this kind of thing?

To begin with, big guys. If jousting had weight classes, a 200 pound man would be a lightweight. Other than that, former soldiers, football players, one former MMA fighter, guys who grew up on horses, a few who learned to ride just so they could joust.

And why do they do it?

Glory. The charge that comes from mastery of something so strenuous, so dangerous, and so cool.
You see real jousting, and you don’t wonder where all that ego comes from.

Now if only they could learn to talk with the delicate courtesy of the knights of old.

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Movie review: Immortals. Starring: Henry Cavill, Mickey Rourke, Frida Pinto, John Hurt. Directed by Tarsem Singh. (Published in The Marshall Independent TV Guide.)

Years ago at a graduate school party I was having a typical grad student discussion of Deep Stuff with some Asian fellow-grads about Western Civilization.

Trying to explain what I thought was the basis for the self-identification of North Americans and Europeans as “Western” I said, “No matter where our ancestors came from, if we are Western then in some essential way we are all Hebrews and we are all Greeks.”

Once upon a time when I was young, all students were exposed to the Greek myths at least a little by the end of grade school. I am no longer sure if that’s true, which is why I welcome movies based on the Greek myths reintroducing another generation to some of the founding traditions of our civilization.

When you translate ancient myths into novels or movies, there are several options open to you.

You can use special effects to recreate the fantastical elements of the classical myths and do a fairly straightforward story based on the myth, perhaps with some modifications for modern audiences. This was done brilliantly in Ray Harryhausen’s “Jason and the Argonauts” (1963,) and pretty well in “Clash of the Titans” in 1981, and not quite as well but with the benefit of CGI in 2010.

You can euhemerize the story. Euhemeros was a Greek who lived in the 4th century BC. He theorized that myths were fantastic or allegorical accounts based on real historical events and people. Euhemerization is a kind of back formation based on a theory of what the real people and events that inspired the myths might actually have been.

This is how poet Robert Graves treated the story of the argonauts in his novel, “Hercules My Shipmate,” portraying a world of men motivated by fear of angry gods and vengeful ghosts, and banded together in fraternities with totems such as the horse (“centaurs,”) or goat (“fauns.”)
You can take a mythological character and the broad outlines of his legend and create a whole new series of adventures for him. Such as the lightweight but fun Kevin Sorbo “Hercules” TV series. One may always hope this will motivate some kids to look up the original myths.

And lately there has been a science fiction approach to the myths, where the gods are interpreted as aliens or inter-dimensional beings who inspired the myth makers.

This was the approach used in an original Star Trek episode, “Who Mourns for Adonis?” and recently in the Marvel Comics production “Thor.”

Or you can totally disregard the original story, rip off a few names from mythology, and call it ancient Greece.

That was what director Tarsem Singh did in this piece of dreck, “Immortals.”

There is no resemblance to the myths of Theseus (and by the way, the correct pronunciation is “Thee-soos,” not “Thee-see-us,”) Phaedra, or Hyperion.

There is a plot of sorts, the quest of the hero for a Weapon of Power that Unleashes Unimaginable Evil.

There are a lot of predictable developments you’ve seen before. Not necessarily a bad thing, myths are stories told again and again that we never get tired of. When the hero and the love interest, in this case a virgin prophetess (a al “The Scorpion King,”) consummate their attraction for each other this early in the movie, you know the hero is going to die in the end after fathering a son (“Terminator.”)

But mostly nothing hangs together. Plot developments are introduced, and just left hanging.

Theseus isn’t the son of a princess and either a king or the god Poseidon, His mother was raped and is the village cast-off. King Hyperion reveals he hates the gods because his family all died in a plague, and he was a peasant like Theseus who worked his way up to king and war lord. Phaedra the prophetess gives herself to Theseus because foresight is an intolerable burden, etc.

And what is done with these admittedly intriguing plot lines?

NOTHING! Zero, zip, nada.

On the other hand there are lots of good fight scenes, Henry Cavill is hunky, and Frida Pinto is definitely easy on the eyes. Treat it as eye-candy and you’ll be OK with it. But if it’s the Greek myths you want, find a DVD of “Jason and the Argonauts” for your kids.

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Note: My personal blog is on indefinite hiatus, however I am cross-posting from my newspaper blog at The Marshall Independent and the print-only TV Guide.

“If the rich could hire the poor to die for them, the poor would make a very good living.” – Jewish proverb

Imagine a world where time is money – literally.

Writer/director Andrew Niccol’s “In Time,” is set in a distant future when everyone is issued 25 years plus one at birth. At 25 people stop aging, but get one more year of life, measured on a digital clock on their forearm. They must work, gamble, or steal for time to pay their rent, bus fare, etc. Time can be bought, given, or stolen. When their clock runs down to zero, they die.

Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) lives in a “ghetto.” He and his mother (Olivia Wilde) live day to day, going to work each day to earn another day of life.

Then Will is given a century of life by a suicidal rich man slumming in the ghetto. When his mother clocks out and dies in his arms Will determines to invade the precincts of the very rich and stir things up a bit.

The notion of government regulating the length of citizens’ lives has been done before, but Niccol’s treatment is brilliantly original.

That didn’t prevent SciFi writer Harlan Ellison from suing, claiming close similarity to his 1965 short story, “’Repent Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman.’”

In this writer’s humble opinion, the similarity was purely that of general theme. Jack Vance would have had a marginally better case for copyright infringement for his 1956 novel, “To Live Forever.” Or for that matter “Bonnie and Clyde,” (pretty couple robs banks together,) or Patty Hearst (kidnapped heiress joins her kidnapper.)

Some of the characters are over a century old, but Niccols had to use only actors who could pass for 25.

George Orwell said, “At 50 everyone has the face they deserve.”

So how do you show age when nobody ages? When faces aren’t sculpted by their life?

Niccol created a startling effect by casting a youthful and somewhat effeminate-looking Vincent Kartheiser, 32, as the super-rich Phillipe Weis. (How rich? “Aeons,” says his daughter Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried.)) When Phillipe meets Will, he introduces him to three young beauties with smooth, unlined faces – as his wife, mother-in-law, and daughter.

Rich immortals live in a smothering cocoon. When Will buys a hot car he’s asked where he wants to display it.

“Display? I’m going to drive it,” he says.

Sylvia lives in a mansion on a beach, but has never been in the water or played in the breakers until Will shows her that life without risk is no life at all. Syvia then becomes an enthusiastic devotee of risky adventures such as robbing daddy’s banks for time to give to the poor.

A good time is had by all with car chase/smashups, shoot ‘em ups, and run-for-your-life suspense.

But there’s some food for thought here as well.

If you had all the time in the word, how would you spend it?

If you could live as long as you wanted, would you hoard your life like a miser, or embrace it with all its risks?

If others had to die so you could live forever, would you?

And it’s nice to see that question addressed outside of a vampire movie for once.

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Note: My personal blog is on indefinite hiatus, however I am cross-posting from my newspaper blog at The Marshall Independent and the print-only TV Guide.

Real Steel has an extremely unoriginal plot line. And you know what, who cares? I liked it.

Real Steel is loosely based on a 1956 short story by Richard Matheson which was first made into a Twilight Zone episode in 1964. “Loosely based” means it has about the same relationship to the short story/TZ episode as it does to the Rock’em Sock’em Robots toy, which also premiered in 1964. They’re all about robot boxers.

The movie was begat by way of The Champ, first made with Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper in 1931, then remade with Jon Voigt and Ricky Schroder in 1979. However Real Steel delivers a happy ending begat by Rocky. Which is a relief since the ‘79 version of “The Champ” has been called “the saddest movie in the world” and is used in psychology experiments to make people cry.

Like “Steel” the movie is about a former boxer, now owner/manager of a fighting robot. Like “The Champ” he is an irresponsible lush, a gambler, and has a son.

That’s the point of departure. “The Champ” was raising a son who had never known his mother. “Real Steel’s” Charlie Kenton, played by Hugh Jackman, never knew he had a son by an old girlfriend until the message to attend a custody hearing lands on him.

“The Champ’s” son adored his irresponsible gambling lush of a dad. Charlie’s son Max, played by aspiring scene-stealer Dakota Goyo, thinks dad is a jerk. Max also thinks he’s smarter than Charlie and proves it more than once.

To further miscegenate the plot, Goyo played in the 2007 movie “Resurrecting the Champ” about a homeless man who was a former heavyweight contender. He wasn’t a robot though.

“The Champ” fought for money so he could keep his son, rather than give him to his birth mother and her rich husband.

Charlie is about to blithely sign custody of his son over to the boy’s aunt and her rich husband, when he figures out he can extort money from rich husband by offering to surrender custody only after they’ve had a European vacation.

“The Champ” redeemed himself through his love for his son. Charlie eventually straightens his act out by listening to good advice, from Max and his sometime partner and sometime girlfriend Bailey, played by Evangeline Lilly.

Lilly splendidly pulls off playing the tough chick who is nonetheless very attractive, perhaps due to being radiantly pregnant during filming.

Charlie’s luck begins to change when after loosing his last fighting robot and welshing on his bets, he takes Max on a midnight raid of a robot junkyard looking for spare parts. There Max discovers an obsolete early-model sparring robot called “Atom” which he believes, in a rare moment his common sense slips, can be rebuilt into a contender.

Here’s where the movie could have gone disastrously wrong, but didn’t. They don’t anthropomorphize the robot, and its adorability quotient is kept to a minimum, thank Heaven!

The success of the Little Robot that Could is due to Bailey’s mechanical expertise, Max’s knowledge of the fight game, and Charlie’s ability to program his own boxing skill into the robot.

Of course there is a match with the title holder. Of course Charlie bonds with Max. Of course Atom, like Rocky, loses on a split decision. And of course there will be a rematch.
Take your kids to see this one, it’s as good an excuse as any to see it yourself, and watch for “Real Steel 2” in 2014.

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Note: My personal blog is on indefinite hiatus, however I am cross-posting articles from my newspaper blot at The Marshall Independent and reviews I do for the print-only TV Guide.

The ScyFy series Warehouse 13 has just ended its third successful season with a cliffhanger.

Stay tuned for season 4 which premiers in 2012. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

For those of you who don’t know the Secret History of the U.S. and the world in general, Warehouse 13 is a secret installation in South Dakota where the government stores supernatural artifacts which are too dangerous to leave lying around. Warehouse 1 was Alexander the Great’s, Warehouse 2 was the Great Library of Alexandria, Warehouse 12 was in Great Britain at the height of the empire… you get the picture. The Warehouse is always located in the dominant world power, and it is always eventually destroyed in a disaster as Warehouse 13 appears to have been in the cliffhanger ending.

The trope of the secret government warehouse is not new, but it’s done brilliantly here. (Remember where the Ark of the Covenant wound up in “Indiana Jones”?) Also brilliant is an ensemble cast of warehouse agents, a pretty boardinghouse landlady who is more than she seems, the powerful and mysterious Mrs. Frederic who is older than she appears, and in the background the Council of Regents.

Field agents Pete and Myka were recruited from the Secret Service after saving the life of the president. Here they use the trope of the guy who’s intuitive and kind of flighty, and the lady agent who’s tough as nails by-the-book, but soft and emotional at the core. Not to mention drop dead gorgeous. It’s been done many times, badly. But it works here.

Backing them up in the warehouse is Artie, who knows everything there is to know about artifacts, objects which are imbued with magical qualities, sometimes harmless, more often dangerous, and occasionally actively malign.

Aiding Artie is new agent Allison, a sassy, irreverent post-teen who’s a genius computer hacker.

Together they hunt down artifacts and store them in the warehouse.

Opposing them are a cast of villains, including some ex-warehouse agents who want certain artifacts for their own nefarious purposes. Behind the light-hearted entertainment is a sometimes serious meditation on the fact that power corrupts, and the watchmen must themselves be watched carefully.

And what are artifacts?

Artifacts are objects imbued with certain powers, and sometimes personalities. Run Marilyn Monroe’s hairbrush through your hair and it turns platinum blonde. Harmless enough. But look into Lizzie Borden’s compact mirror and you could become possessed of an overwhelming desire to murder the ones you love.

The series was put together from a bunch of ideas we’ve all seen before, but never seem to get tired of: the secret history, the government warehouse of legendary artifacts, the ancient conspiracies for good – and evil.

What it gives us for an hour each week is the delicious thrill of being in on a secret few other know, of knowing there are good guys behind the scenes keeping us safe from unimaginable danger, and of course the tension of wanting to shout at the screen, “Pete, just kiss her!”

Will Pete finally kiss Myka? Is the warehouse finally destroyed for good? Will the series return as Warehouse 14?

We’ll have to wait until 2012 to find out. Arrrrrrrgh!

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