Guilty Pleasure 2: Supergirl

In 1978, director Richard Donner unleashed on the world what I believe is his finest moment as a filmmaker, "Superman." 30 years later it is still possibly the greatest comic book movie ever made. "Superman II" arrived in 1980, and despite behind the scenes turmoil, including being partially directed by Donner and partially directed by Richard Lester, the end result was still a great follow-up. By 1983, however, the series was pretty much box office kryptonite after the disastrous "Superman III." But producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind had one more trick up their sleeve, a spin off film...1984's "Supergirl."

It seems that Kal-El wasn't the only survivor of the planet Krypton. In fact, quite a few Krptonians, including Superman's cousin Kara, are livin' la vida loca in Argo City, which exists in "Inner Space." What keeps the lights running in this place is a glowing croquet ball called the Omegahedron. When it goes missing, it's up to Kara to get it back. She follows it to Earth where it's snatched up by a wanna-be sorceress, Selina. When Kara isn't flying around looking for the thing, she's disguised as a mild-mannered student named Linda Lee (continuing the tradition of double L names in Superman) at an all-girls school in a small Illinois town where they apparently love Howard Jones music and eating at Popeye's Fried Chicken.

Helen Slater makes her movie debut as the title character, and she makes a good Supergirl. She was nominated for a Saturn award for her performance, but for all we know that could've been based primarily on the fact that she looked cute in a short red skirt and go-go boots. Seriously, her performance is good, but it's the veteran actors who ham it up. Faye Dunaway, Peter O'Toole, Mia Farrow...sure they don't have much to work with, but come on folks!

I've always had a problem with the sort of sci-fi / fantasy plot device they use here...there's some sort of magical object that spins and glows and we're all doomed if the good guys don't get it back. This is actually the same plot device they used last year for "Transformers." I suppose that film is not that different from "Supergirl." There you had a film that had a dumb story but was enjoyable because...well...who doesn't like giant robots fighting? "Supergirl" has the same basic dumb story, get the magic glowing thing, but is likable because...well...who doesn't like pretty blond superheroes, right?

There is a rumor floating around that Hollywood may have it's eye on making a new Supergirl film, but this one will always have a place in the "so bad it's good" file.

Guilty Pleasure 1: Flash Gordon

In 1980 it wasn't uncommon that I would spend a weekend at my grandparents' house along with two of my cousins who were close in age. My grandpa would often take the three of us to a movie during the weekend. We first saw "The Empire Strikes Back" on one of these weekends. Later that same year I looked forward to one of those weekends anticipating seeing "Flash Gordon." I got sick that weekend and ended up staying at home and being extremely jealous of my cousins who got to see the movie. It was many many years later that I finally got to see what would become a great cult classic of the 80's.

Of course, Flash is a character that dates back to the 1930's, but this version was pretty much a response to the success of "Star Wars," However, the two films couldn't be more different. Lucas' universe was lived in, it was worn. You won't find a speck of rust here, though. The general feel of Flash is actually much closer to "Barbarella" than "Star Wars."

The look of many of the ships and costumes are right out of the original Flash Gordon comics and serial films of the 30's. Other elements of the design seem like you're walking into a Yes album cover.

The acting is uneven to say the least. Flash is played by Sam Jones, who rumor has it was cast in the role because producer Dino De Laurentis' mother spotted him on an episode of "The Dating Game." Not exactly a promising start. Despite having an unknown in the lead, the film does boast some impressive supporting players including Topol as Dr. Zarkov, future James Bond Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin, and Max Von Sydow perfectly cast as Ming the Merciless.

But the casting highlight has to be Brian Blessed in a completely over-the-top performance as the leader of the Hawkmen, Prince Vultan. He's a bizarre cartoon character come to life as he bounds around in his winged diaper.

The icing on the cake is the musical contribution of Queen. With it's extensive use of synthesizers, pounding bass lines, and frequent repeats of "FLASH! Aaaaah," well, let's just say it's a far cry from John Williams.

"Flash Gordon" was not received well upon its initial release. The shadow of "Star Wars" is hard to get away from. But Flash needs to be viewed much like the "Batman" TV series of the 60's. The film seems to be intentionally campy with a healthy dose of tongue-in-cheek humor. For example when Zarkov and Prince Barin are blindfolded and chained in a dungeon, Barin delivers the best line of the movie…"Tell me more about this Houdini fellow." Simply put, it's meant to be ridiculous.

I've Just Seen a...really weird movie

There's something about being able to go to my friends and say, "I've just seen the most bizarre movie..." that I've always loved. I remember when I first saw "Napoleon Dynamite," a few days later a friend of mine asked what movies I'd seen recently and I had to say, "Man, I just saw the most bizarre movie." He then went and rented it and came back a week later saying, "That movie was really bizarre." So allow me to give an official "man I just saw the most bizarre movie" for "Across the Universe."

I'd been intrigued by this movie since I first heard about the project. The premise is simple...string a story together using classic Beatles songs. The end result is part "Moulin Rouge" (which is a good thing) and part "Rent" (which is a bad thing). The problem is this has been tried before and the end result has been known to cause seizures in lab rats. It was 1978 and the movie was called "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," it is one of the worst movies ever made...and, of course, I highly recommend it. Picture this in your mind, but I accept no responsibility for any brain damage that may occur. Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees star as Sgt. Pepper's band. It seems that Mean Mr. Mustard has stolen some magical instruments from Heartland USA, so the boys go on journey to get them back. Along the way they encounter a bunch of strange characters all of whom seem to have a way with a Beatles song that will have you begging for William Shatner's version of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." Celebrity cameos are everywhere, including Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, Steve Martin, and Earth Wind & Fire.

"Across the Universe" does not suffer from the extreme level of camp that oozes from "Sgt. Pepper's," but it is interesting to note that both films use similar gimmicks. For example, most of the characters in both films have names that come from Beatles lyrics. Peppers has Billy Shears, The Hendersons, Mr. Kite, and Mean Mr. Mustard while "Across the Universe" features Jude, Lucy, Jojo, Sadie, and Prudence. It actually becomes somewhat distracting. The character of Prudence in "Across the Universe" seems to serve no purpose to the story other than as an excuse to include the song "Dear Prudence" midway through the film.

Both films also feature a variety of bizarre cameos. In "Across the Universe" we have Bono showing up as the leader of some sort of psychedelic field trip called Dr. Robert (another name from a Beatles song), multiple versions of Salma Hayek show up during a strange rendition of "Happiness is a Warm Gun," and Eddie Izzard plays ringmaster to a cast of strange puppets in a truly awful rendition of "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite." At least the puppets were cool.

The music this time around is much better, but the "story" twists around more than the guys at Cirque Du Soleil just to include over 30 Beatles songs. The visuals are certainly eye catching, but for every sequence that had me saying, "wow that's cool," there was another one that had me shaking my head thinking, "that's really dumb."

"Across the Universe" is not complete squeeze cheez like it's 1978 counterpart, but I'm not sure I can give it a thumbs up review either. Actually, I think both of these Beatles musicals I would rank as guilty pleasures. Most movie fans probably have several films that they just can't resist watching for the 27th time on TBS, despite the fact that they are a far cry from "Citizen Kane." Sgt. Peppers is certainly in that category for me, and I have a feeling that Across will be joining it.

This has me thinking I should do a series of blogs on some other movies I would call guilty pleasures. Stay tuned. How 'bout you? What movies are some of your guilty pleasures?

NWCEC - Seattle

This weekend I was in Seattle at the North West Christian Education Conference (NWCEC). It was One Way Street's first time at the conference. I stayed busy with 3 classes, plus running our booth by myself.


Now I've taught at many conferences in the past, and often I've received some sort of goodie bag from the hosts. A few candy bars, couple cans of soda, a mug...stuff like that. Well I can honestly say this is the first time I ever received at sockeye salmon as a gift.

About 3000 people gathered at Overlake Christian Church. That's the church waaaaaaay off in the distance in the above photo. Believe it or not, this picture was taken at about the halfway spot in the parking lot. The parking lot is so big they have shuttle stops.

I got to see a lot of familiar faces in the world of children's ministry like Jana Alayra and Steven James, plus some new ones like New Zealanders The Lads. Their music is aimed at tweens. I couldn't resist picking up all three of their CD's.

Our good friends from Speed Stacks were just two booths down, which means I could hear the distinctive "cluck cluck cluck" of cups being stacked throughout the weekend. If I remember correctly, the young man in the red is the current world record holder for the cycle.

One of the best things about attending conferences is getting to meet new people. Most of the folks at this conference were from the Northwest, but there was a whole group that came over from Seoul, South Korea. This is me with Yi, Ki Doong, the leader of the group from N Friends. He said he hopes to have some puppet training in Korea some day. Perhaps we can get his group to come over to I-Fest sometime as well!

Looooosiana

Ah, crawfish...is there anything more beautiful? Ok, I guess there is, but man these little buggers taste good. A week ago I was in Louisiana for One Way Street's Lafayette, LA Puppet festival, so I had to get some crawfish. I often wonder about who was the first person to look at one of these creepy little guys and think, "Mmmmm, I think I might like to eat that!" He must've been starving since these guys don't exactly have the same visual appeal as, say, a banana split. Personally, I like to think whoever it was had just finished some sort of religious fast and God rewarded him by pointing him to one of the most delicious of all his creation.

It is a bit of a leap of faith the first time you try them. I was really proud of Philip, a former One Way Street intern who helped me set up the festival, for diving right in. He had never had crawfish before, but apparently trusted my taste in food more than my taste in movies enough to order up 3 pounds. I was a little concerned at first, the above photo was not posed.

We also made sure to teach Philip the ways of Mr. Tony Chachere. This stuff sits on every table in Louisiana and I've had some in my pantry ever since my first visit 14 years ago.

As I worked my way through my crawfish I took in everything around me. There was a Cajun band playing, and it's pretty much impossible to be in a bad mood when there's Cajun music playing. There was also a bunch of people dancing, every single one of them was smiling. Lafayette is one of my favorite places to visit. It is a joyful place, and it rubs off on me quickly. I think I'm going to pack my iPod with a lot of zydeco...a prescription for all those times I need to remind myself to be joyful.

Son of Children's Church Coolness

I'm a little bit behind on blogging about my trip to Louisiana last weekend for our 17th annual Lafayette, LA Puppet Ministry Festival. Crossroads Church in Lafayette have hosted One Way Street every year and they are incredible hosts. Lafayette is one of my favorite places to visit. Everyone there calls me "Brother Todd" or "sir."

Marty Hoey, everyone calls him "Brother Marty," is the children's pastor at Crossroads and he is one amazin' cajun. When I first met him 14 years ago, he was serving God with all his heart as the maintenance man at the church. For the last 12 years he's been leading an amazing crew of volunteers as children's pastor. Take a look at some of the cool kids facilities they've got a Crossroads.

Even the hallways at Crossroads are exciting...

Now all the stuff is cool...but here's what any true children's ministry professional gets excited about...storage!!! Check out this resource room!

And I love the way they store the puppets!! Notice the little pictures by each peg so you know which puppets go where.

Brother Marty is all about investing in others. He has a great team and it's a thrill to see the exciting things going on in his ministry!

Don't Talk back to Darth Vader

Say "Hello" to the internet's latest celebrity. Here is "Star Wars" according to a 3 year old

Oscars Nite - Live Blog

Oscar Live Blog

I enjoyed live blogging the Super Bowl commercials last week, even though I doubt anyone actually watched me blog it live. Anyhow, that was kind of an experiment to gear up for live blogging the Oscars coming up in a little more than a week. So tune in here on Feb 24 for the live Oscar night blog. You can follow along with me and see how I do on my predictions.

Keeping up with the Joneses

Here's a Valentine's Day gift for everyone...Lucas, Spielberg and company have unleased the teaser for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" today. Hey, Indy's been away for 19 years...how can you not get excited about this?

Picking the Oscar Winners

The 80th Annual Academy Awards are coming up on Feb 24. As usual, I haven't seen very many of the nominated films at this point, but it's always fun to try and pick the winners. I usually do pretty well picking the winners of the big six categories (Best Picture, Best Director, and the four acting awards), but this year there is no clear cut front runner in several of the categories. Almost all of these awards have at least two strong possibilities.

The one major exception this year is Best Actor. Here are the nominees:

- George Clooney in Michael Clayton
- Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood
- Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
- Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah
- Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises

Daniel Day-Lewis has got this one locked up. The buzz on his performance is just about the strongest any actor has received in the last 20 years. Of course the last time I said that an Oscar win was a sure thing was predicting "Cars" would win Best Animated Feature last year. Curse you "Happy Feet."

The rest of the categories aren't so simple to pick. Take Best Supporting Actor, just a few weeks ago everyone was saying that other hopefuls should just stand back, let Javier Bardem and his cattle gun take home the award for "No Country for Old Men," and hopefully nobody gets hurt in the process. But wait, enter Hal Holbrook's performance from "Into the Wild." The veteran of film's such as "All the President's Men", and "The Star Chamber" has received a lot of buzz and he's got age on his side. He's 83 years old and never been nominated before. Age and a long history in the film industry can be a factor, especially in the supporting actor categories. Just look at Sean Connery's win for "The Untouchables," Dom Ameche's win for "Cocoon," or even Alan Arkin's win last year for "Little Miss Sunshine."

Over in the Best Supporting Actress category, age is also a factor. Ruby Dee, also 83, is nominated for her performance in "American Gangster." The favorite, up to this point, has been Cate Blanchett for playing one of several versions of Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There." But Blanchett has won in this category before (for "The Aviator") and she is also nominated in the Best Actress category for "Elizabeth: The Golden Age." So she may cancel herself out. Combine that with Ruby Dee's recent Screen Actors Guild Award win, and the age factor, it's a tough race to call.

Over in the Best Actress category you have Julie Christie's performance as an Alzheimers's patient in "Away From Her" generating a lot of talk. Christie is only 66, but that's a lot more than closest competitior, Ellen Page from "Juno," who turns 21 just a few days before the awards are presented. Christie seemed to be the early favorite, but "Juno" is the film that everyone is talking about, and Page, who previous to this was best known for playing a junior superhero in the last X-Men movie, is the source of a lot of that talk.

Things are no easier over in the Best Director and Best Picture categories. In these fields the battle rages between Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood," and the Coen Brothers' "No Country for Old Men." For Best Picture, the stronger buzz seems to be with "There Will Be Blood." Over in the directing category the Coens have 24 years of great films on there side compared to PTA's filmography of four films, including offerings such as "Magnolia," which some people hated as much as others loved. Really both categories could go either way.

All that having been said, here are my choices as of 7:00 PM Mountain Time, Feb 11, 2008.

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
Best Actress: Ellen Page
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem
Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett
Best Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Best Picture: There Will Be Blood

I may change my mind before the broadcast. A lot can happen between now and then.

Super Bowl Commericals - Live Blog

I'm going to do some experimenting with live blogging tonight. The subject: The Super Bowl Commercials...since I really couldn't care less about the game itself. There's probably a really slim chance anyone will actually be watching this blog live...but I thought it'd be fun to try.