Been so busy being a zombie that I haven’t been able to post all the links until now.
Most surprisingly, one of my reviews, for THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, turned up in OC Weekly. It was always a great irony that the paper has consistently been more interested in my reviews when I didn’t work for them than when I did.
Here’s a sample:
As in the first movie (though not Harry Bates’ pulp short story Farewell to the Master, from which this remake takes practically nothing), Klaatu’s arrival on Earth is so frightening that a government sniper takes a preemptive shot at him, after which he’s taken to a secure location. Klaatu wants to address the United Nations, but no one will let him. Only the widowed Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly), who had been reaching out to him when the bullet hit, has faith that making friends with the alien might be in the best interests of humanity, and she helps him to escape. But she may not be correct: Unlike Michael Rennie’s mostly benevolent Klaatu in the original, version 2.0 is pissed at humanity for trashing the planet and comes prepared to wipe us all out.
That Klaatu arrives at this conclusion following a conversation with another alien named Wu (James Hong), who has been on Earth for 70 years, is puzzling, especially since Wu loves Earth and wants to stay here, yet he still thinks humans should be destroyed. Then again, after seven decades, Wu’s favorite food is McDonald’s, so perhaps senility has begun to set in. Later, Klaatu starts to have doubts about his snap decision after he sees people crying. Was he really unaware of such a thing before? If so, he’s way too dumb to be passing cosmic judgment.
Full review is here.
Then there’s a bunch of stuff I did for E! Online:
and finally DELGO
And yes, for the benefit of certain people who delight in pointing out every mother-fucking typo I ever make, there are a couple. Copy editors are good to have sometimes.
