<rationale>
I’ve been reading too many articles lately in which some newswire is relaying news – typically celebrity news – based on what the celebrity in question has just tweeted. So, I figure, why not use Twitter as the news source it has become? I do not ever intend to tweet (I’m already on Facebook, and I honestly can’t see a reason to be on both, unless I’m caught in a real life, hashtag-worthy event…). Rather, I plan to use Twitter as a kind of “Facebook of the Stars,” in which I can read about what various celebrities are telling the world without having to catch up on them through E! Online or Yahoo! Gossip or some other aggregator that has worked an exclamation point into their name.
</rationale>

So, at the advice of a friend, I googled “Most Twitter Followers,” which led me to this site – a list of the one thousand most popular tweeters. Of the thousand I found there, I “followed” 59 people. Here they are, sorted in order from most followers to least:

1) Lady Gaga	21) Al Yankovic	41) Hugh Jackman
2) Justin Bieber	22) Larry King	42) David Blaine
3) Britney Spears	23) Wil Wheaton	43) Drew Carey
4) Barack Obama	24) Lindsay Lohan	44) Lea Michele
5) Kim Kardashian	25) Penn Jillette	45) Miranda Cosgrove
6) Katy Perry	26) Bill Cosby	46) Craig Ferguson
7) Ellen DeGeneres	27) Dalai Lama	47) John Hodgman
8) Taylor Swift	28) Brent Spiner	48) William Shatner
9) Oprah Winfrey	29) Alyssa Milano	49) Steve Martin
10) Justin Timberlake	30) Kevin Nealon	50) Sarah Palin
11) Ashley Tisdale	31) Nick Swisher	51) Seth Meyers
12) Ryan Seacrest	32) Yoko Ono	52) Tina Fey
13) Paris Hilton	33) Sarah Silverman	53) Roger Ebert
14) Demi Moore	34) Neil Patrick Harris	54) Bill Maher
15) Jimmy Fallon	35) John Cleese	55) Joan Rivers
16) John Legend	36) Dr. Phil	56) Pamela Anderson
17) Al Gore	37) Barbara Walters	57) Miley Cyrus
18) Conan O’Brien	38) WikiLeaks	58) Jessica Simpson
19) Dr. Drew	39) Michael Moore	59) Howard Stern
20) Stephen Colbert	40) Kathy Griffin

In terms of actual entertainment, I am fans of some of these folks and not of others, but they all looked like they might produce interesting tweets, which was my only criteria here (and thus concludes the story of how a Twitter user came to follow both Michael Moore and Sarah Palin on the same day. If only I had a way to share this exciting news with everyone I know. Oh yeah, that’s right: Facebook).

Anyway, first impressions of Twitter as news source:

• It works. In the first fifteen minutes, I learned that Ellen Degeneres had sat down with a seven-year old paleontologist, that Justin Bieber has raised over $7 million for a clean water charity by asking his fans to donate to it in honor of his upcoming birthday, that Roger Ebert hated the Oscar telecast, that Kathy Griffin is going to appear on Glee, that Lea Michelle had pasta with Tom Hanks after the Oscars, that Matthew Morrison has a new single out (quick review: Yuck), that Britney Spears has a new single out (quick review: didn’t bother clicking the link), that Barack Obama will work with anybody! ANYBODY! to improve Health Care Reform, and that Seth Myers wrote a clever line about Charlie Sheen (“Post-Oscars, when I say “The King’s Speech,” I’m referring to stuff Charlie Sheen said.”). Not bad as a quick (and mindless) news source.
• In the time it took me to read 1,000 names and click on 59 of them, 13 people followed me. One is an “online dog community,” one is extremely profane, one describes herself (forgive me for assuming the gender here) as a “Justin Bieber fan.” All thirteen are total strangers to me and likely not even real people. Regardless, all thirteen will be significantly disapointed when they notice that I never tweet. Not even once just to try it. Ever. Seriously.
• Wikileaks releases new, “shocking” information every hour or so. I honestly didn’t realize just how shock-jock they were about their information. I haven’t removed them from the feed yet, but they’re the only ones I’m considering removing at this point.
• And finally, I knew right away this was a mad, mad world when I followed President Obama and saw these two things pop up on my screen:

Yeah – this is gonna get weird fast…

The patient now has a completely new face from his hairline down and only one visible scar, which looks like a wrinkle running across his neck, said Dr. Joan Pere Barret, the surgeon who led the team. “If you look him in the face, you see a normal person, like anyone else we have as a patient in the hospital,” Barret told The Associated Press on Friday. He declined to name the patient or give details of the accident five years ago in which he lost his face, saying only that he was a Spaniard between the ages of 20 and 40 and is recovering well. He cannot yet speak, eat or smile, but can see and swallow saliva.

So here’s my question: now that he has a new face, does he look more like Nicholas Cage or John Travolta?

Longer version (WARNING: Spoilers lie ahead, although I’m pretty sure I’m the last one on the planet to see the film, so it probably doesn’t matter. Just in case, though, you’ve been warned):

The plot of Avatar starts out encouragingly. A scientist, destined for a mission in
outer-space, is killed shortly before the mission begins. His twin brother, a paraplegic ex-Marine, is asked to take his place, since the mission involves the neural control of a man-made alien body (the “Avatar”), and his brain is similar enough to his twin brother’s to make the project work. Upon arriving on the alien world, Pandora, the ex-Marine bonds quickly – not with his scientific brethren, though, but with the military commander who is stationed there. The military’s mission is to displace the native population and clear the way for mining of the planet’s natural resources. This creates an interesting dynamic. The scientific research he has to do enables him to feed intelligence to the military, which is what he wants to do. He finds himself with a foot in both opposing camps – the “give peace a chance” crowd and the “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” crowd.

But from there, the whole thing falls apart. The head scientist hates the military leader for his wilful ignorance, but despite her obvious intelligence, she never makes her case beyond whining “you just don’t understand!” at him. There’s a corporate, CEO-type in the film who is supposedly running the entire operation, but he is completely in the bag for the military, dramatically reducing whatever tension between good and evil that could have been present. And our hero, having seen the needless death and destruction that comes from automatically waging war without any attempt at diplomacy or communication, leads the indigenous aliens (the “Na’vi”) in exactly the same strategy the very instant he is in a position to do so, provoking the predictable “shock and awe” battle scene at the end, in which thousands more Na’vi, not to mention many humans, are killed. His intriguing “one foot in both camps” perspective melts away when the first shot is fired, reducing the second half of the film to a “shoot ‘em up” formula piece, in which good triumphs over evil with mere seconds to spare. Yawn…

That said, complaining about the plot in Avatar is something akin to criticizing the content of the first web page, or dismissing the telephone as a failure because Alexander Graham Bell’s first message was too banal.

What’s on display here is not the story, the acting, or the character development. It’s the visuals. And despite all the hype, they do not disappoint.

Having heard all of the “like nothing you’ve ever seen before” talk before seeing the film, I tried to pay close attention to what, exactly, made Avatar so unique. I think it’s a combination of two things:

First, James Cameron has redefined the use of the 3-D special effect. Unlike other 3-D movies, which use the technology to either add depth to a scene (by putting objects and scenery behind the main characters) or to reach out into the audience (by having objects “jump off the screen” in front of the main characters), Avatar establishes a permanent foreground and a permanent background, and consistently puts the main characters between the two. So, for example, while walking through the Pandoran jungles, the horizon sits behind the characters, while various plants, insects, and even dust floats in front of them. This can be very prominent, as in the mayhem of a battle scene, or very subtle, like during expository dialog between characters who are walking along a path. Because it’s constantly there, the 3-D stops feeling like a special effect. It becomes a better approximation of real life than 2-D movies (and, to be honest, 3-D movies) have always been. The end result is a feeling of being in the scene, rather than watching it from afar.

Second, Cameron’s newly-invented Performance Capture technology blends CGI and live acting in a way never seen before. The Na’vi are not computer generated aliens who are voiced by human actors and made to have the actors’ facial expressions by graphic artists. These are the actual actors’ faces, captured by cameras mounted on headgear during their on-stage performances, and translated in real-time to their CGI equivalents. Cameron also had a handheld virtual camera on set, which was basically a location-aware computer monitor that allowed him to see the entire CGI scene (including the actors) while the scene was being shot. The difference in the result is best expressed as the difference between taking a picture with a film-based camera and hoping it came out well, and taking a picture with a digital camera and looking at the result on the camera’s display screen, so you can re-shoot it if someone blinked.

Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Avatar feels magical because of how advanced its technology is. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, I expect any movie of sufficient scale and budget to be shot this way going forward. On the one hand, this means the movies of the future will likely engross and entertain us in ways that yesterday’s movies could only dream about. On the other hand, once the technology no longer feels so magical, a mediocre movie like Avatar will no longer make a billion dollars simply because of its special effects.

In both cases, the movie-going audience comes out ahead.

The idea here is to bring special events into movie theaters for one-time only or limited-run performances. They have operas performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, old-time movies that get eviscerated by the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000, special on-location news reports by Elizabeth Vargas, and the like. Pretty cool idea, if you ask me. But then there’s this: “Glenn Beck’s The Christmas Sweater – A Return To Redemption.” From the website:

Before a studio audience, Glenn will tell you about the real life events that inspired him to write The Christmas Sweater, and he’ll share stories of the overwhelming response he received about how the tale’s message of redemption literally changed people’s lives, bringing many back from the brink of collapse and restoring family relationships. Then, Glenn will show a re-mastered and exclusive version of The Christmas Sweater taped live during his 2008 cross-country tour. Afterward, Glenn will introduce you to some of the people who were touched by the story and you’ll experience their intimate journey of transformation through the simple gift of redemption.

This incredible Christmas celebration will be simulcast to HD movie theatres all over the country. Join Glenn for the next evolution of The Christmas Sweater and see for yourself why critics and audiences alike are heralding it as a new American classic.

OK, seriously. Who let this guy out of his cage? What’s next? Rush Limbaugh Sings the Classics?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I have something in my eye…

(Hat tip: Kushol Gupta)

Our story concerns a young boy who is painfully complacent. He watches movies and newsreels about great adventurers and their adventures, but his idea of an adventure is jumping over a crack in the sidewalk or pretending his helium balloon is an explorer’s aircraft. He meets other kids who are more daring, and although he desperately wants to be like them, it’s just not inside of him. Most of the time, he can’t even bring himself to speak. He just watches life go by.

The young boy eventually grows up, marries a nice girl, and lives a dull, ordinary life as a balloon salesman at the local carnival. In his elder years, his wife dies, leaving him all alone in their tiny little house with nothing but his memories of her and his regrets about all the “adventures” they never got to take together.

A real family fun-fest, huh?

From there, we have a bit more of what you’d expect from a Pixar movie. The man decides to go on one honest-to-goodness adventure before he dies, so he rigs his house with thousands of helium balloons and flies it to South America (obviously, one of his lifelong regrets is never having taken a high school physics class, but I digress). Turns out a boy scout is on his porch when he takes off, and along the way, they run into a pack of talking dogs, a giant, multi-colored bird, and one of the adventurers of the man’s youth. The ending is satisfying and touching, and I won’t ruin it for you here.

Up is excellent film making in just about every way. The characters are multi-layered and expressive. Good acting, except that they’re all animated, so there isn’t any acting at all (at least not physically). The story is well written, although there are a few “why did that happen?” moments, but nothing I couldn’t forgive for the greater good. And, of course, the movie looks fantastic. Pixar is truly Disney’s high-end brand now, and Up is no exception. I saw the 3-D version, which was understated enough to enhance the movie without distracting from it (if you have the opportunity to see it in 2-D, go for it – I don’t think you really miss much in this case).

As for the heavy stuff, yes – it is a bit stark, but no more so than Nemo’s mother or Simba’s father dying in Finding Nemo and The Lion King. As long as you (and your kids) know what you’re getting into, I don’t think there’s anything in this film that would be off-putting or inappropriate.

And if they get a little scared? Just tell them to wait for the talking dogs.

Squirrel!!

Especially if you’ve read the book.

Seeing this movie after reading the book is like reading the Fodor’s book about England cover-to-cover and then getting off the British Airways flight in Rome. It’s like being hit in the face with a bucket of cold water, drying off, and then having it happen again. Like walking into your favorite Chinese restaurant and finding out that the special of the day is Chicken Parmigiana. Like whiplash, only with popcorn.

Some books make great movies, but require tweaking to work on the big screen. I remember watching an interview with Sydney Pollack, who directed the movie version of John Grisham’s The Firm. In the book, the bad guys get taken down on tax evasion charges, precipitated by the main character secretly photocopying all of their records and passing them along to the FBI. In the movie, Pollack was explaining, no one wants to watch twenty minutes of photocopying, so they had to change the ending to make it more exciting.

The DaVinci Code strayed a bit from the book as well, particularly at the end. Unlike The Firm, though, I remember walking away wondering why they made the choice – the ending on the screen didn’t seem to play any better than the ending in the book would have, and since Dan Brown was involved in the movie, why didn’t he insist on his original plot?

But this was nothing compared to what they did to Angels and Demons. I won’t fill this review with spoilers (I promise…), but for those who read the book: the Director of CERN, who plays an integral role in the book, isn’t even in the movie. Also, Professor Langdon doesn’t get in the helicopter near the end of the story. And finally, a different person is selected as the Pope in the movie than in the book.

If you read the book and haven’t yet seen the movie, you’re probably wondering how they could possibly have gotten to the end of the story with these kind of large, gaping holes in the book’s plot. If you want to know, it’s going to cost you the price of a movie ticket (or, if you’re really desperate, e-mail me and I’ll tell you).

There were subtler differences as well. As with The DaVinci Code, Professor Langdon (Hanks) is quite suddenly paired with an attractive woman who he has never met, and they are forced to share horrific, death-defying situations together. In both books, a romantic subtext develops throughout the story, which the characters (and the reader) must put aside until the action subsides, at which point it is finally resolved (somewhat subtly in The DaVinci Code, more explicitly in Angels and Demons). In the movies, Hanks plays his character completely aloof. If it were a lesser actor, I’d criticize him for missing the boat entirely, but knowing what Hanks can do, I can only assume that he (or Ron Howard) has intentionally removed any kind of chemistry between Langdon and the two female leads.

If I wanted to be even more picky, I’d mention the absence of any meaning behind Langdon’s Mickey Mouse watch (which is displayed in both movies, but never referenced), or the fact that Angels and Demons was written before the The DaVinci Code, and yet the movie refers to the events of the latter has having occurred prior to the former.

These differences don’t matter much, especially seeing as how the story only has the two books, so we don’t need to know more about these characters for future stories (unless Dan Brown writes a third?). Unlike that Harry Potter series – man, I don’t know how they’re going to get out of some of the corners they painted themselves into there… But, I digress.

Bottom line: if you’re coming into Angels and Demons cold, you’re going to love it. If you’ve read the book, be prepared to be jolted by what you see, but enjoy it nonetheless.

We’ll start with my thoughts on the movie, and then move on to my thoughts on my friends’ thoughts. Before I even begin, though, I can see how this will take a while, so I offer a page-fold for those who don’t have the time nor the interest to go further.

And oh yes, there are spoilers. Lots and lots of ‘em. Trust me – if you haven’t seen the movie yet, just move along.

All things considered, this was an excellent film. Despite the huge shadow hanging over it, it boldly (sorry, I’ll try not to use that word again, I promise) established its own back-story, developed its own characters, established its own plot, and concluded its own story in a satisfying way. Lo, if only the folks who made the Matrix and the Lord of the Rings movies could have been so kind, I may have shelled out my $10 to see their sequels too.

Chris Pine, who played the young James T. Kirk, did not do an impression of William Shatner, but did provide a character that I could see growing up to be William Shatner’s character, and I stand impressed at the balancing act that this feat required. Young Kirk, having grown up both fatherless and in the shadow of his father’s heroic death, has clearly adopted a “to hell with everyone and everything” attitude towards life, towards authority, and especially towards Starfleet. In a different movie, this teenage angst may have manifested itself in drugs, alcohol, or crime, but in this case, Kirk is cursed with his father’s superior intellect and skills. He doesn’t just steal cars, he drives them to the edge of cliffs, pivoting the steering wheel and jumping out at the precise moment that sends the car to its demise while leaving him unharmed. He doesn’t just hit on women and pick fights in bars, but he holds his own in a four-on-one bar fight, at least for a while. And when his surrogate father, Captain Chris Pike, tells him to join Starfleet, he gives him the PG-13 version of the old “F-U,” that is until Pike strikes at his weakness – challenging Kirk to do more than his father had done.  There are a lot of layers to the character at this point, about which I’d have liked to learn more, but I concede that they are, in this case, very much besides the film’s point.

Zachary Quinto, the young Spock, accomplishes a similar feat. He is unmistakably Vulcan, but not nearly as adept at separating his Vulcan and human halves as his older and more experienced self of TV fame. As such, he provides a depth to the character of Spock that took Leonard Nimoy several decades of back-story to accomplish. His interactions, both with Kirk and with Nimoy’s “future Spock” are pitch-perfect. And the plot, such as it is, establishes some significant reasons why Spock “has been, and always shall be, [Kirk's] friend.”

Speaking of the plot, the best characterization I can come up with is “James Bond in space.” All of the characters have exceptionally neat toys, the good guys have unbelievably amazing luck, and the bad guys have unbelievably unable to capitalize on even the simplest of circumstances. It’s all here, folks: Kirk and Spock are accidentally beamed into a room filled with dozens of armed Romulans, and yet manage to avoid the resulting torrent of gunfire by ducking behind the furniture; Kirk is thrown out the window of a spaceship and lands not only on the same planet as future Spock, but within running distance of the precise cave in which Spock is living; and of course, that old chestnut – the Romulan, who has been been trying to kill Kirk for several minutes of hand-to-hand combat, is holding him over the edge of an inexplicably long drop, and rather than just throwing him off, stops to talk to him, allowing Kirk to get off a funny one-liner, turn the tables, and escape with his life while tossing the Romulan to his death. Clearly, there are no James Bond movies on Romulus.

To enjoy a movie like this, you have to accept these things. You have to allow for the fact that the good guys are invincible and the bad guys are inept. If you can’t do that, then you might as well save your $10, because there’s simply no way you’re going to enjoy the film. Which, of course, brings me to Ilya and Jason.

Ilya takes issue with the fact that the cadets were conveniently in Iowa, and that the military protocol aboard the USS Enterprise is inexplicably skewed towards those characters with leading roles. To the first point, I chuckle, because having just returned from the Kennedy Space Center tour, I know that the actual space shuttle and its many components are constructed in forty-six of the fifty United States and then assembled in Florida for launch (in order to distribute NASA’s federal funding across the states and grease the political wheels in Congress to get the funding approved in the first place). If NASA can have employees in Iowa for real, why can’t Starfleet have them there in the movie? As for the military promotions, we might as well ask why Her Majesty’s Secret Service can’t send a thousand armed guards after the bad guys, rather than an admitted alcoholic in a tuxedo.

But Ilya is a pushover compared to Jason. I won’t attempt to recount all of the many issues Jason raises (although I do encourage you to read his posts, which are thorough and extremely well-written). Instead, I’ll just comment on the few that I noticed while watching the movie myself:

The Centaurian Slug in Captain Pike: when Pike appears in his requisite wheelchair at the end of the film, I think we were meant to assume that he had received medical attention after being rescued, and that this medical attention would have involved removing the creepy-crawly. Have seen Wrath of Kahn, I, for one, am glad the extraction occurred off-camera.

The Production Design: I actually enjoyed the fact that the early days of Starfleet had all the same devices as the original series, but that they were all a little more mechanical and a little less digital than they would become later. It’s “primitive futuristic,” and I think it plays well. The nacelles are there, but they’re not “perfected” yet. The bridge is hi-tech, but all of the innards are still visible on the walls (in what Jason masterfully calls “iBridge” decor). And one that Jason didn’t mention – the hyposprays that McCoy keeps using on Kirk when they first board the Enterprise. The loud clack that it made every time it injected something into Kirk’s neck was enough to actually make me squirm in my seat, and Kirk’s “will you STOP DOING THAT TO ME!!!” reaction was priceless.

The Push Bar on the door: At first, this bugged me as well, but when they entered the Starfleet base and the whole thing was done that way, I made the mental assumption that the barren world of Delta Vega was simply furnished with really old (read: cheap) technology. Sort of like getting stranded in the middle of the desert today and coming upon a saloon with a water pump outside and swinging, wooden doors out front.

The Lens Flare: Here, I’m in complete agreement with Jason. Lots of Sci-Fi movies use that technique – or its polar opposite – where half the screen is shrouded in shadows/darkness – to improve the CGI effects of the film (by making it harder to see the details). I found it distracting as well, although I think it did get better (read: less) as the film went on.

A couple of other things that neither Ilya nor Jason mentioned, but I think deserve comment:

Uhura: I really like the relationship between Spock and Uhura for two reasons. First, it goes a long way toward painting Spock as a guy who’s still working out the Vulcan/Human balance inside of him. Second, I think it was an homage to the famous Kirk/Uhura kiss, which was the first inter-racial kiss on American television. This suggests that by the time that happened, Uhura had already had a love affair with another white (and alien!) member of the Enterprise crew.

Winona Ryder: I didn’t recognize her at all. And I haven’t seen her on any of the talk shows promoting the movie either. Given that she’s probably the biggest name “movie star” in the film, I wonder why they didn’t just cast someone less well-known, or give her less make-up and more lines, so that we’d all know it was her. Maybe she’s a Trekkie at heart and just wanted to be a part of the franchise?

The Speech: I’m sure gigabytes have already been dedicated to a discussion about Leonard Nimoy reading the famous “Space…the Final Frontier” speech at the end. Personally, I’d have preferred it if they had let William Shatner do it (and not announced it to the press so it would be a surprise for at least the first few audiences who saw it). That would have cemented the fact that Chris Pine’s character grows up to be William Shatner’s character, who would then have the “adult” perspective to describe the Enterprise in such noble terms. Barring that, it would have been cool to have Chris Pine himself do it, although I don’t think his voice is recognizable enough (yet?) for the meaning to be understood. Future Spock works OK (the “elder statesman” of the film), but it misses an opportunity for homage that would have been really special. I’m sure this has something to do with Shatner being ticked about not being asked to be in the film, or some-such Hollywood political/financial/ego-related issue. To which I say, “whatever, dude…”

The Trekkies: I realize as I wrap this up that I’m seriously in danger of offending my friend Jason (not my intent at all, of course), but I need to point this out as nicely as I can: it strikes me that the love and affection that self-proclaimed “Trekkies” have for these characters are actually detracting from their ability to enjoy it. This strikes me as both ironic and sad. After all, at the most basic level, the things that made this film enjoyable are the very same things that made them “Trekkies” in the first place. And to not be able to enjoy those things all over again, while others who are not such big fans (like myself and Ilya) do so with abandon, is really a shame.

Live Long & Prosper, Trekkies! And as the movie theaters used to admonish before the lights went down, “Sit back and relax – enjoy the show!”

The rules:

1. Pick one film to represent each letter of the alphabet.

2. The letter “A” and the word “The” do not count as the beginning of a film’s title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don’t know of any films with those titles.

3. Return of the Jedi belongs under “R,” not “S” as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with “S.” Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under “R,” not “I” as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Conversely, all films in the Lord of the Rings series belong under “L” and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under “C,” as that’s what those filmmakers called their films from the start. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Use your better judgement to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.

4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number’s word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under “T.”

5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that I can eventually type “alphabet meme” into Google and come up #1, then make a post where I declare that I am the King of Google.

6. If you’re selected, you have to then select 5 more people.

Here’s Step #1-#4:

• Apollo 13
• Back to the Future
• Cars
• Dead Poets Society
• E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
• Finding Nemo
• Good Will Hunting
• Happy Feet (because picking a Harry Potter film is too easy…)
• Independence Day
• Juno (because I was watching it on cable late last night…)
• King Kong
• Lethal Weapon
• Men in Black
• National Treasure
• Ocean’s Eleven
• Pretty Woman
• Q: The Movie (only movie on the list I haven’t seen.  Someone’s gotta make some more “Q” movies)
• Rocky
• Shakespeare in Love
• There’s Something About Mary
• Unbreakable
• Van Helsing
• Wedding Crashers
• X-Men
• You’ve Got Mail
• Zapped! (because I couldn’t think of a “Z” and then Scott Baio popped into my head)

Step #5 is taken care of above.

Step #6 is always a problem for me. I simply don’t know 5 bloggers well enough to tag them with memes (especially when the meme comes from one or more of the bloggers I do know. So I’ll unceremoniously tag Jeff Porten, and leave it at that.

Asking a G-rated movie aimed primarily at pre-teen girls to live up to this kind of hype is asking a lot. It’s a true credit to this film to say that it handles the task admirably, although there are most definitely some flaws. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

First, the plot: the gang from HSM1 and HSM2 return for their senior year. Unlike the other two movies, this edition starts with the East Side High Wildcats basketball team winning it’s championship game. With that neatly out of the way, the group begins considering their future. Some, like Troy (Zac Efron) and Chad (Corbin Bleu) have obvious default choices – the University of Albuquerque (the local U. and Troy’s dad’s alma mater) already have their lockers picked out. Others, like Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) have selected their college, but have more complex choices to make, like whether to attend a college honors program that pulls her out of high school early enough to miss the school’s spring musical and it’s senior prom. These two events (but really the musical, as per the title) become the focus of the movie. The musical’s theme, “Senior Year” serves as a multi-faceted plot device that allows each character to consider his/her future through what he/she performs in the show, etc. In fact, in a scene that bends reality a bit [NO SPOILERS HERE - I PROMISE], the musical’s finale actually consists of the school’s drama teacher revealing each student’s plans for the following year, sometimes to the complete surprise of the student himself/herself.

In terms of a review, the best I can do is this: this movie constantly teeters on the brink of ridiculousness, but never actually crosses the line, leaving audiences (even the parents) feeling good at the end. Enough so that we forgive quite a bit of forced dialog, awkwardly wedged-in song cues, and the occasional bout of over-acting. The actors do a fine job with what they’re given, although quite a few of them have grown up significantly since the last movie, a fact that is conveniently ignored throughout the film, of course. The leads, Efron and Hudgens, are clearly being groomed for other, non-Disney roles, as they appear much more grown-up and edgier this time around. And the music? The music has become a genre of it’s own. It’s the kind of music you could hear totally out of context and say to yourself, “that sounds like a High School Musical song.” Surprisingly, it took the writers untill the graduation scene in the third movie to actually write a song called “High School Musical,” and it’s title is so jarring that even the kids winced a bit when the cast launched into it.

But whatever flaws the movie has are very much beside the point. When the lights went down at the beginning of the picture, the audience in the theater burst into spontaneous, anticipatory applause. The applauded after several of the musical numbers as well. And my kids? In typical Disney fashion, my kids’ reaction was exactly what Disney was hoping for. The older one sat mesmerized throughout the film, memorizing every detail and pointing out subtleties in the plot (“Mommy, if Gabriella goes to college in California and Troy goes to college in New Mexico, they won’t get to see each other so much anymore”). The younger one smiled ear-to-ear throughout the film and then, as if struck by lightning, turned to me during the finale and said, “Daddy, is this the last High School Musical movie ever on the entire earth?” Well, son, they’ve graduated now, so unless someone’s writing “College Musical 1,” then yes – this is the end. His reaction: “Can we buy the DVD tomorrow?”

Bottom line: if you (and/or your kids) enjoyed the first two films, then this truly is required viewing. It’s Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith without all the complicated whining about how the writer/director didn’t satisfactorily tie up all the loose ends. You will leave the theater tapping your toe, feeling good, and satisfied that the story reached a proper conclusion. Then, you’ll get in your car and realize that it’s High School Freakin’ Musical music that you’re humming, and immediately click over to your hard rock playlist to clear your palette.

Or at least, that’s what I did…