The Bowdoin Orient

I thought the world had seen enough tragedy lately. Crikey. Our minds, our TV sets have both been stuck on the Calamity Channel for ages, weathered by the reliable vehicular accident, natural disaster, military mishap, the child molester du jour.

The Academy is a farce. Most people already knew this to be a statement of some truth, but after this year's Oscars walloped us with a one-two punch of irrelevancy, it certainly bears repeating. Not only did the Hollywood voters deny "Brokeback Mountain" its deserved Best Picture award, they snuck "Crash" in for the gold with a pivot of self-righteous posturing. I've been singing the praises of "Brokeback" and the criticisms "Crash" for months now, but this latest Oscar rant isn't about a mere film-geek scorned?it's about an art form undermined by its own shepherds.

Another year, another Academy Awards to put us plain folk in our place. At the podium, celebrities will spout crocodile-tears for the golden trophy, and on the red carpet, Charlize Theron's midriff will be draped in a designer version of our college tuition. For this country's finest performers and filmmakers, the glitz and glory are well-deserved perks, but for the ordinary filmgoer, the ceremony's creed of self-congratulation may feel a bit lopsided.

Watching the motion picture adaptation of Curious George stirs that tiny, peach-fuzzed part of the soul that we all thought had been safely put to bed: the inner child. "Hark!" cries the hidden thumb-sucker, back to the days of parental tuck-ins and sweeping picture books. Kids could make magic with a single purple crayon back then, and eggs were best served green and on top of a goat. Nights were usually spent curled up under a swirl of Vicks VapoRub with friendly bear pals of both the Pooh and Berenstain varieties. If the film version of "George" rustles up those childhood pangs, it can't hope to quell them. When the movie does manage to tap the toddler vein, it's thanks only to a lush and faithful visual translation.

"Sex is like having dinner," Woody Allen once observed in a famous stand up routine. "Sometimes you joke about the dishes, sometimes you take the meal seriously." The same goes for sex in cinema; when it comes to on-screen love, there's a fine line between the tasteful, the tasteless, and the downright tasty.

Tucked behind a staircase in New York's American Museum of Natural History, a sperm whale and giant squid face off in a still frame of plaster appendages and children' book hues. A beguiling diorama, by way of both majesty and monstrosity, the display is a well-employed allegorical centerpiece for Noah Baumbach's new and semi-autobiographical film, The Squid and The Whale, in which an adolescent boy witnesses another of nature's most ferocious yet mysterious rivalries: divorce.

Last year, Ray dazzled audiences with a dexterous performance by Jamie Foxx and a story bolstered by the truly remarkable escapades of pianist Ray Charles. And once again, just in time for this year's holidays (and Oscar deadline), tales of successful but troubled men are, like, so in.

"This weapon of television could be useful," once said the real Edward R. Murrow, broadcast journalist for CBS during the McCarthy era. "Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported to have said, 'When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard.' The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival."

Imagine a war movie devoid of any actual warfare and you have Sam Mendes's latest and most fibrous effort, Jarhead. Deliberate and dramatically tapered, Mendes' dreamscape of U.S. Marines and the maddeningly elusive battlefront of Operation Desert Storm is both sobering and intoxicating. Rightfully absolving itself of the need to politicize its subject matter, Jarhead makes it a duty to immerse the viewers in the life of the soldier instead.

Not being one to yell at the screen during a movie, I would like to congratulate Saw 2 for provoking my very first in-theater outburst. The inaugural yelp, which went something like "Don't you dare crawl into that oven!" was, of course, acutely premonitory. It was soon confirmed that Joe Hapless didn't give spelunking through an industrial size furnace during a horror film the second thought it probably deserved.

With its lack of star power, limited release, and advertisement campaign coated in indie novelty, Everything Is Illuminated attempts disingenuously to attain the allure of a petite production. It's even playing at the epitome of a humble, hole-in-the-wall theater (I mean this in the most endearing way possible), Brunswick's own Eveningstar Cinema.

Tonight marks a big event for the Bowdoin Poeting Club. "All I Need is One Mic Night," a free performance featuring members of Poeting, Taiko, the Bowdoin Step Team, and the Gospel Choir, takes place this evening at 7:00 p.m. in Kresge Auditorium.

Nothing soothes the soul like a solid sci-fi flick. Serenity, Joss Whedon's big screen foray and extension of his late TV show, "Firefly," is as soothing as can be. With special effects that hover slightly above shoddy, and a humbly remote vision of the future, Whedon's pet project shirks the facetious expectations associated with the genre. By accomplishing this, Serenity achieves a humility that makes the film feel like a surprise rather than a bargain.

Bill Murray returns as the master of moribund in Jim Jarmusch's latest effort, Broken Flowers. Murray plays the title role of Don Johnston, a successful but aging bachelor who's all wilted jowls and waning sexuality. After receiving an anonymous letter informing him that he may have a son from a long-gone fling, Don is pushed back into his past to search for the possibility of a fulfilling future.

We all remember the zany warmth of A Nightmare Before Christmas, and attribute its genius to the trademark vision of Tim Burton. I myself regarded Nightmare as Burton's greatest film, and the most potent celluloid imprint of his psyche.

In the opening sequence of the film Lord of War treats the audience to the on-screen birth of a bullet. In the recesses of a mechanized womb, a casing is fitted, and a fresh metal mouth nourished with gunpowder. Several robotic arms come forth to cap the round, and with a cold violence portending its later use, the shell is fused. The bullet is now ready for the assembly line.

The prosecution presents Exhibit A to the courtroom: The Exorcism of Emily Rose. It's a frustrating little film, sandwiched by titles claiming that the story it tells is based on a real event.