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Batman Begins on DVD

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Lauren and I hardly ever go to the movies anymore; (a) it’s too expensive and (b) it means getting a babysitter, which costs even more money. (This year we’ve been twice, once to see War of the Worlds and then recently to see Serenity.)

So if we do see a movie, it’s usually only after it comes out on DVD. Which is why we hadn’t seen Batman Begins until now—it came out on DVD on Tuesday. For those of you who haven’t seen it, allow me to strongly encourage you to do so. This is a five-star flick, folks. Every aspect of the production is grade A. From the acting, to the editing, to the script (dang, what a script), to the CGI work, to . . . golly, you name it.

I’ll admit it: I’m a comic book reader. I love comics. Have for a long time. But comic-book movies are hit or miss. (The recent Spiderman and X-Men films have been amazing. But The Punisher, Daredevil, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen were major duds.)

Batman Begins may be the best comic-book movie I’ve ever seen. Most of the credit goes to Christopher Nolan, the director, whose name-making film Memento wasn’t my cup of tea. But, here, in PG-13 territory, Nolan serves up a dish I can enjoy.

Then there’s the cast. Morgan Freeman. Michael Caine. Gary Oldman. Liam Neeson. Wow. And Christian Bale, whom I’ve admired ever since Empire of the Sun and who is, in my opinion, the best Batman to date. (Michael Keaton is a close second, then Val Kilmer, then wince George Clooney).

But what was most refreshing about this Batman outing was that for once we have a believable villain. Comic-book villains are, sadly, often represented as cardboard superhumans (see Elecktra, Blade, The Punisher, and many others). So it’s a sweet sigh of relief to see a villain who is the hero of his own story, someone who truly believes he’s doing good in the world. He’s not operating on some maniacally stupid blow-up-the-planet agenda. He actually believes he’s doing good. THAT’S what makes a good villain.

We only got the first DVD of the two-disc set from Netflix, so I can’t talk about the special features. There’s no commentary from Christopher Nolan, but since I don’t listen to commentaries anyway, I’m not disappointed.

In short, rent this movie. Buy this movie. Support movies that get it and do it right. And look for the sequel. They’re will be one. At least there better be. If not, I shall be very put out.

Don’t Get on Flight 214

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The winning Powerball numbers have just been announced: 1 21 43 44 49 29. Someone in Oregon—where the winning ticket was supposedly sold—is now worth $340 million, the biggest jackpot in lottery history.

Congratualtions to him or her, right?

Well, maybe not. As anyone who watches ABC’s LOST can tell you, winning the lottery jackpot could be the worst bit of BAD luck to befall you. In fact, if I’ve learned anything from watching the show it’s not to play the lotto.

Before our misfortunate cast members crashed on the island, Hugo (one of the show’s most lovable and huggable stars) used a sequence of numbers to win the lottery (a $150 million jackpot—give or take a million). The numbers he used, 4 8 15 16 23 42, were given to him by a psychiatric patient who does nothing but repeat the sequence all day. And once he finds out Hurley used the numbers to win the lotto, he breaks his numeral rant to say, “You’ve opened the box. It won’t stop.”

That which won’t stop is apparently a string of ill-fated events, including the infamous crash that put our folks on the island in the first place. Hurley, spooked out by this whole Pandora’s box hysteria, follows a lead from the psychiatric pateint to a chap in Australia who discovered the numbers sixteen years ago. But upon arriving in Australia, Hurley discovers that not only did this chap use the same numbers to win something (in his case he correctly guessed the number of beans in a big jar) but he also had a spell of bad luck so intense that he committed suicide four years ago.

And that’s our first numeral clue: the last poor chap to use the numbers died . . . FOUR years ago. Four is of course the first number in the mysterious sequence.

Let’s look at the other numbers:

815 = The next three digits are the flight number of the Oceanic (fictional airline) flight from Sydney to Los Angeles that crashes on the island.

16 = The number of years the French chick has been on the island, and the number of years ago someone first heard the number sequence being broadcast via radio. (Incidentally, one of the two people who heard that sequence is the very poor chap who commits suicide twelve years later).

23 = When the plane crashed, it split in two. Twenty-three is the number of survivors from the back of the plane who, throughout the entire first season, were believed dead.

42 = Yet unconfirmed, but believed (by me, anyway) to be the number of survivors from the front of the plane. They keep saying that there are “about forty survivors.” My guess is that if anyone counted, the number would be forty-two.

So we see that each of the numbers has incredible significance. How all of this is possible is yet to be seen, but it’s clear that all the numbers mean something.

Which brings me to this week’s Powerball numbers. On LOST, the second, third, and fourth digit of the sequence is the number of the flight that crashed: 815. The second, third, and fourth digit of this week’s winning Powerball is 214.

Out of curiousity, I Googled “Flight 214,” and the first hit was to the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. This is what it had to say:

“On December 8, 1963, the aircraft, a Boeing 707-121 registered as N709PA, took off from Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico at 4:10 PM EST for a flight to Philadelphia with 73 passengers and 8 crew on the manifest. . . . At 8:58 PM EST, the aircraft, named Clipper Tradewind, was hit by a lightning strike, which ignited fuel vapors in a reserve tank, causing an explosion. The crew of Flight 214 managed to send a final message – “Clipper Out Of Control” – before it crashed near Elkton, Maryland. All 81 onboard were lost.”

That’s a direct quote. All onboard were LOST. (Cue The Twilight Zone theme music.)

Finding Screenplays

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I enjoy reading screenplays, but they’re so incredibly hard to come by that I don’t read nearly as many as I would like. A few studios have publishing subsidiaries, and occasionally they’ll publish a nicely bound, printed version of the script, but those are rare. (I got a copy of “Seabiscuit” and “Good Will Hunting” this way.) Ebay also has scripts–usually from people within the studio system who photocopy a few and then sell them at the auction–but these too are rare. Plus I’ve learned that some ebay screenplays are actually not the script at all, but rather someone’s dictation as they watched the film. Hardly what I’m looking for.

The best way to acquire a script I’ve discovered is at the used bookstore near my house here in LA. Every year during Oscar season, studios send out “For Your Consideration” scripts to voting members of the Academy. The idea is that the voter will read the script, find it Oscar worthy and either nominate it to the Academy or vote for it once the Academy has picked the candidates.

Oftentimes these “For Your Consideration” scripts are nicely bound–or at least have a hard-paper cover and backing–so they’ll have a lengthy shelf life. But even more important: some of the voters who receive these scripts don’t want them, and take them to the bookstore for in-store credit.

Enter me. For a mere ten bucks a pop, I can buy the screenplay.

My most recent purchase was “The Incredibles,” which I consider one of the best–if not THE best–film last year. I loved reading the script, not only because I found lines of dialogue that never made it into the finished film, but also because I love reading the action–or what in the theater world we call “stage directions.”

Brad Bird is a whiz, and describes the action with such clarity and pizazz that the image he creates with words is as clear as the one we see in the film. Plus he does it with such brevity that the speed of the read matches the film as well.

And for me, that’s the key to great script writing: reading the script is as an enjoyable an experience as watching the finished film itself. It moves with the same pace. It has the same action. All the beats and moments we cherish are there.

But there aren’t enough on the market. If the used book store doesn’t have it, I’m out of luck. Samuel French carries a few screenplays, but not the ones I really want, like Serenity, for example. I’d give anything to get my hands on the screenplay. But unless Joss Whedon thinks it could be nominated (which it never would since it’s a–gasp–sci-fi flick), I’ll probably never see it. And that really bums me out.

Alias Just Ain’t the Same Anymore

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Lauren and I have been longtime Alias fans. We got a late start, catching the first season on DVD after it aired, but once we got into it, there was no turning back. That is, until now. For those of you who aren’t caught up with the series and don’t want to read what’s happened so far this season, stop reading now. I mean it. Unless you don’t mind spoilers, stop reading now.

OK, you’re still here. Alias isn’t Alias anymore. Firstly, Sydney is pregnant. I’m not opposed to parenthood, of course; I have two little angels myself. It’s just that a pregnant woman can’t beat up people. And that’s one of the reasons why we watched Alias: to see Jennifer Garner take out a horde of thugs with a tube of lipstick and her stiletto heels. But now that’s she’s with child–and rather far along, I might add–she can’t go crashing through windows or jumping off buildings onto waiting helicopters. So now, instead of being the hero, Syd is the mentor. APO (the name of the secret CIA ops group to which Momma Garner belongs) has some new recruits, namely a guy who looks exactly like Liev Schriber and has an annoyingly breathy voice and a young blondie who looks like Lauren from Season Three. They’re the new stars of the show. Oh sure, it still revolves around Sydney, but she’s more an observer of the action now instead of being in the thick of it.

What’s more, Vaughn is dead. Or he is for now, anyway. Alias has a way of resurrecting the dead, and if I were a betting man, I’d wager money on seeing Vaughn alive by the end of the season. His absence is likely the result of his and Jennifer Garner’s real-life separation (the two were an off-screen item until Garner decided Ben Affleck was the better man). Vaughn probably asked to be off the show.

But regardless of the reasons for his departure, depart he has. And so has Weiss, another series regular, who has taken a job in “Washington,” which is a nice way of saying, “I’ve outgrown this show, and I’m starting my own.”

And Nadia, who I was never a fan of anyway, is still holed up in the hospital with some terrible disease. So she’s out of the picture as well.

Yes, shows must evolve, but all of this is too much for me. It’s like being told your favorite ice cream is no longer available. There’s another flavor that shows promise and has some of the same ingredients, but eating ice cream will never be the same.

Oh well, at least there’s LOST.

Aren’t Matching Shirts Cute?

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You can’t go wrong with matching shirts. Especially when they’re filled with such adorable cherubim like you see here. You can’t see it in this picture but Jake’s got a bad bruise on his left cheek. He fell and hit the coffee table yesterday. It wasn’t pretty. And nor is the bruise. Lauren and I have since moved the coffee table into our room until Jake has mastered walking. We did the same when Luke was first beginning to walk, and it saved many injuries, I’m sure. Plus we have a big open space in the living room now for beach ball volleyball, one of our new favorite family pastimes.

Freelance Work for the LDS Church

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Got a new freelance job today with a quick turnaround. It seems the Church is producing some more Homefront ads–but this time for the US Latin Market, so they’ll be in Spanish. Should be fun to work on. I’ve always loved the Church’s Homefront public service announcements. The series is one of–if not THE–longest running PSA campaigns in broadcast history. Anyway, my ideas go straight to the Church’s AV Department. The spots used to be produced by Bonneville Communications, but that dissolved several years ago. I’m likely one of many writers pitching ideas, so maybe nothing will come of it. We’ll see.