Despicable Me - Uncle Orson Reviews Everything

Despicable Me is not the best animated feature this year, or even this summer, but it'll do. Think of it as a French How the Grinch Stole Christmas, without the Christmas, and you'll have the basic story.

A deeply wicked man, Gru (Steve Carell), is vying for dominance as the worst villain in the world. But along the way, he happens upon three orphan girls and takes them in so that he can use them to further his dastardly plots. Naturally, he becomes devoted to them, completely spoiling his villainy.

Perhaps the best thing about the movie -- and there are many good things -- are the minions, flexible yellow Artoo Detoos with varying numbers of eyes. Or perhaps they're what Oompah Loompahs should have been. They seem truly devoted to Gru, endlessly patient, hardworking, somewhere between stupid and clever: In short, I want some minions of my own.

Gru is raised above the level of cliche by giving us his backstory. He grew up dreaming of taking a rocket to the moon, but was constantly put down by his scornful unloving mother (played, incredibly enough, by Julie Andrews!)

All the ingredients were there for a tedious, hackneyed movie, but something went wrong: Everybody involved did an excellent job and made it wonderful.

The movie is offered (like everything else these days) in 3D, and you do have to have the 3D glasses to appreciate the full effect of the gags that take place during the credits. But it was funny enough without them, and the rest of the movie needs 3D not at all.

Steve Carell does the entire movie in a strange foreign accent of indeterminate origin, and it's easy to forget that whose voice it is -- Gru truly seems to be a unique individual. Likewise, Jason Segel (the big guy in How I Met Your Mother) disappears into the rival villain, Vector; and the old coot who does all the real work with Gru's inventions, Dr. Nefario, is voiced (incredibly enough) by Russell Brand, who seems way too young to have brought off the part.

The filmmakers all seem to be French, or at least European, but it doesn't feel like a foreign film. Rather it seems to be universal (appropriate for a film distributed by Universal), though the sense of humor is rather dry -- to my delight, I must add, because a lot of the gags are offered en passant instead of being elaborately framed, the way too many American filmmakers do it when they wish to kill a joke by making it feel far too "set up."

It's worth a trip to the theater, folks. I laughed out loud, a lot, and never felt too manipulated by the occasional moments of sweetness.

As we left the theater in high spirits after seeing Despicable Me, we happened to notice a poster for a movie called Charlie St. Cloud. Well, no, let's be honest, we noticed the face of Zac Efron, a teen star who is emerging as a genuine talent; only after walking up to the poster were we able to make out any of the words.

We'd never heard of the project, but I noticed that it was based on a book; so when we got to Barnes & Noble after supper (at the Green Valley Grill, I might add; heirloom tomatoes are back!), I picked up the book Charlie St. Cloud, by Ben Sherwood, just to see what the story was.

To my surprise, the book hooked me so completely that I read the whole thing that night -- which is why my column was late getting turned in this week. The story deals with death, but in a very unusual way. In fact, the mythos of how the afterlife works is almost as intriguing as in Neal Shusterman's brilliant Everlost.

Charlie St. Cloud, at age 15, takes his little brother Sam with him to watch the Red Sox play. They "borrow" an out-of-town neighbor's car to get there, and of course Charlie has no license. But they were completely getting away with it when Sam called Charlie's attention to something, distracting him for the crucial moment that a drunk trucker strayed into the wrong lane and destroyed their car.

An EMT named Florio Ferrente (to be played by Ray Liotta in the movie) manages to bring off the miracle of bringing Charlie back from the brink of death -- but Sam dies.

The thing is, this is a movie about the afterlife, so we have already seen that Sam and Charlie died in the accident. In their disorientation as newly deceased spirits, they make a pact that they will stay together always. So when Charlie is brought back from the dead, the separation would seem to be a violation of their oath.

Charlie reshapes his life to stay with Sam. He certifies as an EMT himself, but never strays far from the cemetery where Sam's body is buried, and eventually takes a job managing the place, living in a cottage on the cemetery grounds.

There he goes every night, just at sundown, to play a game of catch with Sam. Literally. Sam's spirit remains solid enough that he can throw a ball around. And so the brothers remain together. Charlie still wrestles with his guilt for leading his brother into the illegal actions that led to his death, while Sam forgoes his progress into the next plane of existence in order to stay with and comfort Charlie.

In short, they're both not quite dead and not quite alive. And Charlie sees all the spirits of the newly dead, some of whom can't yet let go of the world they lived in and remain in the cemetery, keeping him company. Including Florio Ferrente, the EMT who saved Charlie but failed to bring back Sam.

Enters into this mix a woman, Tess Carroll, who is a competitive sailor, preparing to take her yacht into a round-the-world race. She has thought of everything to make her boat as safe as possible, and she truly is an excellent sailor, but she ignores the advice of her crew and takes it out alone into the teeth of a savage storm. Her boat capsizes, trapping her inside, but she forces her way out of the cabin.

We next see her, bruised and battered, coming ashore at the cemetery where Charlie works. Naturally, they meet. They fall in love. But how can Charlie explain to her -- or to any woman -- why he is never going to leave the cemetery, or give up his nightly games of catch with his little brother?

The twists and turns are wonderful; so is the resolution of the story (and believe me, despite how very much I've told you, I haven't scratched the surface of this tale). Which is why I couldn't put it down until I finished it.

I expect the movie to be wonderful. The director is Burr Steers, who did such a wonderful job with 17 Again, and the writers have credits that include October Sky, Ladder 49, Strictly Ballroom, and Romeo + Juliet.

But the writing is also wonderful, and I highly recommend reading it first. It truly won't spoil the movie; it's quite possible that it will help you understand the full implications of things that I don't expect the movie to be able to explain fully.

This is going to be the sentimental love story of the summer. But remember that before the movie, a writer had to think of it all, and Ben Sherwood did a splendid job.

I was on Amazon.com, buying my dad a copy of The Museum of Bad Art, since my dad (a) is an artist and (b) has a great sense of humor. After I bought it, there popped up a couple of titles that looked promising, both by James Lileks: The Gallery of Regrettable Food and Interior Desecrations: Hideous Homes from the Horrible '70s.

So on impulse, without having read them, I not only ordered copies for myself, but also sent one of them to my Mom, thinking she'd get a laugh, at least from the pictures.

Not that the books aren't funny; they are exactly what they purport to be, truly awful food and truly ugly interiors. Lilek found old recipe books from the 1950s and photos of hideous interior decoration from magazines, and assembled them in books that will either blind you or nauseate you, or both.

The food seems to be from a period when America was transitioning away from the pudding/casserole aesthetic. There seems to be a need to take perfectly good ingredients and form them into a quivering mass inside a gelatin mold, then turn them upside down on the plate.

The interior decorations were from a time when interior decorators aspired to be as cruel to people as fashion designers were. Picture after picture makes you want to show it to a friend and say, Could you live here? Could you eat in this kitchen or sleep in this bedroom? What were they thinking?

The reason I have to apologize to my mother is Lilek's smart-mouth, often obscene, and always vulgar commentary. Don't get me wrong -- it's funny. Extravagantly, ornately savage. But he draws from a vocabulary my mother would not love.

And yet half the value of the book comes from Lilek's nasty wit. So ... Mom, it was a mistake to send you that book! No, I don't think you'll like it, but I didn't know at the time -- I bought it sight unseen, online! (I'm not sure that's actually an excuse, but it's all I've got.)

Meanwhile, all my old friends from the college drama department, you'll like these books! (That is, unless you've grown up and become staid.)

Every Day Is Special

First appeared in print in The Rhinoceros Times, Greensboro, NC.

Thursday, July 15 -- National Rabbit Week

After all their years of bringing us eggs in the spring and eating our lettuce and carrots all summer, as well as setting an example to those who are remiss in their duty to add to the population at every possible opportunity, the least we can do is celebrate National Rabbit Week. Remember that rabbit is the other "other white meat," and that, like everything else, it tastes vaguely like chicken.

Some believe that Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, born this day in 1606 in Leydon, Holland, was the greatest painter who ever lived. At age 14, he believed he knew better than his parents what he wanted to do with his life, and they gave their consent for him to drop out of school and apprentice with painter Pieter Lastman. Like other painters, he lived from commissions, mostly for portraits, but turned the portraits into magnificent works of art, which was sometimes not appreciated by those paying for them. Combined with bad money management, his declining commissions during wartime led to bankruptcy. He outlived his wife, his son, and his mistress; only one daughter survived him when he died in 1669. A commonplace life for an extraordinary painter.

Friday, July 16 -- Crashing Comets Day

On this day in 1994, the first fragment of the comet Shoemaker-Levy crashed into the planet Jupiter, beginning a series of spectacular collisions, each unleashing more energy than a combined explosion of Earth's entire nuclear arsenal. We don't offer as much surface area for collisions as Jupiter does, but neither do we have the mass to absorb them. It is worth remembering that world-shattering collisions still happen, and if there is one thing our space program should be used for, it is developing an early-warning and collision avoidance system to prevent extinction-level collisions with drifting objects in space. And, contrary to NASA's current directive from the President, this should not be designed as a program to help Muslims feel good about themselves. Rather it should be designed as a program to keep Muslims and everybody else alive.

Saturday, July 17 -- Anti-Coulda-Shoulda Day

Write down all your regrets -- things you "could have" or "should have" done -- on a piece of paper, then throw the list into the trash. You've already learned from the experience, and instead of wishing you had acted differently, it's time to face the consequences of your choices and move forward. We can only start from where we are now. There are no do-overs, only make-the-best-ofs.

"Wrong Way" Corrigan Day: On this day in 1938, Douglas Corrigan, an unemployed airplane mechanic, left Brooklyn's Floyd Bennet Field, ostensibly headed for Los Angeles in a 1929 Curtiss Robin monoplane. He landed 28 hours, 13 minutes later in Dublin, Ireland, after a 3,150 mile nonstop flight without radio or special navigation equipment. He claimed he accidentally followed the wrong end of his compass needle.

Apparently he couldn't tell the difference between ocean and land when he looked out of his window. At least he didn't keep a hundred captive passengers on the ground without water or toilets; airlines have come a long way since then.

Sunday, July 18 -- Presidential Succession Day

On this day in 1947, Truman signed an executive order determining the line of succession should the President be temporarily incapacitated or die in office. The Speaker of the House and President Pro Tem of the Senate are next in succession after the Vice President. His order became the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in 1967.

It was put to the test during Richard Nixon's second term, as Spiro Agnew resigned and was replaced as Vice President by Gerald Ford, under the terms of the amendment. When Nixon resigned and Ford became President, he appointed Nelson Rockefeller as his Vice President, so that we had two unelected Vice Presidents and one unelected President within six years of ratification of the amendment.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on this day in 1918, in a village near Umtata in Transvaal, South Africa. After years of imprisonment for his political activities in the struggle against apartheid, Mandela was released from prison and elected President of the post-apartheid South Africa. As President, he showed remarkable clemency toward those who had oppressed him and his people; the result was that South Africa has avoided the excesses and losses that have led Zimbabwe and other liberated colonies into tyranny, oligarchy, or anarchy.

Monday, July 19 -- One Ring Day

J.R.R. Tolkien's long-awaited sequel to The Hobbit had grown into something much larger and finer than the original. Tolkien envisioned The Lord of the Rings as six volumes, but publisher Allen and Unwin made it into three, the first of which, The Fellowship of the Ring, was published on this day in 1954, in London. The Two Towers was published on Nov. 11, 1954, and The Return of the King on Oct 20, 1955.

While most academics are still not over their love affair with the pretentious and self-indulgent Ulysses, volunteer readers overwhelmingly named Lord of the Rings as the greatest work of literature of the 20^th century, and I believe they were right. It is hard for me to see how someone can be considered a true participant in contemporary Western culture without having read Lord of the Rings.

Elvis Presley's first single was released on this day in 1954. "That's All Right (Mama)" was on the A-side, "Blue Moon of Kentucky" on the flip side. Presley was 19 when Sun Records of Memphis, Tennessee, issued his first professional record.

Tuesday, July 20 -- Moon Landing Day

Human beings landed on the Moon for the first time on this day in 1969, in the U.S.'s eleventh Apollo mission. Neil Armstrong (who stepped on the Moon's surface first, thus making him the first ship's captain to leave his ship for an excursion on the surface of an alien planet) and Buzz Aldrin landed lunar module Eagle at 4:17 p.m. EDT and remained on the lunar surface for 21 hours, 36 minutes, and 16 seconds. Michael Collins dutifully house-sat the orbiting command module, Columbia.

In 1715, the Riot Act became law in England. If 12 or more persons were unlawfully assembled to the disturbance of the public peace, an authority was required "with a loud voice" to command silence and read the Riot Act proclamation: "Our sovereign lord the king chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies, God save the king." Any persons who failed to obey within one hour were to be seized, apprehended, and carried before a justice of the peace.

So when someone "reads the riot act," it refers to a real procedure. However, I recommend against reading the actual Riot Act to your children when they misbehave -- they are likely to pay no more attention than airplane passengers pay to the preflight safety announcements.

Wednesday, July 21-- Bull Run Day

No, this has nothing to do with the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Instead, it commemorates the first Battle of Bull Run (called "Battle of Manassas" in the South) in 1861. With superior numbers, the Union Army expected to win handily; excursioners from Washington, DC, showing the lack of sense that has continued to typify inside-the-beltway types ever since, came out to picnic and watch the victory. When Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston defeated Union General Irvin McDowell's army, the carriages of the fleeing civilians seriously hampered the ability of the Union troops to retreat in good order.

It was during this battle that Confederate General (and former professor) Thomas Jonathan Jackson won the nickname "Stonewall." Union disappointment at failing to win a quick victory was replaced by Confederate disappointment that after this first major defeat the North did not give up and go home. Instead, both sides slugged it out for more than four years in the bloodiest war ever for American soldiers, and the last war fought primarily on American soil.