Living on the island of lost birds

One of the things that's fascinating about living in New Zealand to me is that for most of the millions of years of its existence, it was a land of birds, and birds alone. Until the first Polynesians arrived about 800 years ago, isolated NZ was a feathered place with no native mammals. Unfortunately, between the Maori and later European colonisation, many of this land's most unique and dazzling birds were soon extinct.

Most people know about the moa, the largest bird ever to live. If you've ever seen a skeleton of one of these, it's pretty amazing to imagine a bird as tall as a giraffe. They were wiped out not long after the Maori arrived and were gone by the time Europeans came. At their biggest, they stood 12 feet tall.

But there were tons of other amazing long-gone feathered things -- the Haast's eagle -- the world's largest eagle; the beautiful black and yellow huia (right); the moa-lite adzebill; the whekau or laughing owl... I've a long list of things I'd do if I ever got my mitts on a time machine, but I think one of the things I'd love to do is see what New Zealand looked like, pre-colonization -- before the original bush was mostly wiped out, when the only thing you'd hear was a million different bird calls and imagined herds of moa roaming the land. It's just a tremendous shame to know that thanks to man's greed or man-introduced predators like rats and cats, we'll never know what a wonder a country of birds would've been.

Not all the unique birds of New Zealand are extinct, of course. Everyone knows about kiwi - which are fascinating creatures, but I tell you, there hasn't been a bird less prepared for foreign invaders since the dodo. Flightless, nocturnal, timid and nearly defenseless, the poor kiwi doesn't make it easy on itself. Another gorgeous yet terribly hapless critter is the flightless kakapo, the rarest, fattest parrot in the world -- dozens of people work long hours in the bush trying to force this exceedingly stubborn animal to mate. Living on the ground and not flying makes it hard to be a bird in the modern age.

Another native bird I discovered just a month or two ago is the beautiful kokako (right), which is a sleek grey with dazzling blue wattles and the cutest dark little cry you ever heard -- it sounds exactly like a person saying "ko-ka-ko," hence the bird's name. There's not a lot of them left, either, but we saw one at a bird sanctuary near Wellington and they're just awesome.

But hey, not all birds here are evolutionary dead-ends. My favorite New Zealand bird is the pukeko, (right) which is like a punk-rock chicken. They're gorgeous, gawky things, a sleek and sparkling blue with an orange helmet, about the size of a chicken but with huge oversized feet. They're awkward and amusing little fellows and they're as common as pigeons in many New Zealand parks. I like to think they're a reminder of what it was like in a country of birds.

... Why you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking Nerf herder!

Thirty years ago today, May 21, 1980, was a pivotal day in the life of every young fella born in the '70s -- the day Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back hit theatres. It's fair to say most boys (and lots of girls) of my age would never be the same. Wampas! AT-ATs! Yodas! Bobas! Landos! These were the things that buzzed around our brains for weeks and months afterwards.

Sadly, though, I can't quite remember my 9-year-old self's experience of actually SEEING "Empire" in theatres. I know I did, but for some reason, it's all tangled up in the kazillions of times I've seen "Empire Strikes Back" since then. I don't know for sure, but I suspect I've seen it more than any other movie. It's my favorite "Star Wars" movie, of course. Isn't it everybody's?

Thirty years on, "Empire" works because it's the best pure movie of the entire six-film epic. I'll always love the original "Star Wars" despite its hokier bits, and even the rather daft Ewoks don't sour me on "Return of the Jedi" (which I vividly do remember seeing in a packed cinema in 1983). And as for the "new" trilogy -- it's not as bad as all that, but it's a lot more soulless and plastic, I think.

But "Empire" -- well, many an armchair critic have already pointed out its merits. There's a scruffier side to "Empire" that the glossier other five movies lack -- it's there in Han Solo's snarky bantering with Leia, with the rogue Lando Calrissian, with sinister bounty hunter cameos, with Darth Vader's seemingly wholesale slaughter of unworthy henchmen. And "Empire" had the guts to end on an unashamed downer of a cliffhanger, with no promise things would be set right. (They would.) "Empire" had all the boy's own adventure fun of the original "Star Wars," but just coloured in with a little more intensity, a little more reality. Why that's lacking in George Lucas' later movies, I don't know.

Perhaps it was his script collaborators like Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett, or "Empire's" director Irvin Kershner. "Empire Strikes Back," from its glacial Hoth vistas to its soggy Dagobah gloom to its oh-so-'80s Cloud City disco skyline, is rich and full. It's so full that an entire generation of us kids saw a heck of a lot more to it than Lucas ever intended; we'd create worlds around it, guzzle down comics and action figures and nostalgia items for another 30 years to fill it out more. You'd see a lizard-man Bossk get about 1.4 seconds of screen time, buy the action figure and make up an entire cosmology around him. That's interactive entertainment in the pre-iPad age.

Nothing is ever quite as cool as it is when you're 9 years old, so maybe that's why nothing quite measures up to "Empire" for me. Without "Empire Strikes Back," it's hard to imagine growing up in the 1980s. So for that, George, Irvin, and everyone else, thanks for the awesomeness. (As Han Solo would say, "I know.")

Superheroes I Love No. 2: The Atom

I'm a tall fellow, but I was a late bloomer -- I was like 5-foot-2 through my freshman year of high school and then, it seemed, over the course of about a week I shot up over 6 foot. But sometimes I guess I still feel small if you get what I mean. Maybe that's why I dig The Atom, comics' smallest superhero. Or maybe it's seeing "The Incredible Shrinking Man" at a very impressionable age. Either way, I've always had a soft spot for this '60s superhero, a DC Universe mainstay.

Who: Ray Palmer, the Atom, who first appeared in 1961's Showcase #34 (technically the second hero to bear that name, but the first one with shrinking powers).

What: A scientist who discovers how to shrink himself using "white dwarf star matter." Don't question it. Has tons of cool adventures fighting full-size bad guys, discovering hidden subatomic worlds, exploring the awesome "Time Pool" and being drawn by that master of the art form, Gil Kane.

Catchphrase: "The World's Smallest Super Hero!"

Why I dig: I love the idea of a hero who isn't formed by great tragedy, but who instead is the outgrowth of a highly curious, scientific mind. Palmer's Atom has always been scientist first, superhero second, which gives him a nifty kind of Jules Verne/Sherlock Holmes allure. And while super-shrinking isn't perhaps the number one superpower one would think of having, there's something about the kitschy old Atom stories that make appealing the idea of visiting subatomic worlds, of seeing chairs become like mountains and spiders become elephant-size.

The Atom has always been a bit of a "second-tier" superhero, not quite at Batman/Superman levels of popularity, and frankly, the best comics featuring him were mostly the original '60s lot. In the decades since he's bounced all over the place, with the latest inevitable trend to "darken" him with various personal tragedies and traumas. But while he may be small, he's always been a fun character to me. (And of course had perhaps his finest hour in the Grant Morrison-written JLA #14, where he used his powers in a fascinating way and killed the biggest bad guy in the entire universe, Darkseid. Let's see Batman do that!)

The agony and the ecstasy of Nicolas Cage

I'm a big Nicolas Cage fan, which is incredibly uncool to admit.

At one point, circa 1995 or so, Cage was very cool indeed. But in the years since, he has signed his name to an awful lot of movies (Wikipedia lists a staggering 18 Cage-starring flicks since 2000), and an awful lot of those movies were, technically, not that good. But y'know what? Even in a bad movie, I like to watch Nic Cage do his thing. I am fascinated by him as an actor.

Cage at his best few will dispute -- Raising Arizona, Leaving Las Vegas, Face/Off, Adaptation -- but even in pulpy trash like Snake Eyes or Next, I find enough Cage to amuse me. His face is not conventionally Hollywood handsome -- he's all bug-eyes, sharp angles and soft edges blurring together in a kind of intense, lean flame. Cage's very passion often gets him accused of overacting.

Somewhere around the silly good fun family action flick National Treasure-- which attempts to marry The Da Vinci Code with Raiders of the Lost Ark -- Cage went from hip to hambone in the eyes of many. Is it because he has a knack for picking rather bad scripts? (But then again, so do a lot of other actors.) Some people seem to take Cage's prolific acting personally, as if his every movie should be a Leaving Las Vegas rather than a Ghost Rider.

But frankly, I just think Cage a rare animal among actors -- he's not afraid to embarrass himself. I know that sounds a strange quality but it's a rare one among big Hollywood actors -- the willingness to look a fool. (See "Wicker Man" clip below.) Cage is often teeth-gnashingly, manically over the top -- and hey, I'm entertained by that. I'd rather watch someone interesting like a Cage, a Sam Rockwell or a William H. Macy over a stiff and self-pleased Tom Cruise or WIll Smith sort any day.

The recent movie Knowing is not exactly a great film -- it's a tangled sort of horror story/alien abduction movie, which veers from bizarre to outright outrageous to strangely affecting. Yet, in its kitschy fashion, it's genuinely interesting, and as a professor and father who gradually becomes an apocalyptic conspiracy theorist, Cage is never less than sincere.

Last weekend I watched the hideously titled but quite good recent Werner Herzog film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans. As an unspeakably corrupt, drug-addicted cop, Cage is sweating, hunchbacked and jittery, an ugly portrait of an ugly character -- and he's mesmerizing. Or take his fine turn in Kick Ass, as Big Daddy, where he combines bits of "Taxi Driver" DeNiro with Adam West's "Batman" to create some kind of twisted vigilante genius.

Is over-the-top automatically a flaw when considering an actor? I wouldn't mind if Cage did pick better scripts -- "Adaptation" and "Bad Lieutanant" stand up as far better films than most of his recent work -- but heck, I'll still watch him in in just about anything.

I leave with this gem of a montage from "The Wicker Man" 2006 remake -- not one of Cage's best by any standard, but as neat a concise summary of the bizarro Cage appeal as any clipfest. How can you not find the "Bees! Bees!" line entertaining? Thirty years from now when Cage gets that Lifetime Achievement Academy Award, I hope to God they play this as he walks to the stage.

Movie review: Iron Man 2

Bigger, better, more -- the rules of movie blockbuster sequels are pretty straightforward. Do what the first one did, only more so. And "Iron Man 2" definitely piles it all on -- more heroes, more villains, and it's great fun coming back to Robert Downey Jr's definitive portrayal of playboy inventor Tony Stark and his metal alter ego.

Any old-school comics geek will have a spaz attack at this movie, which is brimming over with nods to the shared Marvel universe -- joining the golden avenger here are War Machine, Black Widow, Whiplash, Nick Fury and Justin Hammer. The story lifts from the best of Iron Man's 40 years of tales and patches together a plot that revolves around a superhuman arms race that breaks out around the Iron Man technology. Iron Man's history in comics has been kind of spotty -- the best tales are outweighed by a lot of mediocrity, but this film does a nice job of sifting through for solid ideas.

And it's got a great cast.... who would've thought a few years ago that Robert Downey Jr and Mickey Rourke would headline a big summer blockbuster movie? "Iron Man 2" s elevated by quirky, fun actors who liven up the material. Can you imagine if Tom Cruise had been cast as Iron Man, as was rumoured back in the day?

Don Cheadle makes a very good replacement for Terrence Howard's Colonel James Rhodes, who gets a lot more to do to in this installment. Scarlett Johansson as the va-va-va-voom Black Widow, swaddled in black leather, may be a kind of bastardized version of the comics character (it's probably a good thing she didn't try a Russian accent), but she's great to look at. And the great Sam Rockwell, one of my favorite actors, does a fine turn as Justin Hammer, Tony Stark's mirror-image, an unscrupulous, sleazy arms dealer. As for grizzled Rourke, well, he chews every scene he's in as the tattooed, heavily accented and vengeance-minded Whiplash, and I loved it -- he's pure comic-book villain.

As he did in the first film, director Jon Favreau keeps character at the forefront. He's mixed on the action -- a sequence involving Whiplash set in Monaco is tense and gripping, but I found the climactic battle a bit wanting. Downey's Tony Stark continues to be one of the best comic character castings -- in this slightly darker sequel, we see Stark struggle with his ego, his ailments and his temptations. I don't want to spoil a great sequence about halfway through the movie, but fans of the classic "Demon in a Bottle" comics storyline will dig how it plays out. Downey keeps us aware of the man in Iron Man.

While it's a crowded movie, I don't think it generally succumbs to the overstuffed feeling of, say, "Spider-Man 3." But one flaw is that "Iron Man 2" a little too often feels like a trailer for the "Avengers" movie. While Samuel L. Jackson makes a great gruff Nick Fury, his cameos feel less plot-driven and more marketing-driven. Also, a little end-credits surprise scene hits that comic fan sweet spot but the majority of moviegoers will be baffled by it. Marvel runs the risk of making their movies as convoluted as their comics if they don't focus on story first, franchising second.

Still, I think "Iron Man 2" makes a pretty strong follow-up -- it'll make a ton of money, and I sure wouldn't mind seeing Downey (and Scarlett's Black Widow, meoooow) do it one more time.

Movies Which I Have Done Seen Recently

A Serious Man

Here's the Coen brothers in full-on "weird" mode, as in more "Barton Fink" than "Raising Arizona." But what a strange, captivatingly weird one this is -- a kind of tangled meditation on fate, faith and the cruel whims of the universe, all cycling around one Larry Gopnik's tragic, slow downfall in 1960s Minnesota. Gopnik (a superb Michael Stuhlbarg) is a college professor who over the course of the movie battles infidelity, spoiled children, crazy neighbours and student blackmail. The theme is, as Roger Ebert says, "why, God, why?" It's the Coen brothers at their best -- comic in as black a fashion as possible, but also quizzical, with plenty to chew on afterwards. It may not have gotten quite as much acclaim, but in its wry way it's easily as good as "No Country For Old Men." It's also their most explicitly "Jewish" movie, meditating on whether God really cares. Stuhlbarg -- who looks like a nerdier Joaquin Phoenix -- is a marvel as Gopnik, who remains hopeful up to the very end of his trials. Of course if you're the kind of viewer who wants to shout at the television to characters "stop being such a doormat," you might find Gopnik's adventures irksome. But there's beauty, quirk and grace galore in this gem, particularly in its fragile, haunting ending. Grade: A

Where The Wild Things Are

It's a funny beast, this adaptation of Maurice Sendak's wonderful picture book. I'm a huge fan of director Spike Jonze, whose "Adaptation" and "Being John Malkovich" are in my top movies of recent years. Visually, this movie is a marvel -- lovely, textured beasts, a sun-burnished island paradise, and the kid who plays Max is just perfect -- but yet, while I liked it, I didn't quite get swept away by it. It's hard work spinning out a 12-page story or so into a full movie, but Jonze gets too carried away by the sadder undertones of the story and turns it all into a rather emo ode for lost childhood. I knew going in this wasn't one for kids, really, but I don't see why this movie had to be so darned melancholy, basically -- there's just not a lot of joy to it, and everyone is rather mopey. Yes, childhood ending is sad and we all have feelings we can't articulate, but I feel like "Wild Things" just wasn't quite wild enough, that it missed the colourful (if slightly disturbing) feeling of Sendak's works. A little solemnity goes an awful long way. The beasts look perfect, though -- they aren't some CGI monstrosities, but have real depth and soul.

Grade: B-

The Blind Side

A wealthy white Southern woman (Sandra Bullock) takes in and basically adopts a poor black kid -- who then goes on to become a college football superstar and changes everyone's lives. Yeah, it's another Saintly Black People Make Uptight White Folks Feel Good movie. Yet hang on, because it is based on a true story, so that takes some of the sanctimonious feeling away, at least for me. The tale of Mike Oher and his harsh upbringing rings true, as does Lee Ann Tuohy's (Bullock) unplanned intervention in his dead-end life. Sometimes people do just do good things, and in its way "The Blind Side" is predictable and yet kind of sweet. Bullock is quite good -- Oscar-deserving good, I don't really agree, but she does really make you believe she's a certain type of steely-yet-soft Southern matriarch. But she does show more acting chops than she's generally known for. But the kid, Oher, is a bit too much of an empty vessel. This is a hugely "American" movie with people glued to college football and eating huge Thanksgiving dinners and so forth; it made me a bit homesick for the South and it amused me to see a movie where the entire plot turns upon a fellow being accepted to my old alma mater, Ole Miss. It's a bit overlong, but while you know where it's going, it's an OK movie for the kind of movie it is.

Grade: B-

Winding our way to Wellington

So last week was school holidays and we packed up for a quick jaunt down to Wellington, New Zealand's illustrious capital city. I hadn't been there in 10 years, since my very first trip to NZ. It was good to get on an old-fashioned road trip, too. Geography here kind of means you can't drive most directions without hitting the sea before too long, but the 8-hour drive south to Wellington is one of the longest treks you can take on one island. And sometimes, this American just misses the lure of the open road.

Of all the NZ cities I've been to Wellington reminds me the most of my beloved San Francisco -- jammed into a tight bay, hilly, perched over the tempestous ocean, with lots of nifty architecture, narrow, charming timber structures wedged onto vertical spaces. And Wellington is WINDY. Not just mildly breezy but incredibly windy, with winds pouring into the U-shaped harbour at varying degrees of severity. It wasn't even particularly gusty while we were there but after a couple of days of it I thought yeah, this could be tiresome.

That aside, though, Wellington is a fine place -- the city centre is compact and has that "government town" feeling most capitals do, with lots of folks in suits and ties. Compared to the 1.2 million or so people in the Auckland area, Wellington feels like a small town. You've got the Parliament (which I toured last time I was in town so we didn't go today), plus the huuuuuge national museum Te Papa, which we took the boy to. It's full of art, buttons to push, flashing lights, holographic maps and even a giant dead pickled colossal squid.

As I mentioned before, Wellington is VERY vertical (many houses have long steep steps going up to them, and some even have little motorized cable cars to carry them up). I love the steep scale of Wellington, with so much packed vertically into small space, it's got a cozy feeling. There's some excellent shopping -- big ups to Slowboat Records where I found a rare Alex Chilton CD I've been hunting, and the awesome Sweet Mother's Kitchen, a New Orleans-inspired restaurant where we ate twice in once day (and I had hush puppies for the first time in yeeeears). Another nifty spot to visit was Weta Studios' small museum/shop out in the burbs -- Weta is the special effects studio who work with Sir Peter Jackson on films such as "Lord of the Rings" and "King Kong" and they had tons of interesting props on show. We also drove along the Wellington peninsula which had marvelous views out into Cook Strait, and full of beautiful little isolated beach communities that don't feel like they're 10 minutes from downtown. You could even park at the edge of the airport and watch planes come down into the runway.

'Twas a swell trip down to NZ's second city, and I'm hoping it's not another 10 years before we make it down there again!

Movie Review: Kick-Ass

What if Quentin Tarantino had made "Spider-Man"?

The result might well be something like "Kick-Ass," an absurdly violent and profanity-filled romp that is definitely not a superhero movie for kids.

Dave Lizewsky (a nerdy-yet-heroic Aaron Johnson) is a typical New York teen, obsessed with superheroes.

One day, he decides to toss on a colourful wetsuit and patrol his neighbourhood as the superhero Kick-Ass. Unfortunately, Kick-Ass soon draws the attention of the local mob man (a sneering Mark Strong) and other vigilante heroes, including the menacing ex-cop Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his whirling dervish of a daughter, Hit Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz). Needless to say, things get out of control fast.

"Kick-Ass" prides itself on being a "realistic" look at superheroes -- nobody has strange powers, and Kick-Ass -- well, he spends a lot of the movie getting his ass (or arse, if you prefer) kicked.

Director Matthew Vaughan piles on the colorful carnage and comedy, with buckets of profanity, blood and slayings that are more for laughs than anything. But he also cleverly makes "Kick-Ass" feel topical with nods to Internet celebrity and televised terrorism.

"Kick-Ass" is a heck of a lot of fun, although it's kidding itself if it thinks it's really that revolutionary and "realistic." "Kick-Ass" at its core is no more realistic than Batman, really.

Confession and digression: I actually haven't read the "Kick Ass" comics the movie is based on yet, but this movie's whiz-bang shock-and-awe approach is pure Mark Millar, the comic's prolific creator. Millar can be an entertaining comics writer, but he's also hugely up himself when he blathers along on comments like "Watchmen isn't that realistic – there's a big blue guy with his dick out, you know?" Kick-Ass is hardly a model of realism either. Millar's work is all about the action-movie kick - which he does very well in stuff like "Wanted," "The Ultimates" and "The Authority." Frankly, I'm turned off by Millar's egocentric public persona, but his comics do deliver a punch. But Millar's flaw is that his work rarely engages the heart like it does the fanboy gut, and to me nothing Millar's ever written comes within the range of what Grant Morrison or Alan Moore have done with the genre.

Rant aside.

Johnson, in his first big role, makes a mark as Kick-Ass, making this rather clueless do-gooder believable. Cage is marvelous as "Big Daddy," doing a kind of twisted impression of Adam West as Batman in the 1960s TV series. And little Moretz as Hit-Girl just about steals the movie.

But if you find the notion of a 12-year-old girl swearing like a sailor and killing gangsters in assorted inventive ways offensive, "Kick Ass" is probably not the movie for you. It definitely pushes the edge of good taste, but never in a truly sadistic way.

The movie is best when it goes gleefully, goofily over the top, making fun of superheroes but also embracing them in all their colourful glory.

Like blogger, like son

I reckon I've been blogging on and off 6 years or so now and it's time to let the younger generation do their thing. Allow me to hype to you my wee boy's blog, showcasing the remarkable variety and creativity of his swell and nifty art creations! With a little help from Mum, it's Peter's Creations! Go check it out.

The answer is the question is the answer

It's been our Wednesday night ritual now for the last six years to watch "Lost," and see where the twists and turns take us next. Now that it's in its final year, I honestly admit I have no idea where this show will end up. It started off as a "when will the castaways be rescued" drama, but that rescue ended up happening in Season 3. Now, it's some kind of time-travelly science fiction existential mythological epic that appears to be, in its last weeks, shaping up into a clash between good and evil god-figures. Not quite what one first expected when Oceanic Flight 815 went down!

The byzantine path the show has taken in the last six years is breathtaking. The closest comparisons to a TV show that I can make is "The Prisoner," or "Twin Peaks" but unlike those shows, which were elliptical and surreal from the start, "Lost" has gradually spun its web into something vast, mythological and occasionally overwrought (any time the series focuses too long on cliched Kate, the "hot girl led astray," for instance). In Series 6, "Lost" keeps spiraling its fractal story outwards, making you wonder how it can possibly all come together at the end in a few months. (We're a couple of weeks behind the show as it airs in the US, so no spoilers please!)

One big theme of "Lost" seems to be that nobody is quite what they seem. Jack, the ostensible "hero" of the show, has turned out to be frequently bungling, easily unmanned and troubled. Sawyer, the loveable rogue, has become the show's angry but steely man of action, while the most compelling character arc has been the one-time villain Ben's gradual redemption. Which might not pan out, of course.

But is there a more fascinating character than the one who I think is the real focus of the series -- poor doomed, then resurrected John Locke. Locke is the man of constantly shattered faith, the endlessly questing philosopher who is always being proved wrong. Locke's dogged search for the answers and the heartbreaking end of this quest is by far "Lost's" most interesting storyline, I think. And in Series 6, it's taken a twist by the resurrection of "John Locke," now host to the mysterious adversary, Jacob's enemy, who appears to be the "main" villain of the series. Or is he a villain? Terry O'Quinn has been great throughout the series as Locke, who swings between clenched confidence and abject misery. Now, as "Not-Locke," O'Quinn makes an absolutely fascinating focus for "Lost's" endless twists. I don't know if the "real" John Locke will return or not -- dead doesn't always mean dead -- but even if he doesn't, John Locke's quest for meaning neatly sums up "Lost."

It's still a wild ride, even if several times an episode the wife and I have to turn to each other and say things like "who's that again?" and "where was Jin last time we saw him?" "Lost" has woven such a tangled web that I feel like I'll have to read some of the inevitable "Guide to Lost" books that will come out once the series concludes.

There will be those who inevitably complain that we didn't get all of the "answers" when "Lost" ends. I would say that a huge part of the story has actually become clear this year. But you know, even if every dangling subplot isn't resolved, I'm enjoying the questions just as much.