Metropolis (1927)

Metropolis boasts an amazing art-deco set design (esp. for a movie made 80 years ago) and is a visionary sci-fi story of the future (set 20 years from now). It's a silent movie in German made by Fritz Lang and this is a restored edition that's still regrettably incomplete. George Lucas has admitted he was greatly inspired by Metropolis as he created Star Wars -- and it shows in almost every scene. (Even the female lead's orchestral theme sounds like Princess Leia's score by John Williams.) This is not a CGI-cobbled Technicolor film, however, if you can appreciate black-and-white films (for example, those of Charlie Chaplin or Douglas Fairbanks), you should enjoy this one because it's on many people's lists of the top 100 films of all time. The theme is that mechanized industry can steal our humanity, esp. when the privileged leisure class deigns to think itself as more worthy than the working class and sends workers and their families to exile, the better to enjoy the fruit of their labors while denying them of the same. The mechanistic imagery is striking and almost kaleidoscopic in the opening scenes. The drudgery of the workers is evident in their tightly choreographed body language. The female lead is lovely and her eyes are extremely expressive; she serves as a premessianic figure, a sort of John the Baptist crying in the wilderness, heralding the coming "mediator" who will unite "the head and the hands," which "must be joined through the heart." Metropolis surprisingly has a great deal of religious imagery: the male lead has a vision of industry as Moloch, consuming the people in fire; the female lead exhorts her followers in catacombs with a backdrop of multiple crosses; and much of the second half of the action takes place in a cathedral setting. The acting style is generally modern and restrained among the handful of named characters, however, the lip-smacking and leering of the men in the nightclub and the frenetic vamping of the evil robotic clone of the female lead will strike modern sensibilities as quite comical and dated. Five stars.

Jason 2000: Friday the 13th Part X (2002)

I have never before watched a slasher movie of any kind -- Jason, Freddie, Chucky, Saw, nothing -- but Jason X being set in space made a palatably scary cable TV offering during Halloween week. (I was actually hooked on it before I knew what it was.) Now I don't understand people who find slasher movies to be funny and I don't understand people who enjoy admittedly bad movies (as slasher movies generally are). Nevertheless, within the slasher and within the sci-fi movie genres, I didn't find this movie to be bad at all -- bad on Earth is one thing but bad in space is out in orbit. Yes, all the typically stupid conventions of slasher movies endure even in space: With dozens of people on the space station, they are continually running off without a plan and being isolated one-by-one; forgetting to use their radios (or to keep an open channel); entering dark rooms without turning on the lights; back into dark rooms without looking where they are going; and so on. That stuff you stake for granted as required by the story line and genre. But with that as a baseline, this movie was good. Passable. So-so. Acceptable. The android chick is a spirited dish. Three stars.

David Carradine's Tai Chi Workout for Beginners

Health. This disc is so-so but much of it is simple stretching and 80 percent of the material reappears on his AM & PM disc. It's hard to follow the basic forms because his narration lags (you're trying to do moves through numerous repetitions before he describes how to specifically position yourself or breathe). This disc really needs a picture-in-picture participant constantly facing the screen like you are because it's hard to mimic participants who are facing you (it's as if you are trying to rub your belly and pat your head while watching yourself in a mirror). I would like a more consistent and classical presentation of the various forms rather than a haphazard presentation followed by an ending where I watch an adept integrate the forms (because without narration or a model in the same orientation, I have no hope of following along). Maybe removing the interview about his Kung Fu casting and character development (while interesting) would have allowed more room to address the subject suggested by the title of the disc. Two stars.

David Carradine's AM & PM Tai Chi Workout for Beginners

Health. This disc is all right but it's 80 percent the same material as his Tai Chi Workout for Beginners disc, which is mostly stretching exercises. It's hard to follow sometimes because his narration lags (you're trying to do moves through numerous repetitions before he mentions how to position yourself or breathe) and this disc really needs a picture-in-picture participant facing the screen like you are (it's really hard to mimic participants who are facing you -- it's as if you are trying to rub your belly and pat your head while watching yourself in a mirror). Three stars.