MOVIE REVIEW: Despicable Me

The Other Half and I saw Steve Carell's non-bomb summer film, Despicable Me, last Sunday at a matinee at our usual theater in Alhambra.

The film is well-animated and is well-voiced by Steve Carell. The story features three ridiculously adorable girls and a story arc  that surprisingly heartwarming for a movie where the main character is named Gru and aspires to be the Worst Villain in the World.

Although there are some gags which are clearly designed for adults (sign over "The Bank of Evil" reads "former Lehman Brothers.") but this is definitely a film for kids and has a PG or G sensibility. As Miyazaki has shown, this does not mean that the film has to be uninteresting to adults, and there's definitely plenty of action, again with a primarily childish bent.

Overall, you can probably wait to see this on Netflix or cable.

Running Time: 1 hour, 35 minutes. MPAA Rating: Rated PG for rude humor and mild action.

Plot: B.
Acting: N/A.
Visuals: A-.
Impact: B.

Overall Grade: B/B+ (3.222/4.0).

US OPEN SERIES: Federer v Fish in Cincy Final

Roger Federer defeated Marcis Baghdatis 6-3 6-4 in the semifinals, one day after the resurgent Cypriot had taken out World #1 Rafael Nadal in a tight 6-4 4-6 6-4 match.

In Sunday's final Federer will face Mardy Fish, who defeated Andy Roddick in a rain-delayed match 4-6 7-6(3) 6-1 after Roddick led 6-4 5-2 before a crucial rain delay.

This will be Federer's second consecutive final in as many weeks. He lost last week to Andy Murray. Fish has only beaten Federer once before (in six tries), but it was the last time they played, in the semifinals of Indian Wells in 2008, and in straight sets.

Celebrity Friday: Eric, Sookie, Bill Of True Blood

As this season of True Blood heats up (I think it is probably the best so far) three stars of the show's central romantic triangle are on the cover of the latest Rolling Stone magazine: Anna Paquin (Sookie Stackhouse), Peter Sarsgaard (Eric Northman, vampire) and Stephen Moyer (Bill Compton, vampire).

Hat/tip to Wonder Man.

Federer v Murray and Clijsters v Sharapova in Finals

Roger Federer defeated Novak Djokovic 6-1 3-6 7-5 to regain his World #2 ranking and defending champion Andy Murray defeated World #1 Rafael Nadal to retain his World #4 ranking in today's semifinals at the Toronto Masters.

Federer followed up his clutch win over Tomas Berdych (despite being down 2-5 in the deciding set!) to improve to 10-5 against the Serbian. The Swiss player was up 6-1 2-0 and was two points away from a second break when after holding Djokovic smiled and relaxed and reduced his error count considerably while Federer continued to struggle on break points and ended up losing the set. In the third set, Federer took a commanding 4-1 lead and had multiple opportunities for a 5-2 lead. Instead, he got broken and the next game was a titantic 15-minute struggle (9 deuces!) which Djokovic won to even the match at 4-all in the 3rd. Federer fell behind 15-40 on his very next service game but served three consecutive huge first serves to get himself out of trouble and nosed ahead 5-4. The match looked like it was going to a deciding set tie-break with Djokovic up 40-15 on his serve at 5-6 but Federer fought back to deuce and won the match on his first match point after another backhand and forehand error by the former World #2.

The first semifinal between Murray and Nadal was relatively uneventful, with ineffectual serving from the World #1 which eventually led to a deciding break in the first set. In the second set, Murray had an early break which he relinquished to even the match and then surprisingly Nadal lost the 9th game of the match on his serve through some excellent returns from Murray, who then coolly served out the set to win the match.

Tomorrow's final should be a reprise of this year's Australian Open men's final which was won by Federer. Murray, however leads their head-to-head 6-5 but Federer has won their three match-ups in finals (2008 US Open final, 2010 Australian Open final and the Thailand Open).

I expect a barn-burner tomorrow with Federer pulling it out in 3-sets.

On the women's side Kim Clijsters will face Maria Sharapova. Sharapova has won the last 3 times they have played, but Clijsters leads their head-to-head 4-3. I like the defending 2009 US Open champion versus the 3-time major champ.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Kids Are All Right

Decided to go see The Kids Are All Right starring Annette Bening and Juliane Moore as a lesbian couple on our 2nd wedding anniversary at the shiny, new L.A. Live Regal 14 Theaters in downtown Los Angeles. Mark Ruffalo stars as the sperm donor (I prefer the term sperm dad or "spad," being one myself) which resulted in the couples two kids, played by Mia Wasikowska (last seen in Timothy Burton's Alice in Wonderland) and Josh Hutcherson (who has starred in Journey to the Center of the Earth, Zathura, Bridge to Teribithia).

The film was written (with Stuart Blumberg) and directed by Lisa Cholodenko, a lesbian mom herself.

The Kids Are All Right is a heart-wrenchingly real depiction of American family life, especially from an LGBT perspective. It is also laugh-out-loud, gasping-for-air funny. However, as I told my husband on the way out, "There's an awful lot of heterosexual sex in that movie for a lesbian comedy!" He pointed out that there's a fair amount of depiction of gay sexuality as well, with multiple kisses and affection between Jules(played by Julianne) and Nic (played by Annette), not to mention the entire "gay man porn" subplot.

The basic premise is that the two kids, Joni (played by Wasikowska) and Laser (played by Hutcherson) become curious about their father and make contact with him. Since Joni is 18, she has to make the call to the sperm bank, at the request of her rambunctious 15-year-old brother. But it is another member of the family who ends up making a significant connection with Ruffalo's Paul, who is played with excessive charm.

As a matter of fact, all the acting is superb, with Annette and Bening leading the pack. Annette's Nic is fragile, funny and domineering, but fiercely loves her family. Julianne's Jules is spacey, beautiful and (often inadvertently) hysterically funny. This film should get them both back into the Oscar nominations discussion, and may even win one or both of these beautifully aging actresses (Annette, 51; Julianne, 49) that little gold statuette they have been denied for years.

The writing is astonishing. All of the characters are flawed, but also appealing in some way. Just like in real life. Although some critics have taken issue with the degree of accuracy or fidelity in the depiction of lesbian sexuality as well as the non-depiction of people of color in a positive light,

overall I would argue this is a must-see film for most regular film goers.

(On a side note, it was pretty surreal to watch the final scenes of the movie and yell out "Hey, that's Occidental College!" Joni goes off to college, and the place she picks just happens to be the place at which I teach and work. Go figure. It's silly, but that familiar aspect, as well as the distinctive shots of Los Angeles gave the film an especially high emotional resonance with me.)

Running Time: 1 hour, 46 minutes. MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, language and some teen drug and alcohol use.

Plot: A-.
Acting: A+.
Visuals: A.
Impact: A.

Overall Grade: A (4.0/4.0).

MOVIE REVIEW: Salt

The Other Half and I saw Salt at our new favorite theaters, the Arclight Cinemas in Pasadena, on its opening weekend.

Salt stars Angelina Jolie, Chiwetel Ejiofor and

Liev Schrieber in a script written by Kurt Wimmer and directed by Phillip Noyce (Clear and Present Danger, Dead Calm).

One of the interesting aspects of Salt is that the main character of Evelyn Salt was originally written for a male actor, namely Tom Cruise. When you see the movie this is not surprising because it is very reminiscent of the Jason Bourne movies (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum.)

Similar to these movies, Salt is pretty action-packed; it is practically a non-stop thrill ride. As a feminist, it is quite fun to see Angelina Jolie kicking so much butt.

There are some aspects of the plots that don't quite past the smell test but in general events are proceeding so quickly one generally doesn't dwell on these imperfections. Without giving away any spoilers I will say that the movie ends in such a way that makes a sequel (or sequels) highly likely.

Running Time: 1 hour, 39 minutes. MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action.

Plot: A.
Acting: A-.
Visuals: A-.
Impact: B.

Overall Grade: A-/B+ (3.583/4.0).

Sam Querrey Repeats As Champion in LA

ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

American Sam Querrey became the first person since Andre Agassi in 2001 to defend his title in Los Angeles by defeating the top seed, World #4 Andy Murray 5-7 7-6(2) 6-3 on Sunday.

MadProfessah had been invited to visit the tournament earlier in the week for a USTA Diversity event and saw Querey and James Blake lose a desultory doubles match to the excessively handsome (and eventual semifinalist) Feliciano Lopez and Jarko Tipsarevic.

MOVIE REVIEW: Inception

MadProfessah and The Other Half saw the latest film from Christopher Nolan, the director of Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and now Inception. Memento is one of my favorite films of all time, and Nolan is one of my favorite film directors. I have seen and enjoyed all of his films to date.

We saw Inception at the new(ish) Arclight Cinemas in Pasadena on opening day, Friday July 16th. We generally avoided most of the reviews, which were mostly (but not overwhelmingly) positive. The current rottentomatoes.com rating for the film is 86%.

Inception is a fiendishly complicated story that revolves around the premise that there exists technology which allows multiple individuals to share and participate in each others' dreams. Usually this procedure is used to steal secrets from an individual's subconscious by accessing it in their dreams. The concept of "inception" in this context is the notion that one can insert an idea into the dreaming individual, in such a way that they believe that the idea is actually self-generated.

Leonardo Dicaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Dileep Rao and Tom Hardy all play members of a team led by DiCaprio's Dom Cobb who is being hired by Ken Watanabe's character to place an idea in Cillian Murphy's character's head. Got it? The basic idea of the film is not that complicated, but the successful execution of "inception" requires Murphy's character to be taken into a dream within a dream within a dream. As one reviewer mentioned, this device allows director Nolan to have not one but three ticking clock scenarios for the audience to watch and, in my opinion, raises the level of suspense to a fever-pitch.

The story is further complicated by Cobb's subconscious, which features his ex-wife Mal Cobb, played magnificently by Oscar winner Marion Cotillard. She is infiltrating his dreamscape and doing her best to foil his plans. Other important supporting characters are played by Pete Postlethwaite (Murphy's near-death father), a near unrecognizable Tom Berenger (Murphy's right-hand man) and 2-time Oscar winner Michael Caine as Cobb's father-in-law and mentor.

Nolan gets immense respect from me for writing and directing such an ambitious piece of film-making that can be also be successfully marketed as summer blockbuster popcorn entertainment.

Running Time: 2 hours, 28 minutes. MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of violence and action throughout.

Plot: A+.
Acting: A.
Visuals: A+.
Impact: A.

Overall Grade: A+/A (4.167/4.0).

Netroots Nation 2010 Las Vegas: #lgbtnn10

MadProfessah is attending Netroots Nation 2010 in Las Vegas this week July 20th-24th thanks to financial support from Mike Rogers' Blogger Initiative. The Twitter hashtag for LGBT coverage at Netroots Nation is #lgbtnn10.

Yesterday I attended the LGBT confab for Netroots Nation attendees where some of the people there were Dan Choi, Fred Karger, Barbara McCullough-Jones, Gloria Nieto, and Phil Attey. There were also presentations from organizational representatives like Fred Sainz (Human Rights Campaign Foundation), Jason Perez Howe (Lambda Legal), Steve Hildebrand (Faith in America), Michael Crawford (Freedom To Marry) Heather Cronk (GetEqual). Since I'm on the board of Immigration Equality, I represented that organization at the caucus.

Strangely, the Task Force had no representative.

Later on there were interesting discussions between the attendees on "ENDA" and "Immigration Reform" in one session and "Marriage Equality" and "HIV/AIDS" in the second session.

Thursday, after an eventful night (which I may blog about later involving a trip to a local Urgent Care Clinic!), I attended the three sessions:"Marriage Equality: Building a Movement Online," "Immigration Reform's Strange Bedfellows," and "How to Plan for Your Website Redesign"

WIMBLEDON 2010: Men's Semifinals Preview

Here are my predictions for the men's semifinals at the Wimbledon Championships for 2010.
I previously made predictions for the men's quarterfinals (1 of 4 correct) and the women's quarterfinals (2 of 4 correct).

(I have now arrived in London and I have tickets for the men's final on Sunday.)

Roger Federer SUI (1) Tomas Berdych CZE (12) vs. Novak Djokovic SRB (3). For the first time since 2002(!), Roger Federer will not be playing in the Wimbledon Men's Final. (Of course, this is the year I travelled to Wimbledon after getting lucky to get tickets to the men's final. Did I bring him my favorite player bad luck?) Anyway, After winning 23 consecutive major quarterfinals, the 16-time major champion has now lost the last two he has played in a row, to two somewhat similar opponents, the hard-hitting giants Robin Soderling (in Paris) and Tomas Berdych (in London). Unlike at Roland Garros, where Federer clearly did not play his best and was blasted off the court, at Wimbledon Federer was defeated while still playing about as well as he's played most of the year. (Which is to say, not his best ever, but possibly the best he can do right now.) His failure to defend his two major titles from last year (and the fact he has won only won tournament all year, the 2010 Australian Open) means that the former World #1 will fall to World #3 in the rankings on Monday. This means that Federer will remain stuck one heartbreaking week behind matching Pete Sampras' record of 286 weeks at #1 for the foreseeable future. Will he ever get there? I believe so. And it may just be what keeps the Swiss master in the game until the 2010 London Olympics as he has promised before. Berdych has started a streak of his own; for the second consecutive major the Czech player has made the semifinals. Berdych played an astonishing match against Federer, hitting 51 winners to Federer's 44 and only making 23 unforced errors to Federer's 18 (and 6 of those were double faults by Berdych going for second serves). Although I predicted a different match-up, I am not unduly upset by what transpired today, I do believe the better player on the day won the match. As expected, with the shock defeat of Andy Roddick by Yen-Hsun Lu in the previous round, World #3 Novak Djokovic had an easy time of it to reach his second Wimbledon semifinal. Berdych and Djokovic have only played twice (a curiously low number for active players) with Djokovic having never lost. Can Berdych come back from the greatest victory of his career to date to reach his first major final? The Czech has suffered from mental frailty in the past, but is clearly playing some of his best tennis ever. Djokovic, too, is playing some excellent tennis and definitely has the game to make the most of this rare opportunity to reach his third major final (2007 US Open, 2008 Australian Open) without having to face a higher ranked player. However, he, too, has had some notably poor performances in massively important matches (the 2010 Roland Garros quarterfinal loss to Jurgen Melzer from two sets up comes to mind, as well as injury retirements at Wimbledon.) The real question is whether Berdych is on an unstoppable Juan Martin del Potro run to his first major, or will he come back to earth after beating the Greatest of all time on his best surface? PREDICTION: Djokovic (in 4 sets).

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga FRA (10) Andy Murray GBR (4) vs. Robin Soderling SWE(6) Rafael Nadal ESP (2). The bottom half of the draw is where I bravely (foolishly?) predicted that upsets would happen. The mouth-watering Friday tea-time match-up between World #1 Rafael Nadal and World #1 Andy Murray was predicted at the beginning of the tournament by many. But they both had to go through some excellent players to get there. Murray lost his first set of the tournament in a tiebreak to the excessively talented Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and was two points away at 5-all from losing the second set tie-break when The Frenchman inexplicably let a floating Murray service return sail past him at the net only to watch with horror and disbelief as the ball kissed the back of the line to give Murray set point instead. The rest of the match was not pretty, with Murray dominating to a 6-7(5) 7-6)5) 6-2 6-2 win. I didn't see much of the Soderling-Nadal match (since in London all eyes were geared towards their countryman's match) but from all reports Nadal started very slowly (down 0-5) in the first set but managed to break back early in the second set. Despite serving for the second set (after Soderling was treated for a blister on his left foot) at 5-4 Nadal only barely managed to eke out the third set tiebreak and then rolled past a demoralized Soderling to win 3-6 6-3 7-6(4) 6-1. With Federer out, Nadal has an excellent chance to win the tournament, as he has winning records against all the remaining players in the draw (7-3 versus both Murray and Berdych, 14-7 versus Djokovic--which happens to be the identical record he has against Federer). However, Murray is probably the toughest opponent for Nadal at this stage of the tournament. There's no question that Murray was on his way to demolishing Nadal earlier this year in the 2010 Australian Open quarterfinals when the Spaniard retired down 2 sets and 0-3. The two haven't played since, with Nadal having his best clay court season to date, and Murray his worst. Happily Wimbledon is played on grass. Additionally, the fact that Murray beat Nadal the last time they played and that this is a semifinal, not a final should help the Brit play his best tennis this year, something Murray did not do against an inspired Andy Roddick last year. Nadal has already lost the most amount of sets that he ever has on his way to winning (or defending) a major title. The 2008 Wimbledon champion has been uncharacteristically irritable and complained of pain his knees. On the other hand, Murray has lost the fewest amount of sets of any of the Top 4 players at Wimbledon this year and has been advancing later and later into the draw at Wimbledon every time he has played it. I expect that trend to continue all the way to the final, and possibly the title this year. PREDICTION: Murray in 3 or 4 sets (or Nadal in 5 sets).

Arrived in London!

I'm in London now... still recovering from jet lag...

MOVIE REVIEW: Iron Man 2

Finally saw Iron Man 2 with the Other Half on a lazy Memorial Day after tennis from the French Open was done for the day.

The sequel has now grossed nearly 300 million dollars since its release on Friday May 7th. At rottentomatoes.com it has a rating of 74% (which is significantly lower than the original which is rated at 93%).

The film stars Robert Downey, Jr, Gwyneth paltrow, Don Cheadle, Mickey Rourke and Scarlet Johanssen.

Unfortunately, as with most summer blockbusters, the challenge of repeating a success is too much for many films and the sequel is less enjoyable than the original.

The plot literally makes no sense whatsoever, and multiple sequences seem to have been included merely to provide the opportunity for huge explosions.

Downey is fine and replays his narcissistic version of billionaire Tony Stark a bit too convincingly. Oscar-winner Paltrow is merely annoying as Downey's sidekick and purported love interest. The appearance of Don Cheadle to play the character originated by Terrence Howard in Iron Man is just offensive. It leaves the impression the director and producer felt that one black actor is indistinguishable from another.

The best part of Iron Man 2 is Mickey Rourke, who plays an excellent, creepy villain in Ivan Stanko. There is a deliberate effort to connect to the Iron Man character to upcoming Marvel Studios films featuring Captain America and The Avengers which will be arriving in future summers.

The movie has some mildly entertaining sequences but overall it's really a movie you can wait to see on cable.

Running Time: 2 hours, 4 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence, and some language.
Director: Jon Favreau.

OVERALL GRADE: B/B-.

ACTING: B.
IMAGERY: A-.
PLOT: C.
IMPACT: B-.

WIMBLEDON 2010: Federer Survives 1st Round Scare

Defending champion Roger Federer survived a scare in the first round of Wimbledon by losing his first two sets (ever!) to Alejandro Falla but came back to win 5-7 4-6 6-4 7-6(1) 6-0.

MOVIE REVIEW: Toy Story 3 (3D)

The latest installment of Pixar's Toy Story 3 was released on Friday June 18th and MadProfessah and the Other Half saw it on opening day at our usual favorite theaters (Regal Cinemas 14 in Alhambra).

Pixar is of course the studio that has an (almost) unbroken record of perfection, having brought us such instant classics like The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, Up and Wall-E.

The original Toy Story should probably also be on this list of classics, but this threequel is actually probably a better movie than the original (it's definitely better than Toy Story 2).

Interestingly, although Pixar had originally stated that they would only make original films (and not do sequels) they have now done two sequels to Toy Story and the Los Angeles Times reported recently that due to pressure by Pixar's new owners (Walt Disney Company) three of the next four releases will be sequels: Toy Story 3, Cars 2 and Monsters, Inc. 2. Bizarrely, it seems to me that they are making sequels of their least successful films, NOT their most successful. My only explanation is that they are trying to correct mistakes they made the first time. One of my favorite films of all time is The Incredibles and I think a sequel would be a blockbuster, even for Pixar whose less successful films generally have worldwide grosses in the half-billion dollar range. Their most commercially successful film is Finding Nemo which I know is a favorite of many other people (and is also a great film).

Toy Story 3 is really a very good film, one of Pixar's best, which is saying a lot. It currently has ridonculous 99% fresh rating on rottentomatoes.com. It is not in the stratosphere of Finding Nemo and The Incredibles but it is about as good as Up (2009) and better than both Wall-E (2008) and Ratatouille (2007).

What makes Toy Story 3 so good is that it has a brilliant, suspenseful script which makes complete sense and is consistent with a cartoon universe where toys can talk and move on their own volition and they are animated by being played with by owners who love and care for them.

The same can not be said for recent summer blockbusters like Iron Man 2 which has a script that at times makes no sense whatsoever. Toy Story 3 is always interesting and always very, very clever. It is also often very, very funny. The director does an excellent job of making apparently cuddly toys seem ominous and threatening.

And of course the ending has a scene which will even make someone as cold-hearted as Dick Cheney cry. Kids will come out of the movie smiling and parents will come out smiling through tears. A very memorable cinematic experience.

A word about 3-D. I saw the film in 3-D but I think it would have been just as effective in 2-D, so if you want to save 3 or 4 bucks, I'd recommend doing that, but definitely see this film!

Running Time: 1 hour, 43 minutes. MPAA Rating: G for general audiences.

Plot: A+.
Acting: A.
Visuals: A+.
Impact: A.

Overall Grade: A+/A (4.167/4.0).

WIMBLEDON 2010: Williams Top Seeds in Singles (& Doubles)

Defending champion and World #1 Serena Williams and her sister Venus Williams (5-time Wimbledon champ) are seeded #1 and #2 in singles (and #1 in doubles) at this year's Wimbledon championships.

1. Serena Williams (United States)

2. Venus Williams (United States)

3. Caroline Wozniacki (Denmark)

4. Jelena Jankovic (Serbia)

5. Francesca Schiavone (Italy)

6. Samantha Stosur (Australia)

7. Agnieszka Radwanska (Poland)

8. Kim Clijsters (Belgium)

9. Li Na (China)

10. Flavia Pennetta (Italy)

11. Marion Bartoli (France)

12. Nadia Petrova (Russia)

13. Shahar Peer (Israel)

14. Victoria Azarenka (Belarus)

15. Yanina Wickmayer (Belgium)

16. Maria Sharapova (Russia)

17. Justine Henin (Belgium)

18. Aravane Rezai (France)

19. Svetlana Kuznetsova (Russia)

20. Dinara Safina (Russia)

21. Vera Zvonareva (Russia)

22. Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez (Spain)

23. Zheng Jie (China)

24. Daniela Hantuchova (Slovakia)

25. Lucie Safarova (Czech Republic)

26. Alisa Kleybanova (Russia)

27. Maria Kirilenko (Russia)

28. Alona Bondarenko (Ukraine)

29. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (Russia)

30. Yaroslava Shvedova (Kazakhstan)

31. Alexandra Dulgheru (Romania)

32. Sara Errani (Italy)

Long Beach Pride This Weekend

Summer Pride season kicks off in Southern California this weekend with Long Beach Pride. Hope to see you there!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is coming!

Part I in theaters on November 19, 2010, Part II in July 2011.