Part 3: Live from ... Burbank, Once Again: The Reviews Continue with - WHAT? - Narnia Review!

First of all:

Happy Holidays to everyone, Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it, and of course, HAPPY HANNUKAH!!!

Well folks, my epic cross-continental blogging trilogy continues, and, hopefully, concludes -- right here, right now, where I am recently arrived back in Burbank and am once again coming to you LIVE from NBC Studios, where I am flying solo, manning these executive offices like the bigshot that you know I wish I was / am. Yeah, it's pretty funny - in all of the second floor of NBC, home to all of the top network brass, there are literally three of us here, two of us mere pages. This, my friends, is true power that I wield. Cower before it, you must.

Okay, so aside from one minor crisis, it's been very quiet up here. Though it is also ridiculously messy, still, from our recent move. I had to move like 20 boxes just to get to my desk. And here I thought that the box-moving era of my life was over and done with. To quote Wayne Campell: "Shyeah ..."

And so it goes ...

Now let me just say this: SNL has sucked, badly, for years. It's sad when the funniest moments of the last few years have quite possibly been provided by a guest-hosting Ben Affleck. Now, let's face it, the Will Ferell - Jimmy Fallon - Molly Shannon Era had its moments. Celeb Jeopardy, for one. But it also had lots of clunkers. So my ruling is that the conventional wisdom is wrong. No, old-school SNL eras are not always merely looked upon nostalgically. The fact is, some eras were great, some were okay, and some flat out blew. Two eras in my opinion were great. The original era with the original cast, and the 90's renaissance with Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Sandler, Spade, Farley, Kevin Nealon, and, eventually, Norm McDonald (greatest Weekend Update Host ever). I would call the Will Ferrell / Darell Hammond in his prime (As Clinton, Al Gore, etc), very good to good, though it wwent increasingly downhill after the 2000 presidential election, and once the show became the Horatio Sanz / Jimmy Fallon "we're funny because we laugh at our own jokes" hour, things were pretty bleak. Now, the show is mostly unwatchable. Sure, some of the performers are good, but the writing is 95% crap, with even the once-reliable political satire reduced to boring drivel, and a lame lame lame weekend update team that is simply not right for the job. That being said ...

Here's to "Lazy Sunday," easily the funniest, most memorable SNL sketch of the post Will Ferell era, and probably the singular most standout sketch since the instant-classic Cowbell sketch from a few years back. And I know, what I'm saying is nothing new, as this faux rap music video has now been all over the 'net and everyone's seen it. But I guess you'll just have to take my word that immediately after seeing this sketch last Saturday, I proclaimed it to be hilarious and the best thing SNL's done in a while. Hey, I recognize trends as they happen - I ain't no bandwagoner (I am still proud of the fact that I saw Napoleon Dynamite on its opening weekend).

So yeah, Lazy Sunday, basically a mixture of a Run DMC / Beastie Boys style rap track with lyrics that mock the middle class white-boy lifestyle, is hilarious. It was just a great satire and hilariously absurd. Is it as classic as Cowbell? Too early to say, but probably not, as Cowbell is just transcendently, timelessly funny. But hey, kudos to SNL. That's one small step back to relevance ... (and no, being talked about for an Ashley Simpson screw up doesn't count).

MORE MOVIE REVIEWS:

The Chronicles of Narnia:

When I was a kid, I was a reader. I devoured books as fast as I could. Sure, I still read now, but back then I was always looking for the next book to read, the next series to begin, the next world to explore. Of course, being me, I loved all things out there, all things science fiction and fantasy and adventure. I loved anything by Rahl Dahl, anything by Bruce Coville, I loved L Frank Baum's OZ books. I loved Lloyd Allexander's Chronicles of Prydain. I loved Choose Your Own Adventures. I loved Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. But most of all I loved Narnia. I read those books at an early age, and I have always had fond memories of the adventures of Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy. Sure, I barely remember the details, but I remember well the feeling I had while reading those CS Lewis books - that feeling of being transported to another world, of adventure, of magic.

And so for a long time, I was REALLY looking forward to this movie. With the total success that was Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, I had really high hopes that this would be the start of the next great cinematic fantasy series. But as I reminded myself of the source material, it became clear that this just wasn't going to happen. As much as I loved this stuff in the third grade, Narnia lacked the maturity and epic grandeur of Tolkien's Middle Earth. It was more a classic fable -a kid's storybook world that was whimsical and fantastical. Sure, there is the weighty symbolism of Aslan and the pure evilness of the White Witch, but this is a story about children - a children's fantasy. Which is why the books just didn't make an easy transition to screen ...

I mean, these characters are kids - maybe 12, 13 years old for Peter and Susan. So it was a bit jarring to see them involved in an epic LOTR style battle against the forces of evil. And to see the cherubic young Lucy weilding a deadly battle knife, given to her by Father Christmas no less, well, it just was a lot to swallow. While the movie is unflinchingly true to the books, it could have used a little updating. A scene providing some explanation as to the kids' fighting prowess, for one. Some more scenes of Aslan. Some more fleshing out of the peripheral characters, like the centaurian general of Aslan's army, for example. The movie just felt a bit incomplete.

On the other hand, I completely respect that this is a straight-up fantasy. No modern updates, no ironic in-jokes, no pop culture references, no cheesy out of place humor or one liners. This is just pure old school fantasy storytelling, and I love that fact, and I think that that's also a part of the secret to this movie's somewhat surprising box-office success. It's timeless.

Acting-wise, pretty much everyone delivers. The kids are mostly great, though the older two are a little on the bland side. Lucy however steals the show. The girl who plays her is ridiculously cute, and she will instantly win you over. She is the heart and sould of the movie, easily. Liam Neeson is fine as the voice of Aslan, though he isn't given too much to work with. Tilda Swindon, however, owns this movie. As the White Witch, she chews up the scenery like a female Emperor Palpatine, spouting her evil proclamations with gloriously icy aplomb. Yep, Tilda rules in this movie and is in the running for best fantasy villain of the year. Special note must be made of the scene where The Witch and her legion of minions dance in the night around a captured Aslan - truly a nightmarish spectacle that couldn't have been made better or creepier - up there with any scene in any fantasy movie this year.

And it's scenes like that one that make this movie. At times, everything comes together so well that you get totally caught up in the fantasy. Sometimes though, Aslan looks noticebly computer-generated, and his movements appear jerky. Sometimes the costumes seem a bit rushed, or the computer effects are just, well, off. Like Kong, this film seems to get overly ambitious f/x-wise at times, and this leads to an inconsistent visual look, and there are some jarring transitions from CG Aslan to lifesize animatronic Aslan, for example, that really take one out of the movie for a second. Still, there is a ton of imagination at work here, and the crowd scenes are just brimming with all manner of wonderfully conceived creatures.

The thing is - even though this movie had some undeniable flaws, I still loved it. Sure the f/x were inconsistent and rushed and overall the movie felt rushed ... but many of its scenes were just ... great, magical even. When Lucy first enters the Wardrobe and enters Narnia. When Mr. Tumnis plays the flute and the fire dances in tune with the notes. When Aslan makes a dark pact with the White Witch and then suffers for it. The final battle. The great, after-the-credits begin, send 'em-home-happy ending. If you can watch this movie without being too cynical, then you might recall when you first saw The Neverending Story, or The Wizrd of Oz, or even when you first opened a strange book about a Lion and a Witch and a Wardrobe and entered a place called Narnia. This is far from a perfect movie, but it has that special ingredient that makes it a pleasure to watch even when it maybe shouldn't be. No, it's not the next Lord of the Rings, but it's something different, that yes, is really for kids, but hey, so is most of all the really good stuff. So yeah, bring on the sequels. My grade: A -

Alright, time to head out. I know, I know, where's that Syriana review?

Stay tuned for that, and for my BEST OF THE YEAR in music, movies, TV, and more. DOUBLE TRUE.