Another thing that I loved about it was the fact that they interviewed three very different people that were in the audience.  The first person was a high-school cheerleader, but she was a “little person”.  I loved her story of how, at all the cheerleading competitions, the other teams looked down on her team because of her.  But she was the reason that they did really well, because she could be thrown up higher than other girls, so she could do more flips when in the air.  At all of the proms she had gone to, she always went with another little person.  But, watching Glee taught her that it was OK for her to be small and she ended going with a normal sized person to her senior prom.

Another person was a homosexual high school boy.  He came out in 8th grade, but didn’t want to.  He had a notebook with a love letter to a boy that he had a crush on, but he was never going to give it to him.  His friend did not know that and put it on the boy’s desk; the boy read it and showed the notebook to everyone in the school.  When the first boy finally got it back,  he burned it up because he was so ashamed.  But, he treated his homosexuality the way Kurt does, he is proud of it.  It was never the same though in school because of how it happened.  In his junior year of high school he transferred and came out right away and the way he wanted, from then on he was proud of his homosexuality and didn’t let anyone tell him otherwise.

The last girl had Asperger’s syndrome.  She was so insecure about it, but by watching Glee she was able to say, yeah I have Asperger syndrome and I don’t care.  I am proud of who I am and don’t care that I am technically developmentally disordered.  Her real inspiration was Brittany because she is so proud and outgoing and doesn’t care what anyone says.

As for their songs, I think they had a fantastic array of songs.  The thing I didn’t like was that in the “Safety Song”,  Artie was walking around and dancing when his character is supposed to be disabled.  I understand that the point of the song is that everybody has a dream and his was to walk, but I think it would have been better if they had made it simulated it to make it look like he was dreaming.  But, for the rest of the movie I thought it very good!

On the less positive side, there is everything else about the trailer and early promotion. In the old cartoon, ‘smurf’ was a multi-purpose word that meant just about anything. In this new rendition, it appears to be an easy excuse to slip in crude jokes that just don’t fit in kids’ movie. The three instances of ‘smurf’ in the advance – “I think I just smurfed in my mouth”, “alright, who smurfed?”, and “Smurf Happens” were a little too thinly veiled for this dad to approve of taking his kids to see the film. I’m just waiting for a Samuel Jackson-esque Smurf to pop up shouting “Smurf you, mother-smurfer.”

If Chipmunks 2 was a cheap knock-off of the original and Hop was a cheaper, third-rate version, then The Smurfs looks to be about two steps below that. If you are forced to endure The Smurfs in the theater, you can at least entertain yourself trying to identify the famous-name actors lending their voices to the diminutive blue stars of the film. Hank Azaria, Jonathan Winters, Katy Perry, Alan Cumming, George Lopez, and Paul Reubens (of PeeWee Herman fame), B.J. Novak (Ryan of the Office), Jeff Foxworthy, Fred Amisen, and… wait for it… Wolfgang Puck join Harris in this 3D animated/live action family comedy.

Check back after the movie’s release for an updated review. Until then, my snap judgment is that this is going to be one smurfed up movie suitable for no one.

The Last Airbender

Unlike most children’s shows, which are episodic, Avatar is one three-season long story told in sixty-one episodes. The success of A:TLA surely must be at least partially attributed to the show’s appeal to both kids and parents. A:TLA was one of those rare shows that the family could sit down and enjoy together.

And so it was with anticipation of similar whole-family that we viewed M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender. The film is, in essence, a scaled-down retelling of the first season of the TV show. The plot is largely faithful to the main points of A:TLA Season 1, with all the character development and intrigue cut out due to make room for more angst and teenage brooding.

The acting is perhaps the worst you will see in a major-studio film of the 21st century. Honestly, the performances are more reminiscent of a local high-school rendition of Camelot than a multi-million dollar big studio production. Shyamalan’s films are known for their subdued tone and slow-paced dialog. That style just does not work well with the high-fantasy story line of The Last Airbender.

Perhaps Shyamalan was going for fantastic with the digitally-produced backgrounds, but instead they appear unrealistic and cartoony. The young actors heading the cast have an extremely difficult time interacting with non-existent object that would later be added by computer.

In any film adaptation of another medium, movie makers must walk a fine line being faithful to the source material while avoiding an unimaginative retread. The Last Airbender inexplicably changes the pronunciation of key characters names, replacing the short a in Aang and Avatar with ‘ah’, and pronouncing Sokka so that it rhymes with Soak-a instead of Sock-a. Sadly, those were the most imaginative changes in the entire film.

In 6^th grade I’d watch Friday nights, and Monday mornings I’d converse with my friends about the show over awful cafeteria lunches. I bought t-shirts, had theories of my own and became totally devoted.

Due to the popularity of the show a movie was made when I was in high school, which was “m’eh” at best as far as movies go. A couple lousy seasons afterward, the show wrapped up my freshman year of college.

Of course, I am talking about the X-Files and the new movie coming out in a few weeks. I loved the first six seasons of that show, the movie was ok, and then it all vanished as David Duchovny’s movie career started. To revive it now seems to be beating a very dead horse.

All the advanced stuff I’ve read says this is a stand alone movie and blah, blah, but I don’t know how I feel. Will there be oil? Bees? Alien assassins? Mulder was in jail, will that be explained? How about that pregnancy thing from the very last episode? Like Mulder, I have plenty of questions that need to be answered here, and Chris Carter better have a Q and A session afterward.

I do miss Mulder’s sunflower seeds and snappy one-liners, while Scully had such a sensible wit. I just don’t want this movie to tarnish the twisted, paranoia filled memories with which I’ve been left.