Summer Wrap-Up

When we last left Daniel Johnson, he has just returned home after a fire, and was still worried about what he was going to do when his museum job ended.

Well sportsfans, that's still where I'm at right now. My job at the museum finished, and I'm on the hunt again. The only thing is, I'm wondering how the hell ANYONE gets a job in this business. Sure, I could easily get a job in LA as a waiter or something to pay the rent, just like every other movie star hopeful in the city, but I went to USC film school! I'm not trying to sound like the world owes me everything, because it doesn't; but the fact is, coming out of the production school, I have one hell of a skillset that is just DYING to be put to good use. I'll gladly do anything on any production if it proves that I can actually make a living with the degree I got! Well, not anything...I'd rather not start out as a PA or file paperwork, because if I wind up doing that, then why did I bother going to school in the first place? I am above a few things, right? I mean, top-of-the-class, USC, tons of other skills OTHER than just the film stuff, etc etc etc...don't these things mean anything? At all? Hello....hello...(echo, echo, echo)...?
The thing is, it sucks for anyone to graduate right now, because the economy blows. And it's hard to get into the film industry ANYWAY, so that makes it even harder for a film guy like me. Plus, the actors are about to strike, so even the guys WITH experience are about to be out of a job. However as I understand it, the film industry stays pretty stable in times of economic crisis. During the Depression and World War II, for example, movies were the one industry that kept going. So in some ways yeah, it's tough...but it's steadily tough.

At this point, I want to work for a few years just to see if it's possible, and then I think I'm going to hit up graduate school for animation, because I love animated films just as much as live-action ones. Someday, in my biggest dreams, I'd like to make films that utilize both animation and live action. It will happen...I just have to keep working at it.
The only thing is, how the hell does one get to that point? It it just luck? Friends? Hard work? Charisma? Answer: yes. But there's got to be some rough plan as to how forge the path ahead to finally do my own stuff, and I don't have that yet. That's what I really need to figure out.

Anyway, all this job talk is depressing me...and I'm not even a week out of my last job. I want to lift my spirits by instead talking about how thankful I am that this has been one of the most rewarding summers for me in a long time. In earlier posts I mentioned the trip to the east coast, and the fires, etc. But working as a science teacher at the museum was also tons of fun. Being able to have your JOB be teaching kids about science, while hiking outdoors and sharing the stuff you love about nature was pretty awesome. And unlike some of my friends with their "film jobs, I've actually managed to stay pretty sun-kissed and healthy this summer. My other job, working with the Quasars at the museum, was also tons of fun.
The trip out to Santa Cruz Island was a blast. We went on some very difficult hikes, but riding in the back of the trucks with a bunch of teenagers made me nostalgic for how the whirlwind of high school. It was great to see these teens grow up a tad this summer. And being someone not THAT much older than them, I was never completely excluded from their drama as they tried to figure their lives out. I like to think that I helped some of them out a bit in more ways than as just their supervisor. Maybe their role model? Maybe...
One thing that happened on Santa Cruz Island was that I possibly saved two people's lives(!). After an incredibly difficult hike, we wound up on a long, secluded beach reminiscent of the one out of the ending of "Planet of the Apes." Naturally we all decided to go bodysurfing in the ocean.
The water was fairly cold, but we are all outdoorsy kids, so we could take it. Claire, my fellow instructor, is about to start her first semester at Stanford this year (in fact, she's probably leaving in a few days). I noticed she was getting pretty chilled, so I asked her if she was ready to go back in to the beach, and that I'd go in with her. She said she was willing to go in a little bit.
Anyway, about five minutes later, I realized something was wrong. A lot of us had been caught in an undertow, and were getting sucked out to sea. Claire in particular, was getting taken far out.
I yelled at everyone to put their feet on the ocean bottom, and swam to Claire to see if she was OK. She wasn't. She was completely white, and shivering uncontrollably. When she realized what was going on with the undertow, she started to panic.
So I grabbed her and pulled her back in to the point where she could walk to the beach. I then swam back out to see if everyone else was OK. They weren't.
Several other teens were in the process of getting sucked out to sea. I told everyone to freeze and plant their feet on the ground. They all did. However, Maria was also getting taken by the undertow. Nathaniel, trying to prove how strong he was, was trying to pull her in. Of course, Nathaniel may be one of the more athletic kids in the group, but that doesn't make him a good swimmer. And he's also somewhat cocky. I shouted at him, "Nathaniel, get your ass back here so I don't have to save you too!" He did so, and then I swam out and pulled Maria in.
At this point, I was getting pretty exhausted. With Claire it had been a burst of adrenaline, but with Maria I really exhausted myself getting her safe. Afterwards, I stumbled up on the beach and passed out.
It's definitely possible Claire and Maria might have been OK and escaped the undertow, but I'm not so sure. In Claire's case, I'm pretty certain she would have been in serious trouble had I not been there. Nobody else in the program is anywhere near as good a swimmer as I am. I like to think that, were I to get severely depressed at some point in the future, and were an angel named Clarence to show me what my life were like had I never been born, that the day I saved Claire and Maria would be one of the events he would show me. I do feel like a bit of a hero.
Also, for YOUR safety: if you ever DO find yourself caught in an undertow (without someone like me there to save you!) to escape you should not try to fight it. You should swim parallel to shore, and slowly cut across diagonally. In my case, I fought against the current, but only because I was strong enough to do so, and I was worried about how much time I might need to help out others.
Also, a couple of weeks ago the teens had their final presentations. I have to admit, I got a tad teary-eyed, if only because the summer had been so great, and I honestly have no idea when I'm going to have such fun and wholesome experiences at a job again.
And lastly, I want to say that Claire has got to be one of the most fantastic young women I've ever met. And for the record, I'm saying this more as an older brother than anything else. You are a beautiful, capable, smart young woman, and I know you are going to do awesome things with your life. Good luck!

OK, now that all that mushy stuff is somewhat out of the way, on to some movie reviews. First off, I want to say that I made a mistake in my last post when I said I hadn't reviewed "The Dark Knight" yet. I had...I just forgot. You can see that review two posts ago.

1) "Under the Same Moon" I was not looking forward to seeing this movie, but my sister really wanted to see it. And often what my sister wants, my sister gets.
The movie is about how a young Mexican boy manages to cross the border in order to see his mother living in Los Angeles. I was worried that the movie would be rather stereotypical, depicting whites at hateful bigots, but luckily that isn't entirely the case. Some whites are shown as helpful, others are shown as not. In general the movie balances it out fairly well. Of course, there are a few times where they show white characters being complete assholes, to the point of excess and caricature. And the Mexican workers are shown to be "poor hopeless victims" a few times more than my liking. But even so, it was a much better movie than I expected.
Of course, as a "white privileged male" myself, I would argue that the film does not show both sides of the border issue very well. It is kinda true that we need to have restrictions on our borders. The Mexican immigrant issue is not an easy one, and much more complex than what is depicted here. In the movie, it's generally just, "Oh, this poor boy needs to escape to see his mom..." in order to tug at the heartstrings and make you hate La Migra.
The best parts of the movie are when the boy meets up with a man named Enrique, who at first wants to have nothing to do with him, and a sort of odd "buddy movie" starts up. The resolution of their storyline is really well done.
Also it's interesting that to understand the movie perfectly, you have to be bilingual (though you can always use subtitles), since the movie is practically split half-and-half between Spanish and English.
So all-in-all this was a better movie than I was expecting, being more than just pro-immigrant propoganda. It's certainly a lot better than "Real Women Have Curves," a movie that dealt with similar themes and somehow got great reviews despite being complete crap in THIS white privileged American male's opinion...

2) "The Savages" This is a very well-acted poignant movie starring Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman as adult siblings who have to take care of their aging father (with those two in the leads, is it any surprise it's well-acted?). It's a good movie, but I had a hard time getting into it because I have personally never dealt with experiences like the one they face, being that I am only 22. Give me a movie about grade-school, high school, college, or twenty-somethings, and I'll totally feel ya. But I have no idea what it's like to be middle-aged and putting one's parents in a nursing home, so I had a hard time sympathizing. Yet from what the movie showed me, it doesn't seem like a time in my life I'm looking forward to.

3) "Beowulf" I had intentionally avoided this movie because of what I felt it represented; a complete lack of care for real actors and real performances. What's the point of recreating people exactly, if you're going to just make them look like REAL people all over again? The point of animation is to do something new that can't be done by any other means. At the very least, you should stylize it a bit.
In the end, I felt the same way about "Beowulf" as I expected myself to. The action scenes are pretty incredible. Beowulf's story about defeating sea monsters in one of the coolest parts of the movie, as is the sequence in the end with the enormous dragon. However, the CG technology, while impressive, just can't measure up to real actors. It's much better to handle these fantasy movies the way "Lord of the Rings" did, with real actors, real locations, and CG monsters only where you need 'em.
I did think one interesting use of the CG was for Beowulf himself, "played" by Ray Winstone. Ray Winstone is relatively portly guy, but he has a great rough-and-tough voice with the perfect epic quality. So, they created a Beowulf character that matched Ray Winstone's movements and had his voice, but looked the way an epic hero he should look. I'll admit, that was a creative use.
Also, the story is fairly weak, and doesn't hold together very well, and there are some gross historical inaccuracies. And Crispin Glover's performance is laughable as Grendel, seeing as he spends the whole time screaming like a maniac. The guy must really be bonkers.
So yeah, Beowulf represented a big step down in cinematic achievement for me. Sure, the technology is impressive, but is it RIGHT? I don't think so.

4) "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" I'm not big on French films for whatever reason, but this one is worth checking out. It's based on the true autobiography of a guy who has a stroke and gets paralyzed. I was captured by the movie from the get-go, and only realized it was autobiographical at the end. Wow!
The first chunk of the movie is the most interesting, as it tells most of the action through the POV of the main character, as he is paralyzed and watches the people around him taking care of him, and we get to hear his inner thoughts. The French subtitles at times were a bit confusing, since a major plot device of the movie is how he spells out words, and French words are often of course spelled differently than English words, but this is still a great film. I'll give it to the French on this one.

5) "The Hunting Party" Somehow I had heard nothing about this movie when my dad rented it. It's actually a lot of fun. Richard Gere and Terence Howard star as reporters who go undercover in Bosnia and almost single-handedly capture one of the lead terrorists that the United States has been "utilizing" tons of money looking for.
It's based on a true story, but the movie never pretends that it hasn't taken dramatic liberties with what actually happens. A lot of detractors have criticized the movie for being inaccurate, but the movie warns you in the opening credits with the creative line, "Only the ridiculous parts of this movie are true." So clearly, the filmmakers are having fun, and they let themselves off the hook from the get-go.
The acting is good, Richard Gere (whom I sometimes dislike) is in top form, and I had a good time. Check it out if you're into political espionage stuff.

6) "Primer" This movie got great reviews, and I'm not sure why. It was shot for hardly any money, and I'm always a fan of indie filmmakers who are able to do that, but after a certain point, the movie just doesn't make any sense.
In the movie two twenty-something guys stumble upon a way to create a time machine. That's cool, 'cuz I love time travel stuff. But then things start to get weird and confusing.
I'm generally pretty smart about movies that have multiple plot twists and require concentration in order to figure out. But this one had me utterly baffled.
The writer/director doesn't seem to get that in a movie with twists, it's cool if you are always a step ahead of the audience, and the viewers have to work hard to figure everything out. But you have to give them time to DO that. In "Fight Club," "Twelve Monkeys," "The Sixth Sense," "The Usual Suspects," etc etc etc, once the big twist pops up, there is always a few beats where the audience gets to figure things out and go "WHOOOOAAAAAA" to themselves. But in "Primer," just as we're about to try and piece together one piece of the convoluted puzzle, another one hits us leaving us even more confused. And so they pile on. The film is so short the director certainly could have afforded time to sit back and give the audience a moment to breath. But no dice. Don't ask me what happened in this movie because I can't tell you. It's certainly better than any Richard Kelly piece of shit, because "Primer" actually does seem like it has something going on that makes sense if you allowed yourself time to figure it all out, whereas "Donnie Darko" and "Southland Tales" were just worthless drivel that didn't fit together, no matter how you slice it. Still, it's annoying that after "Primer" I felt like I needed to have a degree in advanced physics to even begin to understand what was going on, and the worst part was I didn't really care enough to bother trying to figure it out anyway. And I'm a guy who likes time travel movies and plot twists!
I honestly suspect critics saw this thing and gave it good reviews because they were too proud to admit THEY had no idea what was going on either.

7) "Tropic Thunder" I was a tad let down by "Tropic Thunder," but I still had a good time. I was hoping for another piece of comedic brilliance from Stiller a la "Zoolander," but that's not entirely what I ended up with.
The main issue with the movie is that it tries to have it's action movie and make fun of it too, and the two things don't quite go hand-in-hand. This is too bad, because I feel like this should have been able to work, but somehow didn't.
Robert Downey Jr is side-splitting as expected, as is most of the rest of the cast. Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan, and Danny McBride are all hilarious too in their scenes. I wasn't as wild about Tom Cruise as many others were, but he's fairly funny as the head producer hack. The real dullard of the movie is, disappointingly, Ben Stiller himself. His character isn't funny at all, and his scenes drag.
And the movie definitely has its moments. My favorite part is one of the fake trailers at the beginning with Tobey McGuire, entitled "Satan's Alley," as well as the moment when the actors are first dropped off in the jungle and their director (played by Steve Coogan) "magically" disappears (you have to see it to know what I'm talking about).
But all in all, it wasn't quite what I was expecting, and the action gets in the way of the farce more than it should have. Stiller can't decide when he should be pulling jokes, and when he should be blowing stuff up and delivering us a solid Rambo-esque action picture, and because of this, he delivers neither as well as he should have. It's too bad.

8) "The Apartment" I caught this one on TCM the other day and LOVED it. It's an old Billy Wilder black-and-white classic starring Jack Lemmon and Shirely MacClaine. It's surprisingly risque for the time it was made. Jack Lemmon is a guy who rents out his apartment to higher-ups in the company he works for in order to get ahead, as the higher-ups use his apartment for sex, drinking, and general debauchery. However, when Lemmon falls for a woman (MacClaine) that his boss is taking to his apartment, things get complicated.
The movie deals with heavy stuff for an old-fashioned comedy. Sex, infidelity, and suicide are all subjects weighed heavily upon, and at one point in the middle the movie gets downright depressing when MacClaine tries to kill herself. But this is still a great romantic comedy. See it with a nice girl who likes old-fashioned movies, and she'll love you forever!
This goes without saying, but the movie is also incredibly dated. But luckily it's aged well, so that it's dated in all the ways that make certain things funnier that weren't funny at the time it was made. Seeing how Jack Lemmon lives makes 1960 really seems like the Dark Ages compared to our world of iPhones, Facebook, and TiVo today.

So there's a relatively good summer update. Hopefully next time I write something here, I'll have a job lined up and ready to go.

Adventures in Hutt-Sitting

First off, I haven't done a post in a while, despite seeing a whole bunch of summer movies and having one of the best summers I've had in a long while (though right now things sort of suck). I mean, for God's sake, I haven't even done a "Dark Knight" review!

However today, against my better judgment, I gave in to the Dark Side of my morbid curiosity, and saw "The Clone Wars" movie put out by Lucasfilm. And now I want to bitch about it.

I had BIG misgivings about going to see this movie. At the very least, a "Clone Wars" movie is unnecessary, since Genndy Tartakovsky already did a pretty damn good job bridging the gap between Episode 2 and 3 with his Cartoon Network Clone Wars series, which I LOVED. The story between Episode 2 and 3 has already between told, so why add MORE to it? How much more can the Jedi do in a matter of a few years? Episode 2 and 3 were not that far apart. More time elapsed between, say, Episode 1 and 2 or 3 and 4. Why not tell a story there? We already get the gist of the Clone Wars.
And my general opinion is that George should just leave the saga alone anyway, but the guy has basically lost it. The Star Wars money-making machine has become the very evil Empire of Capitalism. In a way, maybe George Lucas sympathizes with Anakin Skywalker because that's what his life has become; a once idealistic filmmaker turned greedy, twisted, and evil from his own creation.

When I saw that Lucas was doing another Clone Wars series, I sort of rolled my eyes. I imagined George sitting high in a tower on his ranch somewhere thinking, "Hey, that Tartakovsky guy created something pretty cool...I can do that too!" Another series was extraneous, but the 3-D animation style, for TV, might just work.

Yet when I heard Lucas was taking this CG style and making a MOVIE out of it, my appropriate response was one familiar to Star Wars fanboys: "I have a bad feeling about this." Upon seeing the terrible reviews and rabid hate response from fanboys, I got even more nervous. In fact, I didn't just get nervous; I got ANGRY and conflicted. I HAD to see this movie because of my Star Wars fandom, but I did NOT want to support the Lucas Empire if he had, indeed, created a piece of shit that crapped all over the movies that defined my childhood as well as my adulthood (between "Lord of the Rings" and "Star Wars," it's probably the reason I got into filmmaking).

Luckily, I obtained some free movie coupons from one place or another, so I wound up ultimately submitting a total of $2.00 to the Lucas Empire. And to be honest, the movie was nowhere NEAR as bad as I was fearing it to be. It's a pale shadow of the Star Wars I grew up with, but it's nowhere near as terrible as some of the message boards will tell you. It isn't as bad as The Holiday Special, The Ewok Adventure, or even some of the mediocre titles in the LucasArts videogame lineup. I have paid more for movies I enjoyed less, and since my expectations were low, I think I certainly got my two dollars (and two hours) worth. Besides, the movie has clearly tanked at the box office, and maybe this is the wakeup call Lucas needs (though I doubt it). There was only ONE screening of the film at the cinema I attended for the entire day, and when I walked into the theater, I was only joined by one other ashamed-but-curious fanboy and a family of four with little kids.

Also, keep in mind this review is going to be different than many of my other reviews. I am going to geek out hardcore here. I am not going to analyze the film as a "film scholar" as I usually try to do. I am going to analyze it as a Star Wars geek. You have been warned...

My biggest fear would be that the movie would flat-out IGNORE what happened in Tartakovsky's version that played on Cartoon Network, or retell it in a vastly inferior way. Luckily, this is not the case. While the story is completely unnecessary and adds nothing worthwhile to the Star Wars universe as a whole, it doesn't erase the chronology of Tartakovsky's Clone Wars. It's hard to tell exactly, but it seems like this story picks up about halfway through Season Two of Tartakovksy's Clone Wars, before Grevious arrived at Coruscant and before Anakin went on his bizarre little spirit journey with Obi-Wan on Nelvan.
Unfortunately, for the casual Star Wars fan, the story is practically impossible to follow. If you didn't happen to see Tartakovky's Clone Wars, than you will have NO IDEA what it going on for the first half hour. The film literally drops in characters like Asaaji Ventriss with no introduction, even though she has only thus far appeared in the Cartoon Network show! And besides, it was implied that Anakin already killed her! Sure, MAYBE she survived, but wouldn't it be nice to awknowedge it somehow? It just takes a couple lines. Obi-Wan: "Ventriss, I thought Anakin got rid of you on the moon of Yavin 4." Ventriss: "Sorry to disappoint you Obi-Wan...bla bla bla..." Come on, it can't be that hard, and it would at least imply to newcomers that this character has a history with our heroes.

But MAYBE the reason lines of clarification such as this don't exist is because the movie doesn't have the time or patience to worry about story or plot development. Every second of the movie is paced to pander to the six-year old crowd. Now, I know this may sound silly, but I think I actually learned to watch carefully as a story developed FROM the original Star Wars movies. The Original Trilogy films are still action-heavy pictures that move a mile a minute in certain sections. But they always took their time to let the mythology unfold and really live in the world. Remember the somber scenes with Yoda on Dagobah? Remember the moment where Luke learns about the history of the Jedi from Obi-Wan Kenobi? Isn't "patience" part of the Jedi code of ethics? The pace of this movie doesn't even have time for the opening scrawl. It's a Star Wars movie...WITH NO OPENING SCRAWL!!! In the opening we are literally explained the plot through a series of flashing images, as an announcer-type voice, similar to the voice heard giving the disclaimers at the end of radio commercials, states: AsthewarinthegalaxycontinuestheSeperatistsledbyCountDookuhavestolenJabbatheHutt'ssoninordertocauseariftbetweentheRepublicandtheHutts...
Then it's right to the laserblastin' action. Give those ADD, short-attention-span, juicebox-suckin' kids what they WANT dammit!

While the story is certainly a poor excuse for one, the real crutch of the movie is the CG animation itself. I was curious to see how this would work, since the Star Wars prequels seemed to practically be animated movies in their own right anyway. The CG animation in the movie is not as bad as I was expecting, but it's still pretty terrible. While the battle scenes still work relatively well (and that's what Star Wars is all about right?...WRONG!), the characters themselves, especially when in close-up, look absolutely terrible. I honestly wonder if George Lucas wanted these guys to look EXACTLY like action figures in order to make their action-figure versions easier to sell. The render skins for their faces honestly LOOKS like paint, as if to say, "See kids? Your action figures will look JUST like this, because they'll be painted on too!" I wonder, if they do make Clone Wars action figures (which they might not because the movie tanked!), would I be able to shoot a little movie with them, put it up on the screen, and have anybody know the difference? Also, not only do the characters' faces look painted on, but the backgrounds of the worlds also look still and lifeless at times, as if they were painted too. I thought the whole POINT of what George Lucas has been doing in the prequels was to show how far technology had come along (because, let's face it, it wasn't REALLY about telling the story now, was it?). Yet, in this movie, despite ALL this CGI, the backgrounds literally look like static backdrops from a sci-fi movie from the 50s. "Forbidden Planet" anyone?
And the other big issue with the animation is that the characters are not emotive at all. Now, we all know the prequels were not known for their acting. Some actors managed to fare pretty well (Ewan McGregor), some fared so-so (Hayden Christensen), and some fared terribly (Natalie Portman). However, the "acting" here is godawful. There were a couple times where I honestly could not tell if a character was being sarcastic or not because I couldn't read the look on their face. At one point when Obi-Wan says, "Nice shot, Anakin," I was unable to tell if he was being honest or poking fun at his former Padawan.

Another, glaring issue I had was that they have given Anakin a Padawan learner named Ashoka, who is a tad annoying, but not enough to ruin the film too much. Now I'm not sure it's ever explicitly stated, but doesn't a Jedi have to be bestowed the rank of Master in order to take on a Padawan learner? And in Episode 3, isn't Anakin specifically NOT given the rank of Master? So how the hell did he get a Padawan before he even REQUESTED the rank? We already know that those on the Jedi Council think of him as reckless. One way to explain this well would be to mention that the Jedi are hard up for teachers (that's what she said!) because the war is going on, so they've turned to Anakin as a last resort. That would make sense, and add a nice bit of drama and realism to the trials the Clone War is having on the Jedi. But, of course, the filmmakers don't do this.
Also, since (mild spoiler) Ashoka doesn't die in the movie, I'm assuming she's either going to get released from Anakin's service or die at some point during the course of the series once it hits TV (hopefully the show will just last one season). But even so, wouldn't Anakin have mentioned Ashoka at some point later? A Padawan learner who died under your care or was released from your service still deserves mention. Keep in mind the events of "Revenge of the Sith" have to take place no more than a couple of years after the events in this movie. Wasn't Anakin a Padawan for nearly ten years? Since Ashoka didn't last that long, what happened to her, and why is Anakin totally cool with it in "Revenge of the Sith?" Hell, why is he cool with it when he goes on his mysterious spirit journey on Nelvan, which we KNOW takes place right before Episode 3? Talk about a retcon.

Another thing that worried me was that the story is based around Jabba the Hutt and his "son" being kidnapped. I didn't see why Hutts needed to be brought into a story about the Clone Wars, but surprisingly, it was actually kind of cool to see the Hutts take center stage and occupy such story space. Even in "Return of the Jedi," Jabba's biggest moment, he's still there as a side character before the main plot gets going. Here, he's in a shitty plot, but at least he sort of gets to take front row and center (which, for the record, was also the seat I got in the theater because it was practically empty).
Even so, Jabba's son has got to be one of the UGLIEST animated creations I have ever laid eyes upon, and his squeals and whines were excruciating at best. The Huttlet babysitting scenes are pretty painful, as Anakin and Ashoka worry about whether or not the slimeball is healthy, as he burps green gas in their faces. In one of these scenes, I couldn't help but remember the iconic line from Alec Guinness so many years ago: "For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic..." So, THIS is what they were doing all that time? Babysitting slugs??? I guess stories really do get better with age for old Obi-Wan.

I also gotta say, regarding the Hutts, that it's cool to see a Hutt operating on Coruscant. I am of course, referring to Jabba's infamous big flaming uncle, Ziro.
A lot of talk has been made about Ziro the Hutt being a bad gay stereotype, but I gotta say, this was one of my favorite parts of the movie. Ziro is SUCH a ridiculous character, and SO over-the-top in a movie that had already jumped the shark plenty of times, that I LOVED him. Imagine a purple hookah-smoking caterpillar running a gay bar, covered in Day-Glo paint, sounding like Truman Capote, and you basically have Ziro. What's not to like? Lucas has given us ridiculous stereotypical aliens before...the Ewoks, Jar-Jar, Watto. Why not add Ziro to the list? Even though these characters always detract from the Star Wars saga as a whole, one has to admit they are kind of guilty pleasures in their own right.
And it's kind of cool that we have a "gay" Star Wars character now. Maybe I'm being facetious, but I don't think Ziro is really that negative a character towards the queer community. The guy is operating his own groovy nightclub outside of Hutt Space, he's bilingual (he DOES speak Huttese briefly), and he's plotting to gain control of the entire Hutt Empire! Gay pride, man! That's pretty bitchin'! And besides, can Hutts even BE gay? I thought I read somewhere long ago that they were hermaphroditic. Maybe Ziro's just making the switch at the moment, biologically speaking.

Another point for the movie, as small as it is, is that this is the first time I've actually felt a bit for the Clone Troopers. In the Old Trilogy, the Stormtroopers were always the bad guys, so you always cheered when they got shot. You were sort of rooting for the rebel soldiers, but you were always concentrating more on Han, Leia, Luke, Chewie, etc., so you never gave the troops any notice. In the prequels, the Clones never really got their due, and of course, nobody gives a shit about the battle droids.
Here though, you're rooting for the Clones, and when they get gunned down in battle with an "Arrghh!" you actually sort of feel like you're in the trenches, fighting with them. As I said before, Star Wars has always been about the gritty battles, and indeed, the battles in this movie are pretty OK. And seeing humans troopers (even if they are clones) getting taken out by much bigger, cold, unfeeling robots always makes you feel bad for the dudes. That is, you feel bad for 'em whenever the filmmakers aren't making the battle droids out to be complete buffoons, which they do on several occasions to cripple one of the few things the movie has going for it.

So, in general, yes, "The Clone Wars" is pretty terrible. It feels like something a couple fanboys would write up on their weekend off. But, it was nowhere near as bad as I feared. My love for the original movies still remains intact. In fact, I can imagine a pretty fun drinking game coming out of this movie; every time you are able to state a specific instance in which Lucas has "jumped the shark" (or "nuked the fridge," to use the more appropriate Indy Jones term), you take a drink. And there are a few moments where Lucas craps on his legacy SO much that you have to take a shot. Examples are when Ashoka calls Anakin "Skyguy" for the first time, and when Ziro the Hutt makes his grand entrance.

Also, as I recall nobody actually says the iconic "I have a bad feeling about this" in the movie, which just may be the most ironic thing of all.