Shrek 2

The long awaited Shrek 2 is a confusion of adult innuendo, campy swipes at fairy tales (again) and somewhat bizarre, if not inspired, musical numbers. Shrek 2 is colorful and clever and often funny. The show-stealer was the newest member of the unlikely adventurers—Antonio Banderas as Puss-In-Boots—inspiring a collaboration, of animation artists, directors and actor, which captures Banderas’ ability to be at once charming, dashing and comical. The secret (and practical) weapon—big, shining cat eyes followed by swashbuckling antics—is reminiscent of Zorro, another Banderas character.

Metaphysical Overview: This sequel may be so busy camping up every scene of this fairy tale spoof that the deeper message of acceptance and of loving the hearts of people, not their outward looks, gets lost in the delivery, which is decidedly indifferent and unloving.

Breakin' All The Rules:
Writer (and Director) Daniel Taplitz, intrigued with the notion that romance can be infused with wisdom from the corporate human resources business models, pens some rather witty dialogue, garnering moderate to big laughs. Smooth acting develops the principal characters of this script…and especially by Jamie Foxx, not really seen as a romantic lead, and therefore, really working to bring the viewer to a point of accepting him as the sexy, strong male for none other than Gabrielle Union.

Metaphysical Overview: Relationships at the very best, can be magical. In the very least, gamesmanship destroys them. Loving relationships struggle to stay out of the games and achieve the magic as often as possible—the best ones last for life.

TROY:
Greece, of the time of Troy’s downfall, was a cobbled-together group of kingdoms throughout the loose agglomeration of the peninsula. Agamemnon, an ambitious and relentless warlord had achieved much. He wanted more. And then the happy circumstance of shame for his brother allowed him the convenient mechanism to pursue his dreams. Helen of Sparta was kidnapped or somehow came to be with Paris of Troy. She was Agamemnon’s sister-in-law. His brother and her husband, Menelaeus, appealed to Agamemnon to help him fetch her back—to kill her himself. Honor…Vengeance…Justice…all useful emotions for anyone wishing to incite people to war. Agamemnon helped his brother go to Troy to fetch Helen because he had been ready for some time to expand his ambitious Greek Empire to encompass the Aegean Sea, not just Greece itself. In the end, they had to resort to trickery and deception to achieve their control. Was the Trojan Horse a clever tactic or the lowliest strategy to ever take shape? Certainly, turning the conquest into one of the earliest soap operas ever told, allowed certain key figures of the day to achieve an enviable level of immortality for their names and kingdoms. Are their names immortal due to their deeds, or to Agamemnon’s greed and ambition causing him to lust after one of the strongest citadels in the Aegean? In the light of a new day, does it matter? And will we ever stop going to war for one thing and saying the other? One thing is certain—you will never see a man’s eyes more resemble those of a lion’s than Brad Pitt’s Achilles—ever.

Metaphysical Overview: War isn’t the answer to differences of philosophy regarding human relations today—nor was it ever. We, as a species, have known this for thousands of years. That Wars are usually about other gains than what seems to be the reasons first or most loudly proclaimed, is and has been a constant theme, since War was ever advanced as a problem solving method.

Comedies worth catching: Soul Plane and Raising Helen.

Dramas: The Chronicles of Riddick promises to be an interesting sci-fi thriller with Diesel, and none other than Dame Judi Dench.