TITLE: Invasion of the Bee Girls
STARRING: William Smith, Anitra Ford, Victoria Vetri
DIRECTOR: Dennis Sanders
STUDIO: Sequoia Pictures
RATING: R
RUN TIME: 85 min
RELEASED: June 1, 1973

A typical quiet town. Birds chirping, that happy-go-lucky classical song that always plays during foresty scenes…

Murder! There’s a fatality afoot, and the victim is found naked, apparently murdered by…sex? The police don’t take much notice in it, and brush it off as a guy who was having too good a time. They continue to brush it off when more male victims start popping up.

Photo from dvddrive-in.com

Then, State Department Agent Neil Agar (William Smith) discovers that the twisted Dr. Susan Harris (Anitra Ford) has been altering the hormones of his female subjects, taking their estrogen and replacing it with a queen bee’s. This makes them want to mate until they are pregnant, but since they are sterile from the gamma rays used in the procedure, they simply screw their mates until they die. Wow, what a way to go.

In the end, Neil Agar locates Dr. Susan’s lair and blows it up, leaving the Bee Girls to die a fiery death.

Invasion of the Bee Girls has everything you could possibly hope for: beautiful women screwing you to death. Does a movie even need anything else?

The movie straddles the soft-core porn genre, so if you want to see it, please make sure you have parental permission or at least are alone. By the way, before we dive into the depths of this film, let me assure you that unless you have sex 24 hours a day, you won’t die from over-exhaustion.

The problems in this film are that of every B-movie. The characters are all bland, stupid and don’t think. Every time a new victim appears, the following occurs: Shock music, character looks at the corpse, character moves to next scene. The townspeople are about as intelligent as a piece of celery.

The thing is, I can’t say for certain if this is a comedy or a serious soft-core porn or both. The horrid acting, weird 70′s soundtrack, a cast full of sex-crazed idiots identify this film as your typical B-Movie. It really isn’t that special, cept for the amazing boobs of Dr. Susan.

Anitra Ford as Dr. Susan Harris. Photo from listal.com

Keep in mind that this film came before the internet, when guys couldn’t get their porn fix anytime they wanted. They had to pay for it all. This film provided a service that many men take for granted, which is why the internet has killed the NC-17/X rated movie theaters, You can still find them, but they’re scummy as hell. In 1973, anything that could provide visual stimulation for guys was all the rage. hell Van Halen’s “Hot For Teacher” music video provided the most boob a lot of growing boys could see.  I saw this film not expecting a soft-core porn. I thought it’d just be another comedy or horror film. So I was caught completely off guard.

There were other films using female villains as insects. Wasp Woman (1959) was the first. These kind of films followed the weird porn trend of using femme fatales mixed with an creature that seduces and kills men. Guys like watching naked chicks, and there’s a weird fetish about women killing men either after or during sex that has survived for decades. I don’t understand the psychology behind this, but  a lot of guys find this kinky. Is it like a whole slave and master or BDSM thing? Or just something locked inside the human consciousness?

One thing this film does do right is exploit the hell out of that strange fetish  So in a way, though every part of this film makes your average critic cringe, it does do its intended purpose. So coming in full circle, this actually isn’t that bad a film. My god, a movie called Invasion of the Bee Girls isn’t that bad a movie? Blasphemy!

Believe it or not, there was actually a Seattle-based stage production that served as a semi-sequel to Bee Girls in 1998. It was called Beyond the Invasion of the Bee Girls, and it featured the return of both Dr. Susan and Neil Agar. The script can actually be found on Amazon.com, though it’s listed as “Out of Print – Limted Availability.”

The Bee Girls. They were hot, nasty lovers till the end. Find it if you can, it’s pretty hard to look up a movie that is both a borderline porno and a B -Movie. I would give it a 7/10 as a B movie comedy/horror film, and recommend it to anyone who wants to see what early exploitation films looked like.

Front page image from filmfanatic.org.

By Rob Siebert
Editor, Fanboy Wonder

The Star Wars films are coming back to theaters in 3D.

image from newsinfilm.com

Lucasfilm Ltd announced this week that they will release all six of the films in 3D, starting with Episode I – The Phantom Menace in 2012.

“Getting good results on a stereo conversion is a matter of taking the time and getting it right,” John Knoll, visual effects supervisor for Industrial Light & Magic said via press release. “It takes a critical and artistic eye along with an incredible attention to detail to be successful. It is not something that you can rush if you want to expect good results. For Star Wars we will take our time, applying everything we know both aesthetically and technically to bring audiences a fantastic new Star Wars experience.”

The New York Times reports that the Star Wars films represent the first 2D franchise to be fully converted into 3D in the post-Avatar era. The 3D version of The Phantom Menace will reportedly be released in February 2012.

**SPOILER ALERT: If you’re waiting to see the premiere episode of No Ordinary Family on ABC, do not read on.**

By Rob Siebert
Editor, Fanboy Wonder

I’m not normally so harsh with my reviews, but it has to be said: This show is a pile of crap.

But it’s no ordinary pile of crap, oh no. This show is so cheesy I still stink of limburger 24 hours later. It’s like an after-school special, or a Disney Channel movie aired in prime time on a major network.

Image from tvovermind.com

When the Powell family, comprised of The Thing, Dexter’s dead wife, a girl from the Disney Channel, and the kid who played young Captain Kirk for 30 seconds in Star Trek, find themselves in a plane that crashes into the ocean, a mysterious radioactive goo in the water gives them super powers. Jim (Michael Chiklis) gets super strength and invulnerability, his wife Stephanie (Julie Benz) gets super speed, their teenage daughter Daphne (Kay Panabaker) becomes a telepath, and their younger son JJ (Jimmy Bennett) becomes…a super genius? Or something? Eh, either way. They’ve got powers.

But wouldn’t ya know it, the family’s got problems. As a big shot scientist, Stephanie never has any time to spend with her family. Jim, a police sketch artist, feels he’s not living up to his potential in life. Daphne is worried that her metrosexual boyfriend is turned off because she’s not ready to lose her virginity yet. And JJ is having trouble in school.

All these problems float to the forefront of the show, even though, y’know…THEY JUST GOT SUPER POWERS!!!! Sheesh, you’d think getting super strength would take the edge of your son flunking a math test…

Thankfully, Jim can confide in his friend George, played by Romany Malco, a.k.a. the black guy from The 40-Year-Old Virgin. George is always there to scold Jim when he puts his wife’s pussy on a pedestal.

The episode is narrated by Jim and Stephanie as they talk to a counselor (apparently secret identities aren’t an issue on this show). At the end, Jim says something to the effect of:  ”We may not have ordinary problems anymore, but we’re no ordinary family.” But we already knew that, because the word “extraordinary” is thrown around numerous times during the episode just to remind us.

Then at the end, we find out who our big villain will be. We cue the grim music and the dark set. And there, leaning over the dead body of one of his lackies is…

Stephen Collins. Cue “Imperial March.”

Photo from zap2it.com

Ever seen an episode of 7th Heaven? Remember the dad? He was the pastor of the church, The Reverend Camden. Yeah, that was Stephen Collins. I’m guessing Alan Thicke was unavailable.

This isn’t the first time Disney (the company that owns ABC) has given us a super powered family. In 2004, they distributed Pixar’s The Incredibles. With No Ordinary Family they’re trying to catch some of that magic, throw a bit of the Heroes formula in, and get a prime time hit. But while The Incredibles was both dramatic and funny, not to mention witty and charming, Family is just laughably corny.

This show is like Heroes meets Family Matters, if very few of the jokes or zingers from the latter were been updated or changed. For instance, there’s a scene where the family is gathered in their living room talking about their new powers, and Daphne gives us the clever line: “I think I liked us better when we were just dysfunctional.”

HA HA HA HA HO HO HO HO HEE HEE HEE HEE

There’s another equally corny instance where Daphne is crying to her mother because her boyfriend has just dumped her for…wait for it…HER BEST FRIEND! 

“He said he loved me! He said he’d wait for me! Why would he say it if it wasn’t true?!?” 

*head on table* She probably should have gone to George with that one.

Mind you, I’m probably not in this show’s target demographic. It’s not meant to be as dramatic as Heroes or Fringe. They want to bring in families with young children who are into superheroes (as opposed to adults who are into superheroes), and appeal to parents with the family values angle. But that’s not going to work if the adults are rolling their eyes at everything. Oddly enough, a show like this would probably have done very well on the Disney Channel, where Hanna Montana and Wizards of Waverly Place are smash hits.

One thing I will give the pilot is that it had a really cool action sequence where a teleporter is trying to shoot Joe, and is transporting all around him as he fires. Joe has to keep catching the bullets, while trying to stop his assailant. The teleporting is very reminiscent of Nightcrawler in the second X-Men movie. But hey, with this show I’ll take what I can get.

Under the right circumstances, good performers can elevate sub-par material. Chiklis, Benz, Panabaker and the others are all good performers. But they can’t elevate this. It simply is what it is. I for one, will NOT be coming back for subsequent episodes. 

As much as I enjoy Julie Benz’s work, I’m guessing being Dexter’s dead wife is starting to look really good right about now…

Front page image from noordinaryfamily.net.

TITLE: Superman/Batman: Apocalypse
WITH THE VOICE TALENTS OF: Kevin Conroy, Tim Daly, Andre Braugher, Summer Glau, Susan Eisenberg, Edward Asner
DIRECTOR: Lauren Montgomery
STUDIO: Warner Premiere, Warner Bros. Animation, DC Entertainment
RATING: PG-13
RUN TIME: 78 min
PRICE: $24.99
RELEASED: September 28

After nine of these DC Universe animated original movies (this one included), I’ve learned what to expect. I’ll enjoy watching it, but I won’t be blown away.

Superman/Batman: Apocalypse continues that tradition. It’s a direct sequel to last year’s Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (oddly enough, this DVD was released almost a year ago to the day). Both films are based on graphic novels written by Jeph Loeb (though the novel this book was based on is titled Superman/Batman: Supergirl).

When a meteor crashes on Earth carrying Superman’s teenage cousin Kara Zor El, Superman is thrilled to discover that there is another survivor of the planet Krypton. In contrast, Batman recognizes the threat someone else with Superman’s powers could potentially pose to the world. She is sent to the island of Themyscira to train with Wonder Woman and the Amazons. Meanwhile, Kara’s immense power attracts the attention of the evil Darkseid on the planet Apocalypse, who hopes to make the girl part of his army.

Image from leetleech.org

As with all the DC animated movies, Bruce Timm, one of the masterminds behind Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited, serves as executive producer. Like Public Enemies, one of the great things about this movie is Kevin Conroy and Tim Daly, who’ve worked on Timm’s shows before, return to voice Batman and Superman. Conroy is considered a god by many a fanboy, so his presence is more than welcome. Much to my delight, Susan Eisenberg also returns to voice Wonder Woman.

Kara, a.k.a the future Supergirl, is voiced by Summer Glau (Firefly, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). Glau does a good job for the most part, though at times she’s a little flat. But by God, that pales in comparison to how flat Andre Braugher is as Darkseid. Did they just need somebody with a deep voice? Because that’s really all he brought to the role. Hardly anything he said came off the least bit menacing. It might as well have been Michael Clarke Duncan that kidnapped Kara.

Interestingly enough, Granny Goodness, one of Darkseid’s lieutenants, is voiced by Edward Asner, whose stardom recently shot sky high when he voiced the old man character in Up. His portrayal of Granny was really funny. It sounded like he was having a lot of fun with the role.

Image from comicsbulletin.com

To the film’s credit, it’s very faithful to the book. A few things were expanded on, but no major plot points were cut, or morphed into something else. You can probably credit that to the story requiring very little exposition. Casual viewers can get into it quickly without having to know any backstory. It wouldn’t hurt to see Public Enemies beforehand, but it’s by no means necessary.

It seems like Timm and his crew are starting to lean into their PG-13 more. In their last movie, Batman: Under The Red Hood, I was surprised at how violent some of the action sequences were. In this film, we don’t see a lot of gruesome violence (though we DO see someone stabbed through the chest), but it seems like there’s more swearing. It’s by no means an episode of The Sopranos, but while other DC movies might have had one or two curses, this movie had three or four. If you’re uptight about that kind of stuff, be ready for it.

Included on the blu-ray/2-disc DVD is a 10-minute short film starring Green Arrow, which is decent. It centers around GA trying to save the young princess of Latvia from assassins in an airport. The highlight for me was hearing Malcolm McDowell as the voice of Merlin, our hero’s nemesis. Personally, I think he would have made an even better Sinestro in the animated Green Lantern movie, but that’s just me. We also get a sneak peek at DC’s animated adaptation of All Star Superman.

Overall, the movie is pretty much what you’d expect a faithful adaptation of the graphic novel to be. It didn’t dazzle me, but it entertained me. As with all of the DC animated flicks, the graphic novel is superior. The unbelievable art of Michael Turner is hard to live up to, no matter what medium you’re in. But Apocalypse is a nice supplement, if for no other reason than we get to hear Kevin Conroy and Susan Eisenberg again.

RATING: 7/10

Front page image from fromheroestoicons.com

TITLE: BlazBlue: Continuum Shift
PLATFORM: 360, PS3
DEVELOPER: Arc System Works
PUBLISHER: Aksys Games
ESRB: T
RELEASED: July 27

By Cameron Miller
Staff Writer, Crowd Control

The Continuum Shift has begun.

BlazBlue is back with more of the intense fighting action you’ve come to expect. With the amazing anime-like sprites and spectacular 3D stages, the visuals in this game will blow your mind. Combine the visuals with its unique gameplay and great music and you get one hell of a game. The sequel to BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, it has all the features from the first game and more.

BlazBlue has 14 unique characters to play with such as Ragna the Bloodedge and Iron Tager. Each of them has their own stories to play through. In fact, each character has multiple endings in story mode, just begging you too see them. How to see those depends on who you beat and who you lose to. With plenty of actual story to the game as well, you will easily want to play through all the characters to get a full grasp of the complete story.

Image from strategyinformer.com.

As far as controls go, there are four different attacks light, medium, hard and drive. You will have to learn what attacks work good in combos together to be a worthwhile fighter because the combos are what separate the good players from the bad. While you learn to combo you will also learn how to cancel certain attacks and make combos go on longer than allowed. The fighting is very smooth and seems pretty balanced, as I have seen great players with all characters. Depending on the time you want to spend with the game you can easily pick it up and enjoy it or go in deeper and learn to be the best with any fighter.

Continuum Shift offers plenty of different play modes, 11 to be exact. The tutorial mode teaches new payers to the world of BlazBlue and explains how to play as well as how to be fight well. This was a great feature in my opinion because I am new to the series and it was nice to have a fighting game show me what is going on for a change. There is arcade mode which I’m sure most people are familiar with. You pick a character and battle till the end of a certain amount of matches, classic and satisfying. Versus mode, of course, pits the player against either the computer or a friend for some fun competition. Score Attack is where the player can fight against the computer and compete on the leader boards to be the top cheese—not an easy task, I assure you.

Image from strategyinformer.com.

A new and fun mode is Legion, where the player goes around a ‘map’ and fights characters and when they are defeated, they can join his army to fight larger groups of enemies. I say ‘map’ because the game calls it a map, when it is really just circles connected by lines set-up in different formations. It is a fun way to fight multiple computer-controlled characters at once with your own army. Featuring three different difficulties; easy, normal, and hard, each of the maps is much more elaborate as the difficulty goes up.

There is also Challenge, great for learning the much more complex combos for any character you choose. This is really the place you should spend most of your time if you plan on being pro. Gallery is where you can listen to the games music, watch some videos and look at a lot of other things in the game that you have enjoyed while playing, as well as some concept art. The Replay Theatre is where you can save and view matches that you have played online against other players. Last but certainly not least, Network is where you fight online to prove that you have got the goods to beat everyone else. Online is highly competitive and you will certainly meet some great players who know this game like the back of their hand.

Image from strategyinformer.com.

Overall, this is a great game. It has all the makings of an excellent fighting game; gameplay, visuals and music. The story was a little harder for me to follow due to this being a sequel but the game was still very enjoyable and helped me get some of my fighting spirit out. I’m not sure if it was the fact that I didn’t the first game or the fact that fighting games never have a great story to them, but I never really get my hopes up for a story to blow my mind from fighting games. The online worked very well, with hardly any lag. I enjoyed BlazBlue: Continuum Shift a lot and if you enjoy fighting games you will too. If you put forth the time you can definitely be successful.

RATING: 8/10

Front page image from strategyinformer.com.

Image from applegazette.com

Newsarama reports today that Robert Harras, who served as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics from 1995 to 2000, has been named editor-in-chief of DC Comics. He is the first person to hold that position since Jenette Khan held it from 1981 to 2002. 

“We could not be more excited to make this announcement,” DC Comics co-publisher Dan DiDio said via press release. “Bob is a tremendous evaluator of talent, character and story. He is a proven leader who brings a keen understanding of the marketplace to the position.”

Harras will oversee editorial content for DC Comics, DC Universe, MAD Magazine and Vertigo, and will be based in New York City. Harras was previously the group editor of collected editions for the company. 

In his earlier career, Harras served as chief editor for Marvel’s X-Men books, and had a roughly four-year run on The Avengers. 

“Bob Harras’ personal and creative integrity is respected and renowned throughout the comic book industry,” Co-Publisher Jim Lee said. “As an editor, he provides invaluable insight into storytelling and character.”

ARTIST: Combichrist
ALBUM TITLE: Making Monsters
RECORD LABEL: Metropolis Records
RELEASE DATE: September 28

By Justin Polak
Co-founder, Ambassador to the Mushroom Kingdom

Just about anything that has industrial elements in it guarantees my attention.  Early Nine Inch Nails got me into the genre as a preteen, and I have followed what has came before and after NIN since my discovery of that “band”.  Combichrist, formed in 2003, has always managed to impress me when I am in the mood for electronic-laden industrial grooves.  Their fifth outing, Making Monsters, takes the right steps forward for Combichrist while nodding the 90′s style industrial era.

“Throat Full of Glass” is a perfect example of the 90′s industrial vibe, and is my favorite track on the album.  You can be sure that this gem will be blasting from my car stereo often in the coming weeks.  Other tracks that impressed me nearly as much are “Follow the Trail of Blood”, “Never Surrender”, “Just Like Me” and “Slave to Machine.”

As a matter of fact, “Slave to Machine” is where Combichrist takes the electronic elements of the album and turns it up to 11.  Making Monsters does a great job at starting out raw, greasy and downright nasty (all in a good way, of course).  But as the album goes on it slowly turns into an electronic playground.  Both industrial and electronic ingredients are present throughout the album, but they switch roles without drawing much attention to it.

Making Monsters is like knowing that you are going out with your friends clubbing  in order to drink with the full intention of getting wasted out of your mind.  The first half of the album represents getting pumped up for the night, pre-gaming, and generally feeling like you are ready to take on the night.  Around the middle would represent crossing the line into being too drunk for your own good.  And lastly, the last few tracks would be when all bets are off.  You have probably thrown up in the bathroom, but you go back out to continue to dance.  The strobe lights do nothing but serve to confuse the shit out of you, the bouncer makes you and your buddies leave for pissing in the corner or something, and you wake up the next day lying naked in a bed that’s not yours and all your fucking money is missing.  It was one of the best nights of your life, however.  Not that my analogy is based of true events or something…

Photo: Robyn Von Swank. Courtesy of Metropolis Records.

That being said, Making Monsters is far from perfect.  While I appreciate the fact that the repetition in Combichrist’s style has toned down this time around (and yes, I understand that repetition is a cornerstone in industrial and electronic music) , some songs do seem to be a few minutes longer than they actually are.  Going back to my drunk clubbing analogy, those type of tracks are perfect for that type of setting, but doesn’t fit in well if you are simply sitting down and listening to the album, even if you only have it on for background noise.

I also wished the album had less slower tracks.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying those are bad songs by any means.  Making Monsters has an excellent flow to it, but I think the album would have had a perfect flow if it never slowed down.  It’s a bit jarring when you hear a faster paced electronic song followed by one considerably slower in tempo.

Those problems aside, if you like Combichrist or electronic/industrial music, you will love Making Monsters.  As said before, this album takes an underground industrial beginning and transforms beautifully into a soaring electronic trip.  Definitely don’t miss this one.

7.5/10

Front page photo: Robyn Von Swank. Courtesy of Metropolis Records.

***SPOILER ALERT! If you’re waiting to see the season premiere of Dexter on September 26, do not read on.***

By Rob Siebert
Editor, Fanboy Wonder

I have never seen a bad episode of Dexter, and I’ve seen ALL of them.

Granted, some seasons have been more thrilling than others (season 3 was a bit more tame). But if you think you can find a bad episode, name it and I’ll fight you. Dead serious.

Photo from thetvaddict.com.

Last season, viewers were flabbergasted when Dexter found his wife Rita dead in a bathtub filled with blood. The culprit was obviously the sinister Trinity killer, whom Dexter had just murdered with his own special brand of justice. His infant son sat alive on the bathroom floor next to the tub.

Heck of a way to end a season. Believe it or not, I typed “Dexter” into the Google search field about a week ago, and one of the suggested searches that popped up was “Dexter, is Rita really dead?”

Naturally, this season’s first episode gave us the fallout from Rita’s death, which we’ve waited almost a year to see. Dexter becomes emotionally vacant following the incident, leaving Deborah to plan the funeral. Detective Quinn suspects Dexter of the murder, seeking out possible leads. Dexter’s stepdaughter Astor lashes out in anger at Dexter, accusing him of being apathetic about Rita’s death. All the while, Lieutenant Laguerta and Sergeant Batista ponder whether their department should be investigating this murder, as opposed to the FBI, who are still hunting for Trinity.

This is probably the most emotional episode the series has ever seen. Most of our key characters are grieving. Deborah’s grief prompts her to do something some fans have seen coming for awhile: Hook up with Quin. She apparently saw it solely as grief sex, but he doesn’t seem to see it that way. Meanwhile, Dexter is wracked with guilt. He knows he brought Trinity into the house, and feels it’s his fault Rita is dead. He tries to leave his infant son in Deborah’s care, as he destroys several ties to his life in Miami, and flees on his boat. But when he kills a man in anger, the voice of his dead father Harry (who actually serves as fraction of Dexter’s inner monologue) convinces him that he must go back. He arrives just in time to perform Rita’s eulogy, and he realizes that although he thought he was an emotional vacuum, he truly did care for her.

After this episode, Quinn (played by Desmond Harrington) is playing a more aggressive version of the role he played last season, as the one person who vocally suspects Dexter isn’t what he seems. I’m interested to see if the show’s creators can make this character distinctively different than James Doakes, Dexter’s previous nemesis. Like Doakes, it looks like he’s going to conduct his own personal investigation into Dexter’s life, which means we’ll probably see more characters from last season popping up, such as Jonah, Trinity’s son.

Putting Quinn with Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) is a nice way to insert a bit of conflict that wasn’t there with Doakes. But I’m wondering if Deb actually suspects Dexter. Remember, last season she found out that Dexter’s brother was the ice truck killer, and how the two boys saw their mother being chopped up with a chainsaw. If the ice truck killer turned into a monster, Deb has to at least be wondering if her brother has those same demons inside him. I’m anxious to see what kind of twists and turns she takes this season, especially now that she and Quinn have the connection they do.

Image from daemonstv.com

One of the nice things about this episode is that we get to see Rita (Julie Benz) alive one last time. We see her first date with Dexter. It turns out he used their meeting as a front to catch a killer, which I thought was great. He was lying to her from day one, which only added to his guilt.

Michael C. Hall’s performance as Dexter in this episode is naturally subdued, as his character is feeling something he’s never felt before, and is struggling to keep his mask on amidst everything. I absolutely loved that primal scream he let out toward the end of the episode. It sounded like a wild animal in pain. It was perfect.

Next week, it looks like we’ll have more anger from Astor, we’ll see Quinn talk to Jonah, and Dexter will be back on the hunt. It’s unclear at this point what LaGuerta and Batista’s story arc will be this season. But imagine that will become clearer in the next episode.

Overall, a great start to season 5. It gave us what we were looking for in terms of fallout from last season. But more importantly, it planted some seeds which I’m very interested to see blossom.

Rob

***Music, Books and Psycho Space Robots is a regular column published on Primary Ignition by Kevin Kenealy, staff writer and Nightmare Fuel Provider. The views expressed therein are his, and do not reflect those of the staff of Primary Ignition.***

She was told by Sesame Street yes and then was told no. Her dress was too hot and Sesame Street apparently changes their mind, but Katy Perry doesn’t change her clothes.

Image from bloginity.org.

This past week, it was announced that a skit featuring Katy Perry and Elmo would be cut from the show’s season premiere. Perry was told she is too sexy for the show. The event has generated controversy from those who believe it right of Sesame Street, and those who believe the world is getting too politically correct and that there was nothing wrong with the skit. Watch the video on YouTube.

In all the comments I’ve looked at, however, no one has addressed what exactly the point was of having Katy Perry on the show to begin with. A spokesman for Sesame Street said that the show has always been written for the child and for the adult. Fine. What children watch Sesame Street? Those in their preschool years, right? What preschool kid is really going to care that Katy Perry is on the show? Also, what adult over the age of 30 would even listen to Katy Perry?

Even if said preschooler or said adult likes Katy Perry, does her song “Hot n’ Cold” have any educational value? The clip that was supposed to run on Sesame Street shows Katy chasing Elmo with her song “Hot n’ Cold” playing (albeit with slightly altered lyrics). Seems like a promotion for Katy more than anything, even if she truly didn’t see it that way.

Image from fanpop.com

When it comes down to it, I think it’s just as important to judge the educational quality of putting Katy Perry on the show as it is to judge her sexiness or her attire. If she were to wear the same low-cut heart shaped dress, but were to be talking about shapes or colors with Elmo, that would be different. As another commenter pointed out online, Disney portrays their women characters in a not-so-conservative light dress wise. The Little Mermaid, Princess Jasmine and Tinkerbell are just a few examples of how kids are exposed to women at an early age in not the most appropriate attire.

The most educational point of the 2:32 reel was when Katy sings: “You’re up then you’re down,” and Elmo is up on the screen and then he’s down on the screen. Then Katy sings: “You’re hot then you’re cold” and Elmo and Katy run from the desert to the arctic. While this may teach kids spatial relationships with where is up and where is down or opposites with the desert and the arctic, the song moves too fast and is too poppy for any preschooler to really comprehend that.

This is why we leave Sesame Street to the professionals. Like The Count, who goes over his numbers very slowly, “Count, count with me hahaha!” so kids can have time to comprehend what’s actually going on. I think when pop singers are brought on, the show has to be careful that if they sing, their song gives the lesson some kind of educational value.

TITLE: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
STARRING: Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Carey Mulligan, Josh Brolin, Frank Langella
DIRECTOR: Oliver Stone
STUDIO: 20^th Century Fox
RATING: R
RUN TIME: 136 min
RELEASE DATE: September 24

By Seth Miller
Staff Writer, Part-Time Ninja

The character of Gordon Gekko is one of those rare film characters that defined a whole generation of people. The 80’s yuppies found their hero in Michael Douglas’ amoral Wall Street trader who would go to any lengths to make a profit. Over 20 years later, Gordon Gekko is back on the silver screen, but is this icon of the 1980’s still relevant? You bet.

Following his arrest in the first film, Gekko (Douglas) is released from prison to a world where his daughter, Winnie (Mulligan), despises him, and his philosophy “greed is good” is out of control. Enter Jacob (LaBeouf ), an idealistic broker who is engaged to Winnie and wants revenge against a rival broker (Brolin) who drove his mentor (Langella) to kill himself. Gekko teaches Jacob how to get revenge while using him to get back in his daughter’s good graces, but is that all that Gekko really wants?

This movie could not have come out at a better time, the number one issue in this country is the economy, and not many people seem to understand how it could have crashed. This movie is about the all for nothing insanity that has existed since the beginning of the 21^st century and has ended up handicapping the economy of not just America, but the whole world.  Every character in this film tries to make obscene amounts of money, and destroy potentially successful companies that could change the world to make an easy buck.

Director Oliver Stone tries to throw in as many examples of the flaws in our economic system as he can in this movie, some miss big and some work really well. The inner workings of hedge funds and the institutions of Wall Street provide a perspective on the 2008 crash, and that really is where the action and drama of this film is. There is also a subplot about Jacob’s attempts to get an alternative energy company off the ground that adds some perspective on the business side of an issue that will grow in importance over the next 10 years.

While things such as Susan Sarandon’s role as Jacob’s mother, who is taking out loans for homes with money she does not have in the hopes of selling them for a profit, adds a personal and relatable way for the audience to experience the film’s view of the crash, it is not executed well and is very annoying.

Photo from rottentomatoes.com.

The performances in this movie are its strongest aspects. There are a lot of people who hate LaBeouf’s acting, but to be fair his most memorable role is in the Transformers movies and Michael Bay movies are not exactly known for superb acting. But in this film, LaBeouf does a good job as an idealist trying to fix the world in a system that is focused on the money and he holds his own against all the other extremely talented performers in this movie. Every actor in this film does an excellent job, but Douglas is still the real standout. Gekko is still the same master manipulator and charmer that he was in the first movie, but he shows real growth due to what his character experienced in the story. He still wants to be a big player in the end is utterly obsessed with money, but he is tempered due to his time in prison and is torn between his greed and his desire for a family.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is a good film that does an excellent job of conveying the facts and the feelings of everyone in this country during the beginning of the economic crash, but the ending and the tone of this movie as we near the end hold it back from being a far more important film. The tone towards the end is pretty positive given what has happened earlier in the movie, and the ending seems is almost too happy considering what we’ve seen. It takes away from what came before it and it was so sweet it made me sick.

This won’t be the film that truly defines our economic crisis, but it is a worthy sequel to a great first film and it still has a number of important points about our economy, our society and where we are possibly going.

RATING: 8/10