Friday Booze Review: Belhaven St. Andrews

This one's actually a two for one. After I had a good fill of drink, I went and watched War of the Worlds last night. So lucky you. We'll start with the beer.

$7.99 a six pack, 4.6% alcohol by volume. Weeeeeeeeeeak, weak, weak. Still, it's namesake is dedicated to the home of golf, and it's brewed in the mother land, so I decided to give it a chance. Actually, who am I kidding? Anything Scottish has to be good.

This ale poured a a glorious copper-red with a decent sized ivory head, which most definitely left some lacing around the glass. Aroma was weak at best, but I was able to pick up some malts and a tad of something sweet, maybe caramel? You won't really care what the hell it smells like though once you get a good mouthful - the greatness of this beer is in the flavor.

I'd had one of these before, but good gravy, I don't remember it tasting so damn good. Initially you get a nice, smooth malty flavor, tempered with a hint of fruity goodness (the bottle doesn't lie!). After this comes the unexpected- yet completely welcome - aftertaste of what I can best describe as smokey-toffee. As awful as that may sound, it's like a warm splurge to the back of the mouth, i.e. it's amazing.

I really didn't want to stop drinking this beer. The flavor just never got boring. Alas, I was limited by time, and before I knew it I was slamming my last two on the way to the show.

Appearance: 7/10
Taste: 8/10
Enjoyability: 9/10
Overall: 8/10

The show. War of the Worlds. Spielberg's latest blockbuster attempt. A quick glance at his other outings and, well, shit. He's the fucking man. Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, and I'll even include Minority Report just because I liked it so much. The gross on those films alone is probably like 500 trillion dollars or something, and deservedly so: they're great movies, for a number of reasons. So how could War of the Worlds miss with a director with such a proven track record? Easy: leave out the human element.

You know, I've often thought about how cool it would be to have a movie that was just one big orgy of bad-ass special effects. I mean, how sweet-ass-sweet would that be, just one big goo-fest of cool stuff? Well, Spielberg has provided us with that in this movie. Does it work? That's the million dollar question. By the first 15 minutes or so the characters are already typified: Ray (Cruise) is the shitty father who never sees his kids, the son is the teen harboring rage against his unforgiveable dad, and Dakota Fanning is, well, fucking creepy no matter what movie she's in.

The thing is, you KNOW after these 15 minutes of introduction that everyone's gonna have the big group hug somewhere down the line. The characters are so transparent, they're bullshit. So Spielberg has to have action, and action alone, as the meat of the movie. I think this is a noticeable departure from his previous successes. A hugely important part of what makes a Spielberg blockbuster great are the characters, and ESPECIALLY the humor they can bring. Indiana Jones, Ian Malcolm, fucking Quint and Hooper aboard the Orca. Great, great characters that not only give you a break from the action, but are charismatic enough to pull you into their world and make you care.

So back to the question at hand, since Spielberg abandons characterization, does the action work? Yes and no is the best I can give you. Yes, because it is fucking awesome. Holy shit is it awesome. The tripods... wow. Mowing down humans left and right, relentless in their pursuit. Intense, heart-pounding stuff. And as always, Spielberg manages to get a TON of unbelievable shots in there, jawdropping stuff. You really get a great worm's eye view of the action, and the stuff's always shot from Ray's perspective, so it's pretty hectic and panic-inducing. Thrilling and enthralling... for the first hour, that is.

After that, and especially when Ray meets Tim Robbins' character I was bored. Like, really bored. Even when they showed the aliens for the first time... I was bored. Any and every time the full, all-out, balls-to-the-wall action action stopped, I was bored. I mean, you're on a super-high of adrenaline from the first ass-kicking hour, and then BANG. The movie hits a brick wall, and you end up like a crank fiend with a dry supply. You want more. More. More. You don't care about all the sneaking and hiding crap. Ten minutes later you get another fix.... but fuck, man. That wasn't NEARLY as good as your first high. Again. Hurry, you can't wait. And so on, and so forth the rest of the movie.

You just don't really care enough about the characters to want the movie to slow down for them, and you most DEFINITELY become desensitized to the action after all the on again off again business. I got up and took a piss in the last 10 minutes. That's how little I cared. Oh yeah, and I already knew how it was going to end... which is a definite plus for the movie, because it's one of the absolute best endings in the history of science fiction. Good call on leaving that one in there. I think the audience was a little taken by surprise though, because, like the book, it ends just as quick as it all starts - nay, quicker.

I'm a roller coaster junkie and I most definitely love cheap thrills, and this is cheap thrill polished to perfection. So when it's all said and done, as completely unfulfilling of a movie that this is, I still can't help but recommend going to see it at the theater. Unless you can get your surround sound cranked up to about 90 decibels, do yourself a favor and see it where it'll have some real balls. The bass is outstanding, and the special effects look great on the big screen. Just don't go hoping for a superior Spielberg experience, because he definitely didn't bring his A-game to this one. C+.

Addendum: Yes, the word Scientology flashed in my head about a million times while watching this movie. Damn you, Cruise, and your permeation of the media with your alien religion bullshit.