Rest in Peace, Peter O'Toole

A shining light went out this weekend.  Peter O'Toole had been sick for some time, so I was not surprised when I heard the news.  Frankly, given the hard life he lived, I am shocked he made it this long!  He should have died numerous times decades ago and he knew it, and continued to live each day to the fullest. 

For me, O'Toole has been in my life for as long as I can remember.  Lawrence of Arabia has been my favorite movie since I was 12.  And a lot of that credit goes to the thrilling performance from O'Toole.  And my love of Lawrence led directly to my first big lesson on how the Oscars aren't fair.  I knew Lawrence had won 7 Oscars, including all the biggies, but when I looked on the list, I did not see O'Toole's name.  Despite my ardent protests, my dad assured me that it was not a typo and that O'Toole had indeed lost the Oscar. 

You see, in my child's mind, it was inconceivable that he could lose that Oscar.  That performance is riveting in every detail. it is sheer electricity on-screen and I had never seen anything like it (nor have I since).  How is it possible that he had lost?!  Because that is the Oscars, folks. 

In fact, O'Toole's career was a checklist of Oscar unluckiness.  He had the misfortune of almost always going up against someone who was guaranteed to win.  For those who are curious, here is the tally:

1. Lawrence of Arabia - lost to Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird.  Look, that is a great performance in a great film, but O'Toole was better.  That said, there was no way Peck was losing that Oscar.

2. Becket - lost to Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady.  There is no way Rex Harrison was losing that Oscar .

3. The Lion in Winter - this the one he should have won.  Cliff Robertson won for Charly, which is was a fine film, but I'm not sure how Robertson won this.  He did embark on a great publicity campaign and there also may have been some voter fatigue from so many European actors winning Oscars in the 1960s.  Either way, this is the one that got away. 

4. Goodbye, Mr. Chips - lost to John Wayne in True Grit.  There was no way John Wayne was losing that Oscar - not after almost a half century in Hollywood without a win. 

5. Ruling Class - lost to Marlon Brando in The Godfather.  Brando is not losing that Oscar.

6. The Stunt Man - lost to Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull.  DeNiro is not losing that Oscar.

7. My Favorite Year - lost to Ben Kingsley in Gandhi.  You really think Kingsley was going to lose that Oscar? 

8. Venus - lost to Forrest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland.  Whitaker is not going to lose that Oscar.

What bad luck!  That is 8 nominations without a win, which is the record for acting.  He was awarded an Honorary Oscar in 2003, which he tried to reject because he said he was still in the game and "wanted to win the bugger outright."  But I think that was Hollywood's way of trying to undo their mistake and award him for a terrific body of work. 

But let's move on. Why dwell on disappointments when we should be applauding his work.  I wanted to make a quick list of the top five O'Toole performances for me.  His body of work includes a lot of class, but also a lot of junk (the late 1980s was not a good decade for him!), but if you could only see him acting in five movies, these are the five.  Please note that I don't think these are his best five films; just his top five performances.  I've also included the scene that I think showcases what he does best in these films.  Counting down!!!

5. Venus - What a great role to have at the end of one's career!  O'Toole plays a dirty old actor named Maurice reduced to playing aged aristocrats or corpses, and who becomes infatuated with a young woman named Jessie (Jodie Whitaker). While moments are hilarious, this really is not a heartwarming film.  But Maurice is a daring and bold role for any actor to take, and O'Toole brought 50 years of hellraising baggage to the part.  The killer scene is when he visits his ex-wife (Vanessa Redgrave) and admits to what a shallow and horrible husband he had been - but still with a touch of class and humor.  Only O'Toole could pull that off!

4. What's New Pussycat?  This is not a great film.  I'm not even sure if this is a good one, but boy, is it fun and absolutely insane!  This was one of those crazy sex farces from the 1960s, and featured a sterling cast that included Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress and Woody Allen in his film debut.  This movie is ridiculous, makes no sense, and I love every second of it.  If Lawrence is the movie that revealed O'Toole the actor to me, then this was the movie that showed me the Hellraiser.  I got a sense that in real life, he was very much like boozy womanizer Michael James.  And that guy would be a lot of fun to hang out with!  I would probably not survive the evening, but it would be a lot of fun!  For a standout O'Toole moment, either check out the drunken spin on Cyrano de Bergerac or his reaction to Paula Prentiss' poetry ("Who Killed Charlie Parker!  You did! You Rat!")

3. The Stunt Man.  Another film that is not everyone's cup of tea. Some people love it, some are appalled by its strangeness.  I am mixed myself.  There is a lot to love about this crazy movie, but there are too many problems for me to fully embrace it.  That said, O'Toole is insanely good as a maniacal film director Eli Cross, who may be trying to kill his new stunt man.  He hovers over the whole movie - literally, since his director's chair is mounted on a giant crane - like some sort of crazed movie god passing judgment on all the mere mortals beneath him.  He is both terrifying and charming.  The highlight scene is when the Assistant Director yells, "cut" on set before Eli Cross I ready to end the scene.  The fast-paced, clipped display of venom that spews out of O'Toole's mouth for the next 30 seconds is the type of performance that should be taught in film school.

2. The Lion in Winter.  As the embattled king Henry II, O'Toole is brilliant. The movie follows Henry as he tries to deal with his remarkably dysfunctional family while arguing politics with his rival, the new king of France.  Sounds a bit boring?  Try again.  Though technically a drama, this movie is actually very funny, with remarkably clever dialogue and memorable characters.  And O'Toole is terrific, stealing the movie from a great cast that also includes Katherine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton.  He not only went head-to-head with the steely titan Hepburn, he eclipsed her (though she did win a well-deserved Oscar).  The best scene in the movie is when Henry has finally had enough of his rebellious children and muses on how his epitaph will read when he eventually dies, "but Henry had no sons.  He had no sons."  The pain and the rage are palpable and raw.  It's a great moment in a great film.

1. Lawrence of Arabia.  Was there any doubt?  My favorite performance in my favorite film.  David Lean put O'Toole through the ringer in this movie.  It is nearly a four hour movie and O'Toole is in nearly every scene, and has to run an emotional range from idealistic young officer to a man utterly crushed by political backstabbing and his own demons.  The last time I saw Lawrence, I realized there was something remarkable that I had never seen before.  Usually characters with God Complexes are villains, and usually they keep their illusions of grandeur right until the moment the hero kills them.  But in Lawrence, our hero has the God Complex, and his illusions are shattered, he has to live with the fact that he was wrong.  How do you deal with that?  It's an interesting question to ask in the middle of a massive World War I epic.  There was a heroic ideal that Lawrence thought he embodied, and that everyone else still believes him to be, and deep down, he knows he just doesn't cut it.  And by the end of the film, you can see that building pressure just destroying him.  Lawrence is about a lot of things, but it is also about the destruction of a human being, and O'Toole just nails every beat.  I've never seen anything like it before or since.  And I don't know if I can pick a best scene.  In my younger days, I would have chosen the iconic encounter with Sharif Ali at the well.  Now, I lean more towards the film's more complex second half, and the massacre of the Turkish army, specifically.  When he stares down Sharif on the battlefield with that brutal tonic of barbaric insanity and shame in his eyes, it is truly terrifying.

So those are my top five.  There are a lot of moments that could have been in here - his Priam in Troy, his art critic in Ratatouille, his charming thief in How to Steal a Million (my parents first date!), his insane aristocrat in The Ruling Class - heck, even his scientist in the otherwise atrocious Phantoms.  There are a lot of fond memories of watching him on-screen. 

On second thought, I am going to take back that opening sentence on my blog.  A great light has not gone out.  This light will never go out.  Through his performances, O'Toole will always shine.

Dredd

Dredd

In 1995, one of the great cinematic abominations of the decade descended on us in the form of Judge Dredd, starring Sylvester Stallone.  On paper, the film had some good stuff going for it.  Stallone looks a lot like the Dredd from the comic books, and the cast also included Diane Lane, Armande Assante, Max von Sydow, Diane Lane, and most importantly, Diane Lane (can you tell I am a fan?).  Unfortunately, Judge Dredd is utterly unwatchable (except for any scene with Diane Lane).  The film took a critical beating and was a well-deserved flop. 

But the comic is a cult favorite, and the character of Judge Dredd, a no-nonsense, brutal law enforcement officer in the future, licensed to be judge, jury, and executioner for even the smallest infractions, lends itself to the big screen. It was only a matter of time before Hollywood tried again.  I'm only surprised it took this long.

In the not too distant future, most of the East Coast has now become one super city called Mega City.  With overcrowding and a scarcity of resources, the world is on the verge of falling apart.  To keep order, the police have adopted tougher tactics, including the creation of the Judges, among whom Dredd (Karl Urban, Lord of the Rings) is arguably the best and easily the meanest. Dredd generally works alone, but on this day, he is saddled with a rookie, Cassandra Anderson (Olivia Thirlby, The Darkest Hour).  Anderson isn't doing so great in the Judge Academy, but she has rare, psychic gifts, and the Chief Judge wants to see how she does in the field before giving up on her.  And she wants Dredd to take her out.  The pair respond to a routine call, only to find themselves trapped in a skyscraper under the thumb of Mama (Lena Headey, 300), a vicious drug lord who is pushing the hottest drug on the street, called Slo Mo.  And so the stage is set.  Literally stuck in a building with hundreds of gang members, will the Judges survive?  Will Anderson be able to rise to the occasion and find her inner Judge badass?  Will Dredd be able to erase the painful memory that 1995's Judge Dredd had scarred into my brain? 

Look, I'm not going to lie.  Dredd is not a masterpiece of cinema.  There are a lot of problems with it, including a very bland opening act, some goofy story points, some bad one-liners, and questionable acting in a few places.  And while the effect of the drug Slo Mo, which renders the world literally in slow motion - only with heavy filters and glitter - is kind of neat the first time you see it, it definitely overstays its welcome by the 400th time you've seen it.  Its overuse just bogs the movie down.

But let's not kid ourselves.  We aren't expecting Dredd to be a masterpiece.  But was it fun?  Was it violent in the way action fans would want?  And does it do justice to the original character?  The answers are yes, yes, and yes.  Urban makes an admirable Judge Dredd, and wisely erases any 3-dimensionality or humanity from the character.  There does not need to be any character arc for Dredd, and Urban and director Pete Travis understand that.  Dredd just needs to kill people.  But the film is not devoid of character development, and I found Anderson's transformation to be particularly well handled.

The movie's action is appropriately gruesome and fun, and only goes over the top once or twice.  But what I like most about Dredd is how unambitious it is. I am so tired of every single action movie having the fate of the world, and maybe even the universe, at stake!  Every single big Hollywood blockbuster has to be sweeping and end with some city getting destroyed in an irresponsible and ridiculous special effects bonanza.  And I am tired of it.  You know what happens in Dredd?  The main character goes in a building and there's a gunfight, and then the movie ends.  That's it.  And we don't need anything else!  Hurray for Dredd!  You get a standing ovation for that alone. 

So there you go.  Is Dredd great?  Definitely not.  But it gets more right than it gets wrong, and I was definitely entertained.  Of course, as if you didn't already guess, the biggest problem with the movie is that Diane Lane isn't in it.  


MVP: 
Often with these types of movies, the rookies will just turn into a badass so quickly, it is as if a light switch was flipped on to make them fight better.  It's annoying, but something most of us accept in genre flicks.  This is not the case with Olivia Thirlby's Anderson, who actually undergoes a realistic transition from a rookie in over her head to a warrior who can hold her own without Dredd backing her up.  The character arc is well-balanced and proceeds in a steady pace alongside the main storyline.  Part of the credit has to go writer Alex Garland (28 Days Later).  But Thirlby also puts in a very good performance, taking the meek and nervous girl from the beginning of the film and believably transforming her into a powerful young woman who can threaten thugs twice her size by the end of the film without the audience laughing at her.  Though the character arc is broad, the details of the performance are subtle, and I was very impressed.  Olivia Thirbly, you get my MVP!


BEST LINE:

Anderson (reading a gang member's mind): Sir, he's thinking about going for your gun.

Dredd: Yeah.

Anderson (reading his mind again): He just changed his mind.

Dredd: Yeah.


TRIVIA:
Michael Biehn (The Terminator) auditioned to play Judge Dredd.  While I think he would have been too old to play the part, I love Michael Biehn.  After awesome work in The Terminator, Aliens, and The Abyss, I will never understand why he never broke through and became a star.  He's awesome!

Gravity

Gravity

Beware the hype machine!  When you have critics raving about Gravity being one of the best movies in years, and then filmmakers like James Cameron stating that Gravity is possibly the greatest space movie ever...well, that's dangerous.  And it is setting the bar impossibly high.  Pre-conceived notions can ruin a movie.  The result is that people may not know what to expect from Gravity, but if they don't get the greatest theatrical experience of their lives, they are bound to be disappointed.

'That movie wasn't about anything,' they might complain.  'It looks cool, but nothing much happens.'  And technically, they would be correct.  The story is not original, and it's also fairly slight.  A NASA shuttle crew is in space, working on the Hubble Telescope, when they run afoul of a pile of space shrapnel, destroying their shuttle and leaving only two crew members alive, mission commander Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock).  Stranded in space and running short on oxygen, they need to think of a way to escape back to Earth. 

And that's about it. I'm not hiding any plot twists or anything.  That is literally all there is to it, story-wise.  But the story doesn't need to be more than that.  Why pad the runtime with subplots that will only dilute the film?  This is lean and efficient storytelling, without an ounce of fat. 

You know what?  I think I am about to be a hypocrite and add to the hype machine.  This is easily one of the most dazzling movies of the year - both in terms of its visuals and in terms of the filmmaking prowess.  Directed by Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity is a movie for movie lovers.  Cuaron is breaking new ground in terms of camera work and the use of the CGI (and most fascinating to me, the innovative combination of the cinematography with the effects work).  Cuaron loves long takes, and there are multiple scenes in this movie that go on for an insanely long periods of time without the camera cutting away.  That must have taken an immense amount of intricate planning between the director, the camera operators, and the actors who had to hit their spots perfectly every single time.  This must have been such a painstaking process and I am in awe of what they achieved.

I would even recommend seeing the movie in 3-D, which is a surprise coming from me, because I don't normally like 3-D.  It's an over-priced gimmick, and one that is normally done poorly.  Even when it is done well, I don't think it really adds anything to the film.  Besides, those glasses give me a headache.  But Gravity was a headache worth having! 

The acting is also very good.  Bullock carries much of the film on her shoulders, revealing a depth that I haven't really seen in her other work, including her Oscar-winning turn in The Blind Side.  And Clooney is great, too.  Some folks say, 'he's just acting like Clooney,' but I disagree.  Pay attention to when the suave charmer we all know shifts into Mission Commander mode and starts barking orders.  It's a subtle shift, the way he plays it, but not any less effective because of it.  I thought he was great.

As is the whole film.  There is one moment near the end that annoyed me, the one time the movie breaks into a Hollywood formula, but other than that, I was with this roller coaster ride.  Gravity is one of the most effective films of the year, full of tension and emotion, and I easily think it is one of the top contenders for Best Picture come Oscar time.

That is - if the backlash doesn't swoop in and derail its growing reputation.  Which would really be shame.  Look, this is not the greatest space movie of all time, but it is still fantastic.  Don't let the hype get in your head because it might just ruin a brilliant film.  I was utterly absorbed, and I hope you are just as thrilled by the movie as I was.  Yes, Gravity is simple, but it is cinema as art, and it is simply brilliant. 


MVP:

No doubt in my mind, this is Cuaron's MVP award.  And it is his filmmaking style that elevates Gravity into a work of art.  His insistence on long takes and slower pacing just makes the movie more effective and suspenseful (watching the scene where Stone has to release some clamps near the International Space Station had me so close to the edge of my seat, I almost fell off!  And it is also one, long, stable shot...so take that, Hollywood, with your insistence of shaky cam and over-editing scenes to pieces!).  Anyways, Cuaron is brilliant, and so is Gravity.

BEST LINE:

Dr. Ryan Stone: I hate space.

TRIVIA:

In terms of trivia, I always think it is fun to hear about who was originally cast in a film.  Before Sandra Bullock, the lead character was to be played by Angelina Jolie, but she dropped out.  Natalie Portman was also offered the part, but she turned down the role shortly before announcing her pregnancy.  Robert Downey, Jr, was to play Kowalski, but he also dropped out, opening up the role for Clooney. 

El Cid

El Cid

My friends and family all know that epics are easily my favorite film genre.  I count Lawrence of Arabia, Spartacus, Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, and Ben Hur among my favorite films.  What is it about epics that I love so much?  I don't know.  I love the larger than life heroes, the vast scope of the stories, the brilliant sets, the casts of thousands, the grand music...I just love the bigness of it all.  But the very bigness that makes epics so unique is also what often leads to their downfall.  Often these movies will get lost in their own grandness, with their characters and storylines often being trampled by the march of what the filmmakers really care about: big heroes and big armies doing big things.  The best epics are able to strike the balance between the grand scale and the personal story of the characters.  It's not an easy balance, and only a few have truly succeeded. 

So how about El Cid, the 1962 film produced by super producer Samuel Bronston and starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren?  The film is considered one of the great epics, and is in fact one of Martin Scorsese's favorite films of the genre.  It was certainly one of the monster blockbuster hits of the decade.  Does El Cid live up to its reputation? 

El Cid is based on the legend of Rodrigo de Bivar, a Spanish knight in the 11th Century called "El Cid" because of his nobility and mighty exploits on the battlefield.  The storyline of the film is vast, including the wars between the Christian and Islamic kingdoms of medieval Spain, not to mention the looming threat of the Moors, led by extremist Ben Yusuf (Herbert Lom), who threaten to invade Spain and destroy everyone - both Christian and Muslim - who refuse to bend to their will.  The "B-Story" of the movie, i.e. the more personal side of the plot involves the evolving and tumultuous relationship between El Cid and the love of his life, Jimena.  Unfortunately, El Cid killed Jimena's father in a duel, but she still agrees to marry him so she can make his life a living hell, put herself in better position to someday kill him, but also because she still loves him.

So how is El Cid?  Unfortunately, the film does not deserve any sort of classic status.  And it is unfortunate because all the right pieces are in place.  Charlton Heston is terrific, and Loren is also quite good.  The costumes and sets are all stunning.  The original score by Miklos Rozsa is brilliant.  And unlike many epics, the story is actually very intriguing, full of interesting characters, stirring stands for truth and justice, and also a fair share of betrayals.  There are moments in the film that are downright brilliant, such as El Cid's duel with a rival king's champion, and when he forces Alfonso, the new King of Castile, to swear an unwanted oath when he ascends to the throne.

So it is a shame that the film never really works.  I think the primary offender is the leaden script which weighs down the otherwise interesting story with hammy dialogue.  For example, the love story has great potential.  Jimena loves El Cid, but is duty bound to try and destroy him.  That is good drama!  And Heston and Loren give it their all, and kind of pull it off.  But they can't quite get the tragic love story to ring as true as it should.  I also have to blame the director Anthony Mann.  Mann is generally a fine director, but I think his work is just kind of run-of-the-mill here.  Mann is actually studied in film school as a master of mise-en-scene.  His framing is the stuff that makes film students go crazy, but I actually think it is distracting (with a few stirring exceptions).  It's not that the directing is necessarily bad.  Yes, there are a few moments that are laugh out loud awful, but for the most part, there is nothing wrong with the film.  It's just that with a cast this big, battles this momentous, castles and sets this visually stunning, and with Heston and Loren leading the charge, shouldn't the movie be better than this?  It's really just a missed opportunity that needed a Wyler, Lean or Kubrick at the helm.

So is El Cid worth watching?  Yes, I think it is.  When it is bad, it is pretty bad.  But when it is good, it comes close to soaring.  So watch it with your expectations at a reasonable level, and I think you will like it.  El Cid does not hold a candle to the titans of the genre, but it is an interesting film, and worthy of being called a true epic.


MVP:
At first, I thought this was an easy choice.  Miklos Rozsa composed a masterful piece of music which is every bit as brilliant as his Oscar-winning score for Ben Hur.  The main title is fantastic and the love theme is perhaps the finest of Rozsa's career.  This score is easily in my top ten favorites.  But a conversation with a friend changed my mind.  He argued that Heston should be the MVP.  This is Heston's movie.  He carries it.  In fact, he elevates the material.  My friend put it this way: would this had been the same movie with a different actor in the role?  I thought about that for a second, and almost immediately I realized he was right.  Without Heston, El Cid would have been a very different movie.  In fact, it would have been another Fall of the Roman Empire.  That epic was produced by the same team, including super producer Samuel Bronston, director Anthony Mann, and writer Philip Yordan.  In many ways, Fall of the Roman Empire should have been an improvement.  The all-star cast was bigger and better, the sets were even grander, the scope spanned two continents of love, betrayal and warfare.  And ultimately the film is a colossus of epic boredom.  The only real difference between the two films?  No Heston.  I know there are some who can't appreciate Heston's grandiose style as an actor, and I do understand that.  But I don't think anyone argue that he wasn't tailor-made for the epic genre.  Whether it is Judah Ben Hur, Moses, Rodrigo de Bivar, or Michaelangelo, Charlton Heston takes on the larger than life persona and makes it his own.  And he makes El Cid better than it has any right being.  And that really is the very definition of a MVP, right?


BEST LINE:
El Cid: "Soldiers!  People of Valencia!  You must not be frightened by the sound of a few drums.  In a few hours, they will be silenced forever.  I promise you, tomorrow morning, I will ride with you!"


TRIVIA:
Heston also thought that El Cid was a bit of a missed opportunity.  He has been quoted as saying that it would have been better with William Wyler (director of Ben Hur) at the helm.  He even thinks he could have won another Oscar had Wyler directed it.  I have to admit, he might be right.  The dramatic potential was in the story.

Doomsday

Doomsday

I am going to just be upfront here.  There is really no good reason you should enjoy this post-apocalyptic film directed by Neil Marshall (Centurion).  The movie is trashy and nonsensical, with a poorly written plot that can't make up its mind what it wants to be.  But damn it, it has some sort of weird charm to it!  Besides, I'm a sucker for post apocalyptic movies.

So there are going to be some spoilers here, so don't read this if you want to be surprised.  Having said that, this movie really doesn't have any real surprises so take that spoiler alert with a grain of salt.

Here is my attempt at a synopsis: 

Doomsday Movie #1 - the zombie film meets Escape from New York.  In the future, a killer virus sweeps through Scotland, turning its victims into brutal, animalistic monsters.  When rescue efforts fail, the United Kingdom walls off all of Scotland and lets the countryside destroy itself until the disease dies out.  Unfortunately, decades later, the disease resurfaces in London.  Enter our one-eyed hero Snake Plisskin----I mean, our one-eyed hero Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), who has to cross the wall into isolated and devastated Scotland and investigate rumors of a cure. 

Then the movie changes into Doomsday Movie #2, where Eden collides with punk rock cannibals living in the dilapidated remains of the city, and then Doomsday Movie #3, where she runs into a band of medieval warriors led by a disillusioned scientist, Dr. Kane, played by Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange).  And then don't forget Doomsday Movie #3, which is basically Mad Max in the Scottish highlands starring Snake Plis--damnit!  I did it again. I meant Eden Sinclair.

If all this sounds a bit incoherent, you would be correct.  The narrative of the film is a complete mess. But that said, the plot almost makes the film like one of those old serials from the 1930s, where every episode ended with our heroes in a new and completely different cliffhanger.  In fact, maybe that was Neil Marshall's plan all along.  The different sequences are so different that even the filmmaking style and editing seem to be distinct.  And that is kind of neat to watch.

Of the four movies, the zombie apocalypse one is pretty terrible, with the talented Bob Hoskins and Alexander Siddig completely wasted in their parts.  And the sequence with the most potential, Medieval Fun-Time with Malcolm McDowell, is a completely wasted opportunity.  Basically, these survivors decided to live in a castle and dress up in medieval clothes (where did they find all those outfits?!) and act as if modern times had never existed.  Well, that makes no sense.  I know Neil Marshall's original idea was to have a modern day SWAT team take on a bunch of knights.  If that is the case, then he should have made a time travel movie, because that idea doesn't work in this movie. What he needed was some sort of weird hybrid of medieval times and today, a subversive Renaissance Fair gone horribly wrong.  There are a few hints of that here and there - I like that the castle has signs for bathrooms and exits for when it was a tourist attraction in happier times.  But these bits are in the background and if you blink, you'll miss them.  That sort of absurdity should have been a much bigger part of the movie.  That would have been very cool!

So that leaves us with the cannibal punks and the Mad Max-style climax, both of which are a lot of more energetic and entertaining than the rest of the movie.  Some of the credit should go to the punk leader, Sol, played by Craig Conway, who just brings a whole lot of over-the-top energy to the movie.  There is chewing on scenery and then there is engorging on it, and that is what he's doing. But even without Conway, these sequences just move at a crisp pace and are pretty entertaining. They are fun, gory, exciting, stupid shlock.

Does that make me a bad person?  I review movies, damn it!  I'm not supposed to like stuff like this! But I can't help myself.  I was entertained!

BEST LINE:
Sol: If you're hungry, have a piece of your friend.

MVP:
This is an easy one.  I have to go with Rhona Mitra.  As much as I enjoyed Craig Conway, this is Mitra's movie.  Sure, I poked fun at her character being a Snake Plisskin ripoff, but that's certainly not her fault.  When so many movies today feature action heroes, both men and women, who are too pretty to be believable, it is a relief to find someone I completely believe as a badass.   She is an easy MVP for me.  It doesn't hurt that she is scorching hot.  I would not give anyone a MVP award for that reason alone, but it certainly doesn't count against her, either!

TRIVIA: 
In an ode to the films that inspired Doomsday, two of the DDC soldiers are named Miller and Carpenter, after George Miller who directed Mad Max and John Carpenter who directed Escape from New York.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

In 1998, director Shekhar Kapur released Elizabeth, a depiction of the early years of England's Queen Elizabeth I.  The film was a critical darling, was nominated for seven Oscars, and made a star out of Cate Blanchett.  With so much good historical material at their disposal, I'm not sure why it took so long to make a sequel, but finally in 2007, Elizabeth: The Golden Age was released. 

Unfortunately, this time around, it's a bit of a whiff.  Oh, the movie isn't all bad.  It looks terrific, with superb costume and set design.  And once again, Kapur assembles a stellar cast of pros, including returning stars Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush, and newcomers Clive Owen (The International), Abbie Cornish (Sucker Punch), Rhys Ifans (The Replacements), Eddie Redmayne (Les Miserables), and Samantha Morton (Minority Report).  But the biggest plus is that source material/storyline is even more compelling than in the first movie.  We're dealing with the increasingly deteriorating relations with Spain, which will lead to war and the battle with the Spanish Armada, one of the most famous sea battles in history.  Meawhile, Elizabeth, who should be preparing herself for war, is distracted by the weight of being a Queen and the loneliness that entails, and the temptation brought to court by dashing explorer, Sir Walter Raleigh (Owen). 

But the whole thing never really gels together.  The depiction of political intrigue is interesting enough, but nowhere near as cool as it could have been.  And they really missed the ball with Elizabeth's personal problems, despite Blanchett's best efforts.  Her mood swings are just crazy - and instead of acting as an example of a strong monarch buckling under the pressure of being Queen (as was intended), they make her seem like she is schizophrenic.  So that doesn't work so well. 

The much touted battle with the Spanish Armada is also a big disappointment, with much of the battle happening off screen.  I understand they had budget constraints, but you can't tell me that they couldn't have done more with their funds.  Just look at what Game of Thrones did with a limited budget in the Battle of Blackwater episode - definitely the HBO show's Spanish Armada moment that was way cooler and more epic than anything we get in Elizabeth: The Golden Age.  I was also disappointed by the historical revisions in the battle.  I don't need a movie to be 100% historically accurate.  I don't mind changes if they service the story (such as the relationship between Raleigh and Bess, which in real life happened much later).  But the changes to the battle irked me. The English are close to panic and keep referencing English ships being destroyed when in reality, they lost not one ship.  Not one.  The movie makes it seem as if luck or divine intervention alone destroyed the Spanish fleet (and yes, I recognize that the convenient arrival of the storm in real life was a huge stroke of good fortune), but this ignores the fact that the British ships were faster, more agile, and manned by professional crews with more experience in the choppy waters of the English Channel.  English skill did play a big part in the victory, but Elizabeth: the Golden Age mostly ignores that.  Maybe I shouldn't make a big deal of that, but it annoyed me.  And if I were English, I would probably be insulted.

Anyways, just to sum up, Elizabeth: The Golden Age isn't terrible.  With a movie this good looking and a cast this solid, it would be difficult for the film to be truly horrible.  But it is definitely a disappointment and represents a huge missed opportunity.

BEST LINE:

John Dee: The forces that shape the world are greater than all of us, Majesty.  How can I promise that they will conspire in your favor even though you're the Queen?  This much I know.  When the storm breaks, some are dumb with terror and some spread their wings like eagles and soar.

TRIVIA:

To save money, the crew only build one period ship.  One half of the ship was built to resemble a Spanish galleon, the other side was designed to resemble Sir Walter Raleigh's English vessel.  Whenever they needed a wider shot in the scene, the crew used smoke machines to obscure the other half of the ship.

MVP:
This one is easy.  I'm going with the composer Craig Armstrong.  The score was co-written by Armstrong and AR Rahman, who won the Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire.  Overall, the score is a terrific work of art, full of passion and beauty.  The one strike against the composers is their music for the climactic battle with the Spanish Armada.  They seem to have forgotten that fast music doesn't necessarily equal exciting music, and overall it just sounds uninspired and even a bit lazy.  But other than that one disappointing track, the score is the highlight of Elizabeth: The Golden Age.  A track I particularly like is the "Divinity Theme," written by AR Rahman.  This theme is supposed to represent Elizabeth as Queen, and it captures all the power, glory and loneliness that the royal role entails.  So why am I picking Armstrong and not Rahman as my MVP?  Because of "The Storm," the epic track that accompanies the burning of the Spanish Armada.  Armstrong doesn't break out the full power of the choir often, but when he does, such as in Plunkett and MacLeane or Romeo and Juliet, it truly is something special.  "The Storm" lives up to that reputation.  This is one massive, epic track - one that rises above the so so movie that it was written for, and a track that (to follow my line of the movie) truly spreads it winds and soars.  

But maybe its just me...I'm biased when it comes to big choral pieces...

Hey, I found the track on YouTube!  Here it is if you want to listen to it.  You might also recognize this from the official Man of Steel trailer...

Man of Steel

Man of Steel

Poor Warner Brothers.  They had the Batman franchise, but their other super heroes just weren't catching on with the public.  Their attempt to revive Superman in 2006 with Bryan Singer was considered a failure (because it made only $400 million!  Yeesh, how greedy can you get!).  Their attempts at jumpstarting franchises with their other big guns like 2011's Green Lantern fared even worse.  Meanwhile, Marvel was destroying box office records with their second stringers, guys like Thor and Iron Man.  And when The Avengers became one of the biggest blockbusters of all time, DC looked on greedily.  But what were they to do?  Batman had run its course, so they couldn't go to that well again.  Not yet.  No, the choice was clear.  It was time to return to the man who stood for truth, justice and the American way.  It was time to go back to Superman.

I watched on the sidelines as Warners Brothers assembled one of the more eclectic film crews.  First of all, they turned the franchise over to the men who had revitalized Batman, Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, who then in turn brought on Zack Snyder (300) to direct.  The cast included a group of actors I never would have associated with a comic book movie: Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe, and Kevin Costner.  As each new cast member was announced, I grew more intrigued.  And I was very happy when Henry Cavill got the nod to play the Man of Steel himself.  He's an actor I have liked for a long time (despite the atrocity on mankind that was Immortals).

So I was tentatively excited, but I was also worried.  I kept hearing that this was a "new" take on the legendary hero, re-invented to be in the world we live in today.  Being dark and gritty might work for Batman, but not Superman.  Superman is heroic, he's bold, he's big.  He is not darkness.  He is the light.  That's the whole point.  So I was really worried when I saw the dark palate of the film, the grim tones, the darker suit.  I was willing to give the movie a chance, though.

So how did they do?  Not bad, actually.  My worst fears were not realized.  First of all, the re-invented, more "realistic" approach is actually pretty well done.  While they do change some elements from the origin story, they don't go off the reservation.  They stay true to the most important plot points - the planet Krypton explodes, but not before brilliant scientist Jor-El launches his infant son into space...the ship eventually crash lands on Earth and is raised by an All-American family in Kansas, the Kents.  This is where the story diverges a bit.  Nolan and Goyer want to know what it would really be like for an all-powerful alien to grow up in today's America.  In many ways, he would be an outcast.  He doesn't know who he is.  He can't reveal what he can do.  His senses - heat and x-ray vision, super hearing, massive strength - these are all overpowering and he can't control them.  Instead of encouraging him to use his powers someday for good, his adoptive parents actually try to get him to hide his abilities because they think people wouldn't understand.  They would be afraid.  And they're probably right.  So young Superman grows up, wandering around, hiding his powers, trying to find his place in the world.  Lucky for us, he finds it right before the evil Kryptonian General Zod, who also survived the planet's destruction, arrives on Earth, ready to raise some hell!

I have to say that despite some problems, I was enjoying the first half of the film.  Sure, the opening battle sequence is completely unnecessary, and I was really annoyed by the overuse of shaky cam (why do we need shaky cam in dialogue scenes?!?!).  But for the most part, I was rolling with the movie.  A few folks have complained that the Krypton scenes focused too much on science fiction, but that didn't bother me.  In fact, I felt that some of the science fiction elements actually brought the movie more in line with the comics.  I was generally pleased that Zach Snyder avoided his normal stylistic tricks, but kept with a more simple filmmaking approach (despite the shaky cam).  And the movie's biggest asset is its risky but brilliant casting.  Along the board, I was really impressed.  Cavill is a really solid Superman, Shannon is having a ball chewing the scenery as the villain, Lane and Fishburne are great in the limited screen time they have, and Adams fits into Lois Lane's shoes perfectly, and makes her much more intelligent than some of the other Lois Lanes we've known.  And Costner and Crowe are pitch perfect as the fathers: Costner perfectly embodies the American spirit while Crowe manages to gracefully settle into a more Obi wan Kenobi type role.

So I was starting to enjoy the movie...and then the punching began.  And it didn't stop for what seemed like 7 hours.  The climactic battle of the film is one of the most over-the-top, destructive, ridiculous, and monotonous battle sequences I have ever seen.  The effects all look terrific, but when they feature nothing but someone punching someone else through a building over and over and over again, it gets really old.  Look, I appreciate that modern special effects finally give us a chance to see super heroes wail on each other...but when they are actually unable to hurt each other, it gets old.  And by the time I saw the 783rd building collapse, I checked my watch and just thought, please let this battle be over soon.  Please!  But it didn't stop.  It just kept on going on and on.  And with each punch, I cared less and less.

It's kind of a shame because the first battle with the evil Kryptonians in Kansas is actually pretty inventive, with the combatants using their various powers in different ways.  Superman tries to fight off two warriors, clearly better trained than he is, though not as powerful, while simultaneously trying to protect the U.S. military (who are actually attacking all three of them).  It's a fun sequence, and certainly massive enough in scale to be a worthy climax in any other movie.  But we still have an hour to go!

I just wanted someone to stop punching and say a line of dialogue.  Just any line of dialogue would do.

Clearly, as the movie went on, I liked it less and less.  It wasn't just the fighting.  The storyline kind of goes a bit flaky, with weird plotting, and just blah dialogue. It's almost as if the writers got to the halfway point of the movie and said, "whew, we got this far.  The CGI guys can take it from here."

MINOR SPOILERS HERE BELOW.  I also don't like how the battle ends.  I don't want to ruin anything so I will try to be vague, but I don't like the way Superman wins the battle.  The filmmakers go out of their way to justify the move and it makes sense in the context of the film, I suppose, but it also goes against over 80 years of Superman history.  He just wouldn't do that.  And that bothered me.

But what annoyed me most about the ending is that we have a cute little scene at the Daily Planet, with Clark Kent, Perry White, and Lois Lane all going to work and smiling, as if nothing had happened, as if the whole damn city had not just been torn to smithereens.  There was such wanton destructiveness, with over-zealous special effects guys demolishing massive amounts of the city with explosions that easily would have killed tens of thousands of people, and it's as if nothing had happened.  Nothing at all.  Everyone is all smiles.  The movie has zero consequences.  And I actually found that to be irresponsible.  And it pissed me off.  Nolan and Goyer are better than that.

SPOILERS OVER.

Last thing I hated is the complete misguided score by Hans Zimmer.  Though it isn't thematically strong, I enjoyed his Batman scores and understood how his music fit the mood of Nolan's Gotham.  But he is completely out of his element here.  He has a nice, ascending motif which sounds heroic enough but it builds to nothing.  The rest of the score is cheap sounding synth tracks with some dated guitar overlays from the 1990s.  Even if this movie is more grounded and realistic, Superman is still Superman.  And that still requires music that is big and bold.  And I don't want to hear the excuse that no one writes music like that any more.  There are composers who do it well.  Listen to what Giacchino did with Star Trek and John Carter.  Heck, listen to the superb score John Ottman gave Superman Returns.  Zimmer mentioned in interviews that he initially didn't think he was the right man for the job. He should have listened to his own instincts.

Anyways, enough rambling.  So where does this leave me?  Did I like Man of Steel?  Sort of.  There is a lot to like here.  Goyer and Nolan's take on the character is interesting, the casting is superb, and Snyder's direction is confident.  But there is so much that bothers me.  It's really a mixed bag.  And while the movie has been a huge hit, and the studio is already cooking up a sequel, Warner Brothers had better do better the next go-around.  Because if they make another movie as mixed as this one, they will never reach the heights that Marvel has ascended to.

BEST LINE:

Superman: My father believed that if the world found out who I really was, they would reject me out of fear.  He was convinced that the world wasn't ready.  What do you think?

MVP:
Of all the stars in the film, I definitely liked Coster and Crowe the best.  But I'm not picking either of them for my MVP.  Rather, my MVP is going to the one non-star in the bunch, the up-and-coming German actress, Antje Traue, who plays General Zod's second-in-command, Faora-Ul.  She is one tough cookie, full of malevolence without resorting to scenery chewing.  But what impressed me is that she made this much of an impression when she is such an underwritten character.  There is nothing on paper that really sets her apart.  But the fact that the character is so memorable is a testament to Traue's acting.  The second she walks onto the screen, her presence just draws your attention - and that's impressive when she is mostly sharing the screen with seasoned pros like Crowe and Shannon.  She's my clear MVP.  It doesn't hurt that her big fight with Superman in Kansas is easily the highlight battle of the film.


TRIVIA:
Henry Cavill has the worst luck.  He was always directors' second choice.  He was the frontrunner in an earlier Superman reboot, but that project fell through and the studio went with Bryan Singer's Superman Returns instead, with Brandon Routh as the title character.  He was the second choice for James Bond before Eon went with Daniel Craig.  He was the second choice for Twilight's Edward Cullen before the studio chose Robert Pattinson.  And he was also runner-up behind Christian Bale for Batman.  I'm glad a franchise finally came through for him!  

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Star Trek: Into Darkness

I have to give J.J. Abrams credit.  Star Trek was dead.  As much as I liked the Next Generation television show, the films featuring that cast were abysmal by the end.  The franchise, one I grew up with, seemed to be over.  When word of a reboot began to spark up, I wasn't too excited.  I did not want to see a young Kirk and Spock in the Academy.  I thought that was a terrible idea, made worse by the fact that I thought no one would be able to replace William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and the rest of the gang.  I happily admit that I was wrong!  Despite a few silly plotting moments and way too many lens flares, the reboot of Star Trek was a rollicking good time, and I think Abrams deserves credit for that.  But the real miracle was that cast!  He had somehow pulled off the impossible and found a group of young actors who perfectly embodied the iconic characters without resorting to simple impersonations (well, mostly).  The film was a hit, and naturally a sequel was planned.  It took a bit longer than anticipated to get here, but now we have Star Trek: Into Darkness.

Without ruining too much, I will try to describe the plot in a sentence or two.  A mysterious agent named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) stages a series of devastating attacks on Starfleet and Kirk and Company are sent out to kill him.  The planned assassination is against the law, something that irks many on the Enterprise crew, creating a divisive atmosphere on the Enterprise.  It is this morally ambiguous area that I think gives the film its subtitle.  Into Darkness does not refer to the darkness John Harrison brings, but the darkness inside Star Fleet, an organization meant to be morally pure, intellectual, peaceful, and idealist.  But thanks to the catastrophic events of the previous film, Star Fleet is changing its tune, adopting a more warlike and shadowy stance.  It's a nice direction to take the franchise in, providing some nice moral dilemmas for a young Kirk to consider as he still adjusts to command.  That said, it is hardly original, since the franchise already mined this territory superbly in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Overall, Star Trek: Into Darkness is, well...objectively, I have to say it is not bad.  It is probably better than the previous one.  The plot is leaner and more focused, and some of the sillier slapstick instances of comedy have been replaced with more character-driven humor.  Abrams' direction is fine (though he still has too many lens flares) and Michael Giacchino's score is superb.  So why am I so disappointed with the film?  It unfortunately all comes to Benedict Cumberbatch, who is just woefully miscast as John Harrison.  I don't want to ruin anything, so I'll just leave it at that for now.  My Spoiler explanation is below.

I'm not sure what else to say.  There are some plot holes and the ending just goes too over-the-top with references to the previous films, but generally the movie is okay.  I think most people will like it.  I just couldn't get into it.  The casting just nagged me the whole film.  Full disclosure, the casting hasn't really bothered many of my friends so maybe I'm making a big deal about nothing.  But I couldn't get past it.

SPOILER ALERT HERE:

So why did Benedict Cumberbatch bother me so much?  I'll be upfront and say it has nothing to do with his performance which is committed, arrogant, and passionate.  He's a great super human.

But he ain't Khan.  In the original series, Khan was a sikh from northern India.  When I think of a Northern Indian, I do not think of a tall, thin British guy.  And yes, yes, I understand that Ricardo Montalban, the original Khan, is Mexican.  But that was how Hollywood casted projects back then, and he at least tried to evoke the character's heritage with his performance.  And I think most people agree that his Khan is one of the greatest villains in science fiction history.

Friends have told me that this is an alternate universe so maybe in this timeline Khan IS British.  But I counter that by saying that timelines are supposed to be the same until that moment when the planet Vulcan blows up.  So Khan shouldn't change.  He should still be a sikh.

So why cast Cumberbatch?  Maybe they just felt no one can play morally superior as effectively as the Brits.  Or maybe the PC police were slamming on Abrams' office door and demanding that in a movie about terrorism it would be a bad idea to have the bad guy be a foreigner.

...

Either way, Khan is not a tall British guy.  End of story.

I'm not a religious obsessee of Star Trek canon or continuity.  I'm not someone who looks for minut details and pinches a fit if they don't jive with with the continuity of some random episode of Deep Space Nine.  I don't care that much.  But for some reason, this really, really bothers me.  This franchise reboot has been an impressive and worthwhile experiment.  And given that they had already achieved the impossible by finding great replacements for Shatner, Nimoy, and Co., I am surprised they dropped the ball on this one.  For some reason, this casting just nags at me. I think what it comes down to is that they decided to create an all new character and name him "Khan" just so they could pay lip service to fans who wanted to see the infamous villain.

And I think they missed an awesome opportunity, too.  John Harrison could have been one of the other super humans in Khan's group, but not Khan himself.  Think how cool that would have been if at the end of the movie, the good guys finally win, breathe a sigh of relief and say, "wow, that guy was intense.  There is no way there is someone more dangerous and horrible than him out there."  And then we cut to the space pods, and do a slow pan over them all...and then we stop at one pod in particular and see Khan's name written on it.  That would have been a great set up for a sequel, and a great way to bring Khan back to the franchise.  As a sikh.

Anyways, this all may seem like a small detail, but it ruined the movie for me.

Oh, and one more pet peeve.  Why did they need Khan's super blood to save Kirk if they had 72 other super humans onboard the ship?  Just saying...

Anyways...


BEST LINE:

Kirk: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Spock: An Arabic proverb, attributed to a prince who was betrayed and decapitated by his own subjects.

Kirk: Still, it's a hell of a quote.

MVP:
I'm going with Michael Giacchino, who delivered a top notch score.  I think it is better than his first Trek score, which while entertaining became repetitive, relying a bit too heavily on the main theme. With Into Darkness, Giacchino takes the best parts of the first score and expands on them, and adds a whole slew of new and exciting music to the mix.  Well done!

TRIVIA:
This is a neat little bit of trivia.  Benedict Cumberbatch recorded his audition in his best friend's kitchen, using an iphone.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

I am not a big fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  The first one was genuinely entertaining, introducing the world to a new kind of pirate with Captain Jack Sparrow (courtesy of Johnny Depp) and starting a franchise that became increasingly over-the-top and bloated.  The second film was an absolute mess, and the third was only better because it actually had an ending.  And perhaps worst of all, the sequels managed to turn the roguishly fun anti-hero Jack Sparrow into a complete d-bag.  I know other folks still liked his character, but I found him to be unlikeable and annoying.  In fact, by the end of the third movie, the only character I even remotely cared about was Orlando Bloom's Will. 

So now I have finally seen the fourth movie.  The first thing I noticed is that the producers seem to have realized that they went a bit too far with the earlier sequels and have reeled the franchise back in a bit.  But were they successful in making a better movie?  Did they manage to right the ship, so to speak?

Not really.  Though they make a good effort.

On Stranger Tides brings us a new mystical location for everyone to pine over: the Fountain of Youth.   Blackbeard (Ian McShane) wants to find it badly because he senses his death is fast approaching.  He uses his daughter Angelika (Penelope Cruz) to enlist the one man who may know where the Fountain is - a former lover, none other than Jack Sparrow.  But Blackbeard and Sparrow are not the only players in the game.  The Spanish want to find the Fountain, too.  And Sparrow's old nemesis, Captain Barbosa (a scenery-chewing Geoffrey Rush) is also on the hunt, though his ultimate target is a bit different.  There is also a random missionary, Philip (Sam Claflin), who seems to be in the film for no other reason than to be a stud-muffin for the mermaids to fall in love with.

Mermaids, you say?  Aye, there be mermaids.  In order to find the Fountain of Youth, the pirates need to capture a mermaid, and that mermaid "fishing" scene is probably one of the best sequences of the film, starting off full of eerie atmosphere and genuine tension.  It is a certainly a far more exciting scene than the ridiculous climax, which is a chaotic set piece where all of our moving parts finally come together in a way that makes no sense...

There are other parts of the film that I do like.  Director Rob Marshall (Chicago) has a good eye for art direction and he also keeps the film moving along at a nice clip.  The cast is pretty solid, though Ian McShane's Blackbeard and Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow are the real stars of the show.  In some ways, the reclamation of Jack Sparrow is the best part of the movie.  They made him the loveable rogue that he was in the original, and that was great to see.   He is just a helluva lot of fun. 

And I do appreciate that they toned back from the massive special effects behemoth to an adventure that is a bit smaller in scale.  But there are just too many problems with the film that kept me from liking it.  The plot never really makes sense, plot threads are left dangling (so what happens to Philip at the end?!), and certain character moments don't make any sense. 

I suppose most of my issues are pet peeves.  The biggest problem with the movie isn't something specific.  It's just that the movie is kind of blah.  It's just kind of there.  It's not terrible.  For me, it was worth watching because of Depp, McShane, and the mermaids.  But everything else is just kind of blah.  You can skip it.

BEST LINE:
Blackbeard (to Philip): Oh, you now?  This is a chance to the show the worth of your prayers.  Pray he be delivered froommmm...evil?

MVP:
Ian McShane is the clear winner here.  This is just a fun performance.  McShane is smart.  He knows that the best villains are not over the top, and his Blackbeard is generally low key.  He is evil.  He's a bad, bad man, and he knows it.  He doesn't need to show it off.  Some villains in movies seem so insecure in their villainy that it seems they are overcompensating with crazy, over-the-top acting (this was especially true in the 80s).  But Blackbeard doesn't need to show off his villainy.  He's so confidant that he seems almost bored by it.  And I don't think the character was written that way.  I think it was a choice that McShane made.  And it is a really good one.  McShane gets my MVP.

TRIVIA:
Penelope Cruz was pregnant during the production period.  As filming continued, that baby bump started to become really difficult to hide.  But luckily Penelope has a sister, Monica.  The producers decided to be sneaky and use Penelope for all the closeups and Monica for all the wide shots.  I actually didn't notice, and I went back and looked.  They must really look a lot alike!

Total Recall (2012)

Total Recall

Unlike a lot of people, I have nothing against remakes, in principle.  There are a lot of classic films that are remakes - Ben Hur, Maltese Falcon, Magnificent Seven, Fistful of Dollars...I could go on.  But I am going to say right off the bat that the new Total Recall is most definitely not on this list...or even close to being on this list...I don't necessarily think it was a bad idea to remake the film, even though the Schwarzenegger Total Recall is a classic (click here to read my review of the original!).  It's a neat story, and I would be open to seeing another interpretation of it.  But 2012's Total Recall just doesn't work.  It's just bland and blah and no fun at all.

Doug Quaid (Colin Farrell) is a factory worker in the future who is bored with his life.  Even his super hot wife, Lori (played by the super hot Kate Beckinsale) can't shake him out of his funk.  It doesn't help that he isn't sleeping well.  He keeps having crazy action movie dreams where he is trying to escape with his girlfriend Melinda (Jessica Biel).  Looking for a little excitement in his life, Doug goes to Rekall, a vacation memory business.  Can't afford to really visit the rings of Saturn?  Rekall will implant the memory for you for a fraction of the cost!  You can even buy a specialty package where you can be someone else for a short time...even someone like a secret agent!  Doug thinks that sounds like a fun vacation so picks the secret agent package.  But something goes wrong during the operation.  While implanting the memory, Rekall discovers that someone has already tampered with Quaid's mind.  He might actually be a secret agent.  Suddenly guards burst into the facility, a massive gun battle starts up, and the wild ride begins!

This is a fun science fiction concept merged with Alfred Hitchcock's "wrong man" conceit (as much as many love original Total Recall for its science fiction qualities, I happen to love it because I think it is Hitchcock on crack!).  But what follows is generally a bland movie.  There's not a lot I can point to that is necessarily bad about it.  The actors are fine, the action scenes are fine, and the special effects are fine.  Everything is just kind of fine...but nothing stands out as really cool or different or interesting.  The exception is the technology used in the film.  A lot of thought went into creating some cool science fiction concepts, such as The Drop, a giant metro train that descends through the Earth, traveling back and forth between England and Australia, which is called the Colony (for fans of the original, Australia replaces Mars).  Of course, when The Drop hits the Earth's core, gravity flips, and everyone not strapped down kinda of floats around for a bit.  When you think about it, does The Drop make a lick of sense?  Not really, but I don't care.  It's a nifty little idea.

But other than the technology, Total Recall really has nothing going for it.  I think the biggest problem is they missed the whole point! The riddle of Total Recall is that the audience is not supposed to be sure if the story is real...maybe this whole adventure is just the vacation package that Doug Quaid purchased at Rekall!  The new Total Recall kind of ignores this whole idea, despite a few obligatory throw away moments, scenes that I think are supposed to confuse the audience about what is reality, but are conceived in such a half ass way that no one could possibly believe them.  And besides, this whole adventure is just exhausting!  Doug Quaid leaps from firefight to firefight, falling off buildings, getting into car accidents...if this is his vacation package, then it is the WORST vacation ever.  I would demand my money back.  In the original film, Quaid actually goes on an adventure...despite his injuries, despite the number of times he almost dies, the whole plot is a roller coaster ride.  It's fun!  And I could easily see the original film as being a Rekall vacation package, leaving doubts in the audiences' minds even as the end credits roll.  It's pretty remarkable.  But there is nothing remarkable about the remake...it's dour, way too serious, and bleak.  And despite it's title, it definitely is not Total Recall.

MVP:
I have to go with the technology again!  There are just a lot of neat futuristic ideas in this movie.  From phones implanted in people's hands to the crowded apartment complexes in The Colony to The Drop that I mentioned above, this movie just has a lot of fun art designing the future.  Technology is easily the most interesting thing in the film, and an easy MVP!

BEST LINE:

Doug: If I'm not me, who the hell am I?

Lori: How would I know?  I just work here.

Doug: Speculate.

Lori: If I had to guess, all the trouble Cohaagan's taken to hide you from the Resistance, you must be fairly important.  And with your skill set, I think it's highly doubtful you're his gardener.


TRIVIA:
The one-shot fight scene was indeed shot in one take, and was performed by Colin Farrell himself instead of a stunt man.  It took 22 tries to get the scene right. 

Five Million Years to Earth (or Quatermass and the Pit)

Five Million Years to Earth
And it finally ends...long, long ago, TCM had a marathon to celebrate Hammer Films, the studio that dominated the horror genre in the late 1950s and 1960s.  I used my DVR to pretty much record every single film in the marathon and planned on reviewing all of them.  Embarrassingly, it took two years to get through them all (in my defense, I had lots of movies I wanted to review in between!!).  And now I am finished, at last!  I am not saying I won't review more Hammer movies.  I would love to!  But Five Million Years to Earth is the final film in that initial marathon.  And I am happy to say that I saved a winner for the end! 

While doing construction in London's Hobb' End Tube Station, workers find something metallic and huge.  They think it is a Nazi bomb leftover from World War II and immediately call in the military.  But something is a bit weird about this metallic structure and the army brings in brilliant scientist Bernard Quatermass (Bernard Lee, Dracula: Prince of Darkness) to investigate.  Alongside fellow researchers Dr. Roney (James Donald, The Great Escape) and Barbara Judd (Barbara Shelley, also from Dracula: Prince of Darkness), Quatermass tries to get to the bottom of the mystery.  Pretty quickly they learn that the structure is a space ship...and that is seems to carry some sort of demonic power that could endanger the entire country.  Oh, crap! 

Let's just get the bad out of the way first.  Five Million Years to Earth is pretty good, but there are a few problems.  I know I shouldn't dock points for special effects in a film made in 1967, but the aliens just look too silly.  Look at the picture above.  The aliens look like plastic!  I just couldn't get past that!  I also had a problem with the way the military was handled in the film, as represented by the stubborn Colonel Breen (Julian Glover, For Your Eyes Only).  Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, Breen keeps insisting that the ship is a German bomb.  After the 43rd time he tells Quatermass to shut his trap and go away, you just start to get annoyed. 

Okay, that's the bad.  What about the good?  Well, that is actually the rest of the film.  This is smart science fiction, with some good ideas and with something to say.  In fact, some of the messages seem to be remarkably similar to Prometheus except they seem to be better thought out and...well, make sense.  Much of the film is spent following Quatermass and Barbara as they investigate the strange happenings around Hobb's End, and some of it is pretty creepy.  Some people might find all this talking and thinking to be dull, but I found it all very interesting.  I really wasn't sure where this movie was going to go.  And eventually there is a big, exciting climax.  You just have to be patient and wait for it!

The acting is also quite good.  James Donald, Andrew Keir and Barbara Shelley have a sophisticated, adult chemistry, and genuinely seem to enjoy each other's company.  Julian Glover is quite good, even if I didn't like his character.  And I have to say that Glover looks almost exactly the same here, in 1967, as he did in 2004's Troy, which is pretty damn impressive. 

Anyways, Five Millions Years to Earth isn't perfect, but it is smart and clever science fiction, and probably the best of Hammer's non-horror films.  I would definitely recommend it!

MVP:
I'm going to have to go with Barbara Shelley, who also won my MVP for Dracula: Prince of Darkness.  Known as the First Lady of British Horror, she really was more than just your average scream queen.  No matter what is happening on screen, she is just completely believable.  And she really telegraphs fear incredibly well, better than most actors, I think.  Her fear just seems real.  I think it is because she doesn't overdo it, and does most of the acting with her eyes.  But to be honest, the real reason she wins the MVP is because she makes such an impact despite that fact that her hair is the most dated thing in the film and does its best to distract the audience!


BEST LINE:
Sladden is a worker with a super powerful drill.  Along with Breen, he prepares to drill into the interior of the ship. 

Sladden: I reckon this little beauty will cut through anything.  Cut steel armor plate six inches thick, just like that.  Oh, it was legal!  Some bloke got stuck in a storeroom.  But I got him out.  It was a secret job, like this one.

Colonel Breen: Then I'm glad you don't talk about it.

TRIVIA:

At the Hobb's End Underground Station, there are numerous posters of other Hammer Films on the walls, including Dracula: Prince of Darkness and The Reptile.

Stranglers of Bombay

Strangers of Bombay

As everyone knows, I am a fan of Hammer Films, the British studio that specialized in horror films in the late 1950s and 1960s.  The studio was smart enough to know it couldn't depend on terrorizing audiences and tried to expand their filmography with science fiction, pirate movies, and other types of adventures.  Stranglers of Bombay certainly falls into this category, despite a promotional campaign that really plays up the more horrific aspects of the story.  What Stranglers of Bombay really wants to be is the next Gunga Din.

Gunga Din it is not.  I suppose it isn't fair to compare the film to that 1939 classic, but even taken on its own merits, Stranglers of Bombay just falls short.  There are just too many ridiculous things. There are elements of a neat film here, though, and these moments prevent the film from being a complete wash.  Even its basic storyline is pretty interesting.  Loosely based on true events when India was part of the British Empire, Stranglers of Bombay recounts the rise of the brutal Thuggee cult, vicious followers of Kali who preferred to strangle their victims.  If this all sounds vaguely familiar, it is because the Thuggees are also the villains in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

After an alarming number of missing and/or murdered person cases crop up, dashing British Captain Harry Lewis starts to investigate.  He knows something dark is happening, something that could threaten not only his life, but the lives of the whole British garrison and the innocent Indian population.  He has to get to the bottom of the mystery, despite the obstinate objections of his superior officers.  And that plot point is one of the first major problems with the film.  Despite a vast amount of evidence to the contrary, the British generals just refuse to listen to Lewis.  I know there is supposed to be suspension of disbelief with movies, but they push it a bit too far.  I was also bothered by the way Indians were treated in the film.  I guess the film was made in the 1950s and I shouldn't judge the film by today's standards, but all the Indians are either craven villains or defenseless and helpless innocents who need the British to save them.  It was hard to get past that, too.

And this is also the type of film that features characters doing stupid things after stupid things. Here's an example (with a SPOILER ALERT!).  At one point, Lewis sneaks into the jungle and finds the Thuggee camp.  Instead of going back for reinforcements, he sneaks even closer and of course he gets caught because a small shrubbery is not a very good hiding place.  He is dragged into the temple and chained to the floor before the altar, a sacrificial victim of the Thuggee's poisonous pet snake.  Lucky for Lewis, he has his servant's pet mongoose with him and the mongoose kills the snake.  A superstitious lot, the Thuggees let him go home.  First of all, this is kind of silly.  Lewis found their secret headquarters and they are just going to let him go???  And when Lewis gets home, does he go to his superiors and report that he found the Thuggees so they can go back and deliver justice?  Nope. Instead, guess what he does!  He sneaks back to the Thugee camp again - alone!  And hides behind another small shrubbery and of course gets caught again!!! Really, the characters just make some jaw droppingly dumb decisions.

And it's a shame because there is some cool stuff going on in here.  Guy Rolfe is an entertaining lead, and I wish they gave him better stuff to do.   And the villains are actually pretty neat, each with an interesting backstory and character motivation.  There is a neat scene where the Thuggee leader excuses himself after ordering someone's execution.  In the background, we hear the struggle and the strangulation, but we don't see it.  Instead we are watching the leader's sweaty and anxious face, growing increasingly agitated as the sounds of the struggle grow louder.  It's an interesting decision.  Is he squeamish about death?  Or is he growing horrified about what he is becoming?  It's an intriguing question, and I wish there had been more moments like that in the film.

Anyway, that's Stranglers of Bombay.  If these were the types of non-horror films Hammer was making, then I can see why they doubled down and focused on their horror output as the 1960s wore on.  Skip it!

MVP: 
I know I am about to sound like a hypocrite, but I am going to give the MVP to Guy Rolfe.  Despite the fact that the character does so many stupid things, Rolfe valiantly strives to save the character.  That Lewis is likeable at all has more to do with Rolfe than anything the character does.  It's not an easy MVP win, but I think he earned it.

TRIVIA:
The word "thug" comes from "Thuggee."  The meaning of the word has of course changed over the last century, but it is still a cool bit of trivia!

BEST LINE:

This exchange wins more because of a terrific site gag...now whether it was intentional or not, who knows?!

Lewis: This is a hanging, isn't it?

Guard: I beg your pardon?

Lewis: You ever see such happy people?

Guard: I think we all enjoy it a bit, sir.  That's why we're here.

Lewis: What about the prisoner?  Does he normally enjoy it a bit, too?  Look at him!

Cut to the prisoner, with the biggest, goofiest grin on his face.  I'm sorry, but it made me laugh!

Captain from Castile

Captain from Castile

My interest in Captain from Castile has a bit of a backstory.  In college, I met an administrator named Ray Tuttle, who introduced me to the finer points of soundtracks.  I liked film music before that, but didn't really get it.  I just knew that Terminator and Conan sounded cool. Among many other terrific scores, Ray introduced me to an Alfred Newman CD produced by Charles Gerhardt.  For those who don't know, Newman is one of the most important musical voices in film history.  Everyone knows his work, even if they don't realize it - it is Newman's music that accompanies the logo before every 20th Century Fox movie.  The Newman CD was pretty good, but there was one track that just captured me - a brilliant march from Captain from Castile.  I had never heard of this movie, but my imagination was inflamed.  It surely must be one of the great epics of all time.  I asked my dad about it and while he quickly tempered my unrealistic expectations, I could still tell he remembered the film fondly...it was based on a popular book that he quite liked, but the book was so long that they were only able to film the first half.  For a decade, I kept my eyes peeled for the movie, but no luck...and that music just kept getting stuck in my head...it wouldn't go away!  And finally one day Captain from Castile showed up on TCM and I immediately set the DVR.

Captain from Castile tells the story of Pedro de Vargas (Tyrone Power), who after being betrayed and condemned by the Inquisition, escapes Spain to join in Hernan Cortez' conquest of Mexico.  Accompanied by his best friend Juan Garcia (Lee J. Cobb) and peasant girl/love interest Catana (Jean Peters), Pedro leaps from adventure to adventure...but to be honest, in only a moderately interesting way.  It's not that Captain from Castile is bad.  It's certainly pleasant enough to watch, but it never really lifts off as it should.  The movie mostly seems to be a series of smaller stories strung together against the backdrop of Cortez's march through Mexico, so it is never able to build tension or momentum or even establish any sort of rhythm. This might be because the best parts of the book are in the second half, which they never got a chance to film.  Who knows...

But there really is a lot to like in this film.  First off, I found the political stance towards the conquest of Mexico to be really intriguing.  The film was made in the 1940s, so there is definitely some racism running across the film, and they certainly do play up the audacious heroism of the Spanish army.  But at the same time, the film makes it very clear that the Spaniards are only interested in gold...whether they are heroic or not, they're basically just an army of thieves, and the poor Aztecs just want them to go away.  Depending on what history books you read, the real Hernan Cortez was either a heroic conquistador or a monster...and this movie tries to tiptoe the line and show how he could have maybe been both...and I found that to be fascinating.

I also thought that the acting was fairly solid.  Cortez is probably the best role Cesar Romero ever had (even though he was certainly entertaining as The Joker in the Batman TV show).  He is greedy, generous, ruggedly charming, and unreasonably vicious all in one, and Romero is having a grand time with the role.  Lee J. Cobb and Jean Peters are solid as the best friend and love interest, respectively.  And Tyrone Power...well, I don't know him very well as an actor.  I knew he was enormously popular, and I don't quite understand why.  For the most part, he is fine, but he doesn't seem to be anything special...I've heard he could be a superb actor, but maybe he is being held back here by having to play the stereotypical heroic lead.  There are moments, though, when I do glimpse something special in his performance.  SPOILER HERE: When the Inquisition kills Pedro's sister, and a defenseless Pedro stands before the man responsible, most actors in similar situations - even the good ones - would do one of two things, they would scream and swear vengeance in an epic display of righteous fury (hello, Charlton Heston in Ben Hur!) or they would forcibly hold themselves back, ready for strike if only they could...their jaws clenched, and with eyes narrowed, they quietly swear they will have their revenge (like Russell Crowe in Gladiator).  There is nothing wrong with these approaches.  When acted well, these moments can be awesome.  But Power did something I had never seen before.  He just stared.  He didn't react.  He just coldly stared while our one dimensional villain metaphorically twirled his moustache.  As the scene continues, Power never does anything else.  He doesn't blink, he doesn't speak, he barely even seems to be breathing.  He just...stares.  Coldly.  Simply.  He doesn't need to swear revenge.  Because he is so sure he is going to kill this guy, that he doesn't need to.  It's just a fact.  And it is absolutely chilling.  It's a subtle and sublime moment of acting, and nothing else in the movie equals it.  Okay, SPOILER OVER.

All in all, Captain from Castile is an entertaining movie.  It just sort of ends without an ending, but again that is because they only filmed the first half of the book.  So I guess some allowances need to be made.  If you like old Hollywood epics or like Mexican history, I would suggest you check it out.  Everyone else can probably skip it...

...unless you too have been seduced by Alfred Newman's music...in which case, you will have no choice but to see it because it will gnaw on your brain until you do!!!!

MVP:
Is there any doubt?!  For the most part, the music in the film is fine but not special...it's fairly typical 1940s Hollywood fare.  Then the love theme makes an appearance, and it is an absolutely stunner.  And then the Conquest theme kicks in at the end of the film...and it is just as thrilling and brilliant as when I first heard it on Ray Tuttle's Newman collection.  This Conquest theme was so terrific that it is still played today by the University of Southern California's sports teams before games (Newman actually donated the music to the school, which is pretty cool).  It's one helluva piece of music...and it is probably going to keep marching away in my head for the rest of my life!

BEST LINE: 

Coatl: I think I speak to you now.  Maybe I understand better why you come here.  This is my country, senior.  These are my people, my gods.  We not come to tell you to stop loving your gods.  We not come to make you slaves.  Why you do this?

Pedro: Well, I'm afraid I don't have an answer for that.  It isn't right for men to worship idols.  There's only one true God.

Coatl: Maybe your God and my God same God.  Maybe we just call him by different names.

TRIVIA: 
This bit of trivia is awesome.  Throughout most of the film, you can see weird, dark billowing clouds in the distance...if you don't know to look, you might miss them, but once you notice, you can't see anything else.  What the heck kind of clouds are those?  Volcano clouds!!!  A volcano was erupting while they were filming the movie, shooting smoke and ashes all over the sky...it seems dangerous to me, but they kept right on filming the movie.  In fact, in the last shot, you can see the actual volcano itself in the distance, a column of smoke rising from its peak.  Check it out!