Star Trek the Motion Picture

I had a lot of fun reviewing the James Bond series, and I've been thinking about tackling another franchise for awhile.  I just wasn't sure which one.  And then I had a chance to see the 40th anniversary of Star Trek: The Motion Picture on the big screen and I thought, why not Star Trek?  It would be fun to watch all these movies again, especially the original cast films that I grew up with. But then I thought more about it and I realized I would have to suffer through Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek: Nemesis again, and I really started to have second thoughts.   I know that makes me hypocritical. I've been talking a lot lately about giving movies a second chance - especially films in beloved franchises, where there are often certain expectations going in that will effect your enjoyment, and that's not really fair.  I am older and hopefully wiser now, and maybe it would be worth watching these films with fresh eyes.

But then again, well, Star Trek V: The Final Fronter and Star Trek: Nemesis.

So that's to say that I am skipping reviewing the whole franchise for now.  Someday I may muster up the courage, but I don't think I have it in me at the moment.  But I do want to spend the time on Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  

First, let's just do a quick summary of the plot.  There is an alien presence called V'Ger which is rapidly moving towards Earth, leaving a wake of destruction in its path.  There is only one available starship in between V'Ger and its target, and that is the Enterprise, which is under the command of a new captain, William Decker.  But this mission is too critical to be left in the hands of a rookie, and Starfleet sends Admiral James T. Kirk to assume command and find a way to stop V'Ger's relentless advance.

So that's the plot.  Now, let's go back to where this film came from.

In 1977, the world changed.  A little movie called Star Wars came out and changed the landscape of cinema forever.  Suddenly, every studio wanted to have its own space adventure - including Paramount.  Paramount was in a lucky position.  It already had its own popular science fiction property and one with a built-in fanbase.  Weirdly enough, Star Trek had not been particularly successful when it was broadcast in the 1960s.  Ratings were always a challenge and the show was canceled after three seasons.  Fans who watched the show were extremely vocal, even launching a letter writing campaign to save the series, but to no avail.  Star Trek was gone...until syndication saved it.  Throughout the 1970s, the show became more and more popular, and its fanbase grew larger and louder, and even started organizing conventions.  Paramount started thinking of ways to cash in and revive the series.  There was a short-lived animated series and then some failed attempts to get a movie off the ground in the 1970s.  This project would have included work from Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff) and Ken Adams (the brilliant James Bond production designer), so that's a tantalizing what if!  Sadly, these efforts came to nothing.  Finally the studio began working on a new show called Star Trek: Phase II, featuring Stephen Collins (7th Heaven) as new captain William Decker and Persis Khambatta (Megaforce) as his love interest Ilia.

And then Star Wars was released and was a huge hit.  When Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released, that sealed the deal.  Audiences wanted science fiction, and Paramount was going to deliver.    Immediately, Star Trek: Phase II the series was canceled and the story of its pilot episode was expanded to become the plot of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  William Decker and Ilia were still featured characters in the film, but the studio knew there would be a fan revolt if they didn't bring back the beloved original crew from the series.  There was some resistance, but they eventually got Kirk and Company back in the saddle.  For a director, while they considered young hot shots like Francis Ford Coppola, the studio decided on the reliable and Oscar-winning Robert Wise (The Sound of Music, The Day the Earth Stood Still).  The production was not an easy one.  The script wasn't finished when filming started and was constantly changing throughout production.  The writer Robert Livingstone and Star Trek's creator Gene Roddenerry continuously argued, with both working on script pages hours before scenes were to be shot.  The editing was rushed, and the day of the premiere, Robert Wise had to run the film straight from the edit studio to the movie theater.  When the film ended, many in the audience felt deflated.  Reviews were mixed.  The film's pacing was so sluggish that critics jokingly called the film Star Trek: The Motionless Picture.  There is no denying that the movie was a big hit, making over $80 million.  But the film cost  $46 million to produce (making it the most expensive film ever made at that time) and the studio probably spent just as much on marketing, so the film was considered a disappointment.  Even today, it seems most people write off the film as boring and kind of silly, and definitely inferior to its immediate sequel, Wrath of Khan.

Well, that's not necessarily fair.  Wrath of Khan is the best that Star Trek has to offer.  It's a science fiction classic that every subsequent film in the franchise has aspired (and failed) to equal.

So does Star Trek: The Motion Picture deserve the hate?  Look, I am not going to lie.  It is not a great movie.  There are some major problems with it.  The movie is indeed sluggish and incredibly slow.  There are endless minutes of the crew just staring out into space.  And while the superb special effects by Douglas Trumbull and the tremendous musical score from Jerry Goldsmith help alleviate the problem, there is only so much they can do.  We don't need 6 whole minutes of Admiral Kirk staring at the Enterprise lovingly before he boards.  I'll talk more about that scene later, but 6 minutes is lot of screen time of him just staring at a ship.  The film does its best to integrate Decker and Ilia, but their presence is still...well, I don't want to say they are pointless because both are absolutely integral to the plot.  But we don't care about them.  We care about the original crew.  And every minute we spend with Decker and Ilia is another minute we wish we were with Kirk and Spock, making the film feel even longer.

Conceptually, it is a bit of an odd duck.  The studio wanted to have their own Star Wars, but instead seemed looked to 2001: A Space Odyssey for inspiration.  Which in of itself is not a bad thing.  Star Trek is best when it is about ideas.  But you better know what you are doing, because not every filmmaker is Stanley Kubrick.  And you better give your director time to properly tell that story because its not something you can rush.  There are parts of the film that just seem kind of sloppy.  It feels incomplete, with scattershot pacing and an anticlimactic ending.  It feels like a rough cut in many places, and I know Robert Wise always felt he didn't have the time to really finish the film the way he wanted.  In fact, in the 1990s, when director's cuts were all the rage, he was given a big bag of money to go back and finish the film the way he originally intended.  I will say this director's cut is an improvement. The pacing is better and everything is much more polished and complete, but it isn't a game changer.  Many of the problems still exist and this new version wasn't going to change anyone's opinion of the film.

And can I take a second to complain about the costumes?  From the ghastly brown onesies to whatever the hell William Shatner is wearing in this picture, the costumes are just a nightmare.

I don't want to come down too hard on costume designer Bob Fletcher.  He was a great designer who is also responsible for the incredibly cool red costumes that the original crew wore in their other films.  But for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, it is almost as if Robert Wise told him, "This movie is going to be monotonous and dull.  Can you make costumes to match that?"  In which case, Fletcher succeeded spectacularly!

So that is a lot to not like about Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  I completely understand why people don't like this film.  But at the end of the day, I DO like it.  That might be a bit surprising after everything I just wrote, but I genuinely think Star Trek: The Motion Picture deserves the rewatch. It's not great, but it is far from the worst of the franchise.  In fact, I would say it's actually probably better than half of them.

The film is stunning to look at.  As I mentioned before, the film features some beautiful special effects work by Douglas Trumbull (2001: A Space Odyssey, Bladerunner).  Some of the model work is truly amazing, especially when the Enterprise is exploring V'Ger.  And the score by Jerry Goldsmith is truly fantastic.  This is easily one of his most brilliant and complex scores.  With Trumbull and Goldsmith firing on all cylinders, its no wonder that Robert Wise thought audiences would sit still during the endless space watching sequences.  As I mentioned before, near the beginning of the film, Kirk takes a small shuttle to the Enterprise in dry dock.  We see the ship as Kirk sees it - little by little, getting larger and larger as the shuttle gets closer, until finally the full iconic ship fills the frame, accompanied by the booming orchestra.  The music is lush and beautiful like a love theme.  And honestly, it is a love theme.  This is James Kirk returning to the love of his life, The Enterprise.  And it is a great sequence...for about 4 minutes.  Unfortunately, the scene is 6 minutes long. But Goldsmith and Trumbull really do come close to pulling it off!

I also like the fact that the film is not just a space adventure.  As I said, Star Trek is best when it is about ideas.  And I really admire a film whose villain just wants to know what its next stage of evolution is supposed to be.  It is asking questions about existence and humanity.  That's interesting and worthy of discussion.

And when it comes down to it, it's just hard to not like that original crew.  Shatner, Nimoy, Nichols, Kelley, Koenig, Takei, Doohan...this group has such an easy and terrific chemistry that I just like watching them go on adventures together.  They are innately watchable.  Yes, nostalgia might be playing a part in me saying that, but not as much as you might think.  Take the reboot Star Trek, for example.  That is a better film and that cast of actors is really great, but their chemistry pales in comparison to the original crew.  They had already been working together for years, and that familiarity is what makes this original crew the best.

So that is my defense of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  I know I said I lot of negative things about the movie.  And I stand by my opinion of those flaws.  But what I am trying to say is that while I acknowledge all of those problems, I still kind of dig this movie.  I think Star Trek: The Motion Picture deserves to be reconsidered.  It's smarter, deeper and more beautiful than you might be giving it credit for.


MVP:

There are only two real contenders for the MVP.  The first is Douglas Trumbull, the special effects mastermind, whose work here is really astonishing in places.  The second is Jerry Goldsmith, whose iconic music has gone down in history.  For long stretches of music, the movie abandons dialogue and completely leans on the work of these two to carry the film - especially in the lengthy V'Ger flyover sequence, which is about 412 minutes long.  But I was never bored, though I should have been, and that is a testament to the work of Trumbull and Goldsmith.  As a film score buff, I'm going to give the MVP to Goldsmith.  I think without him, the film falls flat.  It would still be pretty looking, but it would also truly be the "Motionless Picture" that the critics joked about.  He gives the film its life, he gives Starfleet its heroism, Kirk his one true love and V'Ger the sound of the unknowable "other."  With the exception of Star Wars, this is probably the greatest science fiction score ever written.  And the fact that it did not win the Academy Award (losing to a charming, but slight A Little Romance) is one of the craziest Oscar snubs of all time.

BEST LINE:

Spock: "V'Ger must evolve.  Its knowledge has reached the limits of this universe and it must evolve. What it requires of its god, doctor, is an answer to its question, "Is there nothing more?" 

TRIVIA: 

Star Trek: The Motion Picture has a number of fascinating tidbits of trivia.  As I mentioned, the film was such a mad dash to the finish line that a number of crazy things happened on the set.  One rumor is that the V'Ger model was so big that they were filming one side of the structure while the effects team was frantically trying to finish building the other side!  But I think my trivia is going to focus on the languages spoken in the film, especially Klingon.  The Klingon language was created by linguist Mark Okrand, who even released a dictionary in the 1980s, a bestseller that contributed to Klingon becoming the most widely fictional language spoke around the world.  But Okrand wasn't starting completely from scratch.  The first time audiences heard the guttural, menacing language of the villainous Klingons was Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  It was just a few words ("Wly cha! HaSta! cha ylghuS! 'eH...baH!" meaning "Tactical!  Visual!  Stand by on the torpedoes!  Ready...Fire!"), but it was enough to set the tone and the feel of the language, and provided fertile ground for Okrand to build the language from.  And those first words were written by none other than Scotty himself, James Doohan!  To top it off, he also wrote the Vulcan dialogue that was used when Spock was talking to the priests.  That is a fun bit of trivia!

Maltese Falcon

I have had a lot of fun revisiting old classics lately.  In my most recent review of Double Indemnity, I talked a lot about not apologizing if you don't like a "classic" film.  I know a lot of people who don't like Citizen Kane, for example, but they always feel the need to apologize for that.  I've been guilty of doing this myself - with Double Indemnity, in fact.  I would say things like, "I respect it, but I don't like it."  But there was another important point in that review.  Sometimes you have to give something a second chance. I saw Double Indemnity again and loved it. And in a weird sort of way, the world opened up to me.  What other classic movies did I not like?  What other iconic films should I give another chance to?  Which films did I feel most "guilty" about not liking?

The Maltese Falcon is a beloved film, and an incredibly important movie in cinema history.  In high school, I enthusiastically watched it and remembered being bored to tears.  But this film is so highly and universally accepted that I almost felt bad for not liking it.  The film was a great success, earning three Academy Award nominations in a very competitive year (including Best Picture), and has an 8.0 on IMDB, a 96% on Metacritic, and a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. These are some strong stats.  If there was a ever a film I would change my mind about, odds were this was going to be the one!

And my opinion did change.  Just not as much as I had hoped.  But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Private detective Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart, Casablanca) and his partner Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan, Miracle on 34th Street) are hired by a new client named Ruth Wonderly (Mary Astor, The Great Lie) to find her missing sister.  The only clue is that the sister has thrown in with a violent man named Floyd Thursby.  The duo take the case, and Archer agrees to tail Thursby that night to see if he might lead them to Wonderly's sister.  Before the night is over, Archer and Thursby are both murdered, Wonderly has disappeared, and Sam Spade is looking like the most likely suspect.  But things get even more complicated real quick.  A trio of mysterious and dangerous men show up, Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre, Casablanca), Kasper Gutman (Sidney Greenstreet, also Casablanca) and Wilmer (Elisha Cook, Jr., not Casablanca, but The Big Sleep).  These three are looking for a priceless relic called The Maltese Falcon and are willing to do anything to get it.  They think Sam Spade might have a clue to its whereabouts.  At the same time, Ruth Wonderly reappears and also reintroduces herself as Brigid O'Shaughnessy.  She admits to using a fake name and had been hoping to use Spade and Archer to help find the falcon for herself.  She still wants it, but is afraid for her life after Archer and Thursby's murders.

Without a doubt, I can say I liked the film much more than I used to.  That's a fact.  There is a lot of great stuff in here.  First of all, the acting is terrific across the board.  You can see why this film turned Sydney Greenstreet into a star and Humphrey Bogart into a superstar.  You have strong support from Elisha Cook, Jr. and especially a brilliant Peter Lorre, and Mary Astor, who was arguably the biggest star of the group when the film was made, and an Oscar winner that same year for The Great Lie, is also excellent as the mysterious O'Shaughnessy.  I should also say this is the directorial debut for John Huston, whose legendary career spanned four decades and included classics such as The Treasure of Sierra Madre and The African Queen.  His direction here is assured and confident and its clear that this is a filmmaker who is about to launch into some great things.

The character of Sam Spade is also interesting and, surprisingly for a 1940s film, a bit morally ambiguous. He's definitely not a hero.  Other than being slightly annoyed by having to deal with the police, he doesn't seem to care that his partner was murdered.  He only really seems to be interested in watching his own back, and is he demanding that O'Shaughnessy exchange sex for his protection?  The movie doesn't outright say so, but I'm pretty sure he is. Especially for the time period, I found that to be fascinating.

This film has become the archetype for the detective film and is basically the granddaddy of the film noir genre (though I personally don't quite think its noir.), and Bogart's Sam Spade has been burned into the public consciousness as the quintessential private eye.  The film, quite simply, has become iconic.

But at the same time, I think The Maltese Falcon is far from perfect.  And I don’t think it is me being picky or judging the film with "modern eyes," so to speak.  I think there are some fundamental problems that I’m surprised other people haven’t mentioned, including critics back in 1941.  One big problem is that for significant stretches, the movie can be sort of, well, dull.  Personally, I think the primary flaw is that the film breaks the “show don’t tell” rule.  There are some long sequences where characters are just telling each other stuff.  They keep talking at each other, instead of with each other, and it all just begins to grow wearisome.  For example, a huge problem with the film is that we never see Sam Spade solve the mystery.  He just tells people he did.  And he doesn’t even explain how he figured it out.  He just has a long speech saying that he did.  I’m not sure why this bothers me so much, but I think it’s a major flaw. 

And I think it’s a shame because generally the dialogue is well written.  And when there are dialogue exchanges, the film crackles with wit and brilliance.  I like the scenes with Sam Spade antagonizing Wilmer.  And any scene where Bogart and Peter Lorre bounce off each other is priceless.  Wow, that sequence where Joel Cairo tries to search Spade’s office might be one of the funniest scenes Bogart and Lorre ever got to play. Unfortunately, as the movie goes on, we start to get less and less lines of dialogue and more and more paragraphs.  And the result is that, just as the movie should be getting more exciting, I start to get less interested because I'm being talked at.  I don't want to listen to a bunch of people lecturing each other.  And I don’t want them to tell me everything. As a viewer, I want to witness it.  I want to experience it.  Show, don't tell, damn it!  

I also want to single out one scene that confused me, so some SPOILERS here.  So Gutman asks Spade over for a drink and then monologues about the history of the Falcon.  Spade realizes the drink has been drugged and passes out.  Wilmer comes in and kicks Spade in the face, just for spite.  Oh, yeah, I thought to myself, some drama.  How's Spade going to get out of this one?  But then...Wilmer and Gutman just leave.  Hours later, Spade wakes up, and shrugs it all off like it was nothing.  And nothing is ever mentioned about it again - even when Spade confronts Gutman and Wilmer just a few scenes later.  What was the point of that?  Some would say they drugged Spade to get him out of the way.  The bad guys had discovered where the falcon was, so they didn't need Spade any more.  So why not just kill him then?  They certainly killed other people.  Or if you don't want to kill him, why not at least tie him up so he doesn't just walk out of the building when he wakes up?  Or wait - I have an even better question, if they didn't need him, then why invite him over for a drink to begin with?  Why did they even have the conversation and waste my time?  What was the point?  Ugh, this scene was frustrating. 

So at the end of the day, where does that leave me?  I do like Maltese Falcon more than I used to. There is no doubt about that. I understand why it is an iconic classic that deserves to be on any list of the most important and influential films ever.  But a Best Movie list?  I’m not so sure.  Those movies need to stand the test of time and be just as entertaining now as they were when they were first released.  Casablanca has that magic.  As unpopular an opinion that this may be, I just don’t think The Maltese Falcon measures up. 

BEST LINE:

It's the most famous line of the movie and justifiably so.  And I think it's made even better when you know that it wasn't in the original script.  The line, inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest, was a suggestion from Bogart himself.

Detective (holding the Falcon): It's heavy.  What is it? 

Sam Spade: The, uh, stuff dreams are made of.


TRIVIA:

Wow, this one is tough.  The Maltese Falcon has so many fun facts!

How about this film being a remake?  This was actually the third attempt in less than a decade to film Dashiell Hammett's book.  The second attempt, Satan Met a Lady, was a comedy starring Bette Davis!  Those other two versions had flopped, but Huston had the sense that he could do it right.  

How about that ship captain who staggers into Spade's office and dies?  That's Walter Huston, John Huston's dad!  And apparently, John had his father do an absurd number of takes of this tiny cameo, just as a practical joke. 

How about the fact that the film was supposed to star George Raft, who turned it down because he didn't want to work with a first time director.  It's not the only time Bogart benefitted from Raft's short sightedness.  Raft also turned down High Sierra, All Through the Night, and according to some film historians, Casablanca.

There's also the term that slipped by the censors.  Spade keeps calling Wilmer "gunsel," which most people think is a reference to Wilmer's being Gutman's enforcer or gunman.  That's not the case.  It's actually a Yiddish word, literally meaning "little goose," and is a derogatory term for a young gay man in a relationship with a much older man.  This explains why Wilmer keeps getting angry whenever Spade calls him that. 


MVP:

This one is actually really difficult.  I want to say Humphrey Bogart and I really should.  He is truly electric, and it is easy to see why this film made him such a big star.  But my personal MVP has to be Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo.  He is hilarious and pathetic, and he has terrific chemistry with Bogart, Astor, Greenstreet - heck, pretty much everyone.  He's just terrific and lights up the screen whenever he appears.  I know this is Bogart's movie, but Lorre is my MVP.

Double Indemnity

We may not want to admit it, but I think a lot of people have conflicting feelings about the classics.  For people who love movies, there can be pressure to like the "great ones."  And if we don't like the classics, then we always feel the need to apologize for it.  Or we always fall back on the line, "I respect it, but I don't enjoy it."  I am certainly guilty of doing that.

First of all, we need to stop doing that.  If we don't like a movie, there should be no shame in it.  Even if it is one of the GREATS.  Dr. Zhivago is just okay.  It's pretty, but also pretty long.  And pretty boring for long stretches.  There.  I said it.  And I don't care how influential the Marx Brothers were.  I don't laugh at any of their jokes.  You can still respect these movies, and it is important to recognize their place in cinema history.  But we need to stop apologizing about what we like and don't like.

But all that said, sometimes classics are classics for a reason.  Maybe we just didn't get it when we first watched the movie.  Maybe our expectations were too high.  Maybe we just needed to be older to truly appreciate it.

Directed by the late, great Billy Wilder, Double Indemnity is considered one of the great film noirs.  It was a big hit when it was first released and netted seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.  It is a hugely influential film, particularly its cinematography which established chiaroscuro lighting as the visual standard for the film noir genre even up to today.  This is a big movie, folks, and I just didn't like it.  I apologized for it, but I just thought it wasn't that good.

Double Indemnity is the story of Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), a cocky insurance salesman who partners with femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) to murder her husband as part of an insurance scheme.  I thought that Fred MacMurray was a big dope and I couldn't take him seriously as a cocky and sexy salesman.  Barbara Stanwyck's wig, with its curled bangs, was wildly distracting.  The story was just okay, and I thought the climax was kind of cheesy.  I did like the insurance investigator Barton Keyes, played by Edward G. Robinson, but that was really about it.

I was recently expressing my disappointment in the film to a friend who disagreed with me and then asked when I last saw Double Indemnity.  College was the answer.  Well, the next time he came over to the house, he brought the bluray with him and demanded I give it another chance.

And wow, I am glad I did.  Because I was dead wrong.  Double Indemnity is actually amazing, and I felt pretty stupid.  Especially because the qualities that bothered me the most were actually some of the film's greatest strengths.  I like to think that I was a seasoned movie watcher when I was in college, but I guess the last two decades have taught me a few things.  I'm embarrassed to say that parts of Double Indemnity just went over my head when I was younger.  I thought Walter Neff was an idiot.  Of course, he's an idiot.  If he wasn't an idiot, he never would have fallen for Phyllis' scheme.  Fred MacMurray was the type of actor who was more at home in romantic comedies and Disney films.  He doesn't fit in the film noir universe.  But that's why Double Indemnity works.  He doesn't belong, but really thinks he does.  He's a big ol' doofus whose brazen over confidence convinces him he's the smartest guy in the room, even though it is obvious that Phyllis is playing him like a fiddle from the very first second she enters the film.  If you cast one of the other actors who dominated film noirs in the 1940s - Alan Ladd, Robert Mitchum, Humphrey Bogart - then this movie doesn't work.  Because we know those guys would never have fallen for Phyllis' game.  Simply put, Double Indemnity needs Fred MacMurray or else the whole thing collapses.  That's a brilliant casting move by Billy Wilder.

And once I had that realization, everything else fell into place.  The over-the-top flirting dialogue that I rolled my eyes at twenty years ago actually works beautifully now.  Walter Neff's flirting is over-the-top and Phyllis knows it.  She's playing along to get what she wants.  And how about Phyllis' wig?  It's still a terrible wig, but it's a perfect representation of the superficiality that Phyllis brings to the table.  At the end of the day, she's just a big fake.

I'm glad I was convinced to watch this again. The acting is superb, the writing is witty, the direction and cinematography are top notch.  I love the pounding score by Miklos Rozca (a favorite composer of mine).  I still have a little problem with the climax of the film, but it doesn't bother me quite as much as it used to.  All in all, here is a movie that deserves to be called "a classic."

So how does this all tie back to my original statement?  It sounds sort of hypocritical.  Here I am, saying you should feel comfortable not liking classics, but then I spend the rest of the review implying how classics are classics for a reason and we should revisit them until we're convinced.  But both can be true.  Classic films should be revisited.  If they are important to film history, then it never hurts to re-evaluate them when you get older.  And maybe you will be surprised and find yourself loving it.  We should always keep an open mind.  Sometimes we might even like a movie less than we did when we were younger.  And that's okay, too.  I really do not like The Quiet Man.  Vertigo is wildly overrated.  I do not and will never like The Sound of Music.  And there's nothing wrong with that. There is NO reason to apologize.

But Double Indemnity?  That movie is pretty awesome, and I am grateful that I revisited it.

BEST LINE:

When a movie has an iconic exchange, it's probably the one that needs to go in this section.  This isn't a line of dialogue, but is the most famous conversation in the movie, and probably in film noir history.  And actually, this is the dialogue that I thought was so hammy when I first watched the movie.  Now, I see it for what it is - Walter's over-confidence and Phyllis playing along...she knows that playing hard to get while still verbally jousting Walter is just the sort of thing that will hook him...she's reeling him in like a fish.

Phyllis: Mr. Neff, why don't you drop by tomorrow evening about eight-thirty. He'll be in then.

Walter: Who?

Phyllis: My husband.  You were anxious to talk to him, weren't you?

Walter: Yeah, I was, but I'm sort of getting over the idea, if you know what I mean.

Phyllis: There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff.  Forty-five miles an hour.

Walter: How fast was I going, officer?

Phyllis: I'd say around ninety. 

Walter: Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.

Phyllis: Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.

Walter: Suppose it doesn't take.

Phyllis: Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.

Walter: Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder.

Phyllis: Suppose you try putting it on my husband's shoulder.


TRIVIA:

The casting process for this film was an interesting one, especially considering all three leads didn't want to be in the movie at first!  Barbara Stanwyck was Billy Wilder's first choice as Phyllis Dietrichson.  Though she was initially hesitant to take the part, Wilder convinced by saying, "Are you an actress or a mouse?"  Wilder also wanted Edward G. Robinson from the beginning, but the actor was a leading man at the time wasn't sure about taking a supporting role, even if the part was memorable.  He finally accepted the role - I'm sure part of the reason was that he was being paid the same amount as his co stars while doing much less work!!  The main role of Walter Neff was a bit more tricky.  George Raft, Alan Ladd and Brian Donlevy were all approached and turned it down (though Raft said he would take the part if the movie was rewritten to make him an undercover FBI agent - Wilder said no thank you to that one!). Wilder really did want MacMurray, but he was known for playing nice guys and he didn't think audiences would buy him in the role. But Wilder persisted and eventually got his man.  And I'm glad about that.

MVP:

This is a tough one.  I know I should say producer/director Billy Wilder who really took film noir to a new level with this film, and popularizing the look that would shape the genre for decades to come.  I could also point to the writing team of Wilder and pulp novelist Raymond Chandler, who really did put together one heck of a script, even though they hated each other - or maybe because of it!  That might explain the mean steak in the writing!  I'm also tempted to say Miklos Rozsa, whose score is superb.  Or Stanwyck or MacMurray.  But no, at the end of the day, my MVP has to go to Edward G. Robinson.  He was my favorite thing about the film 20 years ago and he still is today.  His dogged insurance investigator is the best character in the movie - cynical and hilarious, but with a big heart.  The movie just crackles whenever he is on screen.

First Man

Who knows why some films make an impression with movie goers and why others miss?  Sure, sometimes there is a clear answer.  Maybe the film was badly marketed, or maybe a film had the misfortune of being released the same day as a huge blockbuster.  Or maybe it was just obvious that the movie was going to be a stinker.  We have all seen a preview in the theater at some point in our lives and thought, "Wow, why did they make that?!  That movie is going to flop."

But sometimes a film comes out that seems to hold a winning hand and then just whiffs.  And that is unfortunately what happened to First Man. Actor Ryan Gosling and director Damien Chazelle were coming off the Oscar-winning La La Land.  The film was written by Josh Singer, who won the Oscar for Spotlight.  Early buzz indicated that First Man would be a serious contender come awards time.  And then...it swung and missed.  Critics, for the most part, liked the film, but audiences largely stayed home.  Which is not to say that First Man was a complete disaster; I think it did make its money back in the end.  But First Man deserved better, and I expected it to do better.  The question is, why didn't it?

Before we really get started, I have to give you a heads up.  I have a lot to say about this movie, so you can expect some SPOILERS!

First Man is the story of Neil Armstrong and the years leading up to his iconic voyage to the moon.  It recounts the trials and tribulations of the astronauts as they risk their lives in the space race against the USSR.  But that is only half the story.  Very early in the film, Neil loses his two year old daughter Karen to cancer.  His grief fuels his need to focus all his attention on his work, despite the heavy toll it takes on the rest of his family, including his wife Janet (Claire Foy, The Crown).

It is easy to separate the movie into those two story threads, so let's tackle one at a time. Damien Chazelle said that he wanted to make the greatest space movie ever.  He didn't.  The Right Stuff is still the king of this mountain and it would take a lot to unseat it.  But First Man is still a really solid film.  And I have to admit, there is one thing that First Man does better than all other space movies before it - Chazelle makes it vividly and painfully clear how incredibly dangerous the space program was.  From the first moments of the film, when Neil Armstrong's X-15 almost gets stuck outside the atmosphere, every test and launch is fraught with tension.  The camera gets right in the faces of the actors, so we are stuck with them in these cramped tin can spaces, shaking just as violently as the characters are as they launch into space, listening to the grinding of metal and rattling of bolts as the ship literally sounds like it is going to tear apart all around them.  It's petrifying.  We all know the history.  Neil Armstrong isn't going to die on one of these missions.  But it is a true testament to the filmmaking that we still feel like he might.  Our brains tell us he obviously survives.  But at the same time, all of our senses are screaming, "Oh, he's screwed!"  Now that is good filmmaking.

Unfortunately, Chazelle spends so much time focusing on the risks, that he forgets to include some of the triumphs.  A lot of astronauts achieved many great things, but the way First Man plays, NASA is burdened with disaster after disaster until Apollo 11.  I suppose Chazelle and Singer could argue we've seen those triumphs in other films, so they didn't want to retread them here.  This is specifically Neil Armstrong's story, after all.  But they could have at least mentioned them to provide a better balance.  These other achievements are largely ignored.

Now I'll shift over to the family section of the film, and to Neil Armstrong's increasingly tense relationship with his wife Janet.  This time I will start with the bad.  The use of extreme closeups and shaky cams that were so effective during the launch sequences really hurt this part of the movie.  I don't want to get motion sickness when Neil and Janet are just talking at the dinner table.  This is all personal preference, of course, but they should have pulled the camera back, put it on a tripod and just let the actors do their thing.  This might sound like a nitpick, and in truth, it kind of is.  Because I really connected with these sections of the movie.  Even more than the space race, First Man is a story about grief.  Neil is grieving for his daughter the whole film, and as personal tragedies mount, he increasingly isolates himself by focusing on work, closing himself off emotionally from everyone else - his friends, his other children and even his wife.  I recognized this behavior.  I know people who grieve this way.  I grieve this way.

In some ways, the most important scene in the film is in the beginning, right after Karen's funeral.  Neil gently approaches his wife in bed and quietly asks permission to go to work.  And she says yes because she knows he is the type of person who needs that distraction.  But that decision is a fateful one.  It sets in motion the rest of the film.  That initial permission is abused to the point that near the end of the film, Armstrong won't even talk to his children when he is preparing to go to the moon.  He doesn't want to open himself up, emotionally.  He can't.  He'd rather just pack his bags and head to the launch pad.  Janet has to literally force him to sit down at the dining room table and talk to his children, in what is one of the movie's best scenes.

As I think about this movie, I keep coming back to that quiet, gentle question after the funeral, "Can I please go to work?"  At that crucial moment, these two young grieving parents needed each other to heal.  By avoiding that, Neil substituted that need for comfort with a need to work, but this pretty much leaves Janet with nothing and no one to hold on to.  It's tragic when you think about it.  And I wonder what would have happened if Janet had said no?  Maybe Neil Armstrong never would have made it to the moon.  But maybe their marriage would have been stronger.

I don't mean for any of this to make Neil Armstrong out as a bad person.  He's absolutely not.  I really do think he's an American hero.  He is doing what he thinks is best for the mission and for his family.  He thinks he is building these walls for protection; I don't think he realizes he is pushing his wife further and further away.  It is a sad, but fascinating portrayal, and it adds an emotional weight to the relationship that I don't usually see in movies.  And it certainly makes the climax of the film, where Neil finally seems to find some measure of peace with his daughters's death, all the more impactful.

Shifting back to the movie as a whole, there is one other thing I wanted to mention.  Another of Damien Chazelle's goals was to be as accurate as possible.  Of course, they had to change things because this is a movie, and not a documentary, but I was impressed with how accurate they were.  From what I read, NASA and the Armstrong family were both pretty happy with the film and the characterizations, and I can see why.

All in all, First Man is a really solid film.  I didn't love it, but I loved a lot of things about it, and I wish it had done better.  So why didn't it?


I don't think you can really write a review of First Man without addressing the controversy that surrounded the film before its general release.  At some point, word leaked out that the American flag was not featured in the moon landing scene and the news spread like wild fire across the internet, sparking angry tirades from people, even politicians.  How dare these Canadians (Ryan Gosling and Damien Chazelle) come in and try to erase the "American" part of this American achievement?!  It was an embarrassment and unpatriotic!  Personally, I think this whole argument was absurd for a whole slew of reasons.  Let's hit them one at a time.  First of all, the VAST majority of people stoking the flames of this ridiculous dumpster fire hadn't even seen the movie and so had no right to complain.  They were getting riled up over something they weren't even sure about. Secondly, the American flag IS featured in the moon landing sequence.  For a movie that prides itself on historical accuracy, there is no way they would have erased the flag.  Yes, it's true that the actual planting of the flag itself is not depicted, but I don't think that makes the film unpatriotic.  If anything, First Man had the opposite effect on me.  As the movie ended, I was proud of the achievements of the U.S. space program and humbled by the risks these astronauts took.  As I mentioned before, there have been better space movies, but no movie has done as good a job capturing the sacrifices that had to be made.  The movie even has an extended montage of celebrations from around the world, with legions of people cheering the moon landing, and even including an archival clip of a French woman saying, "We're all Americans now."

So how is that unpatriotic?

So why wasn't the planting of the American flag a climactic moment of the movie?  I think that goes back to Neil Armstrong's personal journey in the film.  The most powerful moment of this moon walk needs to be when he pulls out his daughter's bracelet and leaves it in the crater.  This is the emotional climax of the film, not the moon landing itself and not even the "one small step for all mankind" line.  At the end of the day, what matters most is Neil's love for his daughter.  Heck, if there is still any doubt, just listen to the soundtrack.  The epic music that accompanies the moon landing is a fully orchestrated version of Karen's theme that we first hear in the beginning of the film when Neil is caring for his sick daughter!

I know this review has been a bit more rambling than usual, and I apologize for that. So let's circle back now.  Do I really think this flag controversy hurt First Man?  The answer is, I don't know.  It's certainly possible, and that would be a shame because then those audiences really missed a fascinating film, and one that despite some glaring flaws, is still very inspiring and rewarding in many different ways.

BEST LINE:

I know this is a cheat, but how could I not choose this line?

Neil Armstrong: That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.


TRIVIA:

While researching Neil Armstrong, Ryan Gosling came across the astronaut's love of theremin music, which came as bit of a surprise.  The theremin is an odd little electrical instrument which produces a sound you might recognize from cheesy 1950s UFO movies (though Miklos Rozca also used the instrument to great effect in the film noir Double Indemnity).  Gosling mentioned this to Damien Chazelle and composer Justin Hurwitz, who decided to include the strange instrument in the film score as a little ode to Neil's love for the instrument.

MVP:

Damien Chazelle was the captain of this mission, and I think he is the clear MVP.  He had a clear vision to make First Man one of the most accurate and dangerous films about the space race, and he really did pull it off.  While you can also blame him for some of the movie's faults, he deserves a lot of props for bringing something new to the table.  As I mentioned before, no movie has ever been this successful at capturing how dangerous these missions truly were.  I would say that is some brilliant filmmaking and deserving of my MVP.

2010: The Year We Made Contact

Sequels can be tricky business.  I know in today's cinematic universe, franchises are king and sequels are commonplace.  For James Bond or comic book films, they should even be expected.  There will always be new villains to defeat and new plots to foil.  But let's look at the films that were not meant to be franchises, stand alone pictures that were monster hits, and then the studios forced sequels into production to take advantage of their new cash cow.  While there are exceptions, these sequels are generally not very good.  Now, what about the filmmakers themselves?  I found myself thinking recently about the pressure these directors must face when they are starting production on a sequel.  The eyes of all the fans are on you.  You better not mess this up, or you will catch a lot of heat.  You have to find a way to bring to audiences what they loved about the first film, while putting just enough of a creative spin on the material that the sequel's existence is justified.  That's not an easy tightrope to walk.

But there's even a worse scenario.  What if you are not making a sequel to a blockbuster hit?  What if you are not even making a sequel to a classic?  What if you are Peter Hyams, and you have been hired to direct a sequel to one of the most seminal and important films in the history of cinema?  How the hell do you make a sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Now, I know 2001 is a bit of a divisive movie.  Some people are entranced by its mysteries, while others find the film to be a cure for insomnia.  But there is no doubting its importance in the history of cinema.  There are only a handful of movies where you can truly say, "there was cinema before, and then there was cinema after, and everything had changed."  2001 is one of those films.  The only other film like that I can think of right now is Citizen Kane, and how do you make a sequel to that?!  It cannot be done.  Though to be honest, a sequel to Citizen Kane might be easier because that movie at least makes sense.  2001 is striving to be something beyond what we can completely comprehend.  That's the point.  So what is a director like Peter Hyams to do?

Well, have a story, for one thing!

The big advantage Peter Hyams had was a book to work with.  Arthur C. Clark, who co-created 2001 with Stanley Kubrick, started to write a series of sequels to continue the story. In 1982, he wrote the Hugo Award-nominated 2010: Odyssey Two.  So it already helps that Hyams didn't have to come up with his own story and could count on one of the two geniuses behind the first film to give him a narrative roadmap.  Secondly, Hyams got the blessing of Stanley Kubrick himself.  I always heard that Kubrick could be a bit ornery, and I would imagine that he would be enraged if someone dared to make a sequel to one of his films.  He even notoriously destroyed all the sets and models after he finished 2001 to prevent their reuse.  But contrary to what I would have thought, Hyams has said that Kubrick encouraged him to go for it.

So let's get into 2010: The Year We Make Contact.  Almost right away, we know we are watching something different because we are watching a film with a traditional narrative.  It's a movie, not...whatever 2001 was.  I am honestly split on whether this is a good or bad thing.  On one hand, it separates the sequel to the point where it almost doesn't feel like a continuation.  It is so tonally different and so traditional in its storytelling that it really could have been a standalone film.  But at the same time, I applaud the filmmakers for not deluding themselves into thinking that they could imitate 2001's uniqueness.  To try and recreate that film would be to set up yourself up to be directly compared to Kubrick, and that is a recipe for disaster.  Ultimately, I think it was probably the right decision.  If 2001 set up all the questions, then it is 2010's job to try and come up with a few answers.

Set several years after the incidents in the first film, 2010 features a return trip to Jupiter to find out what happened to astronaut Dave Bowman and his ship, The Discovery.  The ship includes Americans, Drs. Heywood Floyd (Roy Scheider, Jaws), Walter Curnow (John Lithgow, Cliffhanger) and R. Chandra (Bob Balaban, Best in Show), as well a crew of Russians led by Tanya Kirbuk (Helen Mirren, The Queen).  Written and filmed during the height of the Cold War, the film plays up the mistrust and fear of that era by bringing the Soviet Union and the United States to the brink of war back on Earth while the scientists dash towards Jupiter, adding a thick fog of tension among the international crew as they try to discover why Dave Bowman disappeared.  Once they arrive at the Discovery, they return that ship to functionality, including turning on the murderous AI that operated the ship, HAL 9000.

I did have a few problems with the film.  First of all, it took awhile to get used to Roy Scheider, who is playing the same character played by William Sylvester in 2001.  Sylvester is a smooth operator, a smart and savvy scientist who calmly keeps classified information close to the vest and knows how to run a secret operation.  Scheider's Dr. Floyd is...well, Roy Scheider acting like Roy Scheider.  This is not a knock on Scheider's acting skills.  He was a great actor who had a number of terrific performances in classic films.  But he is energetic, excitable, sarcastic and funny, and willing to play some under the table games to get the job done.  And he wears incredibly short shorts.  All of which is very Roy Scheider, and the complete opposite of the Heywood Floyd in the first film.  I'm not sure why this bothered me so much.  Maybe it was because I had just seen the first movie before watching this so William Sylvester was fresh in my head.  But I was definitely distracted.  It wasn't until about 20 minutes into the movie that I was able to force myself to pretend Scheider was just playing another character, and then I could settle back and enjoy his performance.  Because it is a good performance.  He is just as engaging here as he was in Jaws.  I just wish he had been playing someone else.

There are a few other things I didn't like about the film.  It felt very 80s to me, from the hair styles to those short shorts to the very fact that the Cold War was playing such a big part in the story (certainly a subplot that would hold less meaning to a lot of audiences today).  I also really don't like Dr. Floyd's narration at the end of the film, which is supposed to be meaningful and awe-inspiring, but just comes across as preachy and unnecessary.  SPOILER ALERT.  I also didn't like a retconning that was used when explaining HAL's malfunction.   HAL 9000 ultimately malfunctioned because it was given contradictory instructions that ran counter to its programming.  That's fine, except Dr. Floyd says he is innocent and knew nothing about these instructions.  Which directly contradicts the first movie when Dave Bowman watches a video that details these instructions, narrated by none other than Dr. Floyd.  Now if he was lying in 2010 to cover his own ass, that would have been interesting.  But that is not what is happening here.  Roy Scheider can't be guilty of this and the movie expects us to believe his innocence...and desperately hopes we don't remember that video from the first film.  Okay, SPOILER OVER.

Wow, it really sounds like all my major problems with this film have to do with Heywood Floyd!  And maybe they do, because the rest of the movie is really quite good.  I admire that this film is a slow burn.  It's not trying to be exciting.  When the most thrilling sequence of the film features a scientist talking to a computer about honesty, you know you're not in for a roller coaster ride.  But this is a good thing.  Unlike most science fiction movies today, 2010 is science fiction.  It tries to ground itself in reality, it takes pride in showing how the scientists go about their business and doesn't dumb itself down for the audience.  Everything that is happening is interesting, even if it isn't exciting.  The acting is all quite good, and I really liked how both HAL and Dave Bowman were incorporated into the storyline.  And I also need to give some props to a special effects department whose work more than lives up to the high standards set in the first film. 

And at the end of the day, the movie's greatest strength is that it resists the temptation to explain too much.  While we start to understand what happened in the first film, we never get a clear picture.  And that's okay because the scientists are left with a whole slew of questions, too.  And while the film may fall short in the "awe" department - especially at the ending - it's still very interesting and enjoyable to watch.  Today, it is a largely forgotten film, and that's a shame because there is a lot to enjoy in 2010.  It should be allowed to come out of the shadow of its forebear, because it is worth watching and brings a lot of interesting ideas to the table.

Also, I would be remiss if I didn't mention one other thing.  There is no way 2010 didn't serve as some sort of inspiration for James Cameron's The Abyss.  From the gritty design, to the backdrop of worldwide tension and potential nuclear war, to the way the alien presence interacts with the crew of The Discovery...it's all remarkably similar to The Abyss.  I personally like The Abyss much more, but I am still surprised I hadn't heard that comparison before...


MVP 
Ultimately, this was an easy decision.  There are a number of things I like that about the film.  And I would definitely give the special effects team an honorable mention (that shot of Jupiter folding in on itself is crazy!).  But at the end of the day, the MVP has to be Peter Hyams.  He was a one man army with this film, working as writer, director and even director of photography.  But most importantly, he was brave enough to attempt one of the most difficult things to do in Hollywood.  He stood up to one of the all time classics and tried to create a worthy sequel.  And if he didn't direct a classic, he still put produced a pretty solid movie that honors the original while trying to do something new.  So for taking on what was surely a foolhardy and doomed mission, but coming out on top, Peter Hyams deserves the MVP!


BEST LINE: 

Dr. Heywood Floyd (to the cagey Russian crew): I do seem to remember a process where you people ask me a question and I give you answers, and then I ask you questions and you give me answers, and that's the way we find out things. I think I read that in a manual somewhere.  


TRIVIA
I have some fun ones for this movie.  For example, I love that the movie has magazines that feature pictures of the American President and Russian Premier and that those pictures are of Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick, respectively.  But since this is a science film, I think I will go with a but of trivia that is more science-based.  Hyams was able to keep in constant contact with Clarke throughout the production, picking his brains for insight on the characters and plot.  But Clarke was based in Sri Lanka and in the 1980s, long distance calls were incredibly expensive.  So instead, they used this technology that was just in its infancy, one that the world didn't even know about yet...something called e-mail.  I thought that was pretty cool.