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!