Little Fockers: A Review

LITTLE FOCKERS

One Focker Too Many...

You'd think that by the third one there would be a twist in the tale. You'd think that by the time we have a second sequel the characters would have learned something, would have had some kind of change to their outlooks. However, Little Fockers has decided that what worked in the first two films (Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers) will work yet again. It is a case of diminishing returns, except that Little Fockers has proved to be financially successful.

I have to fight the temptation to say the reason for this is because people are stupid. Rather, I think the popularity of films like Little Fockers has to do with the fact that they don't require you to think. In fact, they almost demand that you turn off your brain in order to enjoy them. 

I have to start out by saying that while I have seen both Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers, I don't remember much or hold them close to my heart. Therefore, if you walk into Little Fockers without knowing anything about the Fockers or the Byrnes families, you won't actually be too lost because for no matter how long it has been since either of those films were released the characters are still the same. Retired CIA agent Jack Byrnes (Robert DeNiro) is, after all these years of knowing him, still tightly wound-up and suspicious of his son-in-law, the poorly named Gaylord "Greg" Focker (Ben Stiller), a nebbish's nebbish perpetually terrified of Jack. Their respective spouses Dina and Pam (Blythe Danner and Teri Polo) are still supportive of their husbands but almost oblivious as to how the men are with each other. Greg's parents Roz and Bernie (Barbra Steisand and Dustin Hoffmann) are still wacky sex-crazed parents oblivious as to how their antics embarrass their son. A Ghost of Fockers Past, Pam's former love interest Kevin (Owen Wilson), back for a second round for no understandable reason.

Little Fockers, ostensibly, is about how Grandpa Jack, fearing the end is near for him, wishes to pass on the mantle of Pater Familias to his closest male heir. That would be Gaylord. Greg is thrilled that Jack has finally, after all these years, given him his total trust. Of course, that isn't the case, especially when Jack discovers Greg's connection to Andi Garcia (Jessica Alba). Andi is a saleswoman for a Viagra-like drug suitable for those with heart conditions with the clever name of Sustengo.

In any case, in order to make more money, especially to pay for his children to go to Early Human School, he agrees to sell this drug in secret, and the fact that Greg is going to hotels with a beautiful woman and that there are sexual-enhancement drugs at the Focker home instantly make Jack think Andi Garcia is Greg's mistress.

For a CIA mastermind that Jack is supposed to be, he is hopelessly inept and clueless about things. Now, while the central part of Little Fockers involves the Focker twins' birthday, that is really just an excuse for hilarity and hijinks involving erections, blood letting, and Owen Wilson in a blue leotard. Dear God, what are we coming to?

Little Fockers doesn't have a plot or a reason for being other than to make some money for all concerned. I should start out by saying that during the screening I attended, not only was I fighting to stay awake but was surprised that the audience wasn't laughing. There were some chuckles here and there but by and large it didn't have the flat-out howling that accompanied something like The Hangover.

I think it comes from the fact that we've seen it all before, and perhaps John Hamburg and Larry Stuckey (who co-wrote the screenplay) figured audiences wouldn't notice or care that we were seeing the same characters doing the same thing with little sense of joy or intelligence. Greg being intimidated by Jack: check. Greg cutting himself and bleeding profusely: check. Jack scowling through every situation: check. You'd think that by now Greg would have gotten some sort of backbone, but alas, if he did, if he actually stood up for himself, we'd have no film.

The situations aren't funny, and in fact, they're actually rather sad. Rather, it's sad to see Robert DeNiro turn into Robert Dinero, cashing a nice paycheck while dragging his reputation through the mud by having Ben Stiller stick a needle into his erect penis. Did anyone think seeing the young Vito Corleone endure an erection?

Besides, if you think about it, you'd think Jack would finally have realized after his years of training that Greg is actually a good guy. Then again, if we had the characters grow up, we'd know we'd have no movie. At least Dustin Hoffman had the good sense to turn down a chance to return to the franchise, at least until he got more money. Given he was outside the events of Little Fockers throughout (even at his grandchildren's birthday party), one can see the only reason Benjamin Braddock returned was for Cash (or if he was paid with credit cards, it was for Plastic).

The performances are across the board awful, texted in to get people paid and off the set. Even smaller parts (such as Laura Dern as the Early Human School director or Harvey Keitel as a shady contractor) had nothing to do either with the story or with their roles. They were really there as excuses to put the main characters in embarrassing situations, ranging from showing the stupidity of the children to burying Jack in dirt or gravel or something, by this time I didn't care.

The worst of the performances (and that is saying a lot) was Wilson, who not only had nothing relevant to the story, whatever it was suppose to be, but has not shifted from playing these slightly-dazed and confused dudes with a pseudo-Eastern mystical bent. His wardrobe for most of Little Fockers was this quasi-Buddhist monk garb, but when he puts on that leotard, you just begin to wonder if this Wilson brother has any actual talent apart from playing himself or a variation thereof. Here, you know and worse, he knows he's just going through the motions.

In short, Little Fockers has nothing to offer even the fans of the Meet The Parents franchise. When the highest level of humor involves either making a pun on Andy Garcia's name or an erect penis, you know you've hit the bottom of the barrel.

It has nothing going for it, or the audience. I truly hope that we don't have to endure more of these films. I don't want to see I Was A Teenage Focker. I would like to know (other than for money), what compelled anyone to try to continue with this series of unfortunate films.

However, I am forgetting one of my Golden Rules of Filmmaking: Part III Will Either Be A Disaster or a Harbinger of an Even Greater Disaster. Little Fockers is, technically, a Part III. Please let it be the last.

DECISION: F

Legion (2010): A Review (Review #175)

LEGION

I am rather surprised that Legion didn't bring about a great deal of controversy among Christian circles. I imagine it was because Christians had enough sense to realize the film was so dull, cliche-driven and stupid that even the most ardent atheist would avoid it.

Michael (Paul Bettany), an angel from Heaven, comes down to Earth, appropriately to the City of Angels. He is a mission, one that means defying the very will of God. Meanwhile, there is an eight-month pregnant woman named Charlie (Adrienne Palicki) working as a waitress at an out-of-the way truck stop somewhere in Arizona with the rather poetic (and perhaps, symbolic) name of Paradise Falls. Although we never know who the father of her child actually is, we do know that her 'guardians', truck stop owner Bob (Dennis Quaid), his mechanic son Jeep (Lucas Black), who is in love with her and her baby, and loyal cook Percy (Charles S. Dutton) are all fond of her.

At this stop, we have a family stranded because of a malfunctioning vehicle: father Howard (Jon Tenney), wife Sandra (Kate Walsh) and daughter Aubrey (Willa Holland). Also wandering in is Kyle (Tyrese Gibson), belying the idea that truck stops in isolated Arizona outposts never get any customers. There is one more person who comes in, a sweet little old lady complete with a walker who introduces herself as Gladys (Jeanette Miller), as traditional an old lady name as one could find. Of course, she isn't a sweet little old lady. She's an angel-possessed woman (emphasis mine), who tries to kill the customers, specifically Charlie and her baby, who must never be born.

Michael arrives at the stop just after Gladys goes on a rampage (a delight to watch, I must confess: what's not fun about watching an old woman go all psycho and Spider-Man), and tells them that people are being possessed by angels (emphasis mine) to get at Charlie's baby. God has lost faith in humanity, Michael tells them, and so He's decided to wipe them off the face of the Earth.

Michael thinks this is wrong, but what pushes him to go rogue is God's decision to kill the unborn child, because this child is Humanity's last hope and God doesn't want that.

The rest of Legion involves angel-possessed beings taking various shapes (from ice cream truck salesmen to, well, the most/least likely suspect) attempting to trick the people inside to come out and be killed. As it happens, a few are misled, and we have them bumped off one by one (sometimes in rather horrifying ways), but, in spite of the efforts of Michael's former comrade Gabriel (Kevin Durand), the child is born, and the Important Ones (that would be Charlie, Jeep, and Aubrey) all flee Paradise Falls.

Michael and Gabriel will have one final battle, and I guess there was a happy ending.

A group of disparate strangers trapped together in a desert truck stop while besieged by otherworldly beings for some reason doesn't strike one as an original idea. However, the script by Peter Schink and director Scott Stewart isn't as far as I know going for originality or even correct theology. Legion, I figure, is going for terror and horror, two things that angels are known for. I didn't think that having a black man carry a piece for no defined reason was original. I didn't think having a family stranded because of a malfunctioning car was original. Finally, the 'possessed by angels' bit: that does trouble me.

It makes me think Schink and Stewart may not have a firm understanding of what angels are. Angels, from what I've been taught, are messengers, not hitmen. I would figure God, being all powerful, wouldn't need to have his messengers take over mortals to get His message across. Furthermore, why would God want to kill an unborn child who will save Humanity from His wrath, let alone by such an elaborate method? The script never makes clear as to why God wants to kill the child (thus making Him the new Herod in a way), we never know how this child will save Humanity, we never know if the child's father is important to the child's, is divine destiny the right phrase?

Well, in Legion, none of those details are important: all we're supposed to know is that this Child is the Enemy of God because the Child will save Humanity from God, and thus God needs to kill the Child because God wants to destroy humanity. Therefore, God can't just strike the Child down (assuming He would want to) or send the Four Horsemen to bring Mankind down. No, He has to send his angels on a homicidal spree in the middle of the desert.

Got that?

The performances were weak en masse. Bettany was doing his best Jason Statham impression in Legion, scowling and growling and packing heat with abandon. He must have had a roaring time doing an action film, but I think it would have been slightly more believable if Statham had played Michael. I figure both Michael and Gabriel were the Archangels, though it was never openly stated, and I wonder if defying the will of God, no matter how nutty, would make Michael the new Lucifer, but I digress.

Black had a blank stare throughout, no emotion, unless the same face is used when expressing unrequited love or sheer terror. Gibson plays a stereotypical role (black man with a gun), but there was no development to his character. It might be too much to ask for such things, but I still have hope. Both Dutton (as a gentle cook with an artificial arm, again, for no reason and no explanation) and Quaid (apparently not taking any of this seriously if I judge by his performance) are both wasted in nothing roles. I'll say that Holland (who looked familiar and then remembered as bad girl Kaitlin from The O.C.) is quite pretty, but other than this being a way to get a screen credit she did herself few favors in this film.

Moreover, Legion was at times boring in its predictability. The climatic fight scene between Gabriel and Michael was sometimes hard to follow do to John Lindley's dark cinematography where you couldn't tell who was who or what was what. Only the fact that Michael had no wings (he had cut them off) helped you figure out which one he was. The film was very overt in its attempts to look scary, with lights and fog in the dark. You also have to consider that for most of Legion, it looked like Night of the Zombie Demons, because for some reason the idea of angels possessing humans to commit murder just doesn't make any sense.

The movie leaves a slight opening for a sequel, but unfortunately that sequel is Terminator 2. In fact, Legion seems to echo far better films, and I wonder if Scott meant for that. The child who must be killed in order to stop him saving the world: Terminator. When they group slowly escapes a group of zombie angels by slowly walking out of the truck stop: The Birds. In fact, there were two echoes of The Birds in Legion, and when a film you're watching reminds you of other films you'd rather be watching, that is not a good sign.

The thinking behind Legion is all wrong. I don't think God will ever go to such lengths to kill someone who, I presume, could bring humanity back to the right path. Wouldn't He want to do His all to protect said child? It does seem rather presumptuous for an Angel, even if it is Michael, to tell God that He's wrong in His desire to wipe Man out of existence. Leaving the bad theology aside, Legion suffers from bad acting, no story, and laughable dialogue.

How do you not laugh when someone tries to build fear by demanding to see someone's teeth? I hope that this Legion is few.

DECISION: F

The First Genius. D.W. Griffith: The Great Directors Retrospective

1875-1948

D.W. GRIFFITH

To celebrate the New Year, I have decided to go back into the past. Every first of the month (or thereabouts) I hope to have personal reflections on twelve cinema giants, twelve directors who have shaped film into what it is today. I thought it only appropriate to begin the first with The Original: David Warks Griffith, who perhaps is not The Father of Film, but certainly the first truly original cinema master.

Griffith did not invent filmmaking, nor did he actually create the cinematic techniques we know today. He didn't start such things the close-up or the intercutting between stories, but he was the first one to put them together to make what we now know as "the modern motion-picture". If it were not for D.W. Griffith, we would not have film the way we do now.

Curiously, Griffith also showed the power cinema can have on the public. The Birth of A Nation still touches on the nerve because for better or worse, many people at the time held the imagery to be accurate. When I think of The Birth of A Nation, I can't help think of another film: The Battle of Algiers. Both have been used as recruiting tools for their causes (the KKK and Islamic terrorism respectively), and both still have a powerful impact to arouse passions. However, I don't think Griffith cared too much what the impact of his films in society would be. He just wanted to make an entertaining and popular film that would be a hit.

If we take a closer examination of The Birth of A Nation, we see how all the techniques that had been floating about in film came together to create modern cinema. Take the climatic siege sequence near the end of the film. The family is surrounded by the "enemy" on all sides, and the Ku Klux Klan is riding to the rescue (it nauseates me to write such nonsense, but there it is the movie). Griffith created the tension by going between the family and the Klan, cutting with quick clips to heighten the tension. Will they get there in time? Will the girls be captured?

It isn't so much the imagery that creates the anxiety, but the inter-cutting between the two points. It is more than likely that in another person's hands, we would have seen either one or the other, but it took a Griffith to realize that film is not tied down to a certain point in time and space. Unlike a stage play, we can jump to two or more places involving one point in time.

Moreover, The Birth of A Nation can be said to show the power of film to affect how history is seen. We can see the same in Oliver Stone's JFK. In spite of all the evidence, people still hold that there was a massive conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy, and JFK either reinforced that view or convinced people that Film was History. People should know that historic films will always deviate from the actual details, but somehow we get a lot of our history from film, accuracy be damned.

We can forgive films as varied as Spartacus or Elizabeth:The Gold Age or even light fare like Shakespeare In Love for not being strictly correct because they don't set out to be history lessons. However, Stone, with JFK and Nixon or W appears to be doing more than what Griffith thought of doing: while the latter wanted to push film to be thought of as an art form, the former wants us to believe he is telling the absolute truth. That would, in my view, put him closer to Leni Riefenstahl than D.W. Griffith, but I've digressed.

The point of all that is that Griffith was the first, though he would not be the last, to show that film has a power greater than any other media before because we subconsciously trust what we see. With the techniques he mastered and utilized with great skill, he created the emotional impact he was looking for, and for this, he truly is an innovator and creative force.

It is a sad case that a great technical accomplishment can be a person's ruin. The Birth of A Nation was condemned (correctly in my view) for its grotesque racist imagery, and I think Griffith was truly amazed that anyone would not see it as history. Curious that only fifty years had existed between the end of the Civil War and The Birth of A Nation, so there were still many eyewitnesses to the events in the film. In response, he created Intolerance.

Here, Griffith went one better: four stories in four time periods with one theme--man's inhumanity, his Intolerance, for man. He was pushing film as art like never before, but I would argue it was a little too advanced for 1916 audiences which were used to more linear story-lines. However, the impact of Intolerance has entered the American mind: the Babylonian sequence (in particular the lavish sets) is now iconic and easily recognizable, if perhaps not from Intolerance at least from a silent film.

Until the end of his career, Griffith pushed film to be art, to create mood and subtext rather than rely strictly on the image on the screen. Unfortunately, once sound came in, D. W. Griffith went out. I suspect that part of it was just changing tastes: the sentimentality he so favored was no longer in vogue, audiences wanting more realism. The stories of innocent girls being rescued from all sorts of ills: be it violent fathers (Broken Blossoms) or violent rivers (Way Down East) or violent revolutionaries (Orphans of the Storm) just didn't sell as well as it once did. It also didn't help that The Birth of A Nation had all but ruined his reputation, making him into the poster boy for bigotry and out-and-out racism. His 1935 Honorary Academy Award (when at 70 he was now a shadow from the early years) was belated recognition of his contribution to film.

In the end, we have Griffith's films. The Birth of A Nation is a brilliant film in some ways, grotesque in others, but it is still an important film that should be preserved and studied by those who love film. D. W. Griffith I think was the first to see the potential in film not just as entertainment but as a legitimate art form. I think directors as varied as Fellini or Kurosawa or Scorsese or Lynch would not have come into being Griffith.

His films have lasted, as has his impact on cinema. Granted, his personal reputation will be forever haunted by The Birth of A Nation, but if we take his career as a whole, we see a man who wanted to create something beyond the style of his time. D. W. Griffith is a great filmmaker, and as such, he should rank high and his legacy should not be lost...unlike some of his films.

Please visit the hoped-for monthly restrospective on Great Directors.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. A Review (Review #174)

STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME

A Whale of a Tale...

I feel it important to note for the record that Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was the very first time I had come into contact with anything Star Trek-related. I had never seen the television programs and had not seen any of the films until we were shown The Voyage Home in middle school.

To show you how long ago it was (and/or how poor my school was), the class saw on VHS. Some readers will ask, 'What's VHS?', and in retrospect, that question is not only a valid one, but a sign of how The Voyage Home (or as I lovingly call it, The One With The Damn Whales) is one of the worst films in the Star Trek franchise, not only looking like an embarrassing antique but also mixing the mythology of Star Trek with sheer propaganda. If there's one thing I hate in films, it's when I'm being lectured (even when I agree with the filmmaker's point of view).

The Voyage Home has as an advantage that it takes a slightly more comedic take on the Star Trek mythos, most of which emerge from the culture clash between the 23rd and 20th Centuries. While screenwriters Steve Meerson, Peter Krikes, Nicholas Meyer, and Harve Bennett (from a story by Bennet and Leonard Nimoy, going for a second round of directing after The Search for Spock) had their bleeding-hearts in the right place, they failed to take into account that a science-fiction film based almost entirely on indoctrination will never work. They also, curiously, had a very limited imagination as to the future, but more on that later.

The Federation ship U.S.S. Saratoga encounters a strange vessel which looked like a big tube, that emits strange noises and is sapping their power. Meanwhile, the Federation High Council has convicted the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise on various violations stemming from the results of Search for Spock. The crew, including half-human/Vulcan Spock (Nimoy) leave to face the consequences of their actions. Now, this big cylinder that has crippled the Saratoga is now menacing Earth, disrupting all power and causing hurricanes.

The Enterprise crew, still out of range, hears the S.O.S. of Earth and discovers that the big tube's mysterious noises are really whale songs. Spock theorizes the mysterious tube is attempting to, in his words, "seek(s) out another intelligent life form". Unfortunately, humpback whales have been extinct since the 21st Century (sometime I figure between 2000 and 2100). The only natural solution is go back to the 20th Century, get a humpback whale, and, to coin a phrase, "go back to the future". They achieve this, and find themselves in San Francisco, 1986.

The crew split up: Scottie (James Doohan) and Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley) are off to get material to encase the whale(s). Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and Chekov (Walter Koening) go look for nuclear material to power the Klingon Bird of Prey, and Spock and Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) go look for some whales they've tracked to the city. In an aquarium, they meet Dr. Gillian Taylor (Catherine Hicks), who has been caring for two whales named George and Gracie. Kirk & Spock think they are perfect, especially since Gracie is with calf. However, Dr. Gillian is alarmed by these men's strange behavior. Kirk charms Gillian, though not enough for her to let him have the whales. Mute point, as they have been released into the wild without her prior knowledge.

Meanwhile, Uhura and Chekov, aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise (20th Century battleship version), which is a nuclear "wessel" (Chekov's Russian-accented pronunciation of "vessel"), get the material to power the ship but only Uhura manages to escape. For some reason, a Russian aboard an American battleship seeking nuclear technology causes alarm for the crew of that Enterprise. Chekov's companions now have to rescue him from a hospital, and after Gillian joins their cause they must now seek out and rescue George & Gracie and face the difficulty of bringing them on to the Bird of Prey, going back to the future (no pun intended) and release said whales.

Oh, and yes, that pesky and unimportant business about what happened in Search for Spock.

I applaud the efforts to make a lighter Star Trek film. I also respect the filmmaker's efforts to make a socially relevant film. My biggest problem with The Voyage Home is that it is far too heavy-handed in its efforts. One line states this clearly. "You know, it's ironic," Kirk intones near the end of the film. "When man was killing these creatures, he was destroying his own future". Not subtle at all, is it?

If that weren't bad enough, Spock informs Gillian that "(the whales) are unhappy about the way their species has been treated by man". I am surprised he didn't go on to misquote from Bambi, "MAN...is in the water". It is a great Pet Peeve in Film for me: I Detest Being Lectured To. The Voyage Home doesn't have any other reason for being other than to tell me to Save The Whales.

It is a sign of how the film is really environmental propaganda that most of the film involves saving the whales, not about the trial the Enterprise crew has. Granted, I love the whales, but I don't go to non-documentary films, especially science-fiction films, to be told to take a certain position (whale hunting is bad--what would I do without cinema to tell me what to think?).

Even that I could handle, but what sinks The Voyage Home (no pun intended) is that setting a science-fiction film that starts out in the future and then goes to current day almost automatically dates the film because we can't conceive of the technological breakthroughs or twists in history that may occur a generation later.

As of this writing, twenty-five years have passed since The Voyage Home was released. In that quarter-century, we have seen the development of laptop computers, miniature devices that will hold vast amounts of music and information (iPods & MP3 players), phones that will send written messages, devices that can hold vast amounts of literature in the palm of a hand (iPads, Kindle): things that we now take for granted. Somehow, all these devices either don't exists or apparently have had much impact on the 23rd Century. Seeing Scottie and McCoy deal with a PC may strike those born when The Voyage Home premiered as downright bizarre, since most of them have never seen a PC that size unless perhaps, it was at a museum.

The biggest difficulty in taking The Voyage Home seriously is actually one of my favorite anachronisms. When that big tube was laying siege to the Earth, one of the lines was, "Leningrad has lost all electric power". I find that line endlessly hilarious: apparently in the 23rd Century, humpback whales no longer exist, but Leningrad does! A more imaginative writing team (it could not have taken four people to write this) or director would have stated, "Saint Petersburg has lost all electric power," but somehow everyone concerned thought the Soviet Union would go on forever.

Talk about no hope for the future!  It will always be a curious footnote in cinema history: in the Star Trek universe, Leningrad went on into the 23rd Century, while in the 20th Century Leningrad faded into history a mere five years after The Voyage Home premiered.

Let's leave aside bothersome things like history for the moment. The Voyage Home has the most idiotic premise so far in the Star Trek universe: aliens want to know why they've lost contact with humpback whales (which, I imagine, means all these millennia humpback whales have been in contact with aliens), and as soon as they hear the whale song, they depart.

We never got to know who was inside that big black space cylinder or what they actually wanted (other than to say 'howdy' to Earth's most intelligent creatures: the whales). Not since V-Ger from The Motion Picture has Star Trek presented us with 'villains' so pointless and downright stupid. The reason for this is simple: it doesn't matter who or what they are. It isn't important, but putting the message that we have to Save The Whales is, thus the big black space cylinder's raison d'etre.

The comedy work was uneven. In the scenes with Spock and Kirk, their efforts to deal with their confusion about 20th Century life and those "colorful metaphors" are amusing though not hilarious. The one scene with Scottie attempting to communicate with a computer did, I confess, have me laughing.

The comedy involving Chekov looking for the "nuclear wessels" I know is one many Trekkers/Trekkies find brilliant, but I found them aggravating. Finally, given that they were in San Francisco, one wonders if they'd really stand out in the city as strange. The drama about rescuing Chekov felt almost tacked on, to create drama and lengthen the film, as did the whaling ship tracking down George & Gracie.

Side Note: not knowing anything about transporting beings the Star Trek way, I now ask my Trekker/Trekkie friends how the transport beam can not only transport beings but apparently their surroundings as well, given whales need water.

Of the cast, they know their parts. It's a sign of the disinterest in character development in The Voyage Home that Sulu (George Takei) wasn't needed but was there, a bit in the background, with little to do, certainly in regards to the overall story. Only Hicks as the good Doctor had anything considered a real performance, and she did show the love and passion her character had for the whales.

I do note that Kirk was up to his old tricks, not of pausing within a line but of romancing beautiful women. We haven't seen him try to woo a beauty in any previous Star Trek film, so that's a plus. However, given the extreme nature of the Enterprise's rescue operation, it does seem strange that Kirk would be hitting on Dr. Taylor at this point.

I had problems with some of the dialogue. How do you not laugh when you hear, "Admiral, I am receiving whale song"? I did, anyway. When Kirk tells everyone, "Everybody remember where we parked," it seemed a rather 20th Century thing to say, and one of the comedy bits I did not laugh at. Yes, the "nuclear wessels" routine got old fast.

There's also what I think is an inconsistency in the plot. When we first see George and Gracie, we are told they wandered into San Francisco Bay and have been cared for at the aquarium ever since. However, when they are released we are told they were born in captivity and they need to be in the wild. I might be mistaken, but unless they were referring to Gracie's unborn calf we have two different and conflicting stories about George & Gracie.

Finally, the entire plot of The Voyage Home makes no sense if you think about it. The Voyage Home isn't about the trial of the Enterprise crew. It's about The Damn Whales. The trial really is almost an afterthought, as is the crisis, which is nothing more than a plot device to tell us to Save The Whales. Furthermore, we have to figure the crew not only managed to go back in time, but return to the future at almost the exact moment they left. How they actually did this is irrelevant: we need to Save The Damn Whales. Once the mysterious ship hears the whales, they leave, presumably never to return, unless they become extinct again.

The Voyage Home has light moments, a plus. However, the fact the film is nothing more than a vehicle to promote a certain agenda (as laudable as it is) makes this not a Star Trek film, but a Greenpeace film masquerading as a Star Trek film.

Say Goodnight, Gracie...

DECISION: D+

Next Star Trek Film: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

The King's Speech (2010): A Review (Review #173)

THE KING'S SPEECH (2010)

Vox Vocis De Rex Imperator...

Under the British Constitution, the Sovereign is the Head of State, and all temporal power rests upon him/her. All governments serve at his/her leisure, all naval ships are his/hers, even the postal service is the Royal Mail. As such, he/she should project those qualities known as 'majesty', 'power', 'dignity'. You wouldn't, therefore, make a shy, insecure, almost frightened stammerer By the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions Beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India.

That being the case, Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George, Duke of York, would be a lousy candidate. Even worse, said Duke, better known as Bertie, knows it. If he is to rise to the man, he is needed to be, he needs the love of a strong woman. Check. He also needs a good speech therapist. Double Check.

The King's Speech, based on how this shy man thrust onto the monarchy joined with a cheeky but frustrated Australian actor to bolster the British spirit at the onset of the Second World War, is a well-crafted, elegant tale of a most unlikely friendship.

Bertie (Colin Firth) has had this stammer ever since he could remember. Even the shortest and most mundane of public speaking engagements bring terror to him, which only exasperates his impediment. While his wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) is supportive, she, who was not born Royal, cannot give the speeches for him. Bertie's difficulties and insecurities are an increasing burden on him, and in desperation HRH the Duchess of York seeks out Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), an eccentric speech therapist outside established circles after exhausting all other options for a cure or treatment for Bertie's stammer.

Lionel agrees to see HRH the Duke, but there are conditions to his sessions. First, they must come to him in his consulting room. Second, and perhaps more outrageously, Lionel insists on referring to his patient as 'Bertie' rather than His Royal Highness. This irks the Duke, but he agrees to it. Lionel is convinced the stammer is psychologically-based, but the Duke isn't about to delve into personal matters with a commoner, let alone an Australian at that. They agree to try just basic physical techniques, and they do have some success.

As he improves his speech, his father, King George V (Michael Gambon), is concerned about his elder son Edward, Prince of Wales (Guy Pierce), known to the family as David. The Heir to the Throne is besotted by his newest mistress, one Mrs. Simpson (Eve Best). In short time, King George dies, and the throne is inherited by David, now known as Edward VIII.

However, since David is unmarried and childless, Bertie is now Heir to the Throne. The prospect of becoming King terrifies Bertie, even more so when Edward VIII abdicates the Throne to marry Mrs. Simpson. The anxiety of the Abdication Crisis is a cause of the break between Bertie and Logue, and at the end of the Crisis, Bertie finds himself in the position he does not want: King-Emperor. He finds himself overwhelmed to the point of collapse, with his stammer returning to full force. The now-Queen Elizabeth gently gets Bertie and Lionel to reconcile, and the therapist begins to work to get him through the Coronation and then, when war is declared with Nazi Germany, The King's Speech upon entering World War II.

We can debate the historic accuracy of The King's Speech, but since I've long argued that films are not history lessons, we can forgive any inaccuracies in David Seidler's script. Instead, the film deals with two men, thwarted in their own way (Bertie a reluctant monarch, Lionel a failed actor), who in spite of themselves find a friendship that transcends barriers of status, position, and emotion.

The heart of The King's Speech is Firth's performance as the future George VI. In the very first scene, when he has to address an audience, he already registers fear and a deep reluctance to speak. Seeing his agony and frustration when he finally begins to try to speak is heartbreaking for the audience. Considering that he has yet to speak a line of dialogue apart from the prepared speech, is a sign of Firth's talent that he communicates so much with his face and body.

Throughout The King's Speech, Firth never draws attention to the stammer. Instead, it appears to be part of who he is, and when we see him slowly making strides to lessen it we cheer him on since we get to know just how bullied he was by his father and brother. We see this when the future Edward VIII tells Bertie his plans to marry Mrs. Simpson.

The look of horror overwhelms him, not just because he's appalled that his brother/King would marry such an unacceptable woman but because he knows it will force him to be King. Trying to explain this to David brings an intense attack of stuttering. David gives him a look of contempt, and begins mocking him as he did when they were children. Here again, it's difficult to see someone we've come to know as a decent but troubled man be pushed down so hard by his own family.

When one is in need for kooky Australian, you call upon Geoffrey Rush, and in The King's Speech, he is another real-life kooky Australian. He makes him a bit comical, but Lionel Logue isn't someone we laugh at but laugh with. We delight in his cheeky demeanor, being as deferential to HRH the Duke of York as required publicly, but treating him as an ordinary person in private.

His Lionel is confident in his abilities and treats Bertie as just another man, which does bother the Duke but which also allows him to open up as he hasn't before to anyone save the Duchess. Lionel, however, has his moments when he deals with his home life, which refreshingly is void of great drama. Instead, his home is filled generally with love among his wife and sons.

Both Firth and Rush work so seamlessly when they're together on screen. When George V has died, one of the first people he sees is Lionel. In between Lionel giving the Heir to the Throne rather odd instructions on how to get what he wants to say out (such as singing his words to Swanee River), the Duke reflects somewhat on his childhood, one filled with abuse, a sense of worthlessness in spite his royal birth, and the death of a younger brother. In other films, we might have had this flashback visualized, but in The King's Speech, it's just Firth and Rush, conversing, the sadness of both men evident.

It's all quite subtle, but here, the audience, if not the participants, realize that, for better or worse, Lionel Logue is the closest thing to a friend HRH The Duke of York has.

We can't leave out Bonham Carter's performance as the future Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Her role is actually rather small, but she really stands out in her scenes with both Rush and Firth, and even more so in the one scene that doesn't involve them. Mrs. Myrtle Logue (Jennifer Ehle), who is unaware of whom her husband has been treating, arrives earlier than expected when the King and Queen call on Lionel. She walks in and is understandably shocked on discovering the Queen Empress in her dining room. Without missing a beat, Elizabeth rises from her chair and informs her that the proper way to address her is "Your Majesty" the first time, "Ma'am" after that, adding it's "ma'am" as in "ham" and not "ma'am" as in "palm".

She does this with the air of a woman who realizes it all may sound a bit silly but it is the right thing to do. In this brief scene she shows Queen Elizabeth to be both the regal and informal, a mix of being both a Queen and a straightforward Scottish girl. It added a bit of light comedic touch.

Finally, in even smaller parts, Gambon as King George V and Pearce as Edward VIII showed they didn't need to be the center of attention to draw said attention. Gambon not only physically resembles King George V but also manages to communicate his bullying manner mixed with whatever love and pride for his second son he could muster. Pearce displayed the future Duke of Windsor's rapt devotion to Mrs. Simpson, going so far as to think what his ascendancy to the Throne would mean for her. He is clearly under her command, and Pearce shows us just how controlled he was by this twice-divorced American.

All these performances are drawn out by Tom Hooper's direction. Hooper creates genuine tension in The King's Speech when we come to that climatic moment when he has to speak to his people on the day war is declared. Placing Firth in front of us, we have him and Rush together in the broadcast booth, and with the second movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony underscoring the scene, we see Lionel guide The King as if he were a conductor at a concert.

Hooper builds the tension by having us see the King start to falter, and those few moments of silence are made longer by the tension of whether or not he can get through this intense and frightening moment for him. At the end of it, Lionel chastises the King slightly for still stuttering on the "w"s. The King, somewhat humorously, replies something to the effect that it was done so that people will know it was actually him.

Near the beginning of The King's Speech, Lionel gets the Duke to attempt to recite Hamlet's To Be or Not To Be soliloquy onto a record. He blocks the Duke's ability to hear himself speak via loud music he plays into headphones Lionel places on him. One can easily guess what will be the end results, but it doesn't take away from that moment when both the Duke and Duchess realize what exactly they are hearing.

The King's Speech is more than a historic drama. It really is about a man facing his fears and dealing with them because it has to be done. It speaks to personal courage, even when one doesn't believe in himself. During the worse of the Blitz, on one of their tours of the devasted London, a person cheered their sovereign by exclaiming, "Thank God for a Good King". Without missing a beat, King George VI responded, "Thank God for a Good People".

On the surface, this shy, insecure, almost frightened stammerer would not be a good choice for King. History, however, showed he was perfect for the role.

Lionel Logue
1880-1953

Their Majesties
King George VI: 1895-1952
Queen Elizabeth: 1900-2002

DECISION: A-

2011 Best Picture: The Artist

Post Script: Since writing this review The King's Speech has won Best Picture. As such, I have included reviews for other Best Picture Winners as part of my continued efforts to review every winner from 1928 to today.

Unstoppable (2010) Review

UNSTOPPABLE (2010)

I've always wanted to travel by train, just once. So far the closest I've ever come to it has been either at a Disney park or on the public transportation systems of New York City (the subway), London (the Tube), or Paris (the Metro). Yet the lure and mystique of rail travel has always had an allure to my mind. Whenever I hear a train whistle, I think of travel, of foreign and exotic locales filled with adventure, even romance.

Unstoppable doesn't deal with that kind of rail travel. Instead, it deals with another staple of action films: the runaway train. Director Tony Scott and writer Mark Bomback have created a remarkably tense action film (a plus) with characters going through at times clichéd situations (a minus).

We begin with Will (Chris Pine), the new guy at the railroad company on his first day (cliché). He is put with Frank (Denzel Washington) the wizened old veteran facing the end of his career (cliché). On this particular day, the Hot-Shot Rookie and the Gruff Vet go about their day, while in another part of Pennsylvania a series of mishaps by Dewey (Ethan Suplee) cause a train to leave unmanned and with the brakes off. Said train, containing toxic chemicals (cliché) is quickly gaining speed, and with no one at the controls it soon threatens to go off the rails and release its contents.

In its path is among other things another train full of children learning about train safety (cliché), a couple of horses on the track (cliché from Westerns), and the Hot-Shot Rookie and the Gruff Vet. If all that wasn't enough, both the Gruff Vet and the Hot-Shot Rookie have domestic issues that intrude on their lives during this day (cliché), while the heads of the company, who were playing golf when all this started (cliché), care more about the cost to the company than about the lives that could (and are) lost because of this train (cliché). Trying to gain control of the situation is Connie (Rosario Dawson), the strong, smart, but easily dismissed female supervisor. After an attempt to land a former Navy SEAL now engineer fails, the Gruff Vet decides it's up to them to stop the runaway train, with the Hot-Shot Rookie less eager but knowing it has to be done (cliché).

In spite of how Unstoppable seems to hit every possible predictable plot device from a series of films, it isn't to say the film is boring. Far from it: Unstoppable delivers on its promise of intense action and close calls, building great tension starting from when the train starts to run away right down to the inevitable moment when a ninety-plus miles per hour train is making a turn on an elevated track meant for fifteen miles per hour turn. Scott knows how to put action sequences together: he presents us with situations that either put people in peril or attempt to stop the train and lets us see how they will turn out.

However, where Scott goes off the rails, is the way he handles the camera. What I could never get around was how the camera would go spinning left right center for no reason. Scott does this wild camera work almost from the first few frames of Unstoppable. I wrote in my notes, "Taking a guess Scott directed videos" because all the constant shifting and moving looked like something from early MTV. I have found out he did direct a couple, but what made this particular obsession with zooming and panning this way that way and back once over is that it was not only unnecessary, but a little nauseating. It takes away from the tension he already has, and worse, he continues this camera spinning when the story reaches a denouement. It made no sense, and it got on my nerves.

Another problem facing Unstoppable is one of the clichés: the domestic front. You can have family issues coming into play in an action film, but here, going into Frank's strained relationship with his daughters or Will's strained relationship with his estranged wife and young son figuratively slow the picture down. We really never learn anything about Connie's domestic life, and didn't take from her job performance, so why do we have to go to whether or not Will and his wife get back together or not?

To their credit, both Pine and Washington handled their roles well in spite of being underwritten characters. Washington has mastered the Gruff Vet role, showing a slight contempt for the man who is basically replacing him. We should know by now, after years of movie going, the Voice of Experience (in this case, Washington's Frank) always, always knows best. Pine did the best he could balancing Will's worries about a family court case with attempting to do a good job on his first day. Both handled their action scenes well, and that's when both Unstoppable and their characters come to life. When we have to go their children, we lose some of the interest.

Unstoppable isn't a bad film; on the contrary, it can be quite exciting and entertaining. However, if Scott hadn't decided to let the camera go all over the place and if Mark Bomback's script had kept things tighter without going to a whole gaggle of standard situations domestic and foreign, the film would have been far greater.

As it stands, Unstoppable failed to get to the station by inches.

DECISION: C+

The Fighter (2010): A Review

THE FIGHTER

Punch Drunk Brother Love...

One can be wary of those 'inspirational, true-life stories' since they can soon drown in sentiment and have the opposite effect: instead of cheering the subject on, you're cheering his/her downfall. The Fighter can be seen as inspirational, and it is based on a true-life story: that of boxer "Irish" Mickey Ward (Mark Walhberg) and his half-brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale). However, once we get over those details, what we see is a rich film about family: the good and bad, and about how love can both blind us and free us.

Dicky was 'The Pride of Lowell', a former boxer himself who knocked down the legendary Sugar Ray Leonard. That was a long time and many miles ago. When The Fighter begins, Dicky is still living off his past glories with a new goal: to get his brother Mickey up there in the boxing world.

It would be more accurate to say Dicky is dying on his past glories, for he hasn't moved on either in his life or career. While a camera crew follows them around, Dicky is giving them an all-access tour of the mess of his life, with his addiction to crack being up front and center. Dicky appears oblivious to how his using crack in front of cameras can somehow be seen as remotely negative. Instead, he puts himself, when he is physically and mentally able to, at Mickey's corner, literally, as his trainer.

Their mother Alice (Melissa Leo), rules them not with overt acts of love or fear but with a towering protectiveness and determination. It's clear that she, and not her husband, run the family. In fact, the whole clan is a matriarchy, with their gaggle of sisters being just as bossy as their mother.

Mickey gets bouts, but they're not good ones. While he has a chance to go with better trainers, the pull of Family constantly weighs him down. That is, until he meets Charlene (Amy Adams), a bartender who catches his eye.

They begin a romance, over the strenuous objections of domineering Alice and her daughters, who don't like this interloper coming between the Family and Mickey. Dicky is determined to get Mickey the money he needs to get the training Mickey seeks and keep him within the safe confines of Lowell. He does this by performing illegal acts, and after an altercation with the police that gets Mickey injured, Dicky's arrested.

While in jail, Dicky suffers drug withdrawal and Mickey suffers life withdrawal. It's also while Dicky's locked up that Dicky finally realizes his 'comeback' film is really about Crack in America, that Mickey must move or he will figuratively die, and that both of them need to make changes. They both begin to train on their own and in their own ways.

Eventually, Dicky and Charlene come to an understanding since they see how they both have been pushing Mickey in all sorts of directions, none of them good. Once again, with Charlene's blessings, Dicky is back in Mickey's corner, to face up to The Big Match.

In certain ways, The Fighter hits all the requisites for those 'inspirational' films: a troubled man (or two in this case) fighting for a shot, the woman who loves him and will stand by him, a reevaluation of where he stands, a requisite training montage complete with music, a few inter-family fights, and The Big Match. If Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, and Eric Johnson's screenplay wasn't based on the real lives of Mickey and Dicky, one might not believe it.

Even knowing that The Fighter is based on reality wouldn't give it an automatic pass. The screenplay's intelligence and moments of comedy do raise it up a great deal, but with the firm hand of director David O. Russell, The Fighter becomes more than an 'athlete does good' film, but a deeper film about the perils and promises of family bonds and of knowing that the weight of the past cannot and should not hold us hostage to the future.

In short, The Fighter is a title that works on more than the basic level of the character's profession. It also can describe what they do: fight for their lives, for their careers, for the ones they love and inadvertently hurt. It could also indicate that the fighter in The Fighter can be both/either Mickey (when he's in the boxing ring or struggling against his family's stranglehold) or Dicky (against his self-destructive actions). It could even also apply to Alice (to hold her place of prominence in the family) and Charlene (against those who are crushing the man she loves).

The performances are almost all-around brilliant. Bale has always been able to transform himself to whatever character he plays (I'd argue, sometimes to the detriment of his mental health, Terminator: Salvation rant). Here, he has two tricks to pull off. The first is performance-wise: portray a man wrapped up in his past, one who loves his brother and wants him to succeed but cannot go about it without causing him harm at the same time. From the moment we see Dicky, he looks like a man inches from almost physically disintegrating right before us.

We see beneath his swagger and self-confidence and see a man who is so lost in his past that he truly doesn't realize the documentary crew he allows to follow him is not chronicling his resurrection but his self-destruction until it airs. Bale makes someone who we know we should run away from instead someone who is at heart truly loving. This is crystallized when, after failing to escape from Alice, he wins her over by serenading her with the Bee Gees I Started A Joke. It's almost as if he's regressed to childhood, but we see that he, even at his age and state, can still charm his mother.

His second trick is to speak with that distinct Boston accent. Bale manages to sound so authentic that we forget he's British. It never sounds fake or forced but flows perfectly, and it also never becomes grating. Some non-native Bostonians who attempt to speak like they are from the Bay State fail horrifically, exaggerating the 'ah' sound so prevalent they end up sounding like a Mayor Quimby parody. Bale, however, makes his accent part of who Dicky is, and we never notice that is sounds anything but real.

The actresses also handle their accents brilliantly, which compliments their performances also. Leo's Alice comes across a bit like a White Trash Queen, a classless figure who pushes everyone around her to do as she thinks. However, we see that she is motivated by love, albeit taking rather odd shapes. When she is confronted by Mickey about how he feels about her, the shock she genuinely feels about even the mere suggestion that she might favor one over the other is devastating because she never saw it.

Adams also has a brilliant performance of a woman who knows herself and won't be intimidated by Alice or her daughters. She is her own person and isn't afraid of anything, even someone as intimidating as Alice.

Walhberg is good as the conflicted and torn Mickey. Mickey is someone who does love his family yet realizes that if he continues the way he has, they will end up killing his career and sucking him into a world he doesn't want to be in. Mickey is remarkably passive early on in The Fighter, right down to taking Charlene to see Belle Epoque (not your usual working-class fare) merely because it's the closest movie playing far enough from his family and neighborhood.

His performance is so good we can forgive the fact that like in his other films, he doesn't change his facial expression. Athletic Walhberg is. Expressive Walhberg is not. Even that plays to his benefit, where the only real release Mickey has is in the ring, an area he knows he's good at.

If you'd like me to find a fault with The Fighter, the only one I can give you is that on occasion having the characters have similar-sounding names made it sometimes hard to remember who was who. However, that's such a tiny flaw that it is easily overcome: Dicky is Bale, Mickey is Walhberg. Problem solved.

All good boxing films, or sports films, really, are at their core about redemption: Rocky. Chariots of Fire. Rudy. Hoosiers. They all have the common thread of not just succeeding in whatever athletic event they are in, but also overcoming the blocks in their own lives, be it lowered expectations, intolerance, what-have-you. A good sports film transcends the conventions of the sport to give us an insight into how, yes, that thing called The Human Spirit, can rise above to achieve the victory, personal or professional.

The Fighter isn't just about the actual matches (although Russell filmed them so authentically they look like matches culled from television archives). It's also about the love between two siblings who wouldn't give up, on themselves or each other. It's about the bonds that can both smother and push you. In short, The Fighter is about how we can either succeed or fail, depending on who we have in our corner.

Micky Ward: Born 1965
Dicky Eklund: Born 1657

DECISION: A-