The West Wing: Season 5 (2003-2004)

This is the season after Sorkin left the show as head writer and producer, and well you can feel it. I had remembered the show as gliding better into season 5 after that wonderful season 4 cliff hanger and the plot about the first daughters kidnaping that Sorkin had so graciously left upon his successors. That hand off didn’t seem as strong on second viewing, linking it more firmly in my mind with the rest of the season, a season that at best showed a significant learning curve for the new writers, and at worst almost killed the show. Witness the White House’s funk after the immediate resolution of the Zoe situation: While understandable and dramatically logical, it was executed in such away, with this once loving cadre now depressed and grating on each others nerves, that superfan that I am I don’t know if I could have kept watching had that overbearing and depressing moodiness continued a few more episodes then it did. Of course there are some standout’s that are about as good as anything that had come before, the government shutdown episode, the supreme court episodes, and maybe a couple of other less arc-heavy ventures, but on the all... This really became another show, but then again second terms are generally not as pleasant as first, Nixon had Watergate, Reagan Iran-Contra, Clinton Impeachment, and Bush just a general all fronts fatigue. So I can buy Bartlett getting tired, frustrated, and feeling like he’s just treading water, but that’s just not as fun to watch as the programs earlier idealism. Post Sorkin West Wing is better then no West Wing, but in season 5 sometimes not by much. 3 out of 5.

Note: Chronology problem in the early season 5 episodes in which what should really be just a few weeks worth of events gets played as though it were a month or more. A much bigger chronology problem developed in the writers room between seasons 5 and 6, when it was decided to move things up a year yet no break in the action was provided to make this at all logical. The mid term elections are completely skipped, despite being referenced as up and coming towards the end of this season. I hate chronology problems because they’d be so easy to fix if people just paid attention, and they totally take me out of the story, I’m a stickler for internal logic.

Dan in Real Life (2007)

An advice columnist (Steve Carell) falls in love with his brothers (Dane Cook) girlfriend (Juliet Binoch) while attending a family reunion. Formulaic sounding fair elevated by likable cast (minus Cook), with Carell demonstrating the abelness in the romantic comedy genera he first assayed in The 40 Year Old Virgin. Binoch’s character is moderately beguiling but always feels more like the writers construct then a real person. Pleasant soundtrack. Three out of Five.

See also: The Family Stone (which is better) and Eulogy (which is worse).

The One and Only Harvey Korman Dead at 81

Horton Hears a Who (2008)

The works of Doctor Seuss have not previously translated well into film, witness the dismal How the Grinch Stole Christmas, or the reportedly awfull The Cat in the Hat. Even Geisel’s sole composition for a feature film: The 5,000 Fingers of Doctor T, largely fails despite its highly creative production design. The new theatrical Horton Hears a Who succeeds because it renders Seuss's story (albight expanded for the screen) and visuals in the only way they can reasonably be rendered, in animation, this case CG (remember how good many of the cartoon televison adaptations of Suess story's were). The voice cast is good, wide, and appropriately restrained, I always like to see Jim Cary hold it back a little. Carell perfectly cast as the mayor. Bright fun that I think will wear well, the movie crescendo’s very satisfactorily at end, much surprsaing my reasonable expectations. A strong 3 out of five.

Sydney Pollack: 1934-2008. I'm truley shocked by this death, I've always liked this guy. I just watched his Oscar winner Out of Africa on Saturday night.

Terms of Enderment (1983)

It took some time for James L. Brooks to get this movie, based on the Larry McMurty novel, made. It’s probably a blessing that the film did get delayed, because the cast that eventually was brought together is perfect. The great mother/daughter relationship movie has so many wonderful touches, beautifully realized character moments and nuanced relationships. It is the flagship for the whole 'Brooks genera' that followed it. Sheirly MacLain gets to show her range and Debra Winger creates a one-of-a-kind characterization that is just a joy. Good supporting work by Jeff Daniels, Jack Nichelson and John Lithgow. Memorable score. Five out of Five. "It’s not Mary Martin it’s Ethel Merman."

Out of Africa (1985)

Story of a Danish Duchesses (Meryl Streep, displaying her proclivity for accents) sojourn in colonial Africa, and romance with a handsome American game hunter (Robert Redford). This movie is heavily echoed in the later drama The English Patent, so much so I almost felt that I had seen it before, what with a setting in Africa at the beginning of a world war, an unhappy marriage of ‘friends’, an independent women, a charming stranger, a flight on a biplane and an untimely death. A lot of people have been profoundly effected by this story’s romance, and though I’m disposed to be amiable to the type of characters involved, it just didn’t do it for. I didn’t completely buy Redford and Streep together, and felt like I’d seen most of the driving concepts in the film presented better in the works of David Lean and Sir. Richard Attenbourgh. Recognizing its quality, but not particularly taking to it, I give the film a three out of five.

Hot Rod (2007)

Hot Rod is the kind of movie that happens to me when I feel like descending from my movie snob throne and mixing with the proletariat. Andy Samberg plays Rod Kimball, a self-proclaimed stunt man and typical movie man child, who along with his gang of fellow losers and the much out of place Isla Fisher (wasted in this movie, as I read another critic mention), endeavor to raise fifty thousand dollars for his step dad’s heart operation. The movie gives off a strong sense that it was simply thrown together one summer when SNL was on hiatus. One or two moderately funny moments do not forgive this film its sin of sucking, and if you feel like viewing something of this like I would recommend Think Tank, which is about as bad but made by amateurs so I respect it more. Sissy Spacek and Ian McShane play Rod’s parents, they apparently had lost some kind of beat. 1 ½ out of 5.

Charlie Wilson's War (2007)

True story of how a playboy Texas congressman with few demands on his time and an opportunity, brought down the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. With a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin from a well regarded book, and A list stars like Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, I’m surprised this movie didn’t do better, though it did do reasonably well at the box office. Of near Catch Me If You Can levels of enjoyablitiy at parts, the film captures the 80's in a non exaggerated style, intermixing the right amount of humor with a little known history lesson. Phillip Seymour Kaufman gives an awards worthy performance, and Amy Adams is the Hollywood starlit I would most like as my own personal assistant. Nicely compact at a little over 100 minutes, it’s an epic story at comedy running time. 3 ½ out of Five.

Speed Racer (2008)

I had no particular stake in the Speed Racer movie, while my little sister was a committed fan for a period of months in the mid 1990's when the series ran on Cartoon Network, what little I saw of it I wasn’t impressed with, and I even teased my sister about the program. Yet for some reason when it failed at the box office on opening weekend I was a little disappointed. Maybe that’s because I figured the film would do well, given the hype, the intended demographic, and the success of the directors the Wachowski brother’s (or brother and sister now, so I hear). Again this is ironic because my thinking the film would succeed wasn’t exactly a tribute to its intended audience, and I’ve always been kind of luke warm to the Wachowski’s, finding the first two Matrix’s to be good enough, but V For Vendetta rather off-putting. Anyway with my day off on Tuesday, a rather sizable chunk of afternoon clear, and little else in the theater yet that I wanted to see, I spent the staggering sum of $12.50 on an IMAX showing, figuring if I was going to see it, might as well see it right.

The production design was the first thing that attracted me to the movie, I knew it was going to look great. Then a posting on Sergio Leoni and the Infield Fly Rule, defending the flick against the critics onslaught against it, made me kind of want to be one of its defenders. Though it felt like it dragged some in the middle, after the novelty wore off and prior to the payoff (which was more fulfilling then I had expected), I liked the film. One of my major problems with the Wachowski’s previous work was what I take to be its pretentiousness, they make action films with a little material from a freshman philosophy course thrown in, and countless young people find them to be some of the most deep and profound films they have ever experienced. Having actually experienced deep and profound films, I find these bastardized versions a little infuriating. However in Speed Racer the Wachowski’s were simply making a cartoon into as cartoon like of a movie as they could, and generally having fun with it. The films messages about anti-corporatism and family where measured enough, and well integrated into the plot enough, that I didn’t mind them, I even approved. The casting decisions were all right on, with lead Emile Hirsch sufficiently ‘generic handsome and uncomplicated’, and Cristina Ricci, John Goodman, and (the can she really be in her 60's and look like that?) Susan Sarandon perfectly fitted to their roles. Mention must also go to the actor who played the little boy, who completely got the character and hammed it up supremely. All this being said the film comes out as a solid, fun 3 out of five, and I most assuredly would like to play the video game version.

When Harry Met Sally - The Horror Remix

R. I. P.

Alpha 60 Film Society

The Ongoing Cinematic Education of Steven Carlson

Hawkley's semi-Fantasy World

The Idaho Cynic

Happy 100 Jimmy Stewart

Madam Curie (1943)

A recent reviewing of Mrs. Miniver put me in the mood to watch some more Greer Garson. The choice of Madam Curie as my Garson vehicle to view was a fortuitous one, as it to boasts a number of the stars of Miniver in its cast, including Henry Travers and Dame May Whitney. Walter Pigon is here to as Pierre Curie, which is a major plus because he and Garson have such great chemistry together, probably the equal of Hepburn and Tracy. This sentimentalized bio-pic is more earnest and straightforward about its science then you could reasonable expect to see in a mainn stream picture today. While the discovery of radium is the central event or quest of the plot, it’s the relationship between the Curie’s that make it worth viewing. The courting and marriage of socially awkward scientists has great potential for both humor and warmth, and it is expertly realized in the film. However, even thought the film is about a great scientific discovery, and a ‘great’ romance, it never feels important enough to be great itself. It’s also not a film you have to, or even feel that compelled to, pay close attention to. For about half the movie I was sorting and boxing things and still following it fine. A three out of five this one.

Rambo: First Blood (1982)

I saw this, in the company of an almost exclusively male audience, in a special event showing (read: promotion for Rambo DVD boxed-set) at our local Regal Cinema. If you read these pages regularly you know I’m going through a Sly Stallone kick, and having not previously seen any of the Rambo movies, thought it appropriate to start this series out in the theater, as the option was open to me. Rambo is really the flip side of Rocky, as Stallone himself points out in an interview that preceded the showing of the film. While Rocky is an optimist, Rambo is a pessimist. A member of an elite Green Beret task force during the Vietnam War, Rambo is the last surveyor of his unit (the only other one to have made it out of the war alive, had succumb to cancer). Harassed by Brian Dennehy, the assholian sheriff of a small pacific-north western town, Rambo experiences some sever ‘post traumatic stress’, and takes to playing the war out in the little corner of Washington state where he finds himself. There’s a lot of survivalist cum guerilla warfare type action, but the script injects just enough internal human agony into the Rambo character to have it taken seriously. A kind of Grind house film with a conscience. I’s liked it good, 4 out of 5 (for its social significance) . The alternate ending shown after the film sucked.

Rocky V (1990)

A lot of people really didn’t like this one, I think in part because it was a ‘downer’ in the narrative. The Balboa family accountant turned out to be a crook and misinvested all their money, in addition to which some minor brain damage sustained in the last film makes Rocky ineligible to fight in the United States. So the family returns to the mean streets of Philly from whence they came, Rock tries coaching an Oklahoma youth, but he turns out to lack the champs ‘heart’, and the two street fight much to the Don King stand-ins chagrin. Again, I more then acknowledge that this one wasn’t as good as those that proceeded it (and some of the stuff with the kid was kind of hoacky), but viewing it as part of an arc, and in close proximity to my viewing the other entries in the series, I liked it enough to give it a 3 out five. Of course the true and satisfying conclusion to the Rocky chronicle comes in the 6th feature, Rocky Balboa, made sixteen years after this entry. That latter being perhaps the saddest and most surpassingly profound entry in what I must still call an impressive series.

Platoon (1986)

Oliver Stone’s film Platoon was advertised as "The first real movie about Vietnam." I would say this is true for a couple of reasons: First off Platoon is a movie about the experience of the ‘grunts’ on the ground, written and directed by a man who had been one of those grunts. There had been movies about these guys before but either they were largely propagandistic like the John Wayne helmed The Green Berets, or stylized like The Deer Hunter or Francis Ford Coppala’s Apocalypse Now. In addition none of these film makers had ground combat experience in Nam, and thus for all there talent or sincerity, they would never be able to capture the essence of the place the way that a talented veteran could. In Platoon you feel like your getting the essence of that experience (link ment to be ironic).

The film follows the titular platoon over the course of several months in the field from late 1967 into 1968. The young men who play the youthful solders read like a variable who’s who of the up and comers of Hollywood in the 80's, including Charlie Sheen, John C. McGinnley, Forrest Whitaker, and for perhaps two minutes or so, Johnny Depp. At first the experience is a tense monotony, but when you get to the sequence at the village (the turning point of the story), there is a sheer terror that strikes you with an intensity so great, as to be almost unfamiliar to your pervious movie going experience. You are put in a place where you come to understand why massacrers happen. The frightened young men divide, half appear heartless, half profoundly disturbed, the test of their humanity is given. Things spiral from there, the solders come out of that experience bitterly divided, beginning a veritable "civil war within the platoon", as Charlie Sheen’s character describes it in a letter to his grandmother. To borrow the title from a more recent feature, you know that by the end ‘There Will Be Blood’ spilt between these brothers in arms. The metaphor of Vietnam being for Americans a fight with ourselves, becomes expressed in a literalistic yet believable way, producing a breath taking piece of film making. Four ½ out of Five.

Ratatouille (2007)

Brad Bird’s a genius, so if he want’s to make a film about a rat who wishes to be a chief, I’ll watch it, and I’ll enjoy it. Watching the films of Bird you get a strong sense of his personal philosophy, a philosophy that extolls talent and the unique individual. Though set in France its something of a Hortio Alger tale in a which a country rat rises above his station to become the much sung top chef in Paris, at first through a good natured surrogate, and later on terms more uniquely his own, or at lest as much so as a rat can have, even in a Disney cartoon. Watching Remey (excellently voiced by Patton Oswalt) steer his surrogate by the hair in jerky limbed fashion is quite funny. Likable, endearing film had me laughing semi-frequently, not something I do that often. Four out of Five. This movie made me hungry.

Dances With Wolves (1990)

I remember a Far Side cartoon that depicted a meeting of the ‘Didn’t Like Dancing With Wolves Society’, basically it was three people in a room complaining that the Buffalo looked fake. Such was the enormous across the board approval this film received upon its initial release. Kevin Costner was at the height of his career at the time and surely that helped, but it also a superbly crafted ‘intimate’ epic, that came along at one of those rare junctures when Americans were taking a critical look at their own past (or so says producer Mike Medavoy). I even remember talking about this film in class during elementary school, but it is only now that I have finally seen it, and I too loved it.

Though similar territory had been covered in the early 50’s western Broken Arrow, staring James Stewart and Jeff Chandler, this is a yet better examination of the white man who befriends, and comes to identify with the American Indians more intensely then with his own race. Costener’s performance is perfect, hitting all the right notes. You see this troubled soul develop in his love and appreciation for the Sioux that live near the small frontier outpost he’s assigned to run alone. Though the film takes about an hour to really get started, during which initial stretch the pace seems languidly slow moving, it becomes completely enveloping there after, as the viewer finds ones self growing to understand and love this small tribe of people (and by the end kind of hating white people). Strong performances all around with Mary McDonnell both cute and charming, and Maury Chaykin delivering a brief but memorably weird performance as the crazy Major Fambrough. Mustn’t forget Graham Green as Kicking Bird, and the wolf for that matter. In short outstanding. Five out of Five. Later remade as The Last Samurai.

Note: Graham Green could play Bill Richardson.

Iron Man (2008)

The thing about this superhero movie, is that it doesn’t feel that much like a superhero movie. This is because Tony Stark, the titular ‘Iron Man’, isn’t much like the self sacrificing, scrub brushed hero’s of the Superman/Captain America tradition. Stark is flawed, a self satisfied lady’s man of the type Bruce Wayne only pretends to be. The fact that Robert Downey Jr. plays the part is a major asset in selling this characterization, because let’s face it, wittily smug super-confident lady’s man is kind of what we all hope Downey is like in real life (I’ve heard the comment that Downey is quote: “Playing himself”, several times in relationship to this role.).

The film starts out a little like I imagine Lord of War does, a slick, brandy chugging weapons dealer is enjoying his amoral life, when something complicates his guilt free existence. In Stark’s case this is his kidnapping by a group of Afghan based war lords, who are well supplied with weapons made by his own company. They force Stark, with the help of another hostage (Shaun Toub, in a good little performance), to build them a kind of super missile. Instead of the missile, Stark builds himself a super robot suit which he uses to escape his captures, but not with out poor Toub dying in the process. The impact of this event causes Stark to reassess his life, and start building a more advanced robot suit with which to rectify his unintentional legacy of arms proliferation to rouge elements.

The film has the requisite light moments (such as Starks difficulty in perfecting the second generation of his super suit), and the endearingly named love interest Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, who we haven’t seen that much of lately), with whom Downey as genuine chemistry. I did find the villain towards the end to be perhaps a little bit too much of a megalomaniac, but on the whole this is a first class work, with what I consider to be a pretty impressive screenplay for its genre. Terrance Howard and an almost unrecognizable Jeff Bridges have good supporting roles. The sequel teaser towards the end is probably over rated, but your gonna want to stay through the credits and see it anyway. Four out of Five.

Rocky IV (1985)

What started out as an artistically strong though populist work of the second golden age of cinema, has by this point in the franchise become pure Reaganite movie making. Here you have a Soviet bad guy, a talking robot, lots o’ angry fighting, and an excess of musical anthems. The quality of this film is unarguably below that of its predecessors, yet it’s extreme 1985ishness makes it hard for me not to just love. I’ll limit myself to what aught to be a generous three, but I kind of want to give it a four, if not more. Dolph Lundgren’s only slightly more personable then a block of granite, but an excellent turn by the Gorbachev impersonator.

HULK (2003)

Ang Lee was an interesting choice to direct a Marvel adaptation. An ‘art’ director with sensibilities distinctly out of the Hollywood norm, his take on the ‘giant green monster’ was not well received by mainstream audiences. I’d say there was even a sense of bafflement about the finished project, and people left unsatisfied. Some blamed this on the artistic flourishes of the director, who took the project from surprisingly real, to metaphysical, to comic book. However I think the problem may not have been that screen occasionally paneled (an effect I didn’t mind), but that the movie was more ‘graphic novel’ then comic book. It was a Frankenstein tale, combined with a bit of King Kong, that was largely internal for a film about a giant green man who smashes stuff. In truth it’s a film about the suppressed rage of the trauma victim, and no amount of special effects trappings were able to make that completely palatable as the event movie fodder it was expected to be. Well at least Jennifer Connally looked great. I actually liked it, but for those who didn’t no worries, the studio’s going to reboot the thing this summer with Edward Norton in more genera friendly form. There’s simply to much merchandising money to be made not too. Three out of Five.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Against the odds this proved to be only the third film to sweep the five major awards on Oscar night (Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Picture), after One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and It Happened One Night. An intriguing and completely successful thriller, this started the Hannabel Lecture franchise. Anthony Hopkins portrail of Lecture is iconicly memorable, and Jodie Foster’s turn as young FBI agent Clarice Starling is beautifully rendered and nuanced. This film drew protest from members of the BGLAD community because the ‘Buffalo Bill’ serial killer (whom Lecture is recruited to help Starling capture) turns out to be a transvestite. The films atmosphere engulfs. Kudos to Jonathan Demmie. Four out of Five.

The Singles 2nd Ward (2007)

Belated sequel to the film that essential started the ‘Mormon comedy’ genera. Basically a ‘meet the in-laws’ type story, Kirby Hayborn’s character must cope with his bride-to-be’s wealthy, divorced, non-Mormon parents, so its both culture and class clash. Though Full of the requisite Mormon in-humor, this movie would be not quite as incomprehensible to non-members as the original. In the end the Mormon belief system is validated while the culture lightly prodded, which is pretty much what Latter-day Saints like in their nitch comedies. Three out of Five.

Rocky III (1982)

An established, literate, and gentryfied Rocky must take on the awesome force of Mr. T. Not on the level of the first two Rocky films but extremely likeable. I’ve really been surprised how much I enjoy this franchise. The 80's anthem ‘Eye of the Tiger’ prominently featured. 3 ½ out of Five. (Note: I’m increasing my ranking of Rocky II to an even four).

The English Patient (1996)

I went back and forth a number of times while watching this one, but in the end I really liked it. It reminded me of the work of David Lean, both in setting and scope, as well as dealing with characters who have obsessions. Here Ralph Finnes has an obsession, and its Kristin Scott Thomas. Finnes character is a cartographer of Hungarian birth but no particular national loyalty, making maps in Egypt in the late 1930's. A quite, closed off man, he’s not one for relationships of any sort, until he meets the wife of a colleague, who at first frustrates, then fascinates, beguiles, and ultimately frustrates again. He’s never loved before and thusly loses all sense of scale, so obsessed he becomes. He drives her husband to his grave, even though in fact it’s the husband who plows a biplane to his death (famous scene spoofed in the Oscar telecast, with David Letterman crashing the plan into the desert, a reference to his generally regarded bomb of a hosting job for the 1995 ceremony). The film is very well constructed, and creates an interesting dynamic in its non-chronological story telling from several perspectives. The framing story of the Canadian nurse (Juliette Binoche, who reminds me of Rachel Griffith) and the Sikh man she falls in love with, simply and elegantly handled as counterpoint to Finnes tragic tale. Four out of Five. Still though Fargo is probably my favorite movie of 1996.

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007)

What can I say about this film? Oh the diversity of insulates that could be leveled at this abysmal, sad attempt to mimic The Lord of the Rings, truly staggers the mind. Miscast, miswrote, over long, and I would say under budget, had I not come upon the tidbit that it cost Sixty Million dollars (and has so far justly only grossed about five, that’s both theatrically and on DVD), its just awful. Of course I wasn’t exactly fishing for art when I agreed to see the film, it was rented to make fun of, and even with five fairly witty people in the room to do so, it still got tedious. I kind of hated this movie, even with the camp value of King Burt Reynolds and Ray Liota channeling Wayne Newton as the villain. About as bad as they come. One out of Five.