J.J. Abrams needs to find a deep, dark cave. He needs to crawl inside that cave and when he has found the lowest chamber, a place as far as possible from a camera or script or Hollywood budget he must sit in the dark, alone, and think about what he has done. Maybe we'll slap him with a rolled-up newspaper or something first.
Star Trek, despite its many mistakes and inconsistencies, is a franchise that is literally awash with good ideas. It has exploration, war, intrigue, social and political commentary, ruminations not just on what it means to be human, or even humanoid, but on what it means to be alive -- even if you're a silicon-based rock-eating slug. It has a sense of wonder, hope for the future. It has bad episodes, bad movies, hell, it has bad series, but it has a brain. It has -- if you'll allow me to get metaphysical -- a soul.
Or at least it did until Abrams got his hands on it. Whether it was due to ham-handed idiocy or cold-hearted calculation, he stripped all the nuance and brains from Star Trek, flashed it up and made it just like every other boring sci-fi/action movie out there. Way to go.
You see, what Abrams doesn't get, and what District 9's Neill Blomkamp does is that sci-fi isn't just about lasers and spaceships.
To be clear, there ain't nothing wrong with lasers and spaceships.
However, good science fiction is about the society that uses the lasers and spaceships. You don't imagine technological and social advances because they look cool, you do it to create a unique lens through which to view human nature.
District 9's story is centered around two million alien refugees who become stranded on our planet when their mothership breaks down floating above Johannesburg, South Africa. Starving and desperate, they are brought to the surface and eventually forced into the apartheid-style slum for which the film is named.
Shuffled into the middle of this is our human protagonist, Wikus van der Merwe. He's a dorky bureaucrat who finds himself in a position of authority just when the shit hits the fan.
The film is structured beautifully. The documentary-style framing allows Blomkamp to give us the exposition in a coherent manner without wasting to much time on it. Lots of other movies would be so in love with themselves they'd feel the need to waste twenty or thirty minutes just watching the mothership appear. District 9 has no time for such trivialities, however, and assumes we get it after a tight expository montage.
One of the film's biggest strengths is this frugal approach -- likely due to the fact that District 9 is an expansion of Blomkamp's 2005 short film Alive in Joburg. There is a small central cast of characters, and few gratuitous action sequences.
Do not mistake that sentence to mean that this film is not a balls out, heavy metal, face-peelingly violent ride, because it absolutely is. What makes it so good is that all that action actually matters. You know the characters so well and you are so intimately aware of the stakes that the action sucks you in like you're a part of it. I'm having trouble remembering many sci-fi films that had me this invested in the action since Star Wars.
The setting is so compelling because of its willingness to make us uncomfortable. It revels in how petty, conniving, self-serving and short-sighted people can be while deftly avoiding -- save maybe one or two brief incidents -- James Bond villain-style evil. We're dragged screaming through a sequence of little atrocities that never seem far-fetched, and are all the more horrific as a result.
Most importantly, however, District 9 is fresh. It towers above the wasteland of shitty remakes, revamps, sequels and adaptations. It was made because an artist had a story to tell, not because name recognition sells tickets. For that reason alone, you ought to see this film. Just as I have begged you to cease giving money to those who merely exhume the past in the hopes of getting upwards of nine dollars out of you because you can't resist nostalgia, I must now entreat you to support honest and heartfelt artistic expression.
Go see District 9.
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Star Trek
I've decided not to review the upcoming latest -- and most likely final -- title in the Star Trek franchise. It wouldn't be difficult. I'm sure I'd start by making cheap jokes at J.J. Abrams's expense. After that, I'd move into some examples of how the film fails to appropriately acknowledge the themes that were so important to the series interspersed with bouts of misty-eyed nostalgia from my days as a young nerd. Finally, I'd look at the big picture, castigating Hollywood and the media in general for failing yet again to come up with anything new.
Thing is, I already wrote that, only it was about Watchmen.
So, in the spirit of that Watchmen review, I am going to eschew the obligatory evisceration of a film which will undoubtedly suck a big hairy one and instead attempt to be constructive. I shall ignore the fact that Star Trek is being put it in the hands of a talentless, self-important hack in a desperate attempt to squeeze a few more dollars out of it, and devote this week to eulogizing my beloved series by remembering the good times in a little essay I'd like to call
"Why Deep Space Nine was better than The Next Generation."
Do not take this as a condemnation of TNG. It was my introduction to the series, and I recall being mesmerized by its optimism and imagination. The thing is, Star Trek is a perfect example of just how much can be learned about a culture by observing the stories they tell. The Cold War-inspired Original Series was the adventures of a Federation at conflict with other major powers, trying to do the right thing but also fighting to survive. The Next Generation sees their transformation from a regional power to a sort of United Nations. They're the biggest kid on the block, full of good intentions and the will to spread their enlightened way of life to the rest of the galaxy.
The Berlin Wall fell before I could understand what that meant and I grew wary of the idealistic, hegemonic mentality of the post-Cold War United States as I got older. The Star Trek series from those eras shared the same attitudes, that anything was possible with a can-do spirit and the right mentality.
DS9, on the other hand, was aware that things are never that simple. It was a Star Trek show that didn't shy away from gray areas. It didn't set out to knock the Federation's high ideals, but it was willing to put them to the test. Not the aggressive rival test or the space monster test, but the moral ambiguity test.
Just look at the primary adversaries from TNG. You have the Romulans -- easily the most interesting -- they used to be Vulcans, but they rejected their logic-centered philosophy when it arose and left to start their own civilization. They have an interesting history, but they're constantly portrayed as scheming back-stabbers -- as a species. This attitude persists even into DS9, but they get somewhat more exposure there.
Then we have the Borg, an enemy with which you cannot negotiate, knows only conquest, and eradicates the free will of the vanquished. Do you see what I mean when I say TNG is afraid of moral ambiguity?
Finally, there is Q. I never liked Q. Q the omnipotent space-jerk who comes out of nowhere to pester the crew whenever the show's writers couldn't think of a good space-time anomaly that week.
While there's nothing inherently wrong with any of these individually, when you add them together and account for the one-shot monsters you've basically described the whole series.
Starfleet prevails, nothing changes, roll credits.
That's why DS9 is the more engaging story. The adversaries don't swarm out of Mordor. They are rational humanoid beings with recognizable emotions. TNG never really takes the time to explore the complex political and cultural terrain of the Star Trek universe, but Deep Space Nine is immersed in it. The characters find themselves in conflict with familiar faces, old allies, and even their own people.
Even the Dominion is characterized better than the major adversaries of the previous shows. The Founders are ancient and powerful, but paranoid and xenophobic, insulating themselves from the outside world with their followers. You get the impression that there exists some alien logic behind their evil.
I appreciate the work that went into adapting the Star Trek setting from TOS to TNG. The technology level increases such that we are invited to imagine a society that is no longer limited by the scarcity of resources -- a society that is forced to re-think such ingrained concepts as labor, ownership, and value. That's why it's such a shame that neither series gives us a very good impression of just what that society looks like. They tell us it's a paradise, but I always wanted to see more of it.
In TNG, confined to a single starship, it starts to feel boring and sterile. DS9, at least, has the good sense to take characters raised in the perfect world of the Federation and drop them on the edge of civilization, way out of their element. We don't get to see the society, but we do get to see its values clash with others in the cultural free-for-all of the station.
Star Trek has never been consistent, but I would like to mention that over five television series and ten films I don't think the series has fluctuated all that much -- given the expansive time frame, anyway. Look at Star Wars, that franchise shit in its own bed and slept there like it was goose down by the fourth film. Star Trek made mistakes, but they were usually creative enough to bounce back. Star Wars made mistakes and then rode that train all the way to stupid town.
So farewell, Star Trek. You will be missed. I promise to remember you the way you were when you were good, before Voyager, before the upcoming, certainly garbage film.
Captain Sisko punching Q, over and over, forever.
Thing is, I already wrote that, only it was about Watchmen.
So, in the spirit of that Watchmen review, I am going to eschew the obligatory evisceration of a film which will undoubtedly suck a big hairy one and instead attempt to be constructive. I shall ignore the fact that Star Trek is being put it in the hands of a talentless, self-important hack in a desperate attempt to squeeze a few more dollars out of it, and devote this week to eulogizing my beloved series by remembering the good times in a little essay I'd like to call
"Why Deep Space Nine was better than The Next Generation."
Do not take this as a condemnation of TNG. It was my introduction to the series, and I recall being mesmerized by its optimism and imagination. The thing is, Star Trek is a perfect example of just how much can be learned about a culture by observing the stories they tell. The Cold War-inspired Original Series was the adventures of a Federation at conflict with other major powers, trying to do the right thing but also fighting to survive. The Next Generation sees their transformation from a regional power to a sort of United Nations. They're the biggest kid on the block, full of good intentions and the will to spread their enlightened way of life to the rest of the galaxy.
The Berlin Wall fell before I could understand what that meant and I grew wary of the idealistic, hegemonic mentality of the post-Cold War United States as I got older. The Star Trek series from those eras shared the same attitudes, that anything was possible with a can-do spirit and the right mentality.
DS9, on the other hand, was aware that things are never that simple. It was a Star Trek show that didn't shy away from gray areas. It didn't set out to knock the Federation's high ideals, but it was willing to put them to the test. Not the aggressive rival test or the space monster test, but the moral ambiguity test.
Just look at the primary adversaries from TNG. You have the Romulans -- easily the most interesting -- they used to be Vulcans, but they rejected their logic-centered philosophy when it arose and left to start their own civilization. They have an interesting history, but they're constantly portrayed as scheming back-stabbers -- as a species. This attitude persists even into DS9, but they get somewhat more exposure there.
Then we have the Borg, an enemy with which you cannot negotiate, knows only conquest, and eradicates the free will of the vanquished. Do you see what I mean when I say TNG is afraid of moral ambiguity?
Finally, there is Q. I never liked Q. Q the omnipotent space-jerk who comes out of nowhere to pester the crew whenever the show's writers couldn't think of a good space-time anomaly that week.
While there's nothing inherently wrong with any of these individually, when you add them together and account for the one-shot monsters you've basically described the whole series.
Starfleet prevails, nothing changes, roll credits.
That's why DS9 is the more engaging story. The adversaries don't swarm out of Mordor. They are rational humanoid beings with recognizable emotions. TNG never really takes the time to explore the complex political and cultural terrain of the Star Trek universe, but Deep Space Nine is immersed in it. The characters find themselves in conflict with familiar faces, old allies, and even their own people.
Even the Dominion is characterized better than the major adversaries of the previous shows. The Founders are ancient and powerful, but paranoid and xenophobic, insulating themselves from the outside world with their followers. You get the impression that there exists some alien logic behind their evil.
I appreciate the work that went into adapting the Star Trek setting from TOS to TNG. The technology level increases such that we are invited to imagine a society that is no longer limited by the scarcity of resources -- a society that is forced to re-think such ingrained concepts as labor, ownership, and value. That's why it's such a shame that neither series gives us a very good impression of just what that society looks like. They tell us it's a paradise, but I always wanted to see more of it.
In TNG, confined to a single starship, it starts to feel boring and sterile. DS9, at least, has the good sense to take characters raised in the perfect world of the Federation and drop them on the edge of civilization, way out of their element. We don't get to see the society, but we do get to see its values clash with others in the cultural free-for-all of the station.
Star Trek has never been consistent, but I would like to mention that over five television series and ten films I don't think the series has fluctuated all that much -- given the expansive time frame, anyway. Look at Star Wars, that franchise shit in its own bed and slept there like it was goose down by the fourth film. Star Trek made mistakes, but they were usually creative enough to bounce back. Star Wars made mistakes and then rode that train all the way to stupid town.
So farewell, Star Trek. You will be missed. I promise to remember you the way you were when you were good, before Voyager, before the upcoming, certainly garbage film.
Captain Sisko punching Q, over and over, forever.
Watchmen
There is a screenwriter. He or she is serving overpriced and under-portioned food to fat, wealthy, guffawing executives smoking cigars and their shrill trophy wives. He or she smiles and even flirts a little to make a better tip even though it feels dirty and dishonest. The screenwriter finally reaches home, exhausted and stinking from the day's toil, decides not join the other servers at the local bar, and not to collapse on the dirty mattress that serves as the studio apartment's only seating. No, the screenwriter sits down in front of an outdated laptop and writes the next chapter of an epic science fiction film that will never be made. It has love, betrayal, robots, the end of the world, and a candid look at the human condition. Few will ever even read it.
Apparently, we need to revisit Watchmen instead.
I suppose it was inevitable. The massive surge of film adaptations of comic classics had to crest with Watchmen. Despite the very obvious timing and pacing issues involved in said adaptation, despite the danger of fallout for despoiling a loved and respected and seminal work of art, it is too great a prize. I knew someone would take a stab at it.
And stab they did. You see, unlike Spider-Man or X-Men or one of the many other graphic titles which became films, Watchmen is a short, contained story. There is no allowance for narrative dysfunction resulting from the need to boil decades of serial down into two hours of film. Its makers are responsible for every omission, every unnecessary line, every stumble. Granted, there is more nuance in a single page of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's original comic than in the entire run of, say, The Punisher, but they knew what they were getting into. It's no excuse.
Much of the film is a straightforward, panel-by-panel interpretation of Watchmen the comic's central characters. However, many of the subplots were cut, leaving only a few glimpses of the characters involved as a wink-and-nudge to the fans in the audience. Given the fact that the climactic ending of the comic relied heavily on this material, it had to be changed to fit the far thinner movie version. I understand that the Marooned story is going to be released as a separate animated feature titled Tales of the Black Freighter. I suppose it's for the best as it wouldn't have worked as part of he full feature anyway. It ties in through another axed subplot with another set of characters. The source material is straining within the confines of its medium.
To be fair, the artistic work is very good. Although Nite Owl II and Ozymandius look a little latter-day Batman, the aesthetic is hardly out of character for either of them, and it's an honest modern interpretation of the comic heroes they represent. Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan, on the other hand, were designed quite well. I may relinquish some nerd cred when I say this, but it was very fulfilling to see the two of them on screen.
The sets and camera work deserve some praise as well. It's obvious that the original comic served as a storyboard whenever possible, and the artists who translated it to film did so with honesty and grace. Some of the segments were so beautifully rendered that it's a real shame they felt they were unable to stand on their own.
The film's hideous soundtrack booms in periodically during these scenes to remind you you're not actually having a good time watching Hollywood kidnap and murder another artistic masterpiece. It's a gaudy assortment of period pop music and a few other highly recognizable numbers (yes, I like Philip Glass as well, but can we give that song a rest, please?). It's boisterous and inconsistent. It does not heighten the emotional impact of the scenes in question, it distracts from each and every one of them. This is doubly embarrassing when you consider that most of the songs on the soundtrack are excellent. It is an insult, not just to the movie-goers they seem to think are easily distracted by shiny things, and not just to the musical artists being taken advantage of, but to the film's own art and direction by making the viewer cringe with disgust rather than be awed.
Awed by the visuals, at least. Thematically, the film utterly fails to fill the shoes of the original. Watchmen was obviously adapted by someone who read and enjoyed the comic, but assumed no one else got it. All those messy supporting characters and confusing subplots were trimmed. Where the comic was a diverse tapestry combining the stories and perspectives of many characters, the film is interested in only a few threads.
Even when it gets it right, the movie version doesn't even trust us to interpret what we see on our own. The dialogue is re-written in several places to dumb down and explain the emotions and motivations of the characters despite the fact that the imagery (usually taken directly from the comic) has already done so far more eloquently.
Take Dan Dreiberg's dream sequence, a scene I did not expect to see at all. In the comic, Moore and Gibbons trusted that their readers would understand what it meant. Apparently, the filmmakers felt this was too complex a metaphor for their audience and inserted some disjointed lines into the following scene to explain it.
This occurs repeatedly throughout the film. Now, I don't exactly have a lot of faith in the movie going public myself, but if you're going to go through all the trouble of adapting Watchmen into a film, why in the world would you cater to the unwashed simpletons who either never read it or didn't get it? The fans will hate you and the uninitiated probably weren't going to enjoy themselves anyway. It's as if half of those involved were interested in an honest translation of our beloved comic and the other half thought it was just a little too cerebral and wanted to broaden the audience. The result is a mess. Watchmen the comic is a dense piece of art, there is no question. There are layers to it that a single reading cannot penetrate, but at least it trusts you enough to figure it out for yourself.
It is perhaps unfair for the Watchmen film to shoulder all the blame for this phenomenon. It's a systemic disease in all aspects of our artistic culture. We don't create anything anymore. We just take the old ideas, dress them up in new black costumes and send them out there to bring back more money. All the capital, talent and effort are devoted to simplifying and remaking the classics when we are responsible for creating the new classics.
The next time something you love is turned into a film, don't go. If you absolutely must see it, download one of those screener leaks. Every time you pay them not to do any creative work, you decrease the value of creative work as a whole and our screenwriter has to spend another night waiting tables instead of giving us the rocking space opera we deserve.
Apparently, we need to revisit Watchmen instead.
I suppose it was inevitable. The massive surge of film adaptations of comic classics had to crest with Watchmen. Despite the very obvious timing and pacing issues involved in said adaptation, despite the danger of fallout for despoiling a loved and respected and seminal work of art, it is too great a prize. I knew someone would take a stab at it.
And stab they did. You see, unlike Spider-Man or X-Men or one of the many other graphic titles which became films, Watchmen is a short, contained story. There is no allowance for narrative dysfunction resulting from the need to boil decades of serial down into two hours of film. Its makers are responsible for every omission, every unnecessary line, every stumble. Granted, there is more nuance in a single page of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's original comic than in the entire run of, say, The Punisher, but they knew what they were getting into. It's no excuse.
Much of the film is a straightforward, panel-by-panel interpretation of Watchmen the comic's central characters. However, many of the subplots were cut, leaving only a few glimpses of the characters involved as a wink-and-nudge to the fans in the audience. Given the fact that the climactic ending of the comic relied heavily on this material, it had to be changed to fit the far thinner movie version. I understand that the Marooned story is going to be released as a separate animated feature titled Tales of the Black Freighter. I suppose it's for the best as it wouldn't have worked as part of he full feature anyway. It ties in through another axed subplot with another set of characters. The source material is straining within the confines of its medium.
To be fair, the artistic work is very good. Although Nite Owl II and Ozymandius look a little latter-day Batman, the aesthetic is hardly out of character for either of them, and it's an honest modern interpretation of the comic heroes they represent. Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan, on the other hand, were designed quite well. I may relinquish some nerd cred when I say this, but it was very fulfilling to see the two of them on screen.
The sets and camera work deserve some praise as well. It's obvious that the original comic served as a storyboard whenever possible, and the artists who translated it to film did so with honesty and grace. Some of the segments were so beautifully rendered that it's a real shame they felt they were unable to stand on their own.
The film's hideous soundtrack booms in periodically during these scenes to remind you you're not actually having a good time watching Hollywood kidnap and murder another artistic masterpiece. It's a gaudy assortment of period pop music and a few other highly recognizable numbers (yes, I like Philip Glass as well, but can we give that song a rest, please?). It's boisterous and inconsistent. It does not heighten the emotional impact of the scenes in question, it distracts from each and every one of them. This is doubly embarrassing when you consider that most of the songs on the soundtrack are excellent. It is an insult, not just to the movie-goers they seem to think are easily distracted by shiny things, and not just to the musical artists being taken advantage of, but to the film's own art and direction by making the viewer cringe with disgust rather than be awed.
Awed by the visuals, at least. Thematically, the film utterly fails to fill the shoes of the original. Watchmen was obviously adapted by someone who read and enjoyed the comic, but assumed no one else got it. All those messy supporting characters and confusing subplots were trimmed. Where the comic was a diverse tapestry combining the stories and perspectives of many characters, the film is interested in only a few threads.
Even when it gets it right, the movie version doesn't even trust us to interpret what we see on our own. The dialogue is re-written in several places to dumb down and explain the emotions and motivations of the characters despite the fact that the imagery (usually taken directly from the comic) has already done so far more eloquently.
Take Dan Dreiberg's dream sequence, a scene I did not expect to see at all. In the comic, Moore and Gibbons trusted that their readers would understand what it meant. Apparently, the filmmakers felt this was too complex a metaphor for their audience and inserted some disjointed lines into the following scene to explain it.
This occurs repeatedly throughout the film. Now, I don't exactly have a lot of faith in the movie going public myself, but if you're going to go through all the trouble of adapting Watchmen into a film, why in the world would you cater to the unwashed simpletons who either never read it or didn't get it? The fans will hate you and the uninitiated probably weren't going to enjoy themselves anyway. It's as if half of those involved were interested in an honest translation of our beloved comic and the other half thought it was just a little too cerebral and wanted to broaden the audience. The result is a mess. Watchmen the comic is a dense piece of art, there is no question. There are layers to it that a single reading cannot penetrate, but at least it trusts you enough to figure it out for yourself.
It is perhaps unfair for the Watchmen film to shoulder all the blame for this phenomenon. It's a systemic disease in all aspects of our artistic culture. We don't create anything anymore. We just take the old ideas, dress them up in new black costumes and send them out there to bring back more money. All the capital, talent and effort are devoted to simplifying and remaking the classics when we are responsible for creating the new classics.
The next time something you love is turned into a film, don't go. If you absolutely must see it, download one of those screener leaks. Every time you pay them not to do any creative work, you decrease the value of creative work as a whole and our screenwriter has to spend another night waiting tables instead of giving us the rocking space opera we deserve.
Frost/Nixon
There are so many reasons to dislike this film.
The documentary-loving responsible historian voice in my head is offended by its cavalier attitude toward the actual sequence of events. Granted, I didn't know this for a fact while I was watching it, but I felt confident in that assessment at the time and it tuns out I was correct. Not only that, but it invents entire exchanges which never happened for dramatic purposes. These things are rather important to me. I couldn't let myself see Kingdom of Heaven because that voice would probably land me in jail for assaulting the poor theater employee operating the projector and then lecturing the terrified movie-goers about the Crusades at gunpoint.
The voice that sounds like Patrick Steward wonders why we aren't watching Sci-fi or playing a video game. I respond that maybe this review blog project shouldn't be a total nerd-fest but then I realize I'm fooling no one.
The militant anti-establishment voice wonders why we should even care. I've got enough context to know that getting caught doing something wrong doesn't make a politician a demon any more than a bullet in the brain makes him a saint. Nothing against Nixon-bashing, it's fun for the whole family. He's still the poster boy for American despotism despite the fact that the United States' system of governance was abused worse under Lincoln. It's just old, isn't it? Why celebrate our one minor and rather belated victory over political corruption over and over ad nauseam when we are clearly losing that war?
There are times, however, when you have to take a stand. You have to say to the voices in your head, "Enough! I'm in charge here!" Just don't say it out loud in a public place because most people find spirited discourse with entities inside your own mind a little disquieting.
The point is, I enjoyed Frost/Nixon despite those problems. It's well-constructed and compellingly presented. It is adapted by Peter Morgan from a play he penned with the same name, and directed by Ron Howard. The source material's influence is evident throughout the film and is one of its major strengths. Frost/Nixon is about a contest of wits, after all, a verbal duel between the titular figures. The film manages to channel some of that raw actor versus actor energy you would expect to find on the stage, but uses cameras to get us even closer. Morgan and Howard manage to make it candid and human when I had pessimistically expected over-dramatization.
I have heard the complaint that Frank Langella looks nothing like Richard Nixon. While I suppose I agree with it, I fail to see why this is a deal-breaker for so many viewers. Do they expect Ron Howard to go to some evil magic university and major in necromancy so he can raise a zombie Dick Nixon from the grave to star in his retelling of the interview with David Frost, but then everything goes horribly wrong when zombie Nixon kills the film crew and turns them into undead slaves who then go out and make even more undead slaves all in the name of President Zombie Nixon?
I think I have a script to write.
Anyway, Langella's portrayal is heartfelt and genuine. He easily surmounts his jowl deficiency while playing the role accurately and honestly. His Nixon is not a monster. He puts a human face on the biggest bogeyman in American politics and he does it with admirable grace.
In the interview which is the subject of Frost/Nixon, the advisers, producers, and even its contemporary viewers were looking to get something out of it. In most cases, they wanted to give Nixon the trial he never received. They wanted him to answer for his transgressions. The film, however, has the advantage of being able to look back on the events it depicts, and the Nixon years in general, with some context. Conveniently, it does this just as another corrupt administration retires to mansions rather than prison cells.
Frost/Nixon is thus free to open up the conversation, to look at the events through a different lens. After all, it wasn't a politician who got the famous admission out of Tricky Dick. It wasn't a freedom fighter or a judge or an ideologue of any stripe. It was a British talk show host and a camera.
I like to see it as a grand statement about the nature of politics. It's all theater, really. The film shines a light on the inner workings of a television interview that meant so much more than an evening's distraction for those who witnessed it. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I do have voices to appease over here.
The documentary-loving responsible historian voice in my head is offended by its cavalier attitude toward the actual sequence of events. Granted, I didn't know this for a fact while I was watching it, but I felt confident in that assessment at the time and it tuns out I was correct. Not only that, but it invents entire exchanges which never happened for dramatic purposes. These things are rather important to me. I couldn't let myself see Kingdom of Heaven because that voice would probably land me in jail for assaulting the poor theater employee operating the projector and then lecturing the terrified movie-goers about the Crusades at gunpoint.
The voice that sounds like Patrick Steward wonders why we aren't watching Sci-fi or playing a video game. I respond that maybe this review blog project shouldn't be a total nerd-fest but then I realize I'm fooling no one.
The militant anti-establishment voice wonders why we should even care. I've got enough context to know that getting caught doing something wrong doesn't make a politician a demon any more than a bullet in the brain makes him a saint. Nothing against Nixon-bashing, it's fun for the whole family. He's still the poster boy for American despotism despite the fact that the United States' system of governance was abused worse under Lincoln. It's just old, isn't it? Why celebrate our one minor and rather belated victory over political corruption over and over ad nauseam when we are clearly losing that war?
There are times, however, when you have to take a stand. You have to say to the voices in your head, "Enough! I'm in charge here!" Just don't say it out loud in a public place because most people find spirited discourse with entities inside your own mind a little disquieting.
The point is, I enjoyed Frost/Nixon despite those problems. It's well-constructed and compellingly presented. It is adapted by Peter Morgan from a play he penned with the same name, and directed by Ron Howard. The source material's influence is evident throughout the film and is one of its major strengths. Frost/Nixon is about a contest of wits, after all, a verbal duel between the titular figures. The film manages to channel some of that raw actor versus actor energy you would expect to find on the stage, but uses cameras to get us even closer. Morgan and Howard manage to make it candid and human when I had pessimistically expected over-dramatization.
I have heard the complaint that Frank Langella looks nothing like Richard Nixon. While I suppose I agree with it, I fail to see why this is a deal-breaker for so many viewers. Do they expect Ron Howard to go to some evil magic university and major in necromancy so he can raise a zombie Dick Nixon from the grave to star in his retelling of the interview with David Frost, but then everything goes horribly wrong when zombie Nixon kills the film crew and turns them into undead slaves who then go out and make even more undead slaves all in the name of President Zombie Nixon?
I think I have a script to write.
Anyway, Langella's portrayal is heartfelt and genuine. He easily surmounts his jowl deficiency while playing the role accurately and honestly. His Nixon is not a monster. He puts a human face on the biggest bogeyman in American politics and he does it with admirable grace.
In the interview which is the subject of Frost/Nixon, the advisers, producers, and even its contemporary viewers were looking to get something out of it. In most cases, they wanted to give Nixon the trial he never received. They wanted him to answer for his transgressions. The film, however, has the advantage of being able to look back on the events it depicts, and the Nixon years in general, with some context. Conveniently, it does this just as another corrupt administration retires to mansions rather than prison cells.
Frost/Nixon is thus free to open up the conversation, to look at the events through a different lens. After all, it wasn't a politician who got the famous admission out of Tricky Dick. It wasn't a freedom fighter or a judge or an ideologue of any stripe. It was a British talk show host and a camera.
I like to see it as a grand statement about the nature of politics. It's all theater, really. The film shines a light on the inner workings of a television interview that meant so much more than an evening's distraction for those who witnessed it. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I do have voices to appease over here.
Star Wars
I grew up in a cultural vacuum. My family's home was situated among acres of corn fields outside one of those little towns that only exist because they lie at the intersection of a couple of highways and thus Wal-Mart can justify the construction of a superstore. I don't hold a grudge against my family for this, I just want to make it clear that during my formative years, I was exposed to very little media aside from pop country music and popcorn action movies.
Great way to kick off what is ostensibly a review blog.
So I missed out on a lot of cultural material that was available to other kids. This resulted in some hilarious misunderstandings later on. For example, I didn't know that extending only one's middle finger was considered a vulgar act until another student discovered this fact and took advantage of it. My first grade teacher was not amused.
I can't recall how old I was, which is good because I'm sure it's embarrassing, but I was eventually coaxed out of my tiny sphere of appreciation by a family friend two years my senior. He introduced me to Star Wars and The Ramones. This was good not only because I personally feel that science fiction and punk rock are better than the entertainment I had been exposed to previously, but also because it made me realize that there was even more out there, and not just media. Although now that I think about it I'm pretty sure the existence of Toby Keith makes pop country bad in an empirical sense. In any case, I think it's wise to openly discuss one's bias on a topic.
I was born the same month Return of the Jedi was released, but I know the story of Star Wars. Once upon a time (1977), an up-and-coming filmmaker named George Lucas managed to film and distribute a science fiction space opera inspired by Flash Gordon and Akira Kurosawa's samurai films even though it seemed silly and most people in the industry thought there was something wrong with him. As it turns out, there is something wrong with him, but that wasn't it, and I'm getting ahead of myself.
So began the most profitable franchise in movie history, especially when you consider everything that spun out of it. When I popped my cherry, I watched all three of them in order, getting up only to pee. I cried at the end of Jedi. There is nothing like the first time you watch Star Wars.
I can only imagine what it was like to watch it back then. When I was growing up, Star Wars was something of a bridge to geekdom. It was the nerdiest thing that was still socially acceptable. I like to think of it as gateway sci-fi. That's how it happened to me, and I'm sure I'm not alone. If it wasn't for Star Wars, I doubt I'd have ever discovered the various other forms of science fiction, weird fiction, speculative fiction, and fantasy that I love now. What did nerds have before that? Dungeons & Dragons? They certainly didn't have anything with the charisma and staying power of Star Wars. I don't know that he meant to, but George Lucas gerrymandered the border between dorky and mainstream.
If you buy into that sort of thing, Joseph Campbell would say that Star Wars' success has a lot to do with the fact that it is a superbly packaged edition of the primal hero's journey story. It's designed to tug at certain strings you never knew you had in your subconscious. I think many were enamored with the series' empowering message. A handful of people in the right place at the right time changed not just one world, but had a positive influence on a mind-bogglingly vast number of beings across an entire galaxy. Escapism it may be, but it was not afraid to do it to the hilt.
I can only assume there are people who genuinely enjoy the prequels. Otherwise, capitalism has failed in a big way (Har har! Helpful hint: People of the future, search "2008 financial crisis" if you're not too busy fighting robots or whatever).
There is little to say about the special editions and the prequels that hasn't already been said. It's as if everyone knew what made Star Wars great except for George Lucas. He said he was just "completing his vision" with the special editions, that the technology in the seventies was inadequate and he felt he never quite got it right. What he failed to grasp was that his creation came to mean something more to the rest of us in the intervening years and we might just take umbrage at his silly changes. I don't think it ever occurred to him that the fact that he made Star Wars within the considerable limitations of its time was part of what made it so charming.
I do genuinely enjoy some of the spin-offs, The Knights of the Old Republic video games and Genndy Tartakovsky's original Clone Wars shorts, for example. However, the franchise has been spread a bit thin for some time now. As I write this, a Star Wars television series is in the works, supposedly created by Lucas himself. I honestly don't know how to feel about that. When I first heard about it, I was suddenly the kid who read all those awful books just to keep the story going, who stood in line for hours to see the first special edition film the night it was released, who pretended to like The Phantom Menace for about five minutes. But then the older, jaded Star Wars fan takes over and reminds me that George Lucas isn't capable of creating three decent films anymore, much less a television series they rather optimistically plan to keep going for years.
Television is where good ideas go to die these days. While there are exceptions, science fiction and the other members of its weird family are particularly vulnerable. I don't think I can handle a situation in which a program that bears the Star Wars name has to jockey for market share with Dancing with the Stars.
I don't hate George Lucas that much, and I'm not necessarily saying Star Wars needs to be taken out behind the shed. No one can be innovative every second of every day, and I would definitely play Knights of the Old Republic 3 if Bioware isn't too busy with Mass Effect 2: Now With More Alien Buttocks. I think that's the point. Star Trek, for all its many faults, recognized the need to change over time. The series and films try to present different themes and perspectives that make fans feel like they really know the setting. You can really climb inside and live there. Star Wars gave me what I needed way back when I was a kid, but it never took that anywhere. It turned into a parody of itself to sell some toys. I shudder to think that there may be children out there who were first exposed to the prequels, but I have to face reality.
We had some good times, but in the end we had to go our separate ways.
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