Arrival

The major themes of Arrival,  the new sci-fi film directed by Enis Villeneuve (Prisoners), are determinism, language, and the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. Sapir what? Yeah, I know… deep stuff… Meet the Millers this is not. Do not fear (too much) though – Arrival gives you plenty of time, and peace and quiet, to allow the deepness to entrance and the meaning of it all to slowly crystalize in your mind. Just be aware, although the film does include what one would call a space monster, there are no laser beams or death stars – it’s grown-up time in the theater so put your big girl/boy pants on for this one.

Caveats aside, I think most of you will like this film. Although Arrival is certainly one of those movies that will get higher marks from the critics than the viewers, I think it’ll be close with both groups registering high scores. Arrival is good, principally, because it is based on excellent material; that is, Ted Chaing’s Nebula-award winning short story “Story of Your Life.” And the film sticks pretty close to Chiang’s piece. An alien race, labeled heptapods due to their 7-armed radial appearance, has made contact and located 12 spacecraft, randomly it seems, across the earth. Their origin and purpose on our planet are unknown, but they have opened a line of communication allowing access into their stone-like ships every 18 hours and appearing to whomever enters from a wispy environment behind a transparent shield. World powers and their militaries rush to communicate with the extraterrestrials and discover their motives with the U.S. enlisting Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams), a linguistics professor of some renown, as their lead code breaker.  As Louise and assigned team member, theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (played by Jeremy Renner), race to develop enough vocabulary to query the aliens on their intent, the creatures’ language begins to affect Banks. Donnelly, observing the impact, asks Banks if she is dreaming in the heptapod’s language – she is not sure… and neither are we. And this is possibly the most interesting aspect of Arrival; the viewer and the film’s protagonist share in the confusion and revelation of the aliens’ arrival, and their un-human and beautiful language, simultaneously. We both view the event as through a glass darkly, so to speak, with understanding coming in a slow and dampened crescendo.

Arrival puts forth some truly curious and fascinating ideas that project into an interesting twist –  common attributes of all excellent sci-fi short stories. Being a first-contact story, the film reminds, at times, of Carl Sagan’s Contact, evoking a similar awe and anxiety toward the unknowns of a superior presence. The linguistics emphasis kept reminding me of an old Twilight Zone episode (based on a Damon Knight short story) where a manual belonging to alien visitors, titled “To Serve Man”, is misinterpreted as a guide to the aliens’ altruistic intentions when it is really the first page of a cookbook. But (spoiler alert) nobody gets eaten in this one. Some may prefer a bit of alien teeth gnashing, however, to Arrivals non-action pace and ponderments. My bet, however, is that your brain and heart will win out over the carnal desire for space bedlam and inane photon explosions, and that you’ll appreciate the skilled rendering of this outstanding piece of science fiction. 8 out of 10.

Florence Foster Jenkins

The film Florence Foster Jenkins begins with Aida Garifullina, portraying war-era opera star Lily Pons, singing The Bell Song from the opera Lakme’ in Carnegie Hall. Pons’ (Garifullina’s) voice is beautiful, so pure that it’s hard not to cry hearing it. The voice of Florence Foster Jenkins, who is in the audience, is not pure, and sharing it, which she often does, produces a different reaction – laughter usually, and often distress. Thus, director Stephen Frears’ opening scene sets the stage for a well-crafted story about the dualities of life – the purity we humans can possess and demonstrate juxtaposed against our abundant frailties and failures. The fact that Florence Foster Jenkins actually existed makes the telling of it just that much more enjoyable. 

Those unfamiliar with this stranger-than-fiction story will find it hard to fathom.  Florence Foster Jenkins, marvelously portrayed by Meryl Streep, has had a love for music since a young age. A talented pianist as a child, her desire for a career in music was derailed by the will of her father and, finally, a hand injury. We encounter Florence later in life; a significant inheritance has allowed her to pursue her love of music and lifelong passion for public performance through involvement and financial sponsorship of the wealthy New York City art society and social clubs. Along with her husband (sort of) and manager, St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant), a failed British Shakespearean actor, Jenkins performs in her own well-attended social club. After a club performance of a tableaux vivant, she reveals to Bayfield her desire to continue voice lessons and expand her singing career. There’s just that one problem – she has no voice… she can’t sing, not a lick. 

It would be easy from here to treat Florence Foster Jenkins as farce – I mean it is, on the surface, just that. But Frears strikes the better balance between joke and poignancy. Florence’s ear-spitting warbles are mingled and matched with the beauty of other sounds and voices. Although whimsy abounds, we are never left too long without a reminder of the charade that is going on. Jenkins is coddled due to her great wealth and allowed her indulgence to perform – even reaching Carnegie Hall – in part, by those who live and thrive from her support. But, as with most lives, there’s context surrounding the foolishness and Frears takes time to reveal pain along side the pomp,  and empathy and selflessness against selfishness. Frears and the script writers walk the thin line masterfully bracketed by the perfectly-pitched performance of Streep and Grant, and a clever take by Simon Helberg (The Big Bang Theory) as Florence’s opportunistic but confused pianist. 

Some may decide that the balance is too one sided in Florence Foster Jenkins - that the film is too soft on its subject. But heck, we’re all fools at some time… in some way. We hope that our remaining substance is still noticeable during those times and that we are lucky enough, like Florence, to have plenty of love to cushion us in our follies. And a little tenderness never hurt anyone. Go see the show, I think you’ll like it - 8 out of 10. 

Star Trek Beyond gets lost in space

Beyond is the third installment in the Star Trek reboot. Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek - Into Darkness (2013) were both good films. The success and quality of the restart stems, in part, from the clever time-travel slide of hand unveiled at the beginning of the first new Star Trek, which left us with all of the beloved characters from of the original but placed them at a new starting point to shoot off from. From that new vertex has come two good stories that have mixed the fresh with the familiar. The Star Trek series now lives in a slightly tangential universe from the one we experienced with Bill Shatner and crew. But the characters’ DNA is the same and J. Abrams and his writers used that concept beautifully in the first two films to weave our old friends through new tales within a slightly twisted Star Trek environment. Star Trek Beyond aims to follow the same path with a story that mirrors, in a distorted way, another time from the original Star Trek – a story of finding ones “first best destiny” amidst fear and doubt – a la The Wrath of Khan (1982). But alas, Beyond lacks the substance and heart of its parallel-predecessor – Beyond’s turning points get lost in a “fast and furious” blur. 

After three years of the “five-year-mission,” James Tiberius Kirk is wondering what it’s all about. He took the Federation gig on a dare. Now, three years in, and dealing with the more mundane tasks of exploring strange new worlds, Kirk is “lost” and on the brink of taking a desk job. Recall that the Shatner-version of Kirk was in a similar fix in the original Star Trek universe until Kahn showed up in the Botany Bay. But with the Kahn character used up by J. Abram’s in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), new director Justin Lin (Fast and the Furious) and a writing team that included Simon Pegg (who also plays Scotty) give us Krall, a lizardy villian who tricks Kirk into putting the Enterprise in harms way but also reignites the Captain’s juices as he fights to save her. If this sounds supremely familiar, it should – it was Kahn, recall, who masqueraded as a Federation star ship to rend the old Enterprise from a spectacled Shatner-Kirk back in 82. Krall is also searching for a super weapon reminiscent of Kahn’s quest for the “Genesis Probe.”But it’s not the familiarity that stymies Beyond – that’s expected with the new Trek universe – we welcome the parallelism and are tantalized wondering how it will be fashioned in each new film. No, it’s not the concept that is the problem, it’s the follow through – there is none.  

This was all foreshadowed of course. I mean, with the director of the Fast and the Furious mega-series and the author of the scripts for Hot Fuzz and Sean of the Dead at the helm (or conn), you can’t expect anything too profound – and this team certainly met my lowered expectations. The finding of Kirk’s best self, it turns out, is a very minor side story attached to a very forgettable core. Lin and his team are much more about the visual than the visceral. But his relentless action scenes trend from frantic to incomprehensible. They are long things, narrated by the crew’s rapid fire, nonsensical, MacGyver escape ideas. And poor Krall is a hot mess – his villainous motivations are feeble and the explanation for his existence – extremely questionable. Even the Kirk-Spock-Bones interplay, which I thought might be highlighted by Pegg’s comedic talents, seem strained, as if the writer has worked to hard to get them into the same elevator or transporter. It’s not that the buddy scenes are bad because there not – they’re easily the best part of the film. But they’re not enough to keep Star Trek Beyond from ranking third of three in the new Star Trek enterprise. 5.5 out of 10.

Jason Bourne

They just ran out of nouns I guess. That’s what happens when you make more than three… you start running out of nouns. Imagine the pressure to come up with a really good noun after the likes of “Identify”, “Supremacy”, and “Ultimatum” – those are all great nouns. You might get four nouns maybe (“Legacy” is not bad I guess), but five… give it up. And so they did… just called it Jason Bourne. Oh, they also gave up on finding anything new to wrap this fifth Bourne film around – they ran out of story for Bourne to act on. Just used the same stuff – warped CIA directors, foreign assets living in small hotel rooms (who takes these jobs?), and Jason Bourne’s fractured psyche. It’s all kind of the same. In fact, some of it is exactly the same… but it still sort of works.

We left Jason Bourne a couple of films ago after he discovered his true identity and faced down his creators. He said that it “ended there”, back in Ultimatum, but it didn’t. He says he remembers everything now. But it turns out he still doesn’t have the whole story, so we need Universal to keep making these movies – it’s about closure I guess… and millions of dollars in profits. We now find Bourne off the grid in Greece – a traveling fist fighter, beating and allowing himself to be beaten on – a sort of self-imposed punishment, we suppose, for all of the damage he’s done. Bourne’s wracked with guilt for the lives he’s taken as Treadstone’s super assassin and unclear about his true nature – is he a killer at his core or a brain-washed victim of an off-track security machine? Enter former colleague and Moped partner Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) who has continued to monitor the CIA’s nasty doings via the cyber-underground since she went on the run in Ultimatum.  She has information about a new and even more insidious CIA program and has also stumbled onto some troubling news about Bourne’s father Darth Vader… errr, I mean Richard Webb and his role in Treadstone. And Bang! Bourne has something to do again – it’s tired motivation, but it’s something. 

The first thing to do of course is to get out the old passports and start Bourne Carmen San Diego-ing around the globe – check. On the other side, the CIA still has access to every camera everywhere (including in space) and they pick up Bourne’s re-entry – check. Some of them get that “we’re in deep stuff” look on their faces and plot to take out Bourne because he knows too much – check. While others raise one eyebrow guessing that something is amiss here – check, check, check, and… check, check. It’s like setting up for a game of Clue for the umpteenth time – same suspects, same rooms. But we keep playing Clue don’t we? And you’ll keep watching Jason Bourne. Because despite the familiarity, the film is still able to create significant tension. Writer-director Paul Greengrass’ action is consistently crisp. Although not as good as those in Ultimatum, Bourne’s confrontations and chase scenes are still exciting and all pulled off without the over-the-top CGI bombast that most blockbusters fall back on. Still, the hub-bub seems less important this time. Even a new out-of-the-headlines subplot that has the CIA secretly embedding a massive surveillance program within a popular social media platform fails to generate the energy of the original trilogy. The lack of an intriguing story line puts it all back on an older, thicker Bourne to carry the film home – quick-walking, almost reluctantly this time, in search of himself. Jason Bourne is still frenetic and fun, but its path is worn and has lost a step or two. 6 out of 10.

Zoolander 2 is better than you've heard

Ben Stiller, the co-writer, director, and star of Zoolander and Zoolander 2 commented in Vogue (where else?) prior to 2’s release that “they want a sequel until they get one.” Stiller must have known what the critics were about to do to the sequel to his 2001 outrageous spoof on fashion vanity. If you’re the type that checks the Rotten Tomatoes scores before venturing out to see a film, you’ll know that most of the big-wig critics have panned 2 – some brutally. But don’t believe ‘em. Most of these guys didn’t like the first film at its release either, although they wouldn’t admit that now. Zoolander 2 is funny enough. Granted, it’s not as good a the first, sequels rarely are. But if you really liked Zoolander – meaning, you’re not just faking it to fit in – then you’ll likely enjoy Zoolander 2. And if you didn’t like Derek and the gang the first time, then you’re not going to this movie anyway… unless you’re a movie critic.

Zoolander 2’s plot is just as amazingly idiotic as the first film’s story line. You all recall the old one – the really, really, really, good looking Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller), greatest male supermodel of his generation, is brainwashed by Mugatu, the deranged designer of the piano neck-tie (Will Ferrell), to assassinate the Claymation guy – err… I mean the Malaysian prime minister, in order to maintain cheap child labor in sweatshops that support the fashion industry – marvelously inane, right? Now, 14-years later, we find Zoolander in seclusion after a tragic accident at the center he built for Kids Who Can't Read Good and Who Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too. Hansel (Owen Wilson) is not hot right now either, having suffered a horrifying injury to his face when Derek’s center collapsed. Both are lured out of retirement and thrust into a mystery of murdered celebrities, selfies, and a quest for eternal youth and really good skin. I told you… astronomically ridiculous, just as it should be.

But the plot is really not important in these films – It’s just a superficial tool to create a superficial movie about the superficial. This idea and odd-ball approach was peculiar back in 2001. So much so that it took some time for audiences to catch up to the fresh weirdness of it. Initial critical and public response to the first film was underwhelming at best. Post-big-screen Zoolander, however, hit stride quickly and developed a fervent audience. Mention Mugatu’s name and call for a “walk-off” in a crowd of Millennials and they’ll know just what you’re talking about. This same generation now flashes Blue Steel, Magnum, and Le Tigre, on selfies all over Instagram, Facebook, and the rest any chance they get (wait… all these selfie poses look the same… Mugatu was right). The fact that the vanity the first film made fun of has now become mainstream works both for and against Zoolander 2. Stiller exploits the expanding selfie culture throughout the film, most memorably to capture the over-the-top demise of really, really, good looking Justin Bieber in 2’s cleverly moronic opening scene. But the weirdness is now the orthodox. Stiller’s team settles, generally, for revisiting the same gags from the first film with several efforts coming off as a bit worn. There’s still some edge there though. Between Derek and Hansel’s serious debate on whether being plus size makes you a terrible person (left unresolved) to their “mind-blowing” exchange with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on self realization, there’s still more hits than misses.

Although I doubt any part of Zoolander 2 will infuse itself in our conscience and language the way the first film did, it’ll still fill up your silliness cup. If not fresh, Zoolander 2 is still fun in its absurdity. Ferrell’s Mugatu is in fine form – his summarizing diatribes on the fashion world and its rulers are by themselves worth the price of admission, reminding us of how ridiculous this all really is. Insert the all-in Penelope Cruz as an Interpol Fashion Policy Detective, Kristen Wiig’s way over-the-top aging fashion doyenne and new Mugatu lust interest, and a never-ending parade of celebrity and fashion icons, and you’re ready to get stupid. So to all of the jaded professional rag writers and bloggers out there – stop the complaining all ready, this isn’t the sequel to El Cid. Try to have a little fun – RELAX!

7 out of 10.

How does Star Wars: The Force Awakens rate with the Best Space Movies?

I know. The new Star Wars has been out for weeks - what took me so long? Not to worry. To make up for my tardiness, you get Pat's Top 10 Space Movies of All Time list! - What could be better? I'll give it away here... The Force Awakens does not make the cut. But read my review anyway and then delve into the list. 

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Star Wars: Episode VII - New faces, same story

The core appeal of The Force Awakens, and the obvious focus of its writers and director, is the nostalgia of it all. The purpose of this long-awaited first film of the new trilogy, it seems, is not to astound as much as it is to reacquaint. Watching Awakens is like meeting an old high-school friend – a good friend… some one you looked up to maybe. It’s quite exhilarating at first, but the excitement of the encounter wears off as you notice how much your friend has aged, like you, and that your old buddy doesn’t have a lot of news that’s truly interesting, even after all these years.

Although Awakens is the first film of the series not to have George Lucas listed as a writer (insert J.J. Abrams who also directs), its story follows the same course as Lucas’ first three. The Empire is done, having gone the same way as its puny Death Star, and has been replaced by The First Order, which looks much like its predecessor only with bigger weapons. The secular First Order is out to defeat the Republic and rule the galaxy (no change there) and its spiritual controllers from the Dark Side wish to finish the deal by extinguishing the last of the Jedi (and no change there). They are all searching for Skywalker who has disappeared, without trace (maybe), after a vaguely defined betrayal by a student Jedi.

Awakens' strategy is clear throughout; hook and hold with the old while hoping we can imprint enough on what little is new to assure the success of episodes VIII and IX. Fortunately, Star Wars’ far-far-away galaxy is still a very small place, making it easy for Abrams to bring all of the old and new together.  All key planets in the story seem within fractions of light years of each other and key characters are serendipitously closely clustered. Random crashes on planets place our main players within walking distance of each other. But I shouldn’t nitpick… maybe this is just The Force at work. After all, Star Wars has always been an interstellar soap opera – a space western never preoccupied much with the science part of its “Science Fiction”. It’s really part of the franchise’s charm I suppose – spacecrafts banking like F-16’s whether they’re in space or atmosphere. The Millennium Falcon (oops… mini-spoiler… yes, the old bird is back) still looks to have the aerodynamics of a cardboard box but maneuvers like a P-51 when negotiating the trenches of Jakku. Like the old faces we see, however, these quirks will be friendly reminders of familiar and fond places for most.  

So with hooks firmly in place, Abrams attempts to sell the new - new faces that is not new ideas. Abrams shows us a dark helmeted villain, a cocky pilot, and a daydreamer young upstart living on planet Podunk and longing for adventure – hmmm… I know these guys from somewhere. The new faces maneuver in the same places as the old once stood and often in identical ways. There’s nothing wrong in visiting the past. But it’s never quite the same is it. Ford’s Solo is the clear star – giving us glimpses of the old Hans. But they’re just glimpses, barely enough to make up for the disappointing Princess, err… General Leia, who has obviously had a too many packs of Camels while ruling the Republic all these years. Awakens is fun – it’s good and better than the mess heaved upon us in episodes I - III. But at some point we’re going to have to move on aren’t we? Here’s for hoping that episode VIII can better transport us from old to new and and from good to great. Awakens gets a 7 out of 10.

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So Star Wars: The Force Awakens certainly doesn’t rank in my list of Best Space Films. Take a look at what does.

I’ve narrowed the science fiction genre to “Space Films” for this list. There’s a lot of good sci-fi films out their that never leave earth's gravity field - but that's another list. To make this list below, you’ve got to spend some time out there in zero-gravity, in the cold confines of the great vacuum – dealing with whatever you find in that final frontier. But enough of the cliches, Here we go!

Pat's Best Space Movies 

#10 - Apollo 13 (1995)

“Houston, we have a problem” … in space. A gripping true event turned into a gripping film. I admire films that can take a story that everybody knows and still rivet you to your seat. Ron Howard's no-frills direction conveys the isolation and desperation of being lost in space and the lengths taken and ingenuity expended on all sides to return home. Nail biter, tear jerker, and flag waver for the human race all wrapped into one. Sneaks by another real-lifer, The Right Stuff (which would be on the honorable mention list if I had one) to get here.

#9 - Solaris (2002)

Space psychodrama. If you go looking, don’t be fooled by the professional critics when they tell you that the 1972 Solaris is better than the 2002 Hollywood version – they’re movie snobs and these guys always think that the older, non-Hollywood version of anything is better. They’re both good – but I take Clooney in 2002. This is space madness (maybe). Something weird has happened on a space station observing the planet Solaris. A psychologist (Clooney) arrives to investigate, but no one is able to explain exactly what has happened except that memories our becoming real. Surreal, cerebral, ambiguous, and incredibly interesting. A short story that one might give many different meanings to or take many different messages from. 

#8 Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

The best of the Star Wars Series. As big and flashy as the original but the characters have hit their strides in this one. Imaginative and engrossing – best of the space fantasies and the most compelling of the tales of the mythic clash between good and evil.  

#7 - Silent Running (1972)

I doubt that many have seen this early 70’s sci-fier, but Silent Running is an out of the ordinary thing that should be seen. Bruce Dern plays plant-loving botanist Freeman Lowell who happily carries out his duties on the spaceship Valley Forge, a giant orbiting greenhouse which contains the last remaining samples of flora from a now-barren Earth. When Lowell is ordered to destroy his cargo and return home, he is faced with a choice of what lives and what dies.

#6 - 2001 (1968) 

Although not completely accessible without reading Clark's novel maybe, it is still the most beautiful space film. Kubrick conveys the film's arguments with imagery and music in unprecedented fashion. A mesmerizing and cryptic look at beginnings and ends and beyond. So why didn’t I put this on top of my list? That’s a good question. I don’t know.

#5 - Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

The Wrath of Kahn represents sweet redemption from the disaster that was the first Star Trek movie. And maybe it is the satisfaction of seeing that the ol’ crew of the Enterprise could hit their stride again that puts Kahn on my list. Ricardo Mantalban creates a top-10 villain and the film is pumped full of cool add-ons; the Kobyayashi Maru Scenario, Spock dies (temporarily), and Khan’s giant chest - and that line... "I have and always will be your friend" - it doesn't get any better. 

#4 - Alien (1979)

One of the best in the science-fiction/Space/horror genre.  The crew of the cargo ship Nostromo lands on a barren planet in response to an SOS signal only to encounter an acid-dripping alien killing machine.  Unlike its revved-up sequel Aliens, Alien is slow paced tenseness as the crew attempts to search and destroy but finds themselves the hunted instead of the hunters.

#3 - Interstellar (2014)

Interstellar has as much to do with sentiment as it does with outer space. It’s an ambitious composition with big themes. The world has turned against its inhabitants. Blight and global famine have reduced mankind and its governments down to a single focus on survival. The search for a solution includes escaping earth to a new world. Mankind’s exodus will be made possible by the mysterious appearance of a wormhole near Saturn. Its origin is unknown but its timely arrival must be more than a coincidence. Who will win the race against time, man or nature (or man’s nature)? Both the heart and head parts of Interstellar are complex and large-scale things. Some will find the film incredible… others may find it inane as it pits the human attributes of faith and love up against instinct and logic. I obviously found myself in the first of those two categories. 

#2 - Contact (1997)

This is a special movie to me.  The interplay of science (understanding based on observation) and spirituality has permeated my mind for most of my life.  Contact is about the search for life outside of our little planet.  But the movie is more about ideas of fact, faith, and human nature, than the potential scariness or oddities of life beyond ours. The movie has the depth that you would expect from a product based on Carl Sagan’s work – which it is.  A science-fiction core wrapped in a discussion of what we believe and why.

#1 - Aliens (1986)

I’m not sure why I have listed this at #1. Maybe because it’s so much dang fun to watch. Rarely is the sequel better than the first but Aliens is the exception. From where Director Ridley Scott left off with the horror of a single, inexplicable monster in Alien, director James Cameron speeds up the action using legions of monster bugs with Ripley (the lone survivor from the previous encounter) embedded with high-tech Marines to battle them.  This is a modern sci-fi classic and one of my favorite movies of all time. Intense suspense with muscular story telling.