Flicks to Hold You Over Archived Columns: 2002 Reviews 2003 Reviews 2004 Reviews

 

"Below"

It’s Halloween time once again, and of course this is the week that I have to choose the “Scary” Flick to Hold You Over. This year was a bit hard with the flood of movies that always seem to proliferate the movie rental outlets across the globe.  It wasn’t until I went to the local movie rental store and hung out there for a while with one of the clerks when I finally found this one.  I picked this year’s movie because, despite being pretty darn good for being a spooky psychological thriller-ghost story, it was also a period piece from our favorite decade- The Golden Age. Or, perhaps it is a physiological thriller [“phy·col·o·gy (fì-kòl¹e-jê) noun The branch of botany that deals with algae and seaweed. Also called algology.] It is not a great epic film, but it is terrific cinema and a great popcorn movie. It is also a movie that is written just so that there are not any major gaffs or blunders that are so blatant that it takes you out of the story and holds up to scrutiny as much as say… Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

A Halloween “U-571”

One of my favorite movies from last year was of course U-571, the World War II submarine drama about American sailors trying to capture a German U-Boat and bring the Enigma machine and it’s Code-Key books back to Allied intelligence. [Previously mentioned it in my first review Enigma]

This movie seems to be of the same genre as U-571. Before renting this movie I thought Dimension Films just hammered out a script when they found out that there was a set built of an American submarine waiting to be used… when in fact they built this perfect set for this movie as detailed briefly in the extras on the DVD. [They filmed all the scenes that took place in one half of the sub while the other half was being built.]

Obviously, thought, this isn’t exactly a rehash of all the other World War II submarine movies that you may have already seen. There are indeed many similarities to other classics such as Run Silent – Run Deep and Das Boot, nor is it like the contemporary sub films such as The Hunt for Red October, Crimson Tide and, most recently, Harrison Ford’s K-19 motion picture about a Cold-War era Sub with a flawed Nuclear reactor. In BELOW, there are some well-filmed scenes that take a lot of the stereotypical to new levels using an authentic submarine, the newly built sets with computer animation and other digital effects.

What sets this movie apart from the others that I’ve seen is that it is a movie that struggles between being a good military drama and a suspenseful-supernatural thriller.  It balances both quite well.

Superstition

Above being well filmed in the early part of the motion picture as a military drama and adventure, we are introduced to the crew as more then just generic American sailors. We’re introduced to them quickly as a unit of unique individuals within the submariner hierarchy. The language is both colorful and brash, the profanity is almost humorous but is not gratuitous… these are sailors, not choir boys.

After the rescue of the last three survivors of a torpedoed British hospital ship… the submarine’s subculture and belief system of “superstitions” comes into play. Also, to set up the tension the men read out loud to each other freaky short stories from pulp magazines and other such literature. It sets the mood for the rest of the movie as creepy things begin to happen through out the ship.

Many of the creepy things that happen on ship are written off to technical issues or natural such as bulkheads settling or whales. The other strange happenings are just thought to be hallucinations brought on by old air and excess hydrogen from the batteries. Many of the men speculate what happens as things get out of control and the traditional explanations don’t fit any more. Too soon for the crew members, the incidents just can’t be shrugged off any longer and there’s no doubt there’s something more sinister then just strange noises and coincidences… something more “real” and everyone’s worst nightmare come true.

Conspiracy

The second aspect of this film that’s perfect for this time of year is the conspiracy of three of the senior officers as they try and cover up the true nature of their Captain’s demise. Secrets with-in secrets are uncovered as the nurse, Claire (Olivia Williams), the second merchant marine officer (Dexter Fletcher) Kingsley from the destroyed hospital ship and the junior-most officer of the sub... Ensign O’dell (Matthew Davis) try to uncover the events that occurred just before the mysterious events started. As the trio are pressured more and more not to ask too many questions, they are forced into digging deeper and making matters worse for themselves and the rest of the crew.

Atmosphere

As it is described in the DVD, the movie is broken into three parts, action, creepy, and all out terror. This is most certainly the case and as I noted before, the movie strikes the perfect balance between being a military drama and a suspenseful-supernatural thriller. The way the movie is filmed as it progresses, the edges of what phase the movie is in are blended. There are plenty of spooky things happening through out. The atmosphere of the “Action Military Drama” is perfectly set with just the right amount of military lingo, uniforms and set design.

With in this setting, the “creepy” part is already set up with the introductions to the crew’s superstitions. As things begin to happen that are clearly not the work of a few crew members out to get a few laughs through ghoulish pranks, you’re already in the right state of mind.

Not to give anything away, but the final third of terror is more about surviving what ever is terrorizing the ship and has taken control. There are elements of these movies that will remind you of the desperation of Jones in the Raiders. When the rest of the crew has accepted the fate of the sub it is more of an adventure film when they do everything possible to just survive.

Conclusion

All in all, it’s a B-movie. It’s a GREAT B-movie… but it’s just a B-movie. Don’t expect anything epic and gracious- it’s just a fun scary flick that’s just the right balance for fans of the Jones movies and other period films from that era. There’s enough detail and little nuances that will entice movie fans to watch this movie more then once. I do warn you though… do NOT watch this movie with the audio commentary, though. The second audio track is the Director and many of the actors talking the view throughout the film and is hysterical to listen to. It’s just a movie after all and you can tell by listening to everyone speak that they had great fun making this film and afterwards I felt that it was a bit sad that there was no chance of this being a “franchise” with a few more sequels.

As with every good motion picture, you’re left wanting more. There are deleted scenes that you can view on the extras portion of the DVD [This is another flick that is essential that you watch WIDESCREEN]. These scenes were cut out to keep this motion picture more in line with terror and to keep it from being too much of an under-water adventure… which I think is a mistake.

Overall- BELOW is the perfect movie to watch with the lights off, the phone off the hook and when the kids are safe and snugg this Friday night after gorging themselves on treats.

Purchase 'Below' at Amazon.com

 

"Red Gold"

Be careful of what you ask for...

I wouldn’t actually encourage fans of classic Film Noir movies to do this… but if you actually cut the covers off of these Alan Furst novels and framed them for your home I wouldn’t blame you. If you downloaded the “Jay-pegs” of these covers from Amazon.com and did some resampling in PhotoShop to get some higher quality prints, I wouldn’t blame you either… it might be a violation of copyright laws - but I still wouldn’t blame you. Most of the covers of Alan Furst's novels look like stills from some of your favorite “intrigue and suspense” black and white movies. Most of the photos are clichés of such scenes you would expect in such films - dimly lit streets with dense luminescent fog and a single mysterious character or two in an ambiguous pose...

These novels are exactly what those of us who enjoy those classic movies have been asking for, fresh novels full of the mystery in the style of those classic motion pictures and full of “atmosphere”. That is exactly what is perfect about Red Gold, and unfortunately that is exactly what is wrong with Red Gold at the same time.

There were times when I was reading this book it felt like I was reading it just to get it done… as if I told my wife that what I really like for dinner is something she made a few weeks ago. It is what I asked for but it’s not as good as I remembered it. Red Gold is enough to satisfy my appetite for “literary film noir” and too much to eat all of it. It’s a hot steamy bowl of “you asked for it… now finish”. In those rare sections there is too much atmosphere and scene-setting and too thin on storyline, but they pass soon enough.

The novel is about a former filmmaker, Jean-Claude Casson living in WWII Paris and struggling to survive on a few francs a day. He hooks up with the underground and smuggles guns from point A to point B... then hustles to get them to point C at the last minute. For the rest of the book he is hiding from someone who thinks he works for the Gestapo and at times we are lead to believe Jean-Claud  s just paranoid. In the end the Gestapo does indeed have a file on him, which is quickly disposed of in a humorous manner.

Casson soon becomes the go-between for everyone involved: the underground communist party who’s supplying the money from the Soviet Union, the workers at guns to the rifle factory who work under the noses of the Nazi over-seers and finally the smugglers who are getting the guns to the hands of the resistance. Casson keeps telling who ever he’s dealing with at the moment, “This is my last job and I’m though.” only to be later running low on cash and recruited again for another errand. Each time the errands are more and more dangerous until he has no choice but to join the resistance full time… reluctantly.

Intertwining

Many times you’ll read about the extremes Casson goes through just to survive, such as selling some of his favorite articles of clothes. Just when you think Casson’s life can’t get any worse… Furst piles on the salt in our literary open wounds by showing us brief glimpses of what is going on in other parts of the resistance. The best is a brief glimpse in one a chapter [a short story with in the novel] about a radio operator who is working all through the night. With his small support team in an attic, he works at relaying messages to the British or anyone else on the resistance’s side. Meanwhile, Nazis are driving up and down the street with radio antenna “loops” on search and destroy missions for such radio operators. Casson writes in such a way that you quickly get to know the people involved in these small operations intimately. There are moments when you might be thinking, “Yea, that could be me… I could see myself doing that if I had to…”.  Furst is able to get the reader to feel the panic as the Nazis are getting close and narrow in on the signal. Furst quickly coveys the need stay on the air to get the message thought and you feel the panic as the team is making their escape and they are begging the radio operator to come with them… you can smell the sulfur of the match burn as he lit the paper so it won’t get in the hands of the Nazi.

Also, there are other circles you’ll be introduced to and at the time you wonder why you should care. But, in what I’ve learned as being the “Furst Style”, eventually there are no wasted pages. In the end every situation involves our reluctant hero Casson in the highest magnitude but you do not learn why until the last chapters.

There are little threads running though out Red Gold that lead you to other Furst's adventures.  In the final chapter of Red Gold there is a crisis involving the Germans moving oil in barges in the French canals and they must be stopped. Coincidentally sitting next to Red Gold is a copy of Blood of Victory… the story about a journalist who is recruited by the British to stop the Nazis from transporting oil across the Black Sea. One might conclude that someday Furst ties all the novels together with all his main characters from his other books, uniting around the time of the Second World War. It is a concept that he is alluding to, but doesn’t ever come out and say this is what his intentions are.

The Raiders Connection

Much of these novels (First Red Gold, now Blood of Victory that is one-quarter finished) read in such away that you could imagine how it would be filmed. As far as why Raiders fans would read these novels, that is a good question.  There are huge gaps with in the “Complete Adventures of Indiana Jones” from 1938 through to the 1950’s when the final installment will take place. One would have to ask what was Jones up to through out this period of World War II and beyond. I wouldn’t say that these books indeed fill those gaps, but they do give an idea of what he COULD have been doing if he had been recruited by the United States or British Intelligence, which is a common thread of these novels. This novel is not for everyone, and maybe not even for every Jones Fan… but there is enough action, intrigue AND atmosphere to keep the pages turning. It would be interesting to see what a director like Spielberg would do with these novels… since all of the scene descriptions are almost laid out. Who ever the filmmaker is that gets his hands on these novels, just be sure you hire the man who took the photos for the covers as the Cinematographer.

Purchase 'Red Gold at Amazon.com: Paperback

 

"The Pianist"

By Eric Renderking Fisk, Rindge NH

Nazi’s and Xerox...

A few weeks ago, we received an e-mail from a “The Indy Experience” reader from Scotland who wrote me the riot act for using the word “Nazi” in a review that I wrote where compared “Bowling for Columbine” with the Hitler propaganda film, “Triumph of the Will”. Fair or not, my review still stands, but the criticism from “Denis from Scotland” was justified. The brand ‘Nazi” shouldn’t be thrown about lightly. In my words, using the label “Nazi” isn’t like calling a photocopy a ‘Xerox’. Because someone or another group of people does something that doesn’t please you doesn’t automatically make them the worst villains the world has ever seen.

As far as I know, and I don’t mean to generalize, but the vast majority of the people who get the label “Nazi” don’t deserve it. Excluding the activities inside Serbia/Kosovo, Iraq or even the moderators of some forum’s… none have committed acts of genocide, invaded other European countries or burned books during political rallies or parades. And yet, the label “Nazi” is tossed about as if it was a harmless disruptive word in our lexicon. Even sitcoms do a whole episode on “The Soup Nazi” and it gets laughs.

Some will say that I’m being oversensitive, but the word Nazi is over used in our culture today and it’s losing it’s punch, much like vulgarities such as the F-Word, the S-Word, the C-Word, GD and taking our Lord’s name in vane. These words have lost some of their meaning because of pop culture and comedians looking for a cheap laugh.

This is what Microsoft’s Bookshelf says about the word “Nazi”

Na·zi (nät¹sê, nàt¹-) noun

plural Na·zis

1. A member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, founded in Germany in 1919 and brought to power in 1933 under Adolph Hitler.

2. Often nazi. An adherent or advocate of policies characteristic of Nazism; a fascist.

 

Adjective

Of, relating to, controlled by, or typical of the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
 
[German, short for Nationalsozialistische deutsche Arbeiter-Partei, National Socialist German Workers' Party.]

— Na´zi·fi·ca¹tion (-se-fî-kâ¹shen) noun

— Na¹zi·fy´ (-se-fì´) verb[1]

And that’s just the soft-core version. Unfortunately it’s doesn’t accurately describe the abject horror that was the Nazi party. To over-use such a word might cause us to lose its historical context. Much like in the aforementioned sitcom about the “Soup-Nazi”, we lose sight of who they really were, we forget a Europe that was savaged by war

And the countless Jews who were slaughtered under their control.

Name-calling and to mislabel someone in this manner is the first and last act of a defeated loser who can’t succeed on merit. Name-calling of this magnitude is the concede of failure of the depraved.

It’s my wish that we never lose context of who and what the Nazi’s were and their proper place and context in history. Today, few filmmakers have taken up the task of bringing the true context of the Holocaust to theaters; Steven Spielberg in making "Schindler's List" and Roman Polanski’s personal project- the subject of this review.

One Family’s story.

Adrien Brody won the Academy Award for his portrayal as Wladyslaw Szpilman, the title character of this motion picture. Mr. Brody earned the highest honor for his sincere portrayal of Wladyslaw Szpilman who wrote his memoirs of which this movie was based. This motion picture also nominated for
Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing and won for Directing and also Writing (Adapted Screenplay).

The story begins the day of the Nazi invasion of Warsaw. As he’s on the radio while playing the Piano, the neighborhood is being bombed by German tanks and mortars. Not until the last minute does he leave the building, only the shell that almost pulverizes his radio studio does he leave.  He believes that soon the war will be over and they will be free. The celebration is premature, soon they are exiled into the Jewish Ghetto, then to labor camps, and finally his family members are sent to a concentration camp and then ultimately murdered.

From the moment of his first escapee, we see the years pass, as a refugee in his own city, an outlaw for just being Jewish and capture didn’t mean imprisonment but sudden death. There are few brief moments of chase that are just as intense as any blockbuster, yet more intense. Szpilman is no super hero, (although out of his entire wardrobe, his gray fedora was by far the best in the whole picture, and folks on our favorite boards should be trying to emulate it soon.)

Evil in Context

Many of the scenes will be hard to watch for any decent human being. The Nazi’s in The Pianist are not the stereotypical villains; there’s a level of cruelty to them that’s harsh and shocking. The crimes against humanity aren’t only committed by the German’s, but by a few Jews and Polish trying to appease their new masters. These villains are fellow Polish Jews wearing ghetto-police uniforms (or just the caps), fellow Jews praying on the weaker and those who knew what was wrong and did nothing. These horrible acts that are not perpetrated by non-Nazis does not diminish the evil of these monsters, but focus on how corruptible this madness was and how infectious the nazis were. The Nazis are able to demonstrate that depravity is contagious.

As bad as things get for Szpilman, the worst evil is perpetrated on the children. Kids are more they just young people, they are unbounded by their imagination and their capacity for unconditional love. No greater crime could ever be committed to an adult would ever be nearly as cruel as that same crime committed to an innocent child. Seeing the children in this motion picture get abused, neglected or starve is enough to break your heart. Parents watching this will be compelled to grab their children as I held my son, realizing of course that this may only be a movie but also a movie based on fact and an eyewitness account of what happened during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

Judge a man by his own Actions, not by the Color of his Uniform.

Not all Germans were Nazi’s, and Walter Donavon is the perfect example that not all Nazis were German. In turn there were several men who wore the Nazi uniform were not all evil- many were sympathetic to the plight of the Jews. Mr. Spielberg's Schindler's List demonstrated this also- that not everyone who worked for the Nazi’s where heartless and tried to do what they could in their own way and even jeopardized their own safety to do so.

Beyond spoiling the motion picture, Mr. Szpilman’s life hung in the balance towards the end of the story before the city was liberated by Russian troops. It was one German Officer’s kindness through the food and few articles of clothing that helped Szpilman survive.  This officer did this while keeping our hero hidden in the home the Nazis used as offices with great risk, becoming a hero in the process. As the end of the war drew to a close and Nazi defeat was inevitable, this German officer did the right thing, and perhaps as penance for the harm he had cause earlier. There are strong and powerful scenes and exchanges between Szpilman and the German officer that Illustrate the good a man can do when powered by guilt and shame and perhaps in a search for redemption.

Reflections on the past...

In watching this movie, Raiders and Last Crusade became darker films for me. The villains and their Allies seem to be more sinister then before and less cartoonish… and each one an individual. Also, there are some moments in The Pianist that are just as suspenseful as any of the three films that we hold so dear, there are moments when Szpilman’s life literally hangs by the end of his fingertips while he’s being shot at, chased or hiding in particular places. This film is also important for those who understand history’s importance in society. The Pianist paints a sharply contrasting picture of humanity and is an important movie for society, remembering that those who forget history is doomed to repeat it… this is one flick you won’t soon forget.

[1]Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition  © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

Purchase 'The Pianist' at Amazon.com: DVD or VHS

 

"Possession"

By Eric Renderking Fisk, Rindge NH

The Raiders Connection…

The most exciting scenes in all of the Indiana Jones series aren’t always action packed. Many of these “edge of your seat” moments are  when Indy uncovers an artifact that leads him in the right direction.

INT. COLLEGE LECTURE HALL - DAY

DISSOLVE TO:

INDY, dressed in professorial tweeds, stands before his class. He turns to the blackboard with a piece of chalk and writes the word: "FACT."

INDY

“... The search for fact. Not truth. If it's truth you're interested in, Doctor Tyree's Philosophy class is right down the hall… So forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel, and digging up the world. Do not follow maps to buried treasure and "X" never, ever, marks the spot. Seventy percent of all archaeology is done in the library. Research... Reading. We cannot afford to take mythology at face value.”

Most of Harrison Ford’s line in this scene is an accurate description of Possession. The initial discovery of the first draft of the letters sent from one lover to another written a century ago occurs in the library. A library is not where you would expect to find much action- but you wouldn’t expect to find a tomb in the library’s cellar, either. Possession illustrates that books are more they just bound pages of written words, but links to the past and to discovery.

Add to the mix of Possession is a competing team of intellectuals that will do what ever they can to steal our hero’s discoveries and release them on their own much the same way you would expect Paul Freeman’s Belloq to do in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

In the Spirit of Discovery…

There are times when a motion picture will take you by surprise and become an instant classic while you’re watching it for the first time. For me, as a moviegoer, there is nothing greater than picking up a movie on a whim, then a few minutes after it starts already being able tell this is a movie that has to be shared with everyone. There are even some incredible gems that I rent for the original purpose of just enjoying with my wife, and we then discover together that we’ve found a “Flick to hold you over” by accident. The first was “Enigma”, which was the inspiration for this column.  The latest is this find.

Much of that spirit of accidental discovery is the theme of this movie. Perhaps what made this movie exciting for the two of us was that it paralleled the events at the video store the night we found it. I happened to pick up the DVD case and read the back and was enamored with the idea of one couple from the present exploring the past through letters left behind by two forbidden lovers from a century ago. This might sound like the perfect formula for a sappy chick flick, and initially we were caught up in the concept of a good romance that would go great with wine after dinner. What we didn’t expect was the fast pace the two central characters go through to reveal the true history of two of England’s most beloved poets.

What the synopsis of the movie on the back cover DOESN’T tell you is that through out the movie there are hidden treasures, secret locations, grave robbery, deception, lying, a chase to find the truth through two countries (England and France) and one brief fist fight in the end. If these details were included in the movie’s synopsis, more men would be eager to rent this.

Lost pages, found again…

The motion picture begins with secret past uncovered with a few letters tucked away in an old book in the London Library. Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart) stumbles onto these letters while doing work for Professor Blackadder (Tom Hickey) who is in charge of maintaining a library of information on the poet, Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam).

In a cinematic or literary synchronicity, the year this motion picture’s story takes place is the same year that Ash’s centennial anniversary of the release of his collection of poems is being celebrated. It is this plot device that is used to bring an urgency to the search since it would be incredible to bring to light his secret life while his work is in the spot-light again.

Once Roland figures out the historical significance of these letters and Ash’s almost obvious relationship he had with poet Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle) by placing names with the locations of where they were on particular dates, he solicits the help of Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow) who holds a doctorate in the studies of Christabel LaMotte’s work. Also, Maud is ‘the keeper of the flame being the “Great Niece of LaMotte, thrice removed”.

At first Maud shrugs off the notion of there being a connection between Ash and LaMotte until one night she and Roland spend the night in the castle where both she and LaMotte lived a century apart… She remembers verses of a poem that leads to the discovery of the first letters exchanged between Ash and LaMotte which then catapults the two into a fast paced search for more facts.

As noted before, a pair of ruthless competitors... Fergus Wolfe (Die Another Day villain Toby Stephens) and Cropper (Trevor Eve) are hot on the trail a few steps either ahead or behind in an attempt to reveal the find to the academic community before Roland and Maud do.

Conclusions...

In the end this is not the kind of movie that I would recommend to everyone. The pace demands a bit more patience. Also, the movie lacks the kind of action most of the readers here on The Experience are used to. It is a movie about intellectuals in the search of the truth and of facts and of who they really are as they discover a new love for each other. The suspense is real and does have you at the edge of your seat because the search Roland and Maud are performing becomes personal.

The music written by Gabriel Yared is not the usual “John Williams” fare. It is both rich and haunting, creating an emotional punch to the drama. The direction and cinematography have some similarities to Mr. Spielberg's style of his later work.

Over all, it is the perfect film for a rainy day or a quite evening alone with someone special. It is a quitter addition to the Flicks to Hold you over.

Purchase 'Possession' at Amazon.com: DVD or VHS

 

"A.I. Artificial Intelligence"

By Eric Renderking Fisk, Rindge NH

Where Dreams are Born

Simply put, perhaps AI might be too much movie for a lot of people. I don’t mean to sound like an elitist snob (those who know me know that I don’t have an elitist bone in my body- I’ll drink cognac right out of the bottle and do an air cello while jamming to my favorite rock-and -roll cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, anytime) but this movie may be too good for a viewing public that would put a movie like “Tomb Raider” over the top at the box office for the 2 or 3 weeks during A.I’s initial release. A.I. has something called a plot, and a lot of it. But to the defense of the common man, maybe Mr. Kubrick and Mr. Spielberg tried to do too much in 2-plus hours...

A.I. is a modern take on the Pinocchio fable, about as dark and as mature (maybe ADULT would be a better word) as you would expect from a movie that was developed by Stanley Kubrick for 12 years and based on the Brian Aldiss short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long, then finally directed by Steven Spielberg after Mr. Kubrick’s death. A.I. was a movie shrouded by mystery and suspense while it was being developed and the mystery was well guarded right up to a week or so before it was released. When it was finally reviewed it was either loved or hated and there wasn’t room for any middle ground. Many folks accused Spielberg of “tagging on” the ending, but it was the concept of the ending that inspired Mr Kubrick to do the motion picture in the first place. In the end, according to Mr. Spielberg during the interviews on the second disk of the DVD, this is as close to the original vision Mr. Kubrick had from the very beginning.

For Always

Dr. Allen Hobby, the preeminent robotic scientist [William Hurt] informs the top brass of his company, “Cybertronics” that he wants to create the perfect robot, (known as Mecha’s) that does more then just simulate people’s actions and emotions… he wants to create a mecha that actually loves. At first he seems to be a legitimate scientist who wants to fill a “great human need for childless couples yearning in vane for a license to have children of their own,” but soon we learn his true motives, not quite as altruistic yet understandable. William Hurt portrays Dr. Hobby as a melancholy genius looking to fill the void in his heart left behind by someone close to him, with the implications far reaching beyond his immediate future.

Two years later, we see a pair of grieving parents who are mourning the loss of their son. Their son is not dead, but close enough. Martin Swinton [Jake Thomas] is in cold storage due to what we are lead to believe is a disease or infection with no hope of ever recovering. To help his wife grieve, Henry Swinton [Sam Robards] takes part in a pilot program with one of the prototype Mecha boys, “David” [Haley Joel “I see dead people” Osment] from the Cybertronics company Dad works in… like taking the boy home like a new car off the lot, test drive it and kick the tires a couple of times.

Predictably in any Spielberg movie,  the robot boy arrives and steals the heart of the grieving mother... Monica Swinton [Frances O'Connor] in a few heartwarming scenes of them growing together. She goes through the process of saying  “seven code words” to imprint herself on the Mecha-boy… and then the robot goes from being an overly friendly house-guest to a clingy son yearning to be truly loved by another being who he regards as his mother. She goes from being Monica to Mommy in the blink of an eye.

Henry, the one who pushed to have the robot boy in the house in the first place, never really bonds with David, as the novelty wears off like any new toy.

For David, Monica brings a toy out of storage that belonged to her organic son before the coma. That toy becomes one of the central characters of the story. Teddy is a ‘smart’ toy, also gifted with artificial intelligence. Teddy is a stuffed bear that walks and talks and reasons. A word of warning:  Teddy is often more interesting then a lot of the human beings on screen. He’s like a gruff Obi-Wan Kenobi or a Sallah in the form of a childhood friend to David. Teddy is a scene stealer.

Again, just like in any other Spielberg movie, the worst possible thing you could imagine happens. Even worse, what may be regarded as a miracle becomes a curse. Monica and Henry’s Martin -the “birth child” - awakes from his coma which is great news for the kid… bad news for the replacement.

Then the movie really takes off when the organic boy comes home… and mayhem ensues. Organic boy is jealous of Mecha Boy… and does what ever he can to make David misbehave. I felt no sympathy for the organic brother, although I don’t know how I would have felt if my mother had replaced me with a machine. Martin is the cause of David’s quest.

The Search for the Blue Fairy

For the time and effort it took for this movie to be made, Steven Spielberg could have made two sequels to Raiders of the Lost Ark and had enough time and money to do something else. This movie dared to do the impossible. It’s a quest movie much in the same guise as the other three (and we hope four shortly) Indiana Jones movies, but it’s a quest for something the audience knows doesn’t exist. It’s captivating watching how the journey evolves and where it takes David. The audience is drawn into the search knowing the destination doesn’t exist. Knowing Mr. Spielberg, he always has a “wow” finish, but even with his reputation we’re still on unsteady ground.

Again, many people are going to say, “Well, isn’t this movie just an updated version of ‘Pinocchio’?” The answer is an obvious ‘yes’ with some big differences. This is indeed David’s search to become a real boy. In fact, A.I. plays off both the character of David being inspired by the Pinocchio fairy tale AND being an updated version of the story very well (too complicated to describe with out ruining any more of the motion picture which does a perfect job meshing the two concepts). David’s quest to become a real boy parallels Pinocchio’s travels in many ways, such as many of the characters. Teddy is obviously Jiminy Cricket, William Hurt is Gepetto… and the Blue Fairy?  Who or what is the Blue Fairy? The Blue Fairy in A.I. is what separates itself from the original story about the mannequin’s transformation written by Italian author Carlo Collodi (Carlo Lorenzini).

Metaphorically speaking, the Blue Fairy of A.I. is the search for the metaphysical. It is the search for the one thing we all search for and rarely find.  The Blue Fairy is the key to unconditional love from the one person we want and need it from the most. No greater curse is to be shunned by the one we love the most and everyone searches for the “Blue Fairy” to change the way things are to the way to the way we wish they could be. The “Blue Fairy” in other people’s lives could be the impossible wish to take back something that was said or done to break our love’s heart or could be a wish to make us seem more attractive. The search for the “Blue Fairy” is as much a search for God, looking for something you can’t give or do for yourself while not being able to accept yourself for who you are as He made you.

Stored Memories

This is John Williams’s greatest score in a long time. It is both haunting and magical. Not a single theme in this movie reminded me of any other work he has done. When I heard the soundtrack for Phantom Menace, there were moments when I kept thinking; “This sounds so much like ‘Seven years in Naboo’… ahem… I mean Tibet.”.

The Mecha World

I don’t know how Spielberg did it, but he has captured the look and feel of Kubrick! If ol’ Uncle Stan filmed E.T. The Extraterrestrial… it would be this film. In fact, if I had to sum up this movie, it would be “E.T. meets 2001” And, it seems both odd and justification that this movie was released the same year as “2001: A Space Odyssey” takes place.

This Motion Picture should make other directors wish that they could take their film stock to the Blue Fairy and ask; “Please make this into a real movie! Please, make this into a real movie!”

Replicas

Don’t bother comparing this to any other film. This really isn’t like anything you’ve seen before. Granted there will be people who will say this is a lot like “Bicentenial Man meets Blade Runner.” Granted, much of the same territory covered in those two movies is revisited here briefly. Then there is a point in the movie where it leaves those other two movies behind and becomes something else. Maybe I gave too much away when I wrote earlier that A.I. might be ‘E.T. meets 2001.” But I guarantee the last 45 minutes alone was worth the price of admission!

Much of the reason why I’m suggesting this film to Raiders fans is because of the special effects, a preview of things to come. Many of the techniques used and recycled in making this motion picture will be used in the next chapter of the Indiana Jones saga. With the ease of creating fantastic futuristic environments there is no doubt Spielberg and Lucas will be using this same technology to recreate contemporary cities of the 1940’s and 1950’s while being able to utilize that still exist today. The best thing CGI offers is being able to either integrate miniatures or settings created entirely by digital means into frames with live action that was shot with actors earlier.

AI serves as a preview of what Lucas, Spielberg and ILM will offer in the next and sadly the last motion picture of the Indiana Jones saga.

Purchase 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence' at Amazon.com: DVD or VHS

 

"The Untouchables"

By Eric Renderking Fisk, Rindge NH

Harrison Ford went on to greater stardom after the first two episodes of Lucas’s Star Wars Saga [Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back] when he went on to do Raiders of the Lost Ark, written and produced by George Lucas and directed by Steven Spielberg. Raiders was the first motion picture Mr. Ford starred in and rumor was that there were executives behind the screen at Paramount who were worried that Mr. Ford couldn’t carry a motion picture on his own. Mr. Ford proved that he could not only manage to carry a film on his own, but that he would also become the biggest box-office draw in history.

It can be said the same of The Untouchables for Kevin Costner as protagonist Elliot Ness.  Mr. Costner was a relative unknown before The Untouchables.  He then he went on in later years to star in such classics as Bull Durum, to become a writer and director of Field of Dreams and brought the book Dances with Wolves to the silver screen and later to Oscar glory. Yet, Mr. Costner left the greatest impression with his overnight success as Elliot Ness.

The Strength of the Righteous

The Untouchables is a fictionalized account of how Elliot Ness and his group of Untouchables were able to bring Chicago’s biggest bootlegger to justice Elliot Ness was assigned to the Chicago area to break the back of the mob and bootleggers during the prohibition era. Once he discovers the greed and corruption within his team, he enlists the help of Malone played with sheer brilliance by Sean Connery. The two recruit George Stone portrayed with utter coolness by Andy Garcia and Charles Martin Smith as Oscar Wallace, the accounting genius who finds the secondary means of getting at the crime boss Al Capone.

Often the cost seems too high as this fictionalized version of Elliot Ness’s family is threatened, his courage put to the ultimate test and his integrity is questioned. In the end, even when the final price is paid with the personal sacrifice of two of his fellow Untouchables and a short bout of self doubt and the urge to quit, he completes his task with pride and righteousness intact.

Al Capone and the man with the matches

Again, with every good movie from action, drama and adventure, the villains are what make the movie entertaining and are cause of the conflict. The quality of the motion picture is in direct proportion to the caliber of the villain. In this case, Robert De Niro is perhaps one of the most captivating and charismatic villains to grace the screen. De Niro is at his best as the brutal yet dynamic Al Capone who manages the sale of liquor in the Chicago area with an iron fist and a silver tongue.

Frank Nitti, “The Enforcer”, is played with unique sleaze by Billy Drago. This is the type of murderous heathen all audiences love to hate. It is cinematic brilliance in the irony of this angel of death for the mob would wear white suits.  The pawn in this conflict is Capone’s accountant, Jack Kehoe as Walter Payne, who holds the key to tearing down the Chicago mob. He is simply the final piece to be acquired by Ness and his Untouchables and is necessary for unlocking the codes hidden in the ledgers recovered by the team in the liquor raid on the Canadian boarder...

Four Friends

Besides the action and the suspense of chasing Capone’s goons down, the best part of this motion picture is the friendship among the four heroes. Connery won an Oscar for Best Supporting actor as Malone, the incredible mentor to Costner's Ness-, teaching him many tricks and tools of law enforcement trade. Most often, Malone is the driving force behind The Untouchables, giving Ness the proper nudge in the right direction and always asking him: “What are you prepared to do?” and ending his brief witticisms with “Here endith the lesson”.  Charles Martin Smith as Agent Oscar Wallace would almost be the odd man out in this group of law enforcement, but this book-worm is a short man with a lot of wit, courage and punch. Wallace is not afraid to look danger in the eye and run into a gun fight with shotguns blazing.  Andy Garcia’s George Stone is the quintessential little brother of the group, naive and anxious for action. Being the sharp shooter of the group makes up for his inexperience and makes him invaluable. [Also, his outfit is the closest match of Harrison Ford’s gear in Raiders of The Lost Ark and the two sequels… an added bonus.]

For reasons beyond the era and the subject matter, this also happens to be my favorite Brian De Palma motion picture to date. Both artistic and brutal, The Untouchables uses camera and audio tricks to captivate the audience and elevate the drama.  Ennio Morricone's sound track is one that captures the essence of the era in much the same way Marvin Hamlisch did in arranging Scott Joplin’s Rag music for The Sting… both seem to define the era for our generation as well. Morricone’s soundtrack is used to enhance many scenes, yet Mr. De Palma uses silence or just the foreground noises of gunplay and footsteps to heighten the drama.

Most of all, The Untouchables reminds me of another time of my life when I was the “George Stone” of the family. The Untouchables has many lines and scenes that have become apart of our collective lexicon to a small extent. The Untouchables had exceeded my expectations and enhanced my love affair of this era. Above all else it’s just a fun film with enough Fedoras to keep any Indy fan and Gearhead happy for a few more hours.

Purchase 'The Untouchables' at Amazon.com: DVD

 

By Eric Renderking Fisk, Rindge NH

Defined Hero

One of the reasons why I became a fan of Raiders of the Lost Ark was that from the very beginning, Indiana Jones is a man of purpose. In the first few frames, he’s a monolith larger then life man walking through the jungles, leading a pair of traitorous half-wits thought the jungles with the pack mules.  From the start, he was an iconic hero, monolithic and mysterious… unyielding in his mission. Then, from the moment he’s betrayed by one of his guides, he revels himself as a real character and a master of a unique weapon, the bullwhip. 

As Raiders progresses, we learn more about Indiana. As we learn more about him and he becomes less and less of the mysterious adventurer. We also learn that he’s a flawed hero, capable of losing and being on the receiving end of good beating. But everything he takes in stride, using his sidearms and his humorous wit to get out of more then a few bad spots regardless of the scratches and scrapes. As the motion picture progresses, he’s less of an icon and more of a real human being.

It can be said of Tombstone’s protagonist, Wyatt Earp as portrayed by Kurt Russell. This is by far Mr. Russell’s most defining roll in Tombstone, much as Mr. Ford’s rolls were [and still are] in Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back the year before. Just as one might have a hard time imagining Mr. Ford in any other roll other then Indiana Jones or Han Solo, after viewing Tombstone I can’t imagine Kurt Russell doing anything else other then Wyatt Earp.

Plot

As we first see Earp stepping off the train, he’s introduced as a man of immediate action and integrity… quickly correcting a wrong done to one of his horses by a labor-hand using a whip and dragging his horse off the train. Earp takes the short whip from the faceless labor-hand and using it against him… perhaps a quick homage to Raiders.

Wyatt and his brothers Virgil and Morgan (Bill Paxton and Sam Elliott respectfully) are introduced as married men, once lawmen as they set out to find their fortune in Tombstone. Once they arrive, the three men find a busy mining town with a slight underbelly of corruption. Meanwhile a few towns away, we are introduced to Doc Holliday, (Val Kilmer) once dentist and gentleman turned poker laureate and sorcerer of gun-slinging able to draw his sidearms almost magically.

Once reunited, the Earp's and Doc Holliday rake in small fortunes in playing poker and Faro. After several instances of cleaning up the town and more then a few run-ins with a gang called “The Cowboys” tension builds until tempers flair and lead to one of the most famous shoot-outs in the “O.K. Corral”. With high casualties on both sides, Wyatt Earp declares open season on “The Cowboys” resulting in a war between the two sides and a personal reckoning for Wyatt Earp.

Quality of Villains

What would Jones be with out Belloq? What makes Raiders of the Lost Ark the incredible movie isn’t just the heroics of Indiana but also the foil of Renee who provides the witty exchanges such as when he’s first introduced in the jungles of South America and in the Egyptian bar in Cairo. Same holds true in Tombstone and any other action or dramatic film where the edginess of the villains are just as much a vital part of the movie as the heroes… if not outright steal the show.

One of the facets of Tombstone that makes it the perfect “Flick to Hold you over” is the quality of the villains and their ambiguity. Are they genuinely evil, or are they just a bunch of fun loving rowdy “Cowboys” oblivious to the harm they do? Or, are they attention-starved bully who thrives on the suffering of others, no other joy in there lives other then making the town folks terrified? Tombstone addresses these issues of evil while not portraying the hero’s as perfect model-models but as men just as flawed as the villains.

Men are judged by the quality of their friends and allies, but also by the caliber their enemies and adversaries… as such The Earp's and Doc Holliday are much greater hero’s in contrast of the great villains of this film. Men of Iron have always been cast and forged in the furnace of conflict, and it’s the conflict depicted in Tombstone that refined the Earp Brothers and Holiday from mercenary law-men into the western hero’s we know them now to be.  

Both Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday have equal and opposite foes in the men of Powers Boothe as Curly Bill Brocious and Michael Biehn as Johnny Ringo. Just as Brocious is as bold and forthright in his own way as is Wyatt, Johnny Ringo was perhaps as much the intellectual gunslinger that Doc Holiday might have been. Added to the mixture is a group of second string of villains to back up the two major heavies, Stephen Lang as the perpetually ignorant and just as filthy Ike Clanton, Thomas Haden Church as the smart mouth and equally stupid Billy Clanton. Because and in spite of the conflicts with these villains, they’re better men and the two primary hero’s have a stronger friendship.

Brotherhood and Friendship

Equal to the quality of villains is the relationships in this movie. Despite Doc Holiday’s illness, he stands and rides with Wyatt right up to the end. It’s this display of brotherhood and friendship that would make anyone with even the hardest of hearts aspire to be more faithful and loyal to the friends we have made over the years.       

Even as Holliday is nearing his deathbed, he puts everything including his own life on the line for his friend to finish the tyranny of “The Cowboys” and asks for little in return of Wyatt. Even at the end, the two remain strong friends in this motion picture and as it draws to a close we see the two men part when Doc Holliday asks to die alone with dignity.

Authenticity of the Era

The conversations in this movie are authentic or as close to real as I have experienced. The conversations just seem to ring true on both sides of the conflict. The way the men converse in this movie is authentic and true to the way men in real life talk today with only a slight flare of old fashioned jargon. From the way men speak to each other and to women rings true as if we were privy to the real private conversations held all those years ago.  The men here is this movie are blunt and to the point and show anguish when not being able to express hurt or disappointment well, such as when the eldest brother Virgil wants to change the state of the town they live in.

On the second disk of the Vista DVD version, there is up to almost up to 2 hours of behind the scenes and making-of documentaries chronicle the painstaking researched and reconstruction of everything that was filmed to make this movie into the classic western it has become. According to the Director’s commentary in the second audio track of the actual movie and Documentaries much of the town had been rebuild and many of the extra’s lived on the town set for as much of an authentic “lived-in” feeling.

From Costumes, horse dressage, guns and holsters, this is about as authentic I’ve ever seen for the Old West, not because I’m any expert or a member of “western-gear.com, Westerngear.com or WyattEarp-gear.com”. This just happens to look the best as I’ve ever seen any western, dirt, rust, sweat stains and all.  Tombstone isn’t just a Western or even just one of the best westerns ever made; It’s perhaps one of the best movies ever made in my opinion. This movie has recently broke into my Top Ten for the Action, Drama and the Romantic and somewhat adulterous relationship between Wyatt Earp and Dana Delany as Josephine Marcus. Tombstone is one of those classic Flicks that reveals something new with each viewing.

Purchase 'Tomb Stone' at Amazon.com: VHS or DVD

 

"Bowling for Columbine"

By Eric Renderking Fisk, Rindge NH

"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient and the world will follow our lead into the future." - Adolph Hitler, 1935

Sarcastically speaking, I have never been so proud of an organization such as the Academy of Arts and Sciences. Imagine the courage and the gall to be able to nominate, much less reward for best picture, the remake of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1934), a movie which is nothing more then a 2 hour pep-rally for Adolph Hitler and his regime and a tiresome series of pro-nazi, pro-fascist speeches.

Bowling for Columbine is the Michael Moore tour-de-force, which did indeed take home an Oscar for Best Documentary. It is an eye opening look into the mind of a narcissistic loudmouth who not only insists but demands to be taken seriously for the far extreme leftist views that are well known to be based not on total fact but hysterical rhetoric and quasi half-truths. He favors the domestic policies that would doom the United States into the dark ages of Socialism that blackened liberty in eastern Europe for decades… for no other reason other then it’s the popular views held in the now impotent United Nations.

For those who say that Fascism or Nazism could never happen in the United States, Bowling for Columbine proves those people wrong. Moore is able to use yellow journalism and the magical slight of hand of factual distortions to make his point that what is really wrong with America is firearms and our relationship with them. Moore makes the case that to save America from itself is to destroy what made America independent. Moore takes it upon himself to play the roll of an Orwellian “Big Brother” and illustrates how gun crazed we are, and for us to be able to survive we must die as a republic that embraces civil liberties. At the very least, Moore is a mediocre filmmaker and who takes it upon himself to take a black marker and an X-acto knife to the Constitution. Moore goes beyond his typical preachy, smerky holier-then-thou usual self.

Moore is an outrageous nut who knows how to manipulate the facts and exploits the fears of the under-educated public, done to evil yet brilliant perfection in Bowling for Columbine. Through all of his ratings in print and on celluloid, Moore proves to be the willing accomplice to those who would do or say anything to weaken this country and see it become a socialist state regardless of the failures in the past. If anything, his latest book, “Stupid White Men” reads like the cliff-notes of Hitler’s “Mien Kampf”, with out the charm, while exchanging law abiding conservatives for Jews and accusing them for being responsible for all the ill’s of this world...

Moore is more than just a Neo-Fascist. He is a hypocritical provocateur who hides behind the First Amendment while doing what ever he can to silence or out-shout the opposition that stands for the Second, which he spends most of the time doing in Bowling for Columbine. There are those who fought and some who have died to defend freedom of speech and the only way we can honor them is to be responsible with the rights they earned for us, something Moore does not realize or chooses to ignore.

When challenged, Moore will scream censorship and accuse the opposition of using scare tactics. When the tables are turned and someone is outspoken on a view he opposes, he will resort to the very same “scare tactics” he claims to be the victim of.  Furthermore, when Moore or those of his kind feel they are about to be exposed for the liars or frauds that they are, Moore will accuse those involved of being a part of a greater global-industrial conspiracy. Moore is a proud student of the school of professional assassination… those who don’t agree must be immediately vilif