Profplum-2 Reviews

Chain of Command (2000)

Unheralded

[9/10 · 23 July 2000]

For various reasons happened to be up at the time of the day when this unpromoted and unknown film was put on HBO.

I watched it because there was essentially nothing else on.

It is surprisingly good. I have no idea as to the provenance of it, or anything else about it other than having seen it on the small screen beginning at 4:20 in the morning on a difficult day. And it captured my attention, had a decent plot (OK, some technical errors about the "football," but not those kinds of things about which one ought to care in the context), and functional characters, particularly the Vice President.

When this comes on somewhere that you can see it, do. If you care for thought-provoking stuff about the consequences of nuclear weapons in the post-Cold-War era, at least. But it says much about more than that.

Again, oddly good film to have had no publicity whatsoever, at least that I've ever seen.

The Boy with Green Hair (1948)

Generational differences, and what they mean

[10/10 · 23 July 2000]

I think it's fascinating that Grendel-13 and Aizek have the reactions to this film that they have stated below, and would bet anything in my wallet that they're both under 30 years old.

This film was/is a parable. At the particular time it was created, it was a parable about the budding Cold War, and about the immediately past Holocaust. The focus was on the problem that having a difference, one not even chosen, should destroy one.

That had destroyed six million Jews in the Second World War, and the film was partly about that. It had also begun to destroy people in America who thought that Communism might have something to offer.

And, very directly, it had by virtue of the Second World War's very existence, destroyed the parents of thousands and thousands of children worldwide, even including some of those in the USA. Hatred based on no sensible matter had orphaned thousands in the USA, to put it directly.

And what damn difference should it make if some kid's hair was all of a sudden green? (Interestingly, many kids nowadays have by their own choice and the miracles of modern dye technology, green hair -- but nobody could do so in 1948 without Divine intervention -- which was the ultimate point of the film, which the kids don't realize.) In that era, it made the difference that the youngster was "different." Being "different" back then was a Bad Thing to the majority.

Not just an oddity.

A Really Bad Thing. A Bad Thing Bad Enough to cause Execution. Literally. I was alive then. I saw this film when it came out. It was an audacious film, a film ahead of its time.

This kind of stuff really and truly happened in the USA, Constitution be damned. Yes, it was a metaphor, but it has to be understood in the context of the times.

Someone mentioned cross-dressing. That is completely unrelated, and is illustrative of a lack of understanding of the lesson of history that was being dealt with in the movie. The difference is one that is noticeable, inborn, and yet insignificant, like, to be pedantic, being Jewish. Cross-dressing is a choice; one may believe that the desire to do it is inborn, but the choice to give in to that desire is one made by the individual.

There is no choice to be Jewish by birth -- or to be suddenly given Green Hair by Providence.

And the consequences of a person's having a basic characteristic given by God are chosen by Man. Thus, we choose to kill six million Jews, or let them be killed. We also choose to treat someone who suddenly, by no choice of his own, turns up with green hair, as we choose to treat him.

This is a really major film in the context of its time, and I must admit that it irritates me to see people who have no idea what they're talking about, since they haven't taken the trouble to learn about the context, say things about it that are just irrational.

Sorry. But not very.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

A film that helped shape attitudes toward the Cold War

[10/10 · 21 May 2000]

I first saw this film in theatrical release as, I guess, a second-run flick at a local theater when I was eight or nine, which would have been in 1953 or 1954, right at the heart of the McCarthy era.

It was a significant experience for me at the time. Much sci-fi in the Fifties, both written and onscreen, was antiwar, anti-nuke (think "Them," with its allegorical mutated ants, the "Godzilla" films, much more). But "Day" did it so much better than amost anything else; maybe "Forbidden Planet," particularly with its much more expensive Fx, was in the same league, but most everything else was not. It had first-rank actors in Rennie and Neal, and they turned in sterling performances. It didn't waste its time with technobabble (no "warp drives" or "dilithium crystals" or "feedback loops in the transporter circuits" [hey, I'm a "Star Trek" fan, but the made-up techno explanations get tedious]), but took the advanced technology for granted (which makes that aspect of it still work fine almost fifty years after the movie's release) and got to the business of making it clear to a still-unsure public just what was at stake regarding nuclear weapons -- the survival of the human race, or at least of civilization. It delivered a message that even a child could comprehend, so clearly was it stated and so rivetingly was it presented.

One can go on and on about the metaphors (Gort as the human will; Klaatu as a sort of Christ figure -- although that one doesn't work real well, actually; the scientific gathering as conscience and the Army as the id, etc., etc.) but that gets pretty much away from the central point: this is a movie that was deliberately intended as a cautionary tale, and worked startlingly well.

A couple of other points. I've read many of the reviews, and seem to note a generational divide. Those over about 35 - 40 have a different take on the film than do those under that age range. I think that maybe in order to understand the nuances of the film, one needed to grow up in the Fifties or maybe Sixties, or at least to have studied attitudes in those times very closely. In addition, there's a pantheon of films dealing with this general subject matter from the Fifties, some of which I've mentioned above. A couple of others would be "The Boy With Green Hair," a superb little fantasy/allegory about the need for tolerance, and "This Island Earth," another cautionary tale about the need to avoid the use of unbridled force. I know there are many others, and may work on putting together a little piece about that aspect of Fifties films; probably it's been done at least in some unreadable Ph.D. dissertation somewhere, but a little pop version might be fun.

See this movie. Buy it on tape, and keep it, and make your kids watch it with you sometime, and discuss the nearness of nuclear annihilation felt by the advanced cultures at least in the Fifties and Sixties.

Pacific Blue (1996–2000)

Hey, it's fun!

[14 May 2000]

Have watched the re-runs on the USA channel up through the beginning of the 1999 season, now. This is a tad better than "Baywatch on wheels," although the pictorials of Malibu females lend a certain "Baywatch" atmosphere to the program (I note that at least one of the principal actresses, Paula Trickey, has been a guest on "Baywatch" on several occasions).

But the main point is that it's fun. The impossible actions with the bikes, the frenetic chases, the improbable romances, and, yes, the beefcake and cheesecake, all combine to make up a fine, mindless hour of excellent relaxation. In addition, every once in a while they try to get serious about a theme, and they even occasionally pull it off. Trickey in particular has the makings of a real actress, and the revamping they did in 1999 seems to have worked pretty well to update the show's appeal.

A worthwhile recreational hour.

Lancelot: Guardian of Time (1997)

An oddly charming little bit of romantic fluff.

[8/10 · 13 May 2000]

Encountered this one insomniac night on HBO, really just looking for something to fall asleep to.

It wasn't good for that, as it kept on engaging my attention. Partly it was the cast; Katherine, the female lead, was played by the actress who played Ivanova on "Babylon 5," and I've always liked her; Sir Lancelot was played by the actor who was Dar in the "Beastmaster" movies -- he was always fun, and is so here as well. But more, it's the quirky plot and the movie's concept, which is that maybe gallantry and just plain being the good guys ought to be given another chance; sort of the Susan Faludi who's saying that men need a break meets, well, Sir Lancelot.

The movie would seem a likely candidate for being the kind of live-action cartoon that, say, "Xena" amounts to, but always edges away from that. Lancelot is played with a strangely compelling dignity that draws one's attention (and makes one think that possibly there's still a future for the actor), and the young Arthur is appropriately clueless in the "Once and Future King" mode. The interaction of the medieval characters with the Twentieth Century is not particularly well investigated, but some decent moments come from it.

Overall, a fun way to spend a couple of hours, albeit that it's understandable that the Academy overlooked this movie. Give it a try.

The Boy with Green Hair (1948)

A Gem

[10/10 · 19 March 2000]

I, too, first saw this film a little while after it came out, when I was younger than the main character was supposed to be. It has stayed with me for the next half-century, and I considered myself very lucky to find a video in a sale bin about ten years ago.

Really, it foreshadowed the '60's - it is not only about the fact that being different should be OK, but more about the consequences of intolerance, about folks' reactions, their illogic, and where those reactions can take us. This is all done with a nice soupcon of fantasy to make the moral point easy to understand (subtlety isn't the film's strong point).

There's a story in the newspapers about a twelve-year-old boy in 6th grade who last week came to school with hair dyed green for St. Patrick's day, incidentally. Three guesses what happened to him....

See this movie.

Mission to Mars (2000)

New Age? Nah. But better than the comments here.

[8/10 · 13 March 2000]

(Might contain some remarks some would view as spoilers.)

Hey, guys, lighten up!

OK, OK, so it ain't "2001." What is? So it makes you think of "2001." That's bad?

I think many of the comments I've read so far were written by very young people, teens and twentysomethings. De Palma was making an effort to try to create something unusual for sci-fi films: real characters with some depth; the cocktail party/barbecue at the beginning is an excellent scene in laying the groundwork for that, and many commentators apparently just don't understand such occasions. Unfortunately, his success in making his characters real is limited, and that does limit the reach of the film overall. But to rate this movie as a "1" is just beyond the pale.

I, too, shudder at some of the scientific errata and elisions; I, too, want to reach out and shake some of the characters when they're just plain dumb (but how unusual is *that* in the movies?) in order to advance the plot. Likewise, the semi-New Age thematics aren't my favorite thing (worked much better in a better movie for which Jodie Foster should have won an Oscar, "Contact") and the closing revelations are too short in terms of their supposed importance (but that's probably a consequence of De Palma's attempt to create real people in the movie).

So, it's flawed.

But once you get that off your chest, look at the rest of it. The characters may not have the depth of the central ones in "Close Encounters," one of very few sci-fi films to have been about real people, but they are more than cardboard cutouts, and by the film's end, I cared about what happened to them. There's an absolutely marvelous scene in the middle part of the movie having to do with weightless dancing, when Connie Nielsen's character's interaction with her husband makes the whole group come alive as real folks. Beautifully choreographed and emotionally telling, it is in many ways the centerpiece of the film, and more compelling than most if not all of the genuinely spectacular Fx.

Incidentally, professional reviewers have generally been ignoring Nielsen and her character; big mistake, and, I think, indicative of a prejudgment of this movie as just another big-budget special effects flick. If that's what you think it's supposed to be (and I admit that the studio promoted it that way; De Palma should probably sue), well, yes, it's got the problems already mentioned, and more.

At any rate, the special effects are truly excellent, the "revelation" at the end is supported by at least some responsible scientific hypothesizing, and De Palma created some fairly real people to populate his universe, people whose eventual fate matters to viewers who understand what De Palma was doing.

The special effects are sufficiently good that nobody without a really big-screen home theater should wait for the video/DVD. Go see this if you like sci-fi, and approach it with an open mind.

American Beauty (1999)

A film to be viewed on several levels

[10/10 · 13 March 2000]

(Note: this comment will contain some remarks which might be viewed as spoilers by some, so take care.)

After having read some of the other comments on "American Beauty" I am made to be grateful that human beings are not telepathic, for we would surely drive each other mad. Some folks just didn't see the movie I saw (nor I the one they saw, evidently).

The film is nuanced and careful; it is at the same time a dark comedy, a murder mystery, an obsidian-sharp dissection of modern American mores, and an exploration of the nature of beauty. It succeeds in being all of these things, although maybe less at the last of them than at the others.

Being a parent of a twenty-one-year-old daughter and the quondam stepparent of four stepdaughters who are all older, I have a R/L base to use in evaluating the two girls' performances, and must say that they are directly on target. There are other kinds of teenagers than those two, but both portraits are accurate and clear. The girls are used both to illustrate the effects of suburban life in the USA on ordinary people (this film puts one, indeed, in mind of the film of that name), and to show the vapidity of the adults' lives and souls. Not a new device to be sure, but well executed here. The "psycho" young man, who is probably the most sane character in the movie (again, not a new concept, but done to a "T"), serves as the primary source of exegesis and plot development; his camcorder is the leitmotiv which illustrates life's burdens, benefits, and absurdities, while allowing him and his development to act as a counterpoint to and illuminator of the slow awakening of the main character. The kids are thus both very well portrayed and superbly used organizationally by the director and writer.

The central couple, Carolyn and Lester, are stellar. Lester has led a lackluster life, as he thoroughly realizes, and his sudden infatuation with his daughter's purportedly promiscuous friend awakens him to the need to do something about his situation. His frenetic, perfervid wife, devoting herself to the kind of empty Babbittry that is so common in the States today (I have known people *exactly* like her, and the commentators who feel that Bening is over the mark obviously don't know the mark she's targeting), shows with crystalline clarity how easily we can lose humanity for superficiality (again, not a new tale, but one always worth telling), and acts as the perfect foil for her husband's slow development of understanding and self-awareness.

The ending is no surprise (after all, we're told in virtually the movie's first line that the protagonist dies), but the how-and-whodunnint aspects are not totally predictable until, maybe, five to ten minutes before the end; it's well done. And by the end everybody but "Col. Mustard" (now, there's a spoiler, I guess) has developed into pretty much a good guy of some sort -- or at least an ordinary human being.

Now, that's not too shabby, is it?

If you haven't seen this, do.

The End of the Affair (1999)

A complicated flick with outstanding camerawork

[9/10 · 28 January 2000]

I saw this movie serendipitously. Where I am a new cineplex was opening up, and this was the one showing closest to the time I had available to check it out.

It is one of remarkable complexity and sensitivity. As an exploration of the interaction of human emotions it's at a high level. As a kind of "whodunnit" it's medium. That part was figured out halfway through. But the star's portrayal of his reactions to predictable situations was superb. Anyone who likes thinking about how we interact with each other will like this movie. It's not a challenger for mystery buffs.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Quirky

[9/10 · 31 July 1999]

One needs to pay close attention to this production to get the advantage of its set-up.

If one does, one will be rewarded. I am 54 years old, and was skeptical about the production; when I saw it, I found myself drawn tightly to the happenings in the film despite my basic negative approach.

Anyone with a vision of film history or of human interaction in times of stress should see this film. It is not perfect. But it is worth your money, and your thought.