Critical Mass Thanksgiving Extravaganza! Week 4: A Christmas Story

I bet you thought that I’d forget about all of you on this wondrous, gluttonous day of gullet stuffing, didn’t you? That’s okay, I would have probably if it weren’t for exceptional time management skills and the fact that I celebrated the holiday last week. So…. WIN! You’ve read the title by now and I can guarantee that you fall into one of two categories: the person who groaned and asked, “Why,” to no one in particular, or the person who squeed with unrestrained joy, and adoration. That’s pretty much how it goes with Christmas Story. People either get super annoyed by it or super excited by it. Since I’m writing about movies for which I’m thankful, I’m obviously in the latter camp. I can, however, understand why people are annoyed by this movie. It came out in 1983 and pretty much just enjoyed a cult following for the next two decades. Then some brilliant tool at TBS figured that it would be a great idea to broadcast it for 24 straight hours on Thanksgiving Day in 2003. After that, Christmas Story’s popularity, and marketability, exploded meteorically. It was everywhere. There are leg lamps, bunny onesies, other apparel, ornaments, greeting cards, mugs, artwork, cookbooks… This movie gets nearly as much commercialized support as the holiday that it celebrates and that could certainly make people tired of seeing it. Fortunately, we appear to be going into a dormant phase so maybe the hype will die down enough for the haters to rediscover this movie in a way that will bring them joy. Without further adieu, here’s my review of A Christmas Story.

The movie opens on an idyllic town, and once the credits have rolled, we see a group of kids ogling the toy section of a department store front. Back in my day, you could find the must have items for the holiday season by taking a gander at the Toys R Us holiday catalog, but waaaaaay back when, if you wanted to see what the hot items were that year, you had to trudge down to your local department store and stare through a window. To be fair though, the displays were usually extremely ornate so it was more of an experience than I’m letting on, or at least I think it would have been. Anyway, it’s during this initial scene that we’re introduced to our protagonist, Ralphie Parker. Ralphie is a young man during the movie, but narrates the story as an adult. As all of Ralphie’s friends are going crazy over everything on display, he’s focused on only one item, the Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and "this thing which tells time". The plot, simple though it may be, is established right that very moment. Ralphie wants that BB gun for Christmas and he’s willing to do whatever needs to be done in order to get it. To keep things somewhat brief, since the articles have gotten a little longer as of late, just let me note that every situation shown after this is related to that main plot in some way.

Ralphie spends the bulk of the rest of the film scheming and getting into shenanigans, like kids are wont to do. Some of the highlights include getting bullied, which culminates in Ralphie kicking the living crap out of that bully, watching as a friend gets his tongue stuck to a freezing cold metal pole, writing a short paragraph for his teacher about why he wants that BB gun, asking Santa Claus himself for said BB gun, which everyone tells him is a terrible idea since he’ll probably just hurt himself, engaging in a battle of wits as he tries to convince his mother that he should get the BB gun, and most memorably, using language that would have made most mothers blush during the time when this film was supposed to take place. In the end, despite the emotional ups and downs, Ralphie gets his BB gun, which he immediately hurts himself using. However, he’s able to make up a white lie to cover his bum, and everyone lives happily ever after.

I realize that that’s a really glossed over synopsis, but honestly, if you haven’t seen this movie by now, you really need to rectify that. It’s a simple and short synopsis because it’s a simple movie based around a simple premise. I think above everything else, that’s one of the reasons I love this movie! In a world that seems to demand more and more of me every passing day, there’s this unique time capsule treat that I get to partake in once per year that reminds me to slow things down and simplify. Coming in a close second to that is the presentation. The story is presented from a child’s point of view, as remembered by an adult. Because of that point of view, a lot of the excitement and wonder that a lot of children experience over the holiday season is well represented in an extremely unique way. What I mean is that there are a lot of other films that try to convey that sense of wonder that kids get during the holidays, but a large bulk of those movies revolve around some supernatural element. Because of that, the simple joys of the season tend to get lost. In Christmas Story, the simplicity of the premise makes for a stronger movie because we get to relive the joys that we, hopefully, got to experience when we were kids. For me, the holidays don’t officially start until I’ve had a chance to usher them in with this Christmas classic. It reminds me to cherish and hold on to that wonder that made the world a magical place when I was a child.

Beyond that, the humor throughout ranges from deadpan sarcasm to uproarious. I don’t think there’s a humorous note missed. The dialog runs anywhere from humdrum to downright poetic. The situations all tend to be enjoyable, and the warmth that this movie can generate really is a force to be reckoned with. The acting is pretty darn good, especially considering how many children were involved. The kid that play Randy Parker can be kind of annoying at times, but remember that this is being told from the perspective of adult Ralphie so that coloration of the memories is to be expected. I love that the narrative takes time to represent Ralphie’s day dreaming. It really does capture the spirit of what it means to be a kid. So why is this so beloved to me? This was really the first movie that was really ever mine. What I mean is I discovered this movie around Thanksgiving of 1996 in my 8th grade English class. We needed filler to get us through to the break and Christmas Story was that filler. I didn’t see this with friends, or family. It was something that I had stumbled across on my own that I could relish in by myself because I’m antisocial like that. It came at a time when a lot of what I had known as a child was dying around me, and when I was making that awkward transition into adulthood. It became a sort of emotional safe harbor for all of those immature tendencies that hadn’t quite resolved themselves yet, and it reminded me that it was okay to look at the world through the eyes of youth from time to time. I hope that everyone has a wonderful, and magical holiday season! Stay tuned to see what holiday classics we’ll be looking at during the month of December!

Critical Mass Thanksgiving Extravaganza! Week 3: Batman (1989)

As you all should be abundantly aware by now, this blogger prides himself on bringing you reviews that are unbiased as I can possibly muster. I try to examine everything that I review with an expository eye. That said, this is probably the closest you’re ever going to see me get to sentimental and nostalgic. We continue our month of beloved films with one that’s especially near and dear to my heart. You can read the titles so you already know that we’re looking at the 1989 TIm Burton classic Batman. There are a lot of reasons why I love this movie, and we’ll get to those in a bit, but first the setup! Until ‘89, most superhero films were regarded as kitschy, niche, novelties that studios produced in order to attract comic lovers to some of their other works. There had only been a handful of comic films made in the decade prior to the release of Batman, notably, the four Superman films, a Captain America movie, and a Punisher movie starring Dolph Lundgren. And while the Superman franchise had done fairly well for itself, that machine was quickly brought to its knees with the release of the Canon Films disaster Superman 4: The Quest for Peace. It was terrible, just take my word on that. Hence, when Warner Bros. announced that they were interested in producing a Batman film, they didn’t really think at the time that there would be much response. They hired Tim Burton for a film and more or less let him do as he saw fit. What we got out of it is one of the most enduring comic book films of all time, and possibly one of the most classic films of all time period. Why? Let’s take a look.

The movie opens with the Warner Bros crest, and the chilling opening refrains of Danny Elfman’s iconic Batman theme. Right away the audience is meant to realize that this is going to be an exciting and unique experience for them. As the credits roll, we’re guided through a labyrinth of stone and shadow, never quite certain what we’re seeing until the end of the credits when the camera pulls back to reveal the Batman crest. We’re given an establishing shot of Gotham City at night, and then we’re thrown straight into the setting. I’m impressed with the fact that we’re not necessarily dropped straight into the story, but we’re given a few minutes to really soak in the setting. It’s one of the things that, in my opinion, really sets the Burton Batman movies apart from its cousins in a superior way. Burton does an incredible job using Gotham City as a device to enrich his story. It’s not just some scenery to put the action in front of; it almost functions as a character in and of itself. Anyway, we’re dropped into the city following a family around. A dad, a mom, and their son wander the streets all lost and whatnot. As they’re wandering, we see the grit and the grime of the city, as well as a few unsavory types that also wander the streets at night. The family cut into an alley where they’re ambushed and mugged. The dad gets knocked out and the mom does her best Jamie Lee Curtis impression. Following the mugging, we switch from watching the family to watching the thugs. They’re hanging out on a rooftop talking about some of their associates who died suspiciously, and one of them is ranting about a supposed bat that stalks the shadows of Gotham at night. Our first glimpse of the Dark Knight is, unfortunately, a poorly animated shadow skulking down the roof towards the muggers, but it was ‘89 and I can’t think of a more effective way to have achieved that effect way back then. Our reward for slogging through all of this expositional foreshadowing is a fairly intense fight scene between the crooks and Batman. But the real payoff is when Batman dangles one of the crooks over the ledge of the roof and psychotically exclaims, “I’m Batman!” It’s truly a wonder to behold! But seriously look at Keaton’s eyes, they’re probably the scariest thing you’ll see in the entire movie.

We cut to ‘later’ and the goons are being carted away t the hospital, and presumably, the loony bin. A news reporter, Alexander Knox, played by Robert Wuhl, is trying to get the scoop as a detective named, ‘Not Harvey Bullock’, just kidding, it’s Eckhardt, tells Knox to knock(s) it off before he ruins his entire career. But the intrepid reporter remains steadfast because as one of the goons is being carted away, he’s ranting about a giant bat. Eckhardt steals off to the shadows where he, and we meet Jack Napier. Naper, of course, is played by Jack Nicholson,and he’ll later become the Joker, but for now, he’s Jack Napier. I gotta say, I really liked Nicholson’s portrayal of the Joker, like a lot. As Napier, there’s a sort of tough nonchalance to his performance, and a cockiness that makes him begrudgingly likeable. It’s an interesting finesse that was brought to the role that I can definitely get behind as a viewer. Anyway, the next morning comes and Knox is coming to work and getting ribbed by his coworkers for seeming absolutely insane. However, in one of the best moments ever committed to celluloid,Robert Wuhl gets to call Bob Kane, the guy that created Batman, a dick. It was in that very moment that I realized that I was doomed to spend the rest of my mortal days eternally jealous of the fact that Robert Wuhl got to call Bob freakin’ Kane a dick. And then almost immediately, we’re introduced to our leading lady, Vicki Vale, played by the stunning Kim Basinger. She happens to be a photographer obsessed with getting pictures of the elusive Batman so it just works out that Knox is trying to unravel that mystery. They concoct a scheme to get some juicy interviews at a charity event being hosted by Bruce Wayne.

We next see aforementioned, although not in this article for brevity sake, mob boss Carl Grissom, over acted by Jack Palance. I mean, when I say that his performance is over-the-top, I mean it could clear the stratosphere! The mayor, and DA Harvey Dent, played by Billy Dee Williams, have vowed to shut Grissom down and now Grissom is looking to tie up a few incriminating loose ends. The plan is to send Napier and a crew into Axis Chemical plant to destroy some documents, but since we already saw that Napier is boinking Grissom’s girl, we all know that this is just a ploy to get Napier out of the picture, permanently. Napier even understands that as he attempts to make some weak excuses about why he shouldn’t go, but go he does. In the meantime, Knox and Vale are striking out hard at the charity ball. Vale has a run in with Wayne, who fails to identify himself. They see Commissioner Gordon slink off and attempt to intercept, I think,but get lost and stumble across Bruce Wayne’s collection of antique armor. Because if you’re a millionaire, why not, right? There’s some light rich people bashing and then Wayne introduces himself and some funny lines ensue. Let’s pause here. I love the way Michael Keaton plays Bruce Wayne/Batman in this movie! There’s a withdrawn intelligence to his playboy persona. Like, you know he gets it, but he just acts so aloof all the time that you’re not quite sure. On the other side of that coin, his Batman is brooding, but not excessively, and you can see in the eyes that there’s definitely a madness driving him the entire time. As a result, there’s a subtle,but ever present struggle behind the mask for that character to exist in both worlds, and it adds a depth that I think maybe got lost over time. Anyway…

At the chemical plant, Eckhardt is looking to skn Napier, but Gordin intervenes. The chemical plant set is really cool! There are a lot of pipes and shadows, and computers and stuff that make it a memorable set. The bad guys and the cops all skulk around this set until Napier ends up on a scaffolding high above everyone else. He shoots and kills Eckhardt. Then Batman appears. Napier tries to shoot him, but the most magical bullet ever ricochets off Batman’s glove and back into Napier’s face. Napier reels, falls over a railing, and Batman attempts to save him just before he plunges into a vat of toxic, I’m assuming, chemicals. Gordon wants to take Batman in for questioning, but Batman has other ideas. He drops a smoke pellet and uses a grappling hook to make a hasty escape. There’s a short scene where we see Napier getting surgery from an underground doctor. It… Doesn’t appear to end well judging by the crazed and maniacal laughter. Then Napier returns to Grissom’s apartment. There are some tense and angry words exchanged, and then Napier reveals himself as the Joker and holy cow is it amazing! The lighting, the situation, the performance are all top notch. Joker proceeds to shoot Grissom in the most insane way possible. Grissom dies, and with just one simple line and a prop, Joke declares war on Gotham and Batman. Joker holds a meeting with all of the mob bosses in Gotham and he kills one of them with a joy buzzer. Brutal! Then he kills the rest during a press conference where they were announcing the arrangement that the Joker orchestrated. Dude’s hard as diamonds. But I’m glossing a bit mostly so you don’t have to read a novel length review.

A romance develops between Bruce and Vicki, big surprise there. However, she suspects that there’s more to Bruce than he’s sharing and she’s working to put the pieces together. In the meantime, the Joker has sparked an infatuation with Vale, and so he’s trying for her affections as well. This leads to an interesting back and forth between Bruce and the Joker. This whole back and forth culminates in a final showdown that’s one of the best I’ve ever seen. See, behind the scenes, the mayor has been trying to get an anniversary celebration organized because Gotham is turning 200 years old, and he feels that the celebration might help encourage businesses to come back to the city. Also in the meantime, the Joker has more or less thwarted this plan lacing personal hygiene products with deadly chemicals, but there’s a catch. The chemicals necessary to kill a person are not all present in one item. One has to use a certain combination of items in order to get the deadly mixture. It seems to be a slightly convoluted plan, but it is effective in spreading panic and chaos. Well, all of this culminates in Batman breaking the code as it were, and alerting the people of Gotham via newspaper which combination of items it’s safe to use. In response, the Joker challenges Batman to a final duel  Oh, at some point, Vicki Vale finds out that the millionaire playboy she’s been pining over is a psycho vigilante. That’s important.

Let me just say that the climax of this film is just spectacularly grand. The buildup of tension and competition between Batman and the Joker is so well executed, and that tension really reaches palpable levels by the time the climax starts so much so that you just know that either Batman or the Joker will die by the end because the stakes are made to be that high. Batman sends the Batmobile in by remote control to blow up Axis Chemicals, and Joker is right there to mock him for missing his mark. Next Joker is riding a float in a parade and giving away millions of dollars (200 million to be precise because Gotham is 200 years old). Little do all the partygoers know that the Joker has rigged his balloons with canisters of his deadly gas. He starts gassing the joint, but Batman swoops in with his Batwing and tows all the balloons away. Then Batman attempts to kill the Joker with all of this plane’s weapons. We’re talking guns, and missiles, but somehow Batman misses so the Joker shoots down the Batwing with a revolver. This makes the Batwing crash outside Gotham cathedral. Vale goes to make sure Batman is okay and promptly gets abducted by the Joker. They start climbing a ridiculously inordinate amount of stairs towards the belfry while Batman struggles to regain his momentum. Batman pursues them up the tower despite the Joker trying to drop a huge bell on him. Batman then has to fight the Joker’s goons, who got up to that spot… somehow? After fighting the goons, Vale sees an opening and uses her feminine wiles to throw the Joker off his game. Batman seizes the the opportunity to punch the Joker square in the face. It’s a satisfying blow, let me tell you. There’s some back and forth about the one creating the other, and then Joker pushes them out of the belfry! They’re dangling with barely a hand hold, and the Joker is dancing on the ledge of the dilapidated building breaking bricks and stuff, and just making the lives of Batman and Vale absolutely miserable. A helicopter comes to whisk the Joker away, but as it’s leaving, Batman uses a grapple thing to attach Joker’s foot to a gargoyle. The weight is more than the Joker can hold, and so the Joker slips off of his rope ladder and falls to his death. There’s a ceremony celebrating Gotham’s release from tyranny. Some reconciliation happens between Vale and Knox, who quite understandably had a crush on Vale. There’s some understood reconciliation between Vale and Batman as we see that Vale has accepted the terms of her existence as girlfriend to Bruce Wayne. Then, the bat signal is piercing the sky like a beacon in the fog, and the camera pans down to show Batman standing atop a building vigilantly guarding the city as triumphant music blares from the score! And then it’s over.

So what’s to love about the 1989 Batman? I would ask, what’s not to love? It’s true that in the nearly 20 years since this movie came out, a lot of people have been able to nitpick it apart like a turkey carcass, but I will say with conviction that this movie still holds up as a brilliant masterpiece of cinema. Here’s why… As I alluded before, Burton does a phenomenal job incorporating Gotham City as a pseudo character in the narrative. The aesthetic, and the implementation make the sets crucial to the quality of the film. Schumacher tried to recreate that feeling, but in so doing,he mostly just parodized it. Nolan took a more, “who gives a crap?” approach to this aspect of Batman choosing instead to just use a few different cities interchangeably. That’s a huge loss to the Dark Knight trilogy if you ask me. As I said before, Nicholson’s portrayal of the Joker is brilliant. I hear a lot of people say that Heath Ledger did it way better, and to them I say to each their own, but I would submit this for their consideration. If Mark Hamill’s animated Joker is the benchmark that most people use for the best Joker, then go back and watch this film, and then watch a few Mark Hamill performances because I guarantee that you’ll see an astounding amount of influence drawn from Nicholson’s Joker. He just appears to enjoy his brand of anarchy a little too much, and it really makes that performance. His Joker is volatile and unpredictable, a brilliant juxtaposition of chaos to Keaton’s Batman’s inescapable need for order. Like I said, I really like Keaton’s Wayne/Batman performance. Kilmer comes in a close second for live action performances, but Keaton does such a good job coming across as tortured, and conflicted. That gets totally lost on Clooney Batman, and extremely subdued with Bale. I can’t speak to Affleck’s performance because I haven’t seen that one.

The aesthetics of this movie are spot on, and I don’t just mean the city. Pay close attention to Batman’s gadgets. They’re functional without seeming militaristic. I do enjoy the Tumbler a great deal, but my heart will always belong to the Keaton car because its design is such a brilliant meld of the real and the fantastic. It’s an iconic work of art, and I love it!  Let’s talk about Alfred for a moment. I love Michael Gough as Alfred, more so than Michael Kaine. You can berate me in the comments, but here’s why. I love that Gough’s Alfred serves as Bruce’s father figure and mentor, but in addition to those two roles, he also serves as a confidante. Now I know what you’re saying, Kaine portrayed those aspects as well. The difference for me is that Gough did it with such an overabundance of love that you really believed he had raised Bruce from a young age and into adulthood. Gough did it that convincingly. He knew Bruce would always come to the right decision eventually. He trusted Bruce to make good decisions, and there wasn’t any parenting really, except a few old person jabs about settling down, but that just speaks to his love for Bruce. Okay, enough of that. Now, let me address one major inconsistency that I found as I watched. This movie tries pretty hard to be dark and brooding, and it does this pretty well throughout. But then you notice some wacky nuance performances from some of the background characters. My theory here is that Burton tried to blend a little of the zaniness of the 60s Batman show with his new darker approach, and it that was indeed the case, then he walked that line fairly well.

I think I’ll be done singing the praises of Batman for the time being. I won’t promise not to review it again though! So why is this a beloved film to me. Well, first, it’s the one of the first kind of inside things I remember sharing with my father. When it came out on VHS, we sat and we watched it together. We even used the slow motion to highlight a few of the action sequences. Beyond that though, I got toys, and merchandise out the wahzoo. Beyond that, it spent a lot of years my benchmark for what a brilliant movie is. As you’ve read, I still hold it in high esteem and that’s because it’s a movie that knows what it wants to do, and it does it without any unnecessary baggage or fluff. While it’s true that it’s not the most financially successful comic movie ever, I think it accomplishes something that a lot of comic films haven’t been able to accomplish since. First, it’s not a Batman origin story. It’s true that we do get a Joker origin story, but I think that was necessary from a narrative perspective to give the audience a feel for the challenges that lay ahead of our hero. We live in a world of origin stories and reboots that retell origin stories so for a film to just assume that we know what’s going on already is not only a huge risk, but it says a lot about the kind of respect that Burton must have had for the intelligence of his audience. To address the Joker origin story, yes, I know that Burton got it wrong, but at the time, this film was meant to only be a one shot ordeal. Warner Bros didn’t anticipate the amount of success it would garner so Burton wrote the Joker make this one film as narratively intense as possible. Second, I’ve spent literally years revelling in the amazing score that Elfman wrote for this movie. Again, there have been a lot of comic book movies since, but none possess musical compositions on the caliber that Batman does. The score accentuates the narrative while still taking risks in committing so heavily to the gothic tone of the film. There are reasons why Batman has withstood the test of time for nearly 20 years. It leads me to speculate about whether or not the comic book movies of our current age will be regarded with as much reverence and nostalgia 20 years from now. I personally tend to think not. They’re all fun, but in this blogger’s opinion, none have been able to deliver the kind of full package quality that Batman delivers.

We’re down to one last week of cinematic thanksgiving! And soon 2016 will slip the bonds of existence and we’ll have an entire new year of great somewhat unbiased reviews! Stay tuned next week to see how I finish up my giving of thanks!

Critical Mass Thanksgiving Extravaganza! Week 2: Memphis Belle

In keeping with the theme of being thankful this month, I wanted to use my miniscule corner of the interwebs to highlight a holiday that seems to get a lot less attention than it deserves during the month of November. That’s Veteran’s Day, and if you weren’t aware, it’s tomorrow, November 11. I felt it only fitting then, to review an historical war drama that I’m grateful for in order to show my appreciation to those who put their own lives on the line so that I can continue to enjoy the unparalleled freedoms that this country has to offer. The great thing about this week’s film is that it also fits into the overall scheme of movies that I’m thankful for for one reason or another quite nicely and before we’re done, I hope you’ll see why.

When I was a kid, I’d sometimes go to visit my grandparents for the summer. The times spent there were pretty glorious. There were wide open spaces to explore, very little developed civilization, and not many people to hang out with. In other words, it was somewhat isolated, and when you’re not old enough to drive, it can be even more so. There were plenty of toys though and I have a pretty active imagination so I managed. But as a result, a lot of the films that I was first exposed to came from my grandfather’s collection of VHSs. I remember the holy grail of his collection being Memphis Belle. It must have been one of his favorites because he never let anyone borrow. I did manage to watch it with him on a couple of occasions, but mostly it remained a pipe dream until I was old enough to buy my own movies. You could say this makes my list because I got to see how awesome a movie it was, but I never got to enjoy it as often as I would have liked.

The movie opens with one of the most 90s text epilogues ever. There’s the faint sound of wind and the text dissolves into a vista of clouds. We’re then shown a gang of young men playing football (the American kind) while a voiceover narration describes each character briefly. I normally give films a hard time for doing exposition like this, but in the case of Memphis Belle, I can give it a pass pretty easily because it’s really the only time in the film that exposition is used as a plot device, and it isn’t even used as a plot device! It just fits with what the movie is trying to do in a way that works really well. After the introductions, we hear the roar of piston pounding airplane engines as B-17s soar in majestically to a landing strip. It’s then that we realize that a) the movie is taking place at an airfield, and b) “Hey, is that John Lithgow?”. Yes, we see Lithgow watching as the planes land. There’s a background character reporting to the base commander on the number of planes that have returned. Lithgow plays an Army PR officer, and he does it in a delightfully douchey way. This is key though because to a point, he’s our lens.

We find out through a bit of tense banter that the titular Memphis Belle is slated to make her 25th bombing run the next day and Lithgow’s character is there putting together a PR piece to send home to the States. He’s giddy with delight, and super enthusiastic about the job at hand. In other words, he doesn’t have a clue about the culture of the airmen. He sees the crew of the Belle as an opportunity to get US citizens fired up and rallied around the war effort. The crew are less human beings to him and more assets for him to use in his ongoing quest for great PR. That sentiment is quickly tempered when we see the last plane coming in for a landing with only one of her wheels down. For those who don’t know, landing a plane with all of its gear down is ideal; landing it with no gear down is possible, but dangerous; landing it with only some of its gear down nearly always ends in disaster. This disaster is pretty harsh as the plane skids across terrain. We hear the crew begging for help and then the plane explodes in a conflagration.

We cut to an office where Lithgow’s character, Bruce Derringer, is interviewing the officers who serve aboard the Belle. The captain, Dennis Dearborn, played by Matthew Modine, is aloof, and totally focused on his job to point of seeming a little clueless at times. The first officer, Luke Sinclair, played by Tate Donovan tells of his exploits as a lifeguard that shows he’s hungry for the spotlight and attention. The bombardier, Val Kozlowski, played by Billy Zane, is the epitome of cool and collected. Finally, the navigator, Phil Lowenthal, played by D.B. Sweeney, is a nervous wreck and you can tell that he’s the token coward of the cast. Derringer rounds them up after interviewing them one-on-one and tells them the plans for the crew after they finish their mission and return stateside. Sinclair revels while Dearborn concludes that it would be better to keep the news of the fanfare a secret from the enlisted crew until the mission is over so that they can all concentrate on the mission itself.

There’s a party held the night before the mission and we get to see some of the other crew in action. Rounding out the lineup of heavy hitters, Sean Astin plays Richard Moore, Eric Stoltz plays Danny Daly, Harry Connick Jr plays Clay Busby, and Courtney Gains plays Eugene McVey. During the party scene, we get to see the personalities of most of the main characters as they attempt to have a bash before the mission. Some get lucky, if you know what I mean, some strike out, and some are just there to enjoy the food and drink. We’re treated to Harry Connick singing a rendition of “Danny Boy”, which if the movie had done everything else wrong, still would have made it worth the watch. Then we cut to the morning. Phil has gone and gotten himself drunk to the point of sweating alcohol and it’s up to Val to sober him up in time for the briefing. Everyone had been hoping for a milk run, but they find out that they’ll be bombing deep into Germany. There’s a nice little montage of all the planes and crews prepping for the flight, and then… They all get grounded due to weather. It’s kind of a let down, but it’s a deliberate one. This movie does an incredible job, for the most part, with its character development. For such a large cast, most of the characters have very distinct and original personalities. The ones that are supporting characters do play a bit more off of archetypes, but the main characters are fleshed out really well.

The planes all make the bombing run, and there are some tense moments. There are two firefights between the B-17s and the German ME-109s. Several planes are shown falling out of the skies in sometimes gruesome and gut wrenching ways. Cloud cover over the target force the planes to circle around for a second pass under intense flak fire. But in the end, they deliver their payload successfully and turn around to head home. It’s here that things maybe seem to get a little over-the-top. First the Belle gets a hole shot in her wing so they have to syphon their fuel from the one wing to the intact wing, but geez, the electronic system is damaged so they have to do it manually. Then one of their engines catches fire so they have to dive in order to put out the flames lest the flames explode the fuel and kill them all. Then their belly gun gets shot off prompting a harrowing rescue of Richard. THEN another of their engines goes out. THEN they take a shot that wounds McVey. THEN as they’re finally approaching Britain, they lose one of their two good engines, and they realize on approach for landing that one of their landing struts hasn’t gone down so they have to lower it by hand. I’ve seen this movie countless times, but that part is always a nail biter for me. Of course, they manage to get the gear down just as the wheels touch down on the tarmac. After that, there’s an aerial celebratory shot and we see the ambulance whisking McVey off to the hospital. Finally there’s a dedication to all of the men of all nationalities who lost their lives in the skies during the second World War, and it’s over.

Obviously, I love this film, and rightfully so. It gets all of things right that it should get right. All of the characters that are featured most prevalently feel like real people. They have their own unique personalities, they’re relatable, and they’re fun to watch, primarily because the cast appear to have great chemistry on screen. The story is straightforward, but entertaining. It’s not even remotely accurate, but it wasn;t trying to be. It was trying to show its audience what a worst case scenario bombing run might have been like during World War II. As such, it’s dramatized extremely well. It’s exciting. It’s intense, and at the same time, it’s pretty heartwarming. As a period piece, historical elements are represented fairly accurately. I’m not expert, but uniforms appear to be correct, and all of the equipment appears appropriate for the time during which the film is meant to take place. The score is fantastic! It’s majestic in a way that makes the movie feel big, and it really punctuates the film well. Lastly, this movie made me fall in love with B-17s, mostly because they’re sexy planes, but also because the Belle herself is treated as a character in the narrative. As such, we as an audience grow an attachment to the plane in much the same way as we’re meant to connect with the human characters.

This film has been quite the influence for me. Besides being ever elusive, it helped to spark my interest in World War II history, an interest that I pursue to this day. It’s a great demonstration of what an excellent film looks like, and it helped to set the mark by which I judge movies when I see them. It also helped me to realize vicariously that there are men and women who, everyday, do things that I could never do in the pursuit of protecting American freedoms and liberties. It doesn’t matter how we may feel about our nation as a whole, those individuals do and see things that would leave most people a wreck, and they do it out of a love for their country and their American family. Thank a vet this week! And stay tuned to find out what film I’m thankful for next week!

Critcal Mass Thanksgiving Extravaganza! Week 1: Star Trek V?

We’re really cutting things down to the wire this week! I bet you thought that I had forgotten about you, huh? Well fear not! I might have been a little bit at a loss as to what to review this week as I’ve been so focused on Halloween stuff over the last month that it never occurred to me that I should think beyond that. Can you blame me though? We live in a society where we don’t even get to finish with our Halloween celebrations before we’re forcibly thrust into the Christmas season. Technically, there’s a holiday in between those two where we get to gorge ourselves on food, and try to pretend that we’re not spoiled, entitled people, but that holiday has mostly become a token stepping stone to further the Christmas rhetoric. I’m talking about Thanksgiving, of course, and it really is a holiday that gets overlooked quite a bit in the rush to prepare for the grand finale that Christmas has become over the years. I’m sure there are a lot of Thanksgiving movies and specials that have been made over the decades, but I’ve never heard of them, nor do I wish to try and watch one in preparation for this article as I might feel obligated to continue that trend throughout the rest of the month. Instead, I’m going to focus this month on films that I’m thankful exist. These films may not be masterpieces. Some may even lead you to question my sanity, but each hold a special place in my heart for one reason, or another. Consider this my attempt to stave off Christmas for just a little longer as we spend the month giving thanks for all of those movies that really bring me joy!

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier has the dubious distinction of being on of my first beloved films. I really latched onto this movie when I was in high school, which if you read my Day 1 post, is when my interest in film and the arts really started to blossom. We’ll get into the why behind my love for this film after we take a brief look at the film itself. This movie was released in June of 1989, and was directed by none other than William Shatner. That whole situation came about because after the success of Star Trek IV, Paramount wanted to continue the momentum. Shatner held out, and pushed to direct now that Leonard Nimoy had told his story. The year 1989 is important to the story of Final Frontier as there was a huge writers strike going on at the time, and so it was difficult to get any noted screenwriters to do any work on the script. It’s also the year that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade came out, but more on that in a minute. Shatner had a grand vision for his film. He wanted to adapt the Inferno portion of Dante’s Divine Comedy for Star Trek and ask the really hard questions. As such, he and his crew got to work on the script treatment and storyboards, but as can happen sometimes, the budget was cut. This left Shatner, an inexperienced director, scrambling to see what he could afford to leave in the film and what would need to be cut. The answer to that question ended up being the entire third acti.

As Shatner himself explains it, no one around him was helping him to monitor expenditures and so by the time they got ready to film the third act, there was no money left for anything extravagant. So what did that leave audiences with? Well, the movie primarily revolves around a Vulcan named Sybok who believes that he’s found the cradle of life for the entire galaxy. He uses his sick Vulcan mind meld skills to ‘take away people’s pain’, and convert them to his cause. After he gains enough followers, he goes to the ‘seat of government’’ on a forgotten backwater planet and kidnaps a Terran, a Klingon, and a Romulan in a bid to get someone to stage a rescue attempt. This is where we start catching up with Kirk and crew. Most everyone is enjoying shore leave after saving Earth in the previous movie, and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are enjoying Yellowstone. Kirk, specifically, is getting more intimately acquainted with El Capitan… By free climbing it. I really don’t like heights, and this sequence of scenes always gives me the willies. Spock uses some rocket boots that I didn’t even know I wanted until I saw them to pester Kink and if you don’t know where this is headed, then you need to sit a few days in a middle school science class and learn about a little thing called gravity. Kirk falls from the rock, Spock uses his boots to save Kirk in the nick of time, and Bones chews the both of them out mostly because he suffers from an incurable case of crankiness, but we’re treated to a fairly entertaining and enlightening philosophical conversation on mortality. This is the scene where Kirk famously declares that he knows that he will die without Spock, or McCoy around. I’m sure the writers of Generations we grateful for that little tid bit of inspiration. The men share a meal around the campfire, there’s some hilarious banter as they attempt to sing camp songs, and then we get to see what some of the other crew are up to.

As it turns out, Scotty and Uhura are trying to get the Enterprise whipped into shape as apparently this ship was built poorly. That’s when everything starts to come together for the plot though. Enterprise receives orders to recall all key personnel, and go to Nimbus III, the hind end of the galaxy, to rescue our three previously established hostages. There’s a lot of attention paid to the fact that the ship doesn’t work, but when the crew need her to come through, she manages so it’s more of a gag than a peril. Anyway, on the way to Nimbus III, the Enterprise crew get access to a video where Sybok names his terms, and it turns out that all he wants is a starship, very convenient since Starfleet just sent one. Spock has a deja vu moment, and then we’re introduced to the other complication of the movie, Captain Klaa. He’s a strapping young Klingon fellow whose only desire in life is to blow things up in honorable combat. His ship gets wind of the hostage situation and his immediate conclusion is that this will give him the chance to fight against a Federation starship, thus proving his mettle as a warrior, and he’s even more ecstatic when he learns that Kirk’s ship has been dispatched.

Our crew finally arrive at Nimbus III, but oh darn, the transporters don’t work. As a result, an armed SWAT team, lead by Kirk and Spock, have to take a shuttle down to the surface, but they can’t land too close, or else they risk detection. So they land an undefined distance away, and because Shatner is a world renowned equestrian, they hijack horses to get from where they are to the city where the captives are being held. They ride in like a dust storm, and there’s a pretty exciting firefight. Kirk goes to save the hostages, but lo and behold, IT’S A TRAP! The ‘hostages’ disarm him at gunpoint, and insist that he take Sybok and all of his followers back up to their ship. It’s at this point, that we find out that Spock and Sybok have a history, although we’re not told any specifics. Somehow everyone piles into a shuttle and they all head back up to the Enterprise, but the Klingons have arrived to mess crap up, and once they realize that Kirk is on the shuttle, they target that. Sulu has to do some might fancy flying in order to get everyone onto the Enterprise, but he does, and then there’s a fight! Kirk and Sybok duke it out until Spock puts a stop to it and Sybok’s guards take Kirk, Spock and McCoy to the brig. Here, there’s some great banter, then there’s morse code. Scotty uses it to tell the gents in the brig to stand back while he blows a freaking hole in the wall! They do a jailbreak and as they’re running around the bowels of the ship, Scotty knocks himself out ironically. The rocket boots make another appearance during the escape sequence as well.

The three amigos are able to make it to the observation lounge of the ship where there’s a hidden emergency subspace radio. Kirk gets a message out before Sybok shows up, but SURPRISE, it’s intercepted by the Klingons! It’s at this point that Sybok tries to brainwash our three heroes with his mind meld mumbo jumbo. We find out that McCoy’s deepest regret was taking his ailing father off of life support a mere two months or so before a cure for his disease was found. I always wondered about that one. Don’t they have medical journals in the 23rd century. Spock somehow remembers the moment of his birth and the general disdain that his father expresses toward him n that moment for his half breed heritage. Kirk refuses to undergo the process and makes a speech about how his pain adds to who he is, and how he lives.Sybok decides to cut his losses and invites the other two to join him on the bridge. Spick refuses, and McCoy follows the crowd. In the meantime, they reach the fabled cradle of life, and Sybok relinquishes control of the ship back to Kirk. It’s decided that Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Sybok will go down to the planet to have a heart to heart with God.

They do, and as it turns out, this version of God is kind of a douche. He wants to join with the ship so that he can ‘spread his wisdom across the stars’, but we all know that he just wants to blow stuff up. He shoots eye lasers at Kirk and Spock because the had the audacity to question his cover story. Sybok attempts to diffuse the situation by joining with the creature. This is after we find out that the whole idea of this planet and this god are just manifestations of Sybok’s obsession with doing something great with himself, or... something. Kirk, Spock and McCoy hot foot it back to the shuttle, but ‘God’ has rendered it inoperable. Luckily, Scotty has managed to get just enough power to the transporters to beam up two people. Three guesses who Kirk commands him to beam up. Then Kirk runs the crap away because ‘God’ is shooting eye lasers at him still. Kirk climbs to the summit of a rather large hill, and just then the Klingons also show up! Kirk seems doomed, but the Klingon ship shoots ‘God’ and it’s destroyed. Then they beam Kirk over, and it’s revealed that Spock was manning the guns the whole time. Kirk didn’t die because he wasn’t alone people! He WASN’T ALONE! There’s a celebration after some crow eating from Captain Klaa, and then the trinity attempt shore leave version 2.0 where Spock finally gets the point of campfire songs, and then the credits roll.

Sarcasm aside, there’s a reason why this film became one of my most beloved. In high school, I wasn’t very familiar with the original Star Trek series so episodes like Who Mourns for Adonais that deal with aliens masquerading as gods weren’t well known to me. So for me, this was pretty avant garde subject material where Star Trek was concerned. I liked that they were willing to look at the possibility of the existence of a higher being in the quirky Star Trek way. Beyond that though, there’s a lot of really good character development. Spock is still coming off of his death and resurrection, McCoy is trying to recover from having Spock’s soul in his brain, and Kirk is left to try and maintain balance throughout the ordeal. When there is humor during the movie, it’s pretty spot on. Shatner wrote himself as a witty, sarcastic devil may care type, and pretty much all of the cast get moments to shine within their respective characters. Jerry Goldsmith scored the movie, and as usual, he did a fantastic job. The score is mysterious, but contemplative. Unfortunately, there’s a lot more bad than good in this film.

On the bad notes, as I mentioned before, the third act just fizzles out like a defective firecracker. This had a lot to do with budget cuts and Shatner’s inexperience as a director. The special effects are laughable, especially by Star Trek standards, and some of the gags are appalling. What I tend to find interesting about all of this now are the stories behind what led to all of this. As I mentioned, Last Crusade was in development at the same time as Final Frontier. This ended up being a crucial thing for at least a couple of reasons. First, Industrial Light and Magic were so busy doing special effects on Crusade that they couldn’t do them for Frontier. This left Shatner scrambling to find a different effects house, and the one that he contracted way overstated their abilities. Second, the role of Sybok had originally been written with Sean Connery in mind to play the role. But since he was attached to Crusade, he couldn’t do Frontier. The writers strike is a pretty important thing. When work on the script started things were fine, but when Paramount cut the budget, there were no experienced screenwriters to rework the script to fit the budget. It all ends up coagulating into a perfect storm of cinematic failure that I don’t feel is fair to lay squarely on Shatner, although like a champ, he has accepted responsibility for it., But remember those grand ideas? Shatner wanted the last act to be a sort of slide into the various levels of the depths of hell for Kirk as he sought to overcome the powerful creature on the planet at the center of the galaxy. There were to be rock monsters and rivers of magma. It might have been pretty spectacular. I like to imagine a universe where Shatner’s vision was realized in its entirety, and it probably would still have been a little messy, but it would have been a spectacular mess!

This movie is ultimately one of my beloved because I came to realize through Final Frontier that a movie doesn’t have to be great, or even good to be someone’s favorite. A movie can be terrible and still be someone’s favorite. I elicited a lot ire from my friends for liking this movie so much, and in a way, it fed into my desire to be a contrarian. I personally learned that one doesn’t have to base their likes and dislikes on the popular opinion in order to be happy liking the things that the like and that’s some pretty deep wisdom right there. Stay tuned for next week as we look at another film for which I’m grateful!