Batman Forever (1995)

2/4 stars

There are three kinds of Batman. Gothic Batman is the subject of the classic comic books and we see him stoically doing what he does best in the Tim Burton movies and the animated TV series from the 90s. The more introspective Edgelord Batman made popular in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy has been a favorite of comic writer Frank Miller, but largely exists elsewhere in memes. Campy Batman is best represented by Adam West back in the 1960s. Campy Batman’s Gotham City is a colorful world of colorful people where villains prance in clownish costumes and laugh maniacally. They are the sort of baddies who twirl their mustaches, tie damsels to railroad tracks, and scheme to poison the city’s water supply.
Director Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever is a return to the old tradition of campy Batman, slanted camera angles and all. When Schumacher, taking over for Tim Burton, approached the material he aimed to make a live-action cartoon. For better or worse, he succeeded. As stupid and ridiculous as the movie is, it is everything it intended to be; its flaws by design and really a matter of taste.

A common complaint leveled at it is that it is too campy and too cartoonish. I hold to the opposite view. I believe it isn’t campy and cartoonish enough, and therein lies Batman Forever’s downfall. The heroes, given what they are up against, are too sullen for their own good. Val Kilmer, replacing Michael Keaton, in the role of Bruce Wayne commands no presence, adding nothing interesting to the part. As Batman he is stale, watering the character down to a fighting costume.
Robin, the Boy Wonder is brought in this time around, and if the fans had been waiting patiently through two movies for Batman’s trusted sidekick to finally appear they must have been sadly disappointed. Chris O’Donnell as Dick Grayson (Robin’s alter ego) has none of Burt Ward’s original energy and passion. O’Donnell plays the role as standoffish and angry. His character development is nothing more than a skin-deep paint-by-numbers expression of the old saw “revenge won’t make the pain go away” and “taking a life leads to a dark path.” There is nothing wrong with such messages of course, but no sincere effort is made to convince the audience of their truthfulness. It’s merely said and Robin comes to these conclusions only when the script finally says so.
Batman and Robin generate no charisma whatsoever, all of their energy being sucked into the two lead villains.

The movie opens with the dastardly Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) robbing a bank to lure Batman into a trap. He giggles and jumps up and down like a clown, firing machine guns at nothing in particular as police helicopters swarm above. The burnt side of his face is improbably symmetrical in relation to the other side: a purple bit of prosthetic rubber that appears more like a cartoon’s idea of a deformity than anything seen on a real burn victim. His suit is split in a similar fashion; formal and proper on one side and gaudy and colorful on the other. When we see his evil lair later in the film the interior decoration keeps to this pattern. One side looks like the very throne room of hell and the other is pure white and fit for a fairy tea party. His two sexy girlfriends, Sugar and Spice (Drew Barrymore and Debi Mazar) are bedecked to match.
When Batman arrives at the bank robbery, he is joined by Commissioner Gordon (Pat Hingle) and Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman). Meridian is a professional parapsychologist who specializes in super-criminals and caped crusaders alike. She doesn’t look much like a psychologist. She stands next to Batman looking like a blonde bombshell, speaking in silky tones and saying nothing more insightful than what can be gleaned from a copy of Psychology Today. She is about as convincing a psychologist as Denise Richards was as a physicist in The World Is Not Enough. Kidman plays the role like a Bond girl. She feigns a professional interest in Batman that masks something more fetishistic.
We later see a love triangle develop between her, Batman, and his secret identity Bruce Wayne. The movie posits a theme where Dr. Meridian’s infatuation with Batman is something girlish and rebellious; her eventual favoring of Wayne being a moment of maturity. She directs her husky-toned flirtations toward both equally, however, and the point is not hammered home that deeply.

After Two-Face escapes he joins forces with The Riddler (Jim Carrey) whose wild performance is the front and center of the whole show. Carrey plays Riddler with no restraint at all. His acting reaches over the top and then goes only higher. He moves like he is cursed to dance forever and he never stops talking. The performance is loud and obnoxious; Carrey mugs the camera, making bizarre faces and dropping pop culture references and bizarre jokes whenever he is on screen, which ends up being a great deal. Jim Carrey has this way of punctuating his words with sharp turns of his head. He does it so much you could make a drinking game out of it. After Batman Forever I’d be fairly plastered. Try doing it while watching The Mask and you would need a new liver.
When we first meet him he is an excitable and neurotic employee of Wayne Enterprises named Edward Nygma who idolizes Bruce Wayne and wants to impress him with a new mind-control device he invented. Wayne’s predictable rejection crushes the already unhinged Nygma’s spirit and he becomes enraged and bitter. It’s probably the lamest super-villain origin story to date, but it fits the material Schumacher presents.
As Riddler he uses his mind control device to read the minds of everyone in Gotham so he can steal their credit card numbers and financial records. It’s a shockingly short-sighted plot. One man having access to everyone’s money would only crash the economy and more than likely the existence of his machine would force the world to adapt its methods of bookkeeping to counter-act it. But maybe I am overthinking the logistics of a villain scheme obviously reminiscent of a Saturday morning cartoon.

When the movie sticks to Joel Schumacher’s vision it works remarkably well even if Carrey could afford to tone it down a little. Gotham looks better than ever keeping the same Gothic Dr. Seussian aesthetic from before, but more lively and animated. The camera rides through the city like a roller-coaster, allowing the viewer to soak in the details. It reminds me of a professional haunted house made with money as no object.
Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey’s antics are constantly energetic and off the wall. Reminding myself that this is supposed to be a live-action cartoon I can accept them, if not love them overmuch.
Where it fails is with its hero characters. Pat Hingle phones in his performance as Gordon, seeming to be painfully aware of what had become of the series. Kilmer is dry as a bone and O’Donnell is over-serious and undercooked as a character. Nicole Kidman brings to the movie the sort of character we should have had in Catwoman back in Batman Returns. Bond girls and Batman vixens alike are supposed to be somewhat innocent and prepubescent in their sensuality. They entice the man hidden behind the mask, but the boy that the mask represents ultimately wins out and keeps them untouchable. Kidman brings this to Chase Meridian well enough, but still never quite reaches the comic tone that the movie needs more of.

In Batman Forever Schumacher tries too hard to meld the 1960s era camp with the more mature themes of the Burton movies, and the result is an inconsistent mess. In the end I appreciated what the director has tried to do more than what he has done.

Director: Joel Schumacher
Writers: Bob Kane, Lee Batchler, Janet Scott Batchler, Akiva Goldsman
Cast: Val Kilmer (Bruce Wayne/Batman), Tommy Lee Jones (Two-Face/Harvey Dent), Jim Carret (Edward Nygma/Riddler), Nicole Kidman (Dr. Chase Meridian), Chris O’Donnell (Dick Grayson/Robin), Michael Gough (Alfred Pennyworth), Pat Hingle (Commissioner Gordon), Drew Barrymore (Sugar) Debi Mazar (Spice)
Producers: Tim Burton, Mitchell E. Dauterive, Peter Macgregor-Scott, Benjamin Melniker, Kevin J. Messick, Michael E. Uslan
Composer: Elliot Goldenthal
Cinematographer: Stephen Goldblatt
Editors: Mark Stevens, Dennis Virkler

Batman Returns (1992)

1.5/4 stars

Batman Returns is an ugly, unpleasant, and meanspirited film. There is something sick beneath its surface of gross-out grotesquerie, bondage-inspired sensuality, and gratuitous violence. Watching it, I felt there must have been a lot of anger behind its making. It’s the sort of movie that after viewing it I wanted to ask the filmmakers, “Who hurt you?”

Taking place a few years after the much superior Batman (1989), the film sees the Caped Crusader springing back into action after a group of rogue circus performers kidnap industrialist Max Shreck (Christopher Walken) during a public ceremony. He is blackmailed by the sewer-dwelling Penguin (Danny DeVito) who knows of Shreck’s illegal toxic waste dumping. Unlike the more balanced previous movie, the villains in Batman Returns take center stage leaving Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) more time to brood in front of his TV, I guess. The Penguin, far removed from the boyish aristocratic charm of Burgess Meredith, is a repulsive figure. He waddles in disgusting soiled long underwear, chows on raw fish with ill-manners that Gollum would have objected to, and lecherously leers at any woman he meets. His pasty, balding, hook-nosed visage only further elicits disgust in the viewer. In one of the films most disgusting scenes he chews on a raw fish, flesh dribbling from his mouth, right before biting a man on the nose causing it to gush blood. He then turns his attention to a female assistant and confides in Shreck his sexual fantasies featuring her. He flaps his deformed hands saying he wants to show her his “French flipper trick.” The scene’s comic tone only accentuates the rotten spirit that could have gone into writing it.
Added to the new rogues’ gallery is Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) who starts out as a mistreated assistant to Max Shreck who pushes her out of a window when she discovers too much about his illegal activities. As Selina Kyle, Catwoman’s alter ego, she is a depressing figure. Selina is a misogynistic caricature of a sexually frustrated working woman living in a man’s world. The attempted murder causes her to snap and she returns to her apartment smashes it to bits and then makes herself a shiny black catsuit. As one does.
The character transformation is sudden and without much explanation. She adopts a sultry voice saying to herself, “Now I feel a lot yummier.” Her performance is sexually charged and out of place in a film made to cater to kids. When she allies herself with the Penguin he continually bombards her with unwanted sexual attention, his language vulgar and graphic. The game she plays with him is one of flirtation, innuendo, and rebuff (in that order). Her action scenes play out like a dance where suggestive comments contextualize a connection between sex and fighting. This sort of thing has been done before, but its application here in a movie for young people is disturbing. Catwoman as an archetype has always represented something prepubescent. She represents the growing confused feelings in young boys still overcoming their “girls are icky” phase. But that element is not here. In Batman Returns Catwoman fully embraces a dominatrix persona rife with explicit sexual dialogue. Every time she defeats a male opponent in a fight I kept waiting for them to take a quiet break for a cigarette.
I’ll let you in on a little secret. Pfeiffer’s Catwoman is my favorite Catwoman. She encapsulates the seductiveness of the character and my reasons for favoring her are undeniably male ones. But the writing’s on the wall when put in the movie’s context. This movie is neither The Batman (2022) or The Dark Knight Rises. There is an offset of cartoonish comic book action and storytelling that makes her raw sensuality inappropriate. I have objections to her representation here in a kids movie as both a man and a father, if not so much as a male. To put it more succinctly, a movie that has been marketed with Happy Meal toys really ought not to have elements of BDSM and sexualized violence in its plot.
If I had any sympathy for the movie it was completely lost when we get to the part where Penguin murders a beauty queen. To frame Batman she is kidnapped and pushed off of a tall building with a flock of bats. The woman’s skimpy costume remains well-photographed throughout the ordeal and when she lands she is in surprisingly good shape, if still dead. There is something I find inherently sick about scantily clad women being killed on film that is especially egregious in a movie like this one.
Further adding to my distaste for the film is Penguin’s plot in the final act to kidnap Gotham’s firstborn and drown them in the toxic waste in his sewer. I had hoped that this would remain discussed and that the movie wouldn’t bother with scenes of scared screaming babies being loaded into cages, but alas, no dice; and the film goes there. Of course, Batman comes to the rescue and nothing horrible happens, but still…

This is among some of the most unpleasant superhero movies ever made. I wish I knew what Tim Burton (a very talented director) was going through when he made it. It is definitely the most Burton-esque of his Batman films. Danny Elfman’s score is highly reminiscent of the style heard in Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands and the same Dr. Seussian sense of model design under a winter blue color palette that characterizes Burton’s films is present here. His movies look a lot like the inside of a snow globe.
But, there is a lot of anger and resentment in the film’s writing. Any and every opportunity to be gross, exploitative, and crass is taken throughout. The Joel Schumacher Batman movies that followed are notoriously stupid in their idiotic writing and cartoonish visuals, but Schumacher never juxtaposed the lightweight content with half-naked women being murdered, bondage-geared dominatrices saying “Don’t be too rough with me it’s my first time” before a fight, or vile depictions of gross-out violence. The movie is rated PG-13, but much of the sexual dialogue is more fitting for an R-rated picture. The ugly tone and foul attitudes that fill every scene contains no meaningful commentary, but simply exist for their own sake.
It’s a film where sex is firmly connected to violence, Batman kills people, and the downtrodden and discarded poor folk are, we are told, monstrosities of nature. Batman Returns is the most hate-filled superhero flick ever made, and if I was not clear, I didn’t like it much.

Director: Tim Burton
Writers: Bob Kane, Daniel Waters, Sam Hamm
Cast: Michael Keaton (Bruce Wayne/Batman), Danny DeVito (Oswald Cobblepot/Penguin), Michelle Pfeiffer (Selina Kyle/Catwoman), Christopher Walken (Max Shreck), Michael Gough (Alfred), Michael Murphy (Mayor), Cristi Conaway (Ice Princess), Andrew Bryniarski (Chip), Pat Hingle (Commissioner Gordon)
Producers: Ian Bryce, Tim Burton, Denise Di Novi, Larry Franco, Peter Guber, Benjamin Melniker, Jon Peters, Michael E. Uslan
Composer: Danny Elfman
Cinematographer: Stefan Czapsky
Editors: Bob Badami, Chris Lebenzon

Batman (1989)

3/4 stars

Tim Burton’s Batman opens and it’s night in Gotham City. A family of three are mugged by two strung-out thugs and they sit on a rooftop counting their stolen money. But this is Gotham City and Gotham City has a protector who rules the night. Looming above them in silhouette like a ghoulish reincarnation of Dracula is a figure in the form of a bat. It swoops down upon the two terrified goons and beats them within an inch of their lives. One of them asks, “Who are you?” Gotham’s hero says, “I’m Batman”, and a legend is born.
All this happens in the first ten minutes. There are no forty-minute prologues of Bruce Wayne’s origins. There is little time given to studying his feelings and character. And there are no grounded explanations for where he gets his gear. When Batman uses a grappling hook to escape, the Joker says, “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” He gets no answer and we don’t need one.

This is the perfect Batman movie. It checks all the necessary boxes that define who Batman is, what his world is, and what a story featuring him should be about. The filmmakers understand that the audience knows who Batman is and that he needs no introduction. Batman doesn’t require an explanation. All he needs is to be properly represented.

Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) is already Batman when the film begins. We are not told for how long, but the sudden introduction of The Joker suggests it takes place during what the fans of the DC comics call Year One.
Keaton plays Bruce Wayne as good-natured and mannered, but a bit shy and antisocial. His loner tendencies reflect the consequence of being Batman at night. As Batman he recalls the Phantom of the Opera. He is reclusive and silent, staying in the shadows lest someone sees too much of him and discovers his secret identity.
Michael Keaton is my favorite of all the Batmans (Batmen?) who have attempted the role. He doesn’t stifle the performance with melodrama, but lets the physicality and look of the character dominate the screen. Batman is an icon and a symbol; and Keaton allows the iconography to define what we see. He is a costume and a chin. And that is Batman as we like him.
The costume is fairly traditional. It’s neither the explicable body armor worn by Christian Bale or the gaudy grey cloth of Adam West. The black bulletproof rubber worn by Keaton fits the gothic tone of the character while retaining our quintessential expectations of a Batman costume. The Bat logo stands out in yellow on the chest. The costume is fundamental and perfect.
The Batmobile is even better. It appropriates the mood and style of Batman better than any other Batmobile, in my opinion. It’s long, dark, angular, and the sort of car Count Dracula would have driven had motor vehicles existed in his day. Toy Biz must have made a killing on the market with this thing. It’s one of the coolest fictional movie cars since James Bond’s Aston Martin.
Tim Burton’s Batman also has the best rendition of Gotham City of all time. The gothic architecture brings to mind the German Expressionist images seen in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, but augmented in technicolor with dark matte paintings and its smoky and steaming set design.
Further setting the mood is Danny Elfman’s iconic score which to this day contains the definitive Batman theme for a lot of fans, myself included. Unlike the more optimistic and rousing Superman theme by John Williams, Elfman’s Batman theme puts itself in the midst of the action, punctuating Batman’s fighting spirit with just a dash of mischievous fun. Like the Williams score it creates its own genre of superhero themes. Sadly it’s becoming a lost art. Does anyone remember the music in the Marvel movies recently? Because I don’t.

But all of these elements add up to beans without a story. The film’s plot manages in its 2 hour runtime to give Batman, Bruce Wayne, and the Joker enough to do in perfect balance. Bruce Wayne juggles his obligations as Batman with his budding infatuation with journalist Vicky Vale (Kim Basinger) while the Joker (Jack Nicholson) has his own eyes on her while he plots to overthrow and take over the criminal underworld.
Nicholson portrays the Joker part with surprising restraint given the madcap lunacy of the character and his plans. He laughs, jokes, and plots morbid absurdities as any good Joker would, but never seems out of control. His madness is more of an attitude he brings to his offbeat behavior. Nicholson plays Joker like his descent into madness wasn’t out of tragedy or untreated mental illness. He chooses madness because he simply got annoyed with sanity and enough was enough. His most wildest actions still manage to reflect this attitude. He punches out a TV with a mechanical glove and murders his own henchmen where other men would just roll their eyes.

Controversially, Nicholson’s Joker, is given a backstory whereas the Joker is traditionally portrayed as anonymous and of ambiguous origins. Here he is introduced as Jack Napier, a right hand man to a mob boss (Jack Palance). After Palance discovers that Jack is sleeping with one of his molls he sets Jack up to be killed in a sting operation. But, when Batman makes an appearance, Jack fights him only to fall into a vat of acid. He survives, but is disfigured with chalk-white skin, green hair, and a permanent grin fixed on his face.
The decision to give Joker an identity and origin is still controversial among fans of the comics, but I have grown to accept the change. Nicholson is by far the most charismatic figure in the movie and the motivations his backstory gives him serve the plot perfectly fine. The Batman mythos is interpretive in adaptation, and the changes made to the established lore here doesn’t denigrate the film in the slightest. A Joker with an origin story is, after all, still more tolerable than a moody and angry Superman that the fans of Man of Steel didn’t seem to mind.
Joker gets revenge by killing his former boss and goes on to bend the remaining mob bosses under his rule, removing (quite dramatically) anyone who opposes him. He plots to poison the citizens of Gotham with infected hair care products, before moving onto bigger game with a parade show with floating balloons full of fatal laughing gas that he wants to unleash upon the city.
In the meantime, Batman broods and investigates Jack’s latest schemes, and his alter ego Bruce Wayne begins to suspect that there is an old personal connection between him and the Joker. Between them is Vicky Vale. Joker desires her, Bruce is falling in love with her, and it is Batman who must save her.

This is not a very thoughtful plot, naturally. But as a superhero movie, the story weaves all of the required elements that make the genre appealing. Christopher Nolan’s brilliant Dark Knight trilogy was made for a different sort of audience in mind. There the characters are ideologues for real-world issues that more sophisticated internet-bred audiences post-9/11 have found meaning and expression in. But, none of that is needed here. This movie was made for the boys and girls who love Batman and the Generation X adults who had grown up on him. During my childhood in the 90s, the grown-ups who were pop-culture conscious seemed to be preoccupied by two things: Star Wars and Batman. They coexisted on the same walls on posters, shared shelf space as action figures, filled boxes with comics, and every respectable nerd had both on VHS and their clothes. And in those happy days it was Burton’s image of Batman that dominated.

Director: Tim Burton
Writers: Bob Kane, Sam Hamm, Warren Skaaren
Cast: Michael Keaton (Bruce Wayne/Batman), Jack Nicholson (The Joker, Jack Napier), Kim Basinger (Vicki Vale), Robert Wuhl (Alexander Knox), Pat Hingle (Commissioner Gordon), Billy Dee Williams (Harvey Dent), Michael Gough (Alfred), Jack Palance (Grissom), Jerry Hall (Alicia), Tracey Walker (Bob the Goon), Lee Wallace (Mayor), William Hootkins (Eckhardt)
Producers: Peter Guber, Barbara Kalish, Chris Kenny, Benjamin Melniker, Jon Peters, Michael E. Uslan
Composer: Danny Elfman
Cinematographer: Roger Pratt
Editor: Ray Lovejoy

The Secret of NIMH (1982)

4/4 stars

Don Bluth’s The Secret of NIMH is my favorite animated movie of all time. And, I like to think, for good reason. For one, it is one of the most accessible movies for general audiences ever made. There is more to it than being a kids’ movie. It’s a movie for everyone.
The Secret of NIMH is often called an example of children’s fantasy, but I find the reasoning for this flimsy at best. The movie is called a children’s fantasy because children can watch it without being exposed to elements too mature for them to handle. It’s also called a children’s fantasy because it is a cartoon. And that’s pretty much it.
But, assuming that the absence of sex and vulgar language as well as the presence of animation is not a bar to adult engagement, there is little cause to consider The Secret of NIMH a kids’ movie. A family movie may be closer to the mark. But, the film’s story is sophisticated and engaging enough to attract an adult viewer without the presence of a child at all. I would just call it a movie. And a pretty damn good one too.

Don Bluth saw his first successes working as an animator for the Walt Disney Studios lending his talents on such movies as Robin Hood (1973), Pete’s Dragon, and The Rescuers. But, eventually he grew despondent over the direction he thought the studio was going and went off to work on his own animation production company. The 70’s and 80’s did not see Walt Disney at its best. It was a fairly stagnant period in which the company was churning out mostly forgettable projects that saw more status as cult favorites than as all time classics. It was during this period that Don Bluth began making his own animated films that brought new life and creativity into animation. The first of these was The Secret of NIMH. Throughout the remainder of the 1980’s he followed it up with other classics such as An American Tail, The Land Before Time, and All Dogs Go to Heaven.
But, it is The Secret of NIMH that will forever remain his best.

The Secret of NIMH perfectly balances visual artistry and excellent writing with a keen respect for its audience’s intelligence. In this modern era where cartoons are all safely nestled in the genre of comedy, there is sadly little coming out quite like this movie anymore. The film contains some of the most appealing hand-drawn images to date. It’s painted backdrops are reminiscent of the beautiful images seen in Lady and the Tramp or Pinocchio. Those films had backdrops more like Christmas cards, whereas here there is something more pastoral that echoes the paintings of Andrew Wyeth. The colorful animated characters in the movie mix with the painted backgrounds surprisingly well. The hand-drawn cels contain a vibrance and liveliness unseen in the computer animated images of today and every movement and every frame is full of grace and character; and are vigorous in emotional expression.

But, what makes The Secret of NIMH most special is its story. It’s not much in the way of a deep analysis of the human condition, but is rather a simple tale of survival elevated by its heart and writing.
Mrs. Brisby (Elizabeth Hartman) is a widowed field mouse who lives in a cinder block in the middle of a cornfield. The season where the farmer, Mr. Fitzgibbons begins to plow has come sooner than late and the animals who live in the field are expected to flee before their homes are destroyed. However, one of Mrs. Brisby’s children, Timothy, is sick with pneumonia and would not survive a move in the chill air. She manages to sabotage the plow, but this only serves to delay the inevitable. She meets a crow named Jeremy (Dom DeLuise) whom she rescues from the farmer’s cat and he suggests they visit The Great Owl for advice. Jeremy is a ton of fun as a clumsy oaf who dreams of one day building a love nest for two. DeLuise provides a lovable voice performance that makes Jeremy the sole source of comic relief in the picture. His infatuation with the idea of love has him falling head over heels (literally) in his efforts to find items to build his love nest with. These efforts often causing him more trouble than the items are worth. When Brisby first meets him he is tangled up in some string that he thought pretty and tried taking home with him. The comedy his character adds doesn’t detract from the movie’s overall serious tone. Unlike, say, Jar Jar Binks, Jeremy is a character who has purpose rather than just being a shoehorn for laughs. He represents the little people in this story, like the nosy Auntie Shrew (Hermione Baddeley), who know little and can do little, but will do what they can if the cause is good. There are times in which Jeremy is Mrs. Brisby’s only source of encouragement, offering what little aid he can simply because it is the nice thing to do. You can’t hate a fellow like that.
They meet the Great Owl (John Carradine) in a deep, shadowy part of the forest where he lives alone. He is a figure of awe and terror, wiser than any other being in the movie, and perhaps the most dangerous given his placement on the food chain. Like a god in heaven he is above direct involvement, but not above giving words of wisdom. He is hoary and become awesome in his elder age. He is every bit the creature of the night, flying from his tree to hunt, brushing off cobwebs and old bones with glowing eyes like a vampire flapping into the dark. Brisby is petrified of him at first, but her maternal instincts for her son muster the courage she needs to request help. He tells her to go to the rats who live in a rosebush by the farmer’s house. “They have ways” he tells her and he leaves with no further guidance to offer.
The rats live up to their reputation for problem-solving when she meets them as they are highly intelligent and power their hidden city with lights and electricity stolen from the farmer. Their leader is Nicodemus (Derek Jacobi), an ancient rat with a long beard with powers akin to wizardry. From him Mrs. Brisby learns of the origin of not just the rats, but of herself and all the animals gifted with speech and intelligence. They were the products of a human-led experiment that escaped from their lab leaving the scientists none the wiser to what they had created. The injections they are given by NIMH (the National Institute of Mental Health; a real place) do more than make them intelligent on a par with Man, but also have the side effect of putting them in touch with magic and spirituality. Nicodemus summons a staff like he is Gandalf or something, consults a magic mirror to see what is happening around him, and possesses a bejeweled necklace with mysterious abilities that he gives to Brisby. None of this is explained in the movie and what we are left with is a statement about the nature of science and the unknown. There is nothing in NIMH’s plans that accounts for the sudden contact with the supernatural and it raises questions about animal intelligence and their relationship with us humans and the environment that is not answered. Had the magical elements been removed from the story entirely it would have made little difference, but their presence and the questions they raise adds a layer of potential depth to what is going on.
But, Mrs. Brisby’s quest for aid doesn’t end here and she is soon caught up in an intrigue involving rival parties in the rats’ society. They are not interested in helping Brisby at all and are in a war of words with Nicodemus and his followers regarding their future. At the forefront of the naysayers is the evil Jenner (Paul Shenar), a rat who wants to continue living in the rosebush and stealing electricity from Mr. Fitzgibbons. But, Nicodemus has a plan for the rats to move all of the animals to another location where they can fend for themselves in good conscience without resorting to stealing. Personally, I think this is awfully big of Mr. Nicodemus given that the farmer is the same man who uses a plow to kill the local wildlife and destroy their homes once a year and owns an evil cat named Dragon who roars like an ogre. Nicodemus’s moralizing breaks down to not wanting to raise the farmer’s light bill, which is kind of him I guess. There is something to be said about a story that keeps its ethics basic while all this intrigue and interwoven backstory works its charm on us. Stealing is still wrong, the movie tells us, and I like that. Moral greyness in a lot of stories ends up being a thin excuse for avoiding having anything important to say. Goodness in the midst of institutionalized badness is a theme in need of a revival in this century.

While these events unfold, The Secret of NIMH’s multilayered story never becomes convoluted, but is easy to follow and engage in without the need to dumb down its themes and plot details for the younger audience. While being a cartoon, it takes itself as seriously as any live-action drama would which contributes to its timelessness not a little. As I noted above the plot is appreciable by both children and adults. As a fantasy adventure I would stack the film less with movies like The Sword in the Stone or The Wizard of Oz, but more with The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or Harry Potter. These are stories that carry heady weight and dramatic tension alongside their universal accessibility. As a cartoon it challenges pre-conceived notions of what animation is and whom it is for. Like black & white or color cinematography, animation is a legitimate form of visual art that holds boundless potential for story, not limited to a single demographic.

Shameless blurbsters like to toss phrases like “fun for the whole family” with a sincerity that I find suspect when it is lauded at any and all kinds of crap aimed at kids. With that in mind I can say that The Secret of NIMH is the sort of film I honestly believe children will love. But, the adults will love it even more.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026) [spoiler-free]

2/4 stars

On Facebook this afternoon I read a comment from someone gushing over The Mandalorian and Grogu, saying it was like “sitting through an entire season” of the TV series. I am afraid I cannot help but agree. The movie very much feels like an extended episode of the Mandalorian TV show, with a narrow unexpansive story that doesn’t justify the silver screen.

“Baby Yoda” has become a cultural icon for a lot of people; his casual appearances not limited to merchandise, but also memes and fan art much in the same way as Betty Boop or Tinker Bell a few decades ago. I suspect that the movie was mostly made for Baby Yoda fans in mind. The film certainly doesn’t bother much with any loose ends or plot arcs of the TV series and it can be approached without having seen the show at all. What we get instead is a barely significant side adventure featuring the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) and, of course, Baby Yoda himself, Grogu. But there is nothing here that expands the Star Wars galaxy an inch. The current intrigues of the New Republic after the fall of the evil Empire are not touched upon and the personal lives of the two leads are not altered in any way that future seasons of the TV show need worry about. All in all, The Mandalorian and Grogu is the sort of story best suited for TV or one of the innumerable comics and novels set in the Star Wars universe. There is nothing here that merits a theatrical experience and I personally suggest saving your 15 dollars and wait for its release on Disney+.

I shall spare plot details for the spoiler-conscious save to say that the main plot involves The Mandalorian, now working for the New Republic, taking orders from Rebel navy pilot, Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver). She wants him to track down remaining Imperial warlords, but one of his targets is elusive and info on his whereabouts is known to the Hutts who want a favor in return. The Mandalorian and Grogu will cross paths with one Rotta the Hutt (Jeremy Allan White) whom the Hutts want returned to them. But, Rotta has ambitions and dreams of his own and conflicts of interest soon turn the Mandalorian’s mission into something much more complicated.

But enough about all that. The movie is only a few days old and Star Wars mixed with spoilers tends to explosive results on the internet. What I can say is that White’s voice acting as Rotta is nothing to write home about. In his defense, the dialogue he is given is the sort of uninspired, depthless, on-the nose junk given to characters in adventure-oriented cartoons. Jeremy Allan White conjures no enthusiasm in the role and he felt entirely out of place every time he speaks.

The weakest elements in the movie are the action sequences and special effects, which is a damned shame when speaking about a Star Wars movie. The effects are nothing we haven’t seen before on any of the Star Wars television series and there is not a memorable shot or anything groundbreaking to be seen in its over two hour runtime. The action sequences come and go entirely too often, with the Mandalorian plodding through the plot from one fight to another each following a pattern of minion fighting, boss fight, and deus ex machina. I felt I was watching a video game more than a movie. All of the sequences are shot extremely fast and often under murky lighting so that I was never able to get a good look at any of the creatures and droids that our hero battles with. The fight scenes are all a visual blur and they unfortunately make up about 80% of the film. After leaving the theater I felt that I still could not say what any of the baddies looked like.
I saw the movie at a local theater in my hometown which makes me hesitate to comment on the film’s sound design as it is possible the issues lay in the theater’s setup rather than the movie itself. But some of the things I heard weren’t pleasant. The movie is heavy-handed with explosions and they are so loud that they drown out the music and other sounds in the mix. This may be a failure of the film’s sound-mixing or something that will improve when I rewatch it at home. But, my local cinema’s fault or not, this ended up being one of the loudest Star Wars movies I have seen and not in a way for the better.
By the end, the movie had me feeling exhausted with nothing interesting to reward me for having seen it.

I would like to say the movie isn’t all bad though. There are moments I genuinely liked. Grogu, for one, is given a great deal to do compared to the TV show and the scenes that focus entirely on him are some of the movie’s best. There is also a small cameo of Martin Scorsese playing a four-armed monkey that I found delightful and I sorely wished for more of him. The obligatory bits of comedy found in these sorts of pictures were put to good use here and, indeed, the small moments between the Mandalorian and Baby Yoda when things are quiet were when the movie was most entertaining.

But the movie’s story and action set pieces are nothing but a load of ho-hum. Traditionally Star Wars movies, even the weaker entries like Solo or Rise of Skywalker, manage to sweep the viewer off on a grand adventure that moves the Saga in new directions and treats our starving eyes to new images and places in the imagination. The Mandalorian and Grogu does none of these things. I wanted the film to take me to a galaxy far, far away. Instead, it took me to a galaxy not much farther than my living room.

The Truman Show (1998)

4/4 stars

“Was any of it real?” Truman asks. His “creator” doesn’t provide a satisfactory answer and he is left to work out his reality on his own. This is not unfamiliar to the human experience and there is something relatable here that is starkly put in The Truman’s Show allegory.

Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) lives in the idyllic suburb of Seahaven, which, he is constantly reminded, is a nice place to live. It’s a place where everyone knows his name and everyone likes him. He has everything a man could want: a successful and comfy desk job, a best friend always equipped with an encouraging word, and a doting wife who smiles constantly as if she is posing for a Sears catalog. The only thing that keeps Truman from being perfectly happy is his wanderlust. While everything else continues to get handed to him his desire to travel and see the world remains unfulfilled. It is, in fact, largely discouraged by everyone; even his grade school teacher tells him incredibly that he is too late to become an explorer because “there is nothing left to explore.”
His fear of the ocean doesn’t help. After his father apparently drowns during a fishing trip his phobia of water is capitalized on by everyone who seems hellbent on keeping him from leaving or even thinking about it.

What Truman doesn’t know, but everyone else does, is that his life is carefully and painstakingly scripted. Everyone he meets are actors and the world of Seahaven is a massive TV film set with thousands of cameras running 24/7. Outside in the real world millions of viewers from around the world are watching The Truman Show, the ultimate in reality TV broadcasting. Truman’s life is the subject of constant analysis. He has no privacy and everything is being quietly manipulated behind the scenes by Christoph (Ed Harris) who is the creator of the Truman Show. Christoph is an artist of the avant-garde type who proudly claims that Truman is the first person to be legally adopted by a corporation.

Truman begins to suspect that his existence is being contrived by outside influences after a studio set lamp suddenly falls from the sky. One thing after another follows. His car radio mistakenly taps into a walkie-talkie feed that is describing all of his movements and later he finds a craft table behind an elevator surrounded by grips and cameramen before he is dragged away by security.
He is treated like he is being paranoid while everyone around him seems more and more obvious as performers. Christoph tells his critics that if Truman truly wanted to leave he could do so if his will was strong enough, but he quickly becomes aggressive in trying to stop Truman from leaving when this notion is tested. With the power of the weather and natural disasters at the push of a button Christoph is more than confident that Truman is going nowhere.

There is an indictment that can be found here in The Truman Show against the dehumanization that reality television offers. His many fans consider his humanity and feelings secondary to the soapish drama with which the show entertains them. To them he is a character in the same way that the Bachelor or the Real Housewives of where-the-hell-ever are characters. They and Christoph’s staff feel a cynical appreciation for dramatic gravitas. This is most keenly felt when the showrunners “kill off” Truman’s dad to boost ratings only to bring him back several seasons later with an unbelievable amnesia storyline. The manipulation is cruel and I had genuine feelings of anger provoked at the means in which these things are done to him. In one of the most disheartening moments Truman’s “best friend” Marlon (Noah Emmerich) tells him that he cares about him and that he would never lie to him. All of these lines are being fed to him by Christoph via an earpiece.
Truman is soon come to the realization that his “wife” doesn’t like him, his closest friends don’t care about him, and everyone he once trusted has only ever “loved” him from 9 to 5 for a paycheck.

Reality TV has only got worse since 1998 and in today’s day and age the satire has only become more poignant. But there is more than a satire of reality TV to be found here. Beneath that surface lay bigger questions about free will and the freedom to define oneself. When Christoph first reveals himself to Truman it is only after the fraud has been fully exposed and Truman is inches away from exiting Seahaven forever. Christoph’s voice booms godlike from the sky and he identifies himself as “the creator.” Whether Christoph believes in God himself is not made clear, but he clearly believes that there should be one if there isn’t. For Truman he has tried to take on the role himself, making what he believes to be a perfect existence for Truman to live in. Writer, Andrew Niccol seems to be someone who has grown up on claims that all trials are tests and are designed by God to direct us where we should go. In favor of human-directed destiny Truman rejects this to push back against the confined beliefs that had shaped his reality.

Truman, throughout the film, is full of questions, but it is his last, “Was any of it real?”, that is the most important. It’s difficult to say after so many lies and deceits, but what is clear is that, if nothing else, Truman himself was real. Every expression, every thought, and every affection from him was hundred percent real. And Truman deserves to be around people who are just as real. What Christoph offers in the final scene is not fulfillment, but stagnation.
Real life, independent and free, is uncertain and full of vagaries. But it is more rewarding. Happiness found in it is earned and pain is far from meaningless. What The Truman Show says is that a life needs some sense of meaning. It requires self-direction to be healthy. Should Truman remain in Seahaven, his life would be perfect, but it would not be happy. Nor would it be a life.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

3.5/4

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a thoroughly entertaining movie that doesn’t quite reach the kinetic energy of the previous film. Mad Max: Fury Road was a well-sustained action sequence from beginning to end, but here there is more room for introspection. Director George Miller doesn’t try to top what he had achieved with Fury Road and I cannot say I blame him. That movie represents the height of his craft as an action director and with his latest he attempts to do something different.
The previous Mad Max entries were more or less one-offs that could be viewed in any order. They all exist on a floating timeline and each creates its own world and aesthetics. Furiosa, however, doesn’t look at all that different in style from Fury Road and, indeed, this should more deservedly be considered a companion piece. It expands upon the world Fury Road created, revisiting much of same locations and characters. But, this time with no Mad Max. The absence is not greatly missed and it goes to show that this world is interesting enough to tell stories in without him. Instead, the film is a prequel exploring the early life of Imperator Furiosa, originally played by Charlize Theron in Fury Road. Miller, to avoid overusing de-aging techniques recasts the role with the lovely, but much less charismatic Anya Taylor-Joy.

We first meet Furiosa as a young girl (Alyla Browne) who is kidnapped from her home by raiders. When her mother (Charlee Fraser) rescues her they are caught and Furiosa’s mom is killed by the bandits’ leader, Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). Hemsworth’s performance is one of the biggest draws in the picture. He is affably wicked, playing the role like a soft-headed child turned bully. He throws deadly tantrums when he doesn’t get his way, clutching a teddy bear like a totem throughout. He strikes me as someone who in their childhood was given too much sugar and not enough spankings.
Dementus strikes a deal with warlord Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) that leaves him in control of Gastown, one of three major ramshackle cities in the wasteland. Part of the exchange involves handing over Furiosa to Immortan, who is to join his harem when she comes of age. She, understandably, wants no part of this and she flees. She disguises herself as a warboy (one of Immortan’s foot soldiers) and pretends to be mute.
Following a quick transition in time (a first in the series) Furiosa is older and one of Immortan’s most trusted enforcers. In the sequences where we see her grow from child to adult George Miller makes impressive use of AI tools to blend Anya Taylor-Joy’s face with Browne’s. He is a director who understands the limits of CGI and, while the film is the most CGI-laden of the Mad Max films, he doesn’t become overambitious. The use of AI here is subtle enough to escape notice and far more convincing than what we have seen in the last Indiana Jones or The Mandalorian. He keeps her body and head shrouded completely in these scenes allowing only the face to be seen resulting in none of the usual unnatural movements that characterize AI tools most of the time.
Furiosa befriends a war-rig driver named Jack (Tom Burke) who shares in her dream of escaping from Immortan Joe’s Citadel. He teaches her everything she knows setting her up for her role as war-rig driver in Fury Road. If Jack is somewhat lacking in personality it can be forgiven. He is introduced to the audience as incentive and encouragement to Furiosa, but obviously meant to die before the story is over. Is that a spoiler? Perhaps, but he is not in the previous film so…
A pathway for revenge against Dementus soon opens up when Immortan declares war on him for going rogue. The climax is not quite the action spectacle that graced Fury Road’s final act, but the film has a satisfying conclusion that gives surprisingly meaningful insight on the psychology of revenge. Her dialogue with Dementus at the end airs out intelligently what vengeance can achieve and what it cannot. He tells her that she can do him in slowly or quickly, but it won’t matter either way. His death is only merciful oblivion and faced with his lack of remorse there can be no pain that she can inflict that will justly match her own. Dementus, like any good Mad Max villain, is absurd and over-the-top. But in his final moments when he is weak and vulnerable there is something more menacing in his words. He gives full expression to how frustrating seeking revenge really is. His tolerance for physical pain is high and there is no room in his heart for seeing the error of his ways. He can be killed. But he is untouchable. The eventual choice she makes at the end may not be understood by everyone, but they are her own to make and moral judgment is left to the viewer.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is an engaging revenge story packed with action and impressive special effects. But, I wanted more from Taylor-Joy’s performance. She is given very little dialogue throughout the picture which grates against the more talkative portrayal of her in Fury Road. Especially given that the film ends exactly where Fury Road begins, showing unnecessary clips from that movie during the end credits. The recap is gimmicky and only insinuates a dependence on the other film that I don’t believe is there. This is only a mild gripe, and my main issue remains the disappointing use of Furiosa as a character. She is not very interesting, which is frustrating given Anya Taylor-Joy’s talent as a performer. The best written character by far is Dementus which diversifies Chris Hemsworth from his more typical heroic roles. He is a great deal of fun to watch and he is my favorite of the many villains that have come and gone in the Mad Max series. He is, of course, ridiculous, but underlying his absurdity is a genuine menace.

The movie is good, but mostly for the reasons that made Fury Road good. There are a number of impressive shots, but nothing transformative enough to elevate it to greatness. I would recommend the picture, but with the added warning that it is not the same experience as watching Fury Road.
Miller has said he intends to make at least one more Mad Max film after this one and I am optimistic. Furiosa shows he has not lost his touch and I am hopeful that the next will be another elevation in quality we had seen before. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga as a side story is an excellent diversion while we wait. But, I expect the next to be much better.

The Father (2020)

4/4 stars

The Father is one of the most compassionate movies I have ever seen. Dementia is a serious subject that the film treats with a deep empathy that is brilliantly artful.
Director Florian Zeller’s writing (he also wrote the original stage play) is subtle and meditative and very brave in its honesty. Instead of taking the easier road of Oscar-bait where emotions are constantly elevated and every scene drips with melodrama, there is a quiet sincerity in the dialogue and performances that resonated with me as a human being. In years to come this film will be regarded as one of the best movies about mental illness ever made.

Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) is an octogenarian living with his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman). He has become well-advanced in dementia, struggling to recognize those around him and he requires constant care. Anthony frequently forgets that the apartment they share is hers and not his and he becomes confused as the many faces that come and go seem to blend together and are hard to identify. He lives a frustrating and frightening existence where each passing moment seems to come with wild changes in circumstances he cannot make sense of. Anne tells him she is moving to France with her husband and he is to be left in the apartment by himself. The next day a strange man named Paul (Mark Gatiss) appears claiming to be Anne’s husband. Anthony doesn’t know who he is and when he mentions France, Paul has no idea what he is talking about. He tells Anthony that the apartment is his and Anne’s and that she is just on her way back home from shopping. When she returns she looks like someone else and he, at first, doesn’t recognize her. She hands a bag of chicken to her husband and he leaves to go dress it in the kitchen. Anthony starts asking her about Paul and Anne tells him she hasn’t been married since she got divorced and that there is no one else there except for the two of them. When she leaves the room Paul reappears to ask him why he is being such a burden to everyone. The entire sequence is brilliantly portrayed in real time and to Anthony these contradictions occur minutes or even seconds apart. These sorts of moments happen frequently throughout the film and there is a sense of passing in and out of different realities that leaves Anthony feeling confused and vulnerable. There are days when Paul is there, who now also looks like someone else (Rufus Sewell); and some days he doesn’t exist at all.
Anthony takes a liking to Laura (Imogen Poots), a home health aide hired by Anne. She strikingly resembles his other daughter Lucy whom he hasn’t seen in some time and there are days when Lucy and Laura are indistinguishable. He misses Lucy a lot and wonders when she will stop by again. Her tragic death in a car accident years ago is largely forgotten. His frustration nearly reaches its peak when after gleefully waiting for Laura to come a completely different aide named Catherine (Olivia Williams) arrives at the apartment and he is told Laura had stopped working for them awhile ago.
I could go on, but it is best to see the film than read about it. Anthony’s story develops along to a climax that is heartbreaking and an exemplar of some of the finest acting I’ve seen in recent cinema.

Anthony Hopkins’ performance earned him his second acting Oscar following his 1991 win for The Silence of the Lambs and it is well-deserved. He goes through every possible emotion on the spectrum, each time doing it with care and subtlety. While he goes from impotent rage to laughter to childlike weeping for his mother it’s all performed as if I was witnessing a real person struggling with dementia.
The film is supported by a minimal cast all of which give performances resembling real people acting as people really do. Contrasts between the sympathetic, annoyed, and overwhelmed are deftly portrayed without aggressive pathos. The directing shows a highly reflective familiarity with human behavior.
The movie is set primarily in a singular setting inside the apartment where Florian Zeller maintains a simple structure in showing each passing day while crafting these skillful and complicated scenes where Anthony’s reality seems to shift in real time. It’s an exceptionally directed picture, impressive in that this is Zeller’s film debut. His knowledge of stagecraft is perfectly translated to film showcasing undeniable talent for direction and introspective writing.

Throughout The Father I was overwhelmed by how kindly its realism is. There is not an ounce of preachiness or sentimentality to the picture and, yet, it doesn’t become raw or cynical in its approach. There is a genuine compassion and kindliness in its writing that cannot be faked. Without being overly cheerful or nihilistic, not a single moment rings false or hollow. Hopkins’ portrait of a man struggling to rationalize his increasingly confusing life during the ravages of dementia is sympathetic and emotionally arresting. In the movie’s final scene Hopkins gives a performance that left me in tears. I was taken aback by how committed to honest feeling the movie was without being depressing or uplifting. Zeller’s screenplay goes beyond either sentiment, giving a solid bit of still-life that didn’t tell me how to feel. The film’s emotions come naturally to the viewer without contrivance or manipulation. When I watched The Father I saw real people, with real feelings, saying real things. And hanging over me the whole time was pure compassion, unadulterated by well-intended lies and triteness.

The Father is the kind of story that an author like Mitch Albom would render toothless with saccharine melodrama or a director like Sidney Lumet would elevate to nigh Shakespearean elegy. Florian Zeller meets us somewhere in the middle where simple empathy doesn’t take the sting out of sorrow, but gives it something we can relate to and find meaning in on our own. The Father is not a profound movie. It’s a deeply human one.

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966)

3/4 stars

Screwball comedies are a difficult form of art. To put so much chaos on screen and to allow it to escalate requires a great deal of careful orchestration to pull it off effectively. In a word, portraying chaos demands everything but chaos in the screenwriters room. What’s needed is a lot of comedic timing, tight physical choreography, firm character establishment, and diligent direction for the performers.
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken is one of the best and most successful examples of the genre. Masterpieces like Bringing Up Baby and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World make for stiff competition as classics; while this film, like its hero, is unfairly forgotten and unappreciated for the comic genius that went into its writing.

Luther Heggs (Don Knotts) is an excitable, easily frightened newspaper typesetter who isn’t taken seriously or respected much by anyone around him. His closest friends love his personality more than his intellect and his coworkers look down on him. He wants to be an ace reporter someday but his circumstances make this unlikely. He is the ultimate underdog.
The movie vitally establishes his lack of credibility in its opening scene. Luther overzealously pursues a story involving the sudden murder of the town drunk. He takes half a dozen pictures, questions the murder’s sole witness, and rushes to the police station to report the killing. Luther knows this is his ticket to becoming a reporter in his own right and his excitement has him so animated that he is barely able to get a comprehensible word out. The only problem is that the “victim” isn’t dead and soon walks into the police station in the middle of Luther’s statement. Luther is laughed out and has to the endure the following day a barrage of jokes at his expense from his family and colleagues.
Fortunately, Luther’s own mishap opens up an opportunity for a second chance. An old mansion known to the locals as the Simmons House is about to be demolished the following week by the owner. The place is the subject of local legends as the previous owners had been killed a few decades earlier. Its reputation for being haunted has given rise for tall tales of organ music played at midnight and ghostly laughter from its long dead occupants. The newspaper wants to capitalize on the story before the building is bulldozed and Luther is chosen to spend a single night in the place. As one of the paper’s head writers puts it they want someone who is “a bit of a coward” and prone to superstition to sleep at the place. It’s an old formula to haunted house movies, but the film makes comic gold out of it.
Luther reluctantly agrees and the night he spends there leaves him sufficiently traumatized. He hears cackling laughter in the walls, secret passages open before his eyes, a blood-stained organ plays by itself, and a portrait of the late Mrs. Simmons appears with a pair of pruning shears in the throat as blood flows from the canvas. While this sounds grim on paper, it is all played for laughs and Don Knotts’ physical and facial performance throughout the ordeal makes for some of the funniest scenes in the movie.
Luther’s story turns him into a local celebrity overnight. Everyone wants his autograph, men shake his hand, women fawn over him, and he gives painfully tepid and incoherent speeches to the crowds.
But, let me clarify this. Nothing that Luther saw and heard at the old Simmons place is what it seems. This becomes a serious problem when he and the newspaper are sued for libel by the house’s owner. Luther is impelled to prove in court that what he had witnessed really took place and he is forced to return to the house to recreate his movements and demonstrate what had happened. His own misapprehension over what he had seen works against him and he is made to look like a fool when he cannot replicate any of his claims to onlookers.
Of course, in the end Luther is vindicated in the midst of what becomes, surprisingly, a thoroughly engaging and interesting murder mystery.

Don Knotts, still fresh off his popularity on The Andy Griffith Show, brings to the role a hilarious portraiture of a man tightly wound up and intimidated by everything, including his own shadow. He can barely keep still as he fumbles around nervously trying to assert himself while nothing that happens to him seems to make sense. Knotts has a unique physicality to his performances in which he constantly reacts in sharp, jerky movements while his eyes are perpetually popping in fear. His is a role that I cannot picture any other comic actor of the time doing half so well. The Ghost and Mr. Chicken was made with Don Knotts clearly in mind and it remains one of his best and funniest movies.
I laugh at him, but root for him too. As an underdog he is innocent and good-natured, and his success at the end is satisfying and well-earned. Luther deserves to be happy and I was happy for him.

While classic Hollywood has plenty of superior screwball comedies to offer, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken remains a good one that merits more attention. It is uproariously funny, well-plotted, and cleverly performed throughout. While not overly ambitious or rife with social commentary, it is, nevertheless, an engaging simple story with plenty of laughs for any audience with a sense of humor. I recommend it highly. Tracking it down is worthwhile and it won’t disappoint.

Fly Away Home (1995)

4/4 stars

I am of the mind that there is no genre incapable of producing something good. Take the eco-conscious-child-bonds-with-a-wild-animal genre for instance. They were a dime a dozen in the 80s and 90s and the majority of its examples were utter dreck. Often over-sentimental and preachy, these kinds of movies too frequently end up saccharine and lacking in genuine human feeling. They aren’t hard to find. You can find them in any family movie pack in 5 dollar bargain bins.
Carroll Ballard’s (The Black Stallion) Fly Away Home is an example of the genre being treated with dignity and honest sentiment. The film is an emotionally moving picture that is not a mere environmental sermon or a cute animal movie. While these elements are there, Fly Away Home is more about the human experience. At its core, the movie preaches finding purpose after things we take for granted are taken away. This is a movie that keeps relatable human concerns at the foreground, supported by its green message instead of the other way around.

Amy Alden (Anna Paquin) is a 13 year old girl who, when her mother is killed in a car accident, is sent to Ontario to live with her father, Thomas (Jeff Daniels). She has not seen him in ten years and their interactions are awkward at first as she coldly tries to adjust to the sudden change in her life. Thomas is a socially-unaccustomed sculptor and aviation enthusiast who throws himself into his work. While he tries his best to keep his daughter comfortable there is a lack of connection and neither one of them is quite able to grasp the pain that each of them carries.
The first inkling of their developing bond comes when Amy discovers that he is involved with a local dispute with a real estate developer that threatens the wildlife community. At first, she claims to not care, but this quickly changes when she discovers a nest of goose eggs while playing hooky from school. The birds’ mother was killed by a bulldozer and Amy realizes that without her help the chicks will likely die. She hides the eggs in a drawer, but they are discovered by her father and his girlfriend Susan (Dana Delany) when they hatch.
The geese have since imprinted on Amy and they follow her everywhere believing her to be their mother. Thomas allows her to keep them despite the difficulties involved. His reasons for doing so are not stated explicitly, but I felt that he realized in that moment that Amy was overwhelmed by the loss of her mother and felt a kinship with the chicks on this basis. Amy is trying to live vicariously through the memory of her dead mom by being a mother herself to the birds in a way her own mother can no longer do for her. A forced separation would do only more psychological damage, and Thomas understands this.
But, caring for the fast-growing geese is not without complications. Geese have a natural instinct to fly south when winter comes, but require parental guidance to learn in which direction to go. Without parents geese under Canadian law must be rendered flightless by having their wings clipped, an operation that Amy strongly objects to.
Thomas, his brother David (Terry Kinney), and his assistant Barry (Holter Graham) hatch a plan to use airplanes to teach the geese to fly and guide them to South Carolina to migrate. This is complicated by the fact that the birds will only follow Amy and so Thomas decides to teach his daughter to fly and operate an airplane so they can make the flight together. There is a forgivable plothole here because, of course, all that needs to be done is craft a two-seater with Amy as a passenger. The birds would still follow. Ignoring this issue and moving on, two one-seater planes are built, both of which are fashioned to look like large geese.

Their flight is the highlight of the latter act of the film, bringing a highly emotional payoff to Amy and Thomas’s relationship with Caleb Deschanel’s gorgeous cinematography on full display. The natural Canadian landscapes are gloriously autumnal, shot in wide angles. The beauty of nature and its importance are ever-present in every shot of Fly Away Home and the fight for its survival is deliberately paralleled by the emotional drives of its human characters.
Mark Isham’s beautiful film score adds a sense of sadness and newfound joys to the film’s mood, with a recurring song (10,000 Miles) performed by Mary Chapin Carpenter that sets the movie’s themes of overcoming loss and finding hope afterward.
The film is a spiritual experience in which Man and Nature are not enemies at war with one another, but rather companions that share in and reflect each other’s griefs and influences. Environmentally-minded movies like this one are often angry or else limp and uninspired in presenting their message. Fly Away Home is neither. It takes the subject of human grief and gives us a place where it can be uplifted to new purpose. It doesn’t deny the reality of pain, but finds meaning in it.

While many family movies are cynically dumb and bankrupt of emotional depth, Fly Away Home demonstrates that they don’t have to be. There are too many good wholesome family movies to allow statements like “well, it’s a kids’ movie” to justify dimwitted schlock. I would encourage any parent the next time it is family movie night, instead of tormenting themselves with something obnoxious, loud, and thoughtless, to put this on. Children deserve good movies too.