The Straight Story (1999)

3.5/4 stars

In the Summer of 1994 74 year-old Alvin Straight drove 240 miles from Laurens, Iowa to Blue River, Wisconsin on a riding mower. His older brother Henry had suffered a stroke and Alvin, too old to hold a driver’s license, decided to make the trip to see him on his John Deere. At 5 miles an hour the trip took six weeks. To sustain himself he packed the mower’s trailer with food, camping gear, clothes, and other amenities; while camping out in corn fields and woods at night.
Why an ailing, elderly man with diabetes and emphysema would do this is not a mystery to me as a native of the Midwest. The old timers in my neck of the woods are notoriously stubborn when it comes to self-preservation, but to them family is everything. They are also always working. After retirement they often take a new lease on life, buying farms, renting properties, or pouring their remaining time onto their vehicles. I’ve met a lot of men like Alvin. None of them did what he did, but they are all quite capable of it and they most certainly would do it if a similar situation arose.

David Lynch’s The Straight Story perfectly captures the rural Midwestern spirit. As a Michigan native much of the imagery and personalities that the film portrays are familiar to me. People in the Midwest, especially among the quiet life of retirees, are very much like the people in this movie. Shot on location, The Straight Story accurately presents in its road movie format the long stretches of road along cornfields that sit between towns. Not on a lawn mower, of course, but I have been on many such trips.

I am uncertain what drew David Lynch, a filmmaker known for his surrealism and fascination with body horror, to this story. But, by taking on the project the film’s title takes on a double meaning. The Straight Story naturally refers to the story of Alvin Straight, but it is also out of all of Lynch’s films the most straight story of his career. What typically characterizes his work are unreliable narrators, non-sequential narratives, and bizarre imagery. None of these elements, however, are here and, what’s more, it is the only Lynch film to be rated G and to be distributed by the Walt Disney Company. To the more adolescent David Lynch fans the film might come across as saccharine and hokey. But, to me, the film is just another example of Lynch’s fascination with human behavior and how it connects to the mystery of what life is about and what it means. Unlike his other films it asks no questions. Instead its characters have either since come up with answers of their own or have given up bothering with the questions at all. Their lives have been lived already. Alvin and the other characters in the movie are not seeking anymore, but only doing. Art is often about making sense out of the human experience. But, it is nice to have a change of pace with a movie that is about simple, plain old-fashioned living and carrying the values we learn without constantly questioning them. Questioning values is a young man’s game. The Straight Story, I suspect, speaks most to those who have gone on long enough to have their lives and values figured out. The Straight Story speaks to young and old alike, but it is to the old that it is chiefly directed.

After Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) suffers a fall in his home, his doctor tells him he has to make serious life-style changes if he is to regain control of his health. Like any rural Midwesterner of his generation he decides to ignore the advice. The sole compromise he makes for the doctor is agreeing to equip a second cane.
Alvin lives with his daughter, Rose (Sissy Spacek) who is understandably concerned about her father’s well-being. She has a severe learning disability that leaves her with the mentality of a ten year-old. To Alvin, calling her slow is far from the mark and he insists that she has shown a capacity for self-sufficiency that others do not understand. Due to her issues the State had taken her children away from her after one of them was injured in a house fire while being babysat. The incident was not her fault and she had nothing to do with it. But, the malicious disregard for the mentally ill and the itchy trigger finger people have for calling Child Protective Services is unfortunately systemic in this country and her voice was never heard. Alvin says not a day goes by when she is not pining for her children. Rose, like Alvin, has past trauma that they bear quietly in the present. It makes them who they are, but the trauma is long in the past and what is left are the lasting effects. Past trauma is often dealt with dramatically in movies. A lot of screaming, crying, slamming of fists, heart-wrenching dialogue, and other bits of Oscar bait. But, in reality people, like the people in this movie, cope with their past trauma quietly and it shapes their character. Neither Rose nor Alvin would be the people they are today without it, but the trauma is not the crux of the film’s story.

Alvin gets more bad news when he finds out that his brother (Harry Dean Stanton) has had a stroke. They had not spoken in years after they had had a spat, but the combination of his health problems and those of his brother gives Alvin a sense of borrowed time. Without being able to drive a car, he hooks a trailer to his John Deere mower and begins a six-week journey to meet his brother and hopefully make amends.

The journey is a celebration of rural and small town Americana. The odyssey is a visual feast of stretches of road, country fields, abandoned barns, and bonfires in woody glades. He passes through a modest number of small Midwestern towns where people gather and stare. The people he meets along the way amount to small episodes where his values and eccentric actions touch them in some significant way. Family is a big part of his value system and many of the folks he encounters aren’t quite there yet, but their meetings with him leave them a lot to think about. In Alvin is found something sweet and wholesome that to some may come across as trite. The triteness is an illusion, though, because for Alvin what he says is very much real and true to life. These encounters frequently put the film at risk of uttering a false note, but I detect nothing disingenuous in the movie’s messages. Even when he encourages a teen runaway to go back home or lectures a couple of bickering brothers about loving one’s family, The Straight Story, never rings false like a Hallmark TV movie. The film proves that jadedness is not a necessary quality of being real, and that wholesome values do not have to be faked in drama.

The real life Alvin Straight never did what he did to garner praise or fame. In fact, he never was much comfortable with the media attention and he had declined offers to appear on Leno and Letterman. I doubt he gave it much thought that driving 240 miles on a lawn mower was unusual. He was just a man like anybody else. A man with an ailing brother he wanted to see and the mower was the only means to get there. He was tenacious, but not special; and that is apparently how he wanted to be remembered.
His story could easily have been the subject of a TV movie – come and gone, and then forgotten. I am glad it was not. By giving it a theatrical release and under the guidance of a talented filmmaker it’s inspiring message is more broadly accessible than something aired on a Friday night. The Straight Story’s radical idea that wholesome values and being real do not have to be exclusive is a message people need to hear more and more.

Director: David Lynch
Writers: John Roach, Mary Sweeney
Cast: Richard Farnsworth (Alvin Straight), Sissy Spacek (Rose Straight), Everitt McGill (Tom), Harry Dean Stanton (Lyle Straight)
Producers: Pierre Edelman, Neal Edelstein, Michael Polaire, Mary Sweeney
Composer: Angelo Badalamenti
Cinematographer: Freddie Francis
Editor: Mary Sweeney

Joker (2019)

3.5/4 stars

Joker is a movie that rarely shows a moment of compassion or kindness. And, yet, compassion is what the film is about. The absence of it creates a vacuum that emphasizes why kindness and warmth are so important. The pervasive images of cruelty and humiliation on display express the film’s ideals by negative example. The lasting impression when the movie is over is powerful.

When I first saw Todd Phillips’ Joker in theaters back in 2019 I had a strong negative reaction to it. I had felt at the time that the film was being disingenuous and that it was catering to the depressive instincts of angry young men. I’m sure you know the type. They quote Nietzsche, wear black, listen to Nine Inch Nails, and casually say life is terrible on principle. But, seven years later, viewing the film a second time, I think I understand the movie a little more. Like Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing it shows a series of conditions that escalate to terrible acts of violence. It grates against black and white thinking that patently condemns these events without considering the importance of recognizing their causes.

Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is a severely mentally ill man who has unrealistic dreams of becoming a famous comedian. He lives a lonely existence where the only figure in his life sympathetic toward him is his ailing mother Penny (Frances Conroy), But, she is oblivious to the severity of his problems, suffering from debilitating mental issues and delusions herself. She frequently says he was always such a happy boy even though he is far from happy and likely never was. He is on seven different medications and tells his social worker “You just ask the same questions every week. How’s your job? Are you having any negative thoughts? All I have are negative thoughts.”
Depression is a real bitch and combining it in a cocktail of emotional immaturity, cognitive difficulties, and social isolation is a recipe for disaster. He and his mother live well below the fringes of poverty which forces him to eke out a living in his condition. His job outsources him as a party clown, but his social awkwardness and odd behavior elicits scorn from his boss and coworkers. A part of his condition is a nervous tick where he flies into fits of uncontrollable laughter regardless of what he is feeling at the time. Despite his attempts to explain the condition he only gets mocked and he is frequently asked what he finds so funny. He is unable to connect or bond with anyone. Arthur looks wishfully on as others socialize and engage with one another, but only becomes off putting when he tries to do the same. He comforts himself with childish fantasies of positive social interactions among people he likes and admires. But, in his real life the only time people give him a second look is usually to say something mean.
The isolation he endures is the key to his slow descent into madness. Mental illness and isolation go hand in hand and it gives the sufferer a unique perspective on people. For most of us we can generally separate the mean people from the kind ones; the good from the bad. But, for people with severe mental illness this is harder to do since neither the good people nor the bad people seem capable of treating them very well. The rotten eggs, of course, take every opportunity to heap cruelty and bullying on mentally ill victims. But, there is also a profound failing among more upright people that cuts even deeper. Sidelong glances of irritation, limited empathy, refusing to listen or understand, and social ostracizing are inflicted on the mentally ill by the upright and wicked alike. An impression is given to men like Arthur Fleck that there is a free pass for otherwise nice people to be dismissive and unkind to them because no one really likes them anyway. It’s a road to resentment and painful consequences that often could have been evaded by one encouraging word at the right time that never came.
I think it is these themes that created the polarizing reactions the film got when it came out. The films plays like a dirge for all the school shooters and impassioned murderers who have plagued our recent history. In the wake of a terrible crime it is easy to justify hatred for the perpetrator given the severity of what they had done. And offering them any sympathy or understanding is a big no-no. But, no one wants to acknowledge the onus that is on people who don’t do those things to prevent them. I do try to avoid commenting on specific current social and political issues on this blog so without naming any names I am going to say that I have heard interviews with school shooting survivors who practically boast of the bullying they inflicted on the shooter prior to the event and justify it by what the killer had done. It is hard to blame them after what they had been through, though. There is no denying that what was done is terrible and there is especially no denying that the actions were morally egregious and unjustifiable. But, there is something ugly about normalizing ostracizing the mentally ill on this basis. The disproportion of their crimes too often leaves us unable to recognize that something morally wrong was being done to them regularly before they snapped. And it is these points that made a lot of people angry when they saw the movie. The filmmakers had something to say that many of us don’t want to hear or deal with. There is a reason that the now infamous Aurora, Illinois theater refused to show the film at all after the murders that occurred there during a showing of The Dark Knight Rises in 2012.

The film starts with Arthur working as a street clown twirling a sign to advertise a small business. A group of teenaged thugs steal the sign and beat him up when he tries to chase them down. What follows is one emotional betrayal after another. His boss is angry over the loss of the sign and doesn’t care that he was injured. The social worker he talks to spends their hour staring at him not listening to a word he says. She asks the minimal textbook questions she is required to ask and does little more. Any attempt he makes to express his emotional state usually ends up getting talked over by others who get angry and annoyed with him. They don’t hide their scorn and Arthur is not capable of understanding why he is being treated this way all the time. When pushed to frustration people scream at him for acting out. He writes in his diary, “The worst thing about mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t.” In reality what they expect is for him to not defend himself. And he is swiftly villainised when he does. On a subway a group of three college aged youths begin to harass him and they physically abuse him when he tries to get away. He ends up murdering all three and flees the scene. Gotham City’s reaction is split. The privileged and powers that be condemn the shooting and characterize the dead students as innocent victims whose lives and potential were taken away by a maniac. Among the lower echelons there is a different sentiment. There is widespread sympathy given to Arthur, still currently unidentified as the killer, that galvanizes mass protests against the city government. The murders become a controversial talking point and the scenes eerily seem to anticipate the actions of Luigi Mangione a few years later.

Shortly after the killings Arthur goes to a local comedy club in the hopes of making it big with his act. His performance, however, is a colossal bomb. His laughing condition comes out in full force and he is unable to make any of the jokes land. The footage of his performance becomes viral after clips of it is shown on a talk show hosted by Murray Franklin (Robert DeNiro). Prior to this both Arthur and his mother were fans of Murray and Arthur fantasizes of impressing him someday. But seeing Murray Franklin publicly mock him and his comedy act on live television sends him spiraling deeper into depression and anger. Arthur’s issues escalate continually and he becomes a ticking timebomb. While he is subjected to abuse every day he is met with new tragedies that leaves his ability to cope any further untenable. His mother suffers a stroke and is hospitalized. It is, in fact, in his mother’s hospital room that he sees the episode of Murray mocking him. City budget cuts the funding to social programs leaving him no longer with a social worker and without any further access to his medication. The final nail in the coffin for his mental health is when he discovers revelations about his childhood and identity that steals away any last vestige of the things he values and cares about. Now the only thing that seems to matter are the ongoing riots that he inadvertently started. Outside there are rioters in clown masks who view his actions as that of some unknown local hero. He becomes a perverse symbol for the downtrodden and with that he and society part company for good. The result is violent tragedy and leaving Arthur behind to become the Joker is the only thing that makes sense to him anymore.

Joaquin Phoenix’s performance is spellbinding. His portrayal of a sociopath spiraling out of control is played without gusto and hamfistedness. He is far removed from the wide eyed silliness of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard or the madcap wild insanity of characters like Renfield in Dracula or even the Joker in other media. He is more reminiscent of Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver who happens to be a primary inspiration for the film. He captures the vulnerability and loneliness of real life sociopaths so well to the point that watching him becomes uncomfortable. His physical posture and movements are nervous and uncertain and he emotes through affectation rather than responding naturally which is not uncommon to people with his conditions. What Phoenix accomplished and what earned him his Academy Award for the performance is a perfect character study of a person with mental problems slowly losing his grip on living normally. The systemic problems that wind him up end in events that, while violent and tragic, are not unexpected.

This movie sees the second acting win at the Oscars for an actor playing the Joker (first was Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight) and it is clear to me that the role of Joker has become something coveted. It’s a role like those of characters from Dickens or Shakespeare that gives an actor an opportunity to interpret a literary character who is challenging and complicated to pull off. After films like Logan and The Dark Knight trilogy somewhat of a trend of treating comic books as serious subjects has come about and it is no wonder we are seeing more serious actors pursue these sorts of roles.

Some critics of the film have gone so far as to label the movie dangerous. There was a genuine impression among a lot of people that the movie would incite a riot. To many it seems that Joker is a message to others who see themselves in Arthur Fleck that their anger and hatred for society is permissible. But the movie isn’t talking to them. It is speaking to those who are more like the people around him. It speaks to churchgoers who after Sunday services cuss out teenagers in drive-thrus. It speaks to decent folk who snub and dismiss weirdos in elevators trying to talk to them who smell bad. It speaks to family men who regale their loved ones with funny anecdotes of some crazy person they met at the bus stop. it speaks to honor roll students who make sure undesirables don’t eat with them. The film tells us that evil doesn’t have to be violent. Sometimes evil is just failing to see another human being when they sit right next to us.

Director: Todd Phillips
Writers: Todd Philips, Scott Silver
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix (Arthur Fleck), Robert DeNiro (Murray Franklin), Zazie Beetz (Sophie Dumond), Frances Conroy (Penny Fleck), Brett Cullen (Thomas Wayne)
Producers: Richard Baratta, Bruce Berman, Jason Cloth, Bradley Cooper, Joseph Garner, Aaron L. Gilbert, Walter Hamada, Anjay Nagpal, Todd Phillips, Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Michael E. Uslan, David Webb)
Composer: Hildur Guðnadóttir
Cinematographer: Lawrence Sher
Editor: Jeff Groth

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.

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.

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.

The Fountain (2006)

3/4 stars

Visionary filmmaker Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain is a visual marvel offset by a shallow and unsubtle story. It succeeds as a thoughtful meditation on grief, but ultimately fails as a meditation on death. The film aims to accomplish both, but in the end the rich images and Hugh Jackman’s heart-wrenching performance serve to mask a weak narrative that lacks the sort of depth the subject matter demands.
The Fountain has unique and arresting imagery rife with symbols and allegories that, while beautiful, do not give the audience much to think about. The attempts at allegory here are often obvious and over-explained throughout the film’s beats.

Tommy Creo (Jackman) is a doctor engaged in cancer research which, for him, involves a great deal of personal investment as his wife Izzy (Rachel Weisz) is dying of the disease herself. She is a vague figure; an idea whose personal substance has faded from his memories. Her scenes are typically recollections of moments with her that he regrets or quiet images of happiness he once had. She is writing a novel called The Fountain about a Spanish conquistador named Tomas (also Jackman) who, on behalf of Queen Isabella (also Weisz), goes on a quest to the Americas to capture a legendary Mayan temple wherein lies the fabled Tree of Life which promises fountain of youth like powers. The story is set against a backdrop of inquisitions and religious persecution that only feebly tie to his quest. Symbolically the predations of the Spanish Inquisition and the vicious palace intrigue align with the march of death that threatens the life of the real-life Izzy, but within her novel’s context they are under-explained and function poorly as an impetus for the hero. Like her book, the film has a similar problem. All of the visual feasts of allegorical imagery are only sensible when viewed allegorically, but defy logic when examined at the parallel literal level. A good allegory mixes both perfectly, but The Fountain is too obsessed with its symbolism to spend much time on story.
Mixed between the content of Izzy’s novel and the real-life events happening to her and Tommy there is a third parallel plotline involving a vision of Tommy inside a bubble hurtling toward a nebula called Xibalba which, according to the Mayans, contains the abode of the dead. With him, in the bubble, is the Tree of Life itself, dying slowly in conjunction with the passing of Izzy. The vision of Tommy desperately tries to keep the tree alive, occasionally consuming its bark for its rejuvenative effects.
What the movie does best is capture Tommy’s grief and the fear that comes with it. Jackman’s performance is among some of his finest. He evokes pain and loss in a way that is so profoundly real it almost brings me to tears. Another thing The Fountain does that I appreciate is showing the experience of hyper-focusing on random still things when we are frightened and aggrieved over a pending loss. He stares at a ceiling light soaking it in as if there is nothing else in the universe; and he does it again in an elevator creating a huge gestalten image of its interior paneling until it becomes everything. It’s an experience that is difficult to explain to someone who has not felt it, and Aronofsky has found a brilliant way to bring it on screen visually that I have not seen in other movies dealing with the subject.
On top of these excellent qualities is Clint Mansell’s beautiful, funereal score which is among some of his best compositions alongside Requiem for a Dream.

The Fountain’s visual language is highly poetical. It’s images are like music that recreates strong feelings. But, it is like music with bad lyrics. The moments in which Tommy purportedly comes to terms with his wife’s death and the onset of his eventual own are not convincing and are highly contrived by the aesthetics. The film tells me he is over his terror of death, but it doesn’t make me feel it in the slightest. Unlike Aronofsky’s other much better films, The Fountain suffers from the disingenuousness of pretension.
Behind the film’s production was a number of budgetary issues that during pre-production nearly killed the project. Inevitably, Darren Aronofsky, opted to make the film on a smaller budget and a smaller scale of ambition. What was intended to be an epic became a 96-minute art-piece severely lacking the director’s usual profundity and symbolic detail. There was a great picture in the works here during the film’s early planning that evaporated during its execution. Had he made the picture after Black Swan we may have had the masterpiece he originally intended. Alas, what is left is a beautiful and elegiac film, marred by limitations that robbed it off subtlety.
In the end, The Fountain is a good movie. But, it could have been a great one.

Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993)

2/4 stars

Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Men in Tights is a movie that is good, but not good enough. It’s the sort of movie that a master comedian of Mel Brooks’ caliber cannot get away with. Not in the same way that the creators of Scary Movie or The Starving Games could have.
Against his previous offerings such as Blazing Saddles or Young Frankenstein, Men in Tights seems desperate in comparison. Comedy requires a skilled command of tight pacing or else the jokes start to live in a vacuum, like isolated entries in a joke book or a collection of comic strips. My experience of watching Robin Hood: Men in Tights was much like this. It opens at a breakneck rush before suddenly meandering into a collection of poorly interconnected gags that do nothing to serve the backdrop of the story or the characters. When the movie succeeded in getting a laugh out of me it’s always with a joke that could be placed in any other scene of the film, or even in another film altogether. Nothing funny in this movie comments on the story’s events or the characters’ flaws in any clever or meaningful way. The jokes are pure stitchwork. A collage of unrelated gags, arbitrarily placed and only occasionally funny. I feel that the humor in Men in Tights would have served better a more anthological piece like Brooks’ earlier History of the World, Part I.
Perhaps the most desperate of the jokes involves a mole on Prince John (Richard Lewis) that changes position in each of his scenes. The gag is a mild diversion that feels more like padding than anything clever.
Some of the jokes are overwrought. When we first meet Blinkin (Mark Blankfield) he is a blind man reading a medieval issue of “Ye Olde Playboy” in braille, the centerfold rendered embossed to aid his disability. There is simply too much going on here for the joke to work. A blind man reading Playboy in braille in a modern setting would have been funny. A man reading a copy of “Ye Olde Playboy” in medieval England would have been funny. A blind man reading “Ye Olde Playboy” in braille in medieval England is not funny at all.
There are comedic bits in the movie that did generate a chuckle out of me, but they suffer from the same desperate shoehorning that plagues the film. I especially appreciated a delightfully dumb bit where a formation of knights in armor are knocked over like dominoes in a highly contrived and circumstantial way that boggles respectable logic. I genuinely laughed at it. I was also tickled by a smaller scene where Blinkin somehow mistakenly thinks he can see again. It’s the sort of profound idiocy that made the Three Stooges and Beavis & Butthead so popular.
One of its best jokes involves a duel with staves between Little John (Eric Allan Kramer) and Robin Hood (Cary Elwes in a performance too imitative of Westley in the vastly superior The Princess Bride). Their incompetent attempts to adapt to the rods constantly splitting into smaller and smaller pieces is a riot and there is some mild amusement when Little John shows that he is unaware that the bridge he is guarding is over a shallow brook that a Lilliputian could cross with no effort.

But enough about the jokes. What about the story? Robin Hood is a folk hero ripe for parody. He was the subject of numerous renaissance ballads, popularized by novelists like Howard Pyle and Sir Walter Scott, and brought to life on the silver screen by the likes of Erroll Flynn and Walt Disney Studios. There is a wealth of material there to work with.
Unfortunately, Mel Brooks appears to solely target the Kevin Costner take (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) which the gap of a few years was enough to make this spoof untimely. Had Brooks set his sights more broadly perhaps he would have had more to joke about.
The movie opens with Robin Hood in prison in Jerusalem after helping King Richard fight in the crusades. There is a quick and shoddily paced build-up to a clandestine escape and afterward his rescuer, Asneeze (Isaac Hayes) sends Robin to find his son Ahchoo (Dave Chappelle, whose comedic talent is criminally underused in the movie) who is living as an exchange student (don’t ask) from Africa to England.
This turns out to not be much of a quest because Robin Hood encounters him almost immediately when reaching England. Ahchoo becomes the first of Robin Hood’s merry men and an adventure follows where the two of them recruit more members. None of these additions are particularly funny. There is Little John as mentioned above, but there is also Will Scarlett OHara (Matthew Porretta), whose only quality is an unfunny name and an apparent skill with throwing knives that is barely used in a movie overcrowded with other underused competing characters. There is also Rabbi Tuckman (Mel Brooks) filling in for Friar Tuck (haha, I guess) and, of course, Maid Marian (Amy Yasbeck) who is presented as an easy woman frustrated by virginity, vigorously enforced by a chastity belt.
The chastity belt is the subject of an absurd prophecy that the bearer of its key will be the man who shall marry her. Vying for her affections is the unimpressive Sheriff of Rottenham (no, that’s not a typo) played by Roger Rees as a foppish and vaguely effeminate coward.
The plot continues to meander with jointless plots and counterplots supplemented by random gags and groan-inducing puns. The archery tournament, winning of Maid Marian, and ousting of Prince John come late in the final act after the movie’s pace has already been firmly eviscerated.

Perhaps I may seem too harsh on Robin Hood: Men in Tights. The movie altogether is passably entertaining and watchable and its mood is amiable enough, I suppose. There is a sense of fun to it and it is clear that no one involved in it took the source material seriously. That is acceptable after all, but I was hoping that the comedy would have been taken seriously at least. Much of the jokes fall flat and do not carry the story along an inch. The desperation and randomness of its jokes left me wishing for more. Coming from Mel Brooks, Robin Hood: Men in Tights is disappointing. It doesn’t live up to the standards of his earlier work and the dearth of clever, memorable dialogue is hard to forgive.
It’s a movie that is just okay. I’ve seen better.