No, “Star Trek: Insurrection” (*** OUT OF ****) is not as good as “Star Trek: First Contact.” Nevertheless, the ninth entry in the long-lived but prosperous space odysseys of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Starship Enterprise still has what it takes to boldly go. Director Jonathan Frakes, who helmed “First Contact,” shifts the emphasis away from the usual swashbuckling heroics in this otherwise predictable but entertaining installment. Instead, Frakes focuses on the camaraderie among the Enterprise crew. Character dominates action in “Insurrection.” Although younger “Star Trek” fans may complain about the scarcity of photon torpedo dogfights, the old guard will applaud “Insurrection” because the entire crew rather than Picard alone influences the outcome.
The Rick Berman & Michael Piller scenario has the Enterprise thwarting the forced relocation of 600 helpless colonists from their Eden-like planet whose properties make it a fountain of youth. Picard (Patrick Stewart) and crew find themselves drawn into an interstellar blood feud when android Cmdr. Data (Brent Spiner) runs amok while participating in a Federation mission on the Shangri-La home planet of a gentle people called the Ba'ku. The Ba'ku live simple, uncomplicated lives comparable to the Quakers and the Amish. Shunning technology, these self-sufficient folks grow their own food and produce by hand their own clothes, tools, and art. According to the Ba’ku, when you create a machine to do a Manos work, you take something away from the man. Over 300 years have passed since the Ba’ku encamped on this unique planet in an unstable quadrant of space designated 'the Briar Patch.' Moreover, this Caucasian race of humans has weathered the ravages of centuries. The 'metaphasic radiation' emanating from the planet’s rings has given them perpetual youth.
Meanwhile, suffering a dire reversal of fortune, the Federation has grown weak. The Borg and other enemy aliens have taken their toll, and the Federation has formed an uneasy alliance with the Son'a, a dying but technologically advanced race of fascists who dress like a cross-between of the Mummy and Marvel Comics' Dr. Strange. You know the Son’a are the bad guys the moment you see them because they look hideous. The Son’a endure constant face-lifts, like the cosmetic surgery in the Terry Gilliam movie “Brazil,” because they cannot keep their wrinkled and rotting skins wrapped tightly enough. These devious dastards have teamed up with the Federation, and they are observing the unsuspecting Ba’ku before they pack them off the planet.
Dressed in orange outfits which enable them to pass sight unseen among the inhabitants, Son’a and Federation scientists both study the planet and plan for the removal of the Ba'ki. When the Son’a fire without provocation on Data, the pale-faced android short-circuits and destroys the cloaking device concealing the expedition from the Ba’ku. Suddenly, the Ba’ku find themselves surrounded by intruders. Hijacking a starship, Data opens fire on the Son’a flagship from which the Son’a chieftain, Ru'afo (F. Murray Abraham, who played the evil Salieri in “Amadeus”), and Star fleet Admiral Dougherty (Anthony “License to Kill” Zerbe), coordinate the mission.
Dougherty contacts Picard during a diplomatic ceremony and requests Data’s schematics. When Picard offers to help, Dougherty politely declines. Pointing out that the Enterprise has been assigned elsewhere, Dougherty assures the inquisitive captain that Ru'afo and he can handle Data. An incredulous Picard decides to check things out for himself; he cannot believe that Data would turn rogue without a good reason. As they chart a course for the far side of the galaxy, Picard invites Worf on “Deep Space Nine” to accompany them. When Picard's navigator indicates that the Ba’ku planet is in the opposite direction of what they have been ordered, Picard shrugs it off as if it were nothing.
When the Enterprise enters the 'Briar Patch,' the age reversal harmonics of the Ba’ku planet affect the crew. Cmdr. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Lt. Cmdr. Troi (Marina Sirtis) rekindle a long-dormant romance. Soaking by candle-light in a tubful of bubbles, Troi shaves off Riker's beard. Not only does Cmdr. La Forge (“Roots” LeVar Burton) regain his sight without the aid of technology, but also he experiences his first sunrise. Lt. Cmdr. Worf (Michael Dorn) suffers an outbreak of Klingon acne as well as a blood lust for combat. Finally, Picard himself dances to mambo music in his own quarters. When he beams down to the planet, Picard falls in love with the sensuous Anij (Donna Murphy), a 350 year old Ba’ku dame who doesn’t look a day over 40 thanks to the regenerative particles in the planet’s rings. Sadly, Frakes and his writers leave Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) hanging without a mini-subplot of her own.
Nevertheless, “Insurrection” qualifies as an ensemble effort with everybody getting into the act, even if they don’t have a subplot to distract their actions.
Admiral Dougherty isn’t happy when Picard arrives and requests clearance to deal with Data. “Insurrection” gets off to rip-snorting start as Picard and Worf pursue Data on a hair-raising chase and try to transport him out of his spacecraft. When aggression fails, Picard opens the audio channels between ships and warbles a Gilbert & Sullivan tune from a play that Data was rehearsing before he left for the Ba’ku mission. Before Data realizes Picard’s subterfuge, the Captain docks with Data’s ship, Worf sneaks on-board and incapacitates the mutinous android. Beaming down to the planet, Picard frees the expedition who had been taken hostage, and learns first hand about the Ba’ku. Admiral Dougherty has trouble concealing his rage; he acts as the liaison between the evil Ru’afo and virtuous Picard. While Picard noses around on the planet, La Forge discovers the truth behind Data’s inexplicable demeanor. Geordi explains his theory that the Son’a fired first on Data, and Picard takes Data back to the planet to reconstruct the incident. Their investigation, with Anij and the Ba’ku leaders in tow, reveals the presence of a half-built holodeck that resembles their village. Gradually, a conspiracy rears its ugly head, and an angry Picard demands an explanation from Dougherty.
An uncomfortable Admiral Dougherty reveals that the Ba’ku are going to be relocated, so that the Son’a can harvest the 'metaphasic' particles in the planet that constitute a fountain of youth. Picard protests in the name of the Primary Directive, which prohibits the Federation from interfering with other alien cultures. “The darkest chapters in my world can be traced to the forced relocation of a small group in order to satisfy the demands of a large group,” Picard comments, dredging up memories of the Jewish Holocaust, African-American slavery, and Native American Indians.
Dougherty retorts that the Federation has endorsed the mission and that the Ba’ku do not fit the Prime Directive because they are not indigenous to the planet. Naturally, Capt. Picard doesn’t like it and refuses to stand by while a helpless race of people are abused. Picard’s insubordinate behavior recalls Capt. Kirk’s equally insubordinate attitude in previous “Star Trek” escapades.
The Rick Berman & Michael Pillar script hearkens back to those venerable 1930s’ Lone Star westerns with John Wayne where the city slicker bad guys try to steal the mineral rich ranch lands from under the naive pilgrims who don’t realize the wealth that lies beneath their lands. Like John Wayne, Capt. Picard decides to intervene. Already deeply in love with Amij, who has shown him the eternal beauty of a single moment in time, Picard disobeys Admiral Dougherty’s orders to clear out. Amij reciprocates and supports Picard when he reveals that the Son’a are going to destroy their way of life.
Shucking his insignia, Picard gathers an arsenal of weaponry and tries to sneak off the Enterprise, but the crew catches him as he is loading up the captain’s yacht. When Picard explains his intentions to help the Ba’ku, his loyal crew join sides with him. “Saddle up,” says Data in his best John Wayne impersonation as he shoulders a phaser rifle, “Lock and load.” Meanwhile, the impatient Ru’afo has grown as weary of Picard’s meddling as he has of Dougherty’s dawdling. Ru’afo wants to obliterate the Enterprise and harvest the rings. The mining process will also wipe out the Ba’ku and turn their planet into a wasteland. Ru’afo, it seems, doesn’t have long to live, and nothing can quell the blood lust boiling in his toxic veins.
F. Murray Abraham wears an occupational sneer throughout as the despicable Ru’afo. Unfairly, Abraham shoulders the burden of villainy. Surrounded as he is by an army of aliens, Ru’afo never assumes the kind of villainy of a Darth Vader. The Son’a never mount a wholesale attack like the Storm Troopers from “Star Wars.” Instead, the Son’s prefer to deploy technological devices, so that “Insurrection” never lingers long on battle-scarred action sequences. Despite all of the fireworks, only a handful of characters actually die. “Insurrection” lacks the massacre and mutilation of “Starship Troopers.” Although he proves his murderous aims when he kills Dougherty on a skin-stretching rack, Ru’afo is really the only character who suffers a horrible death that he deserves for this fiendish forays.
As cheery and good-natured as “Insurrection” is, this “Star Trek” has its share of problems. Although “Insurrection” generates warp-speed momentum in story-telling, too many things are left unexplained. Director Jonathan Frakes along with Berman and Pillar jettisoned a lot of exposition that would have shed more light on the blood-hate between the Son’a and the Ba’ku. Rarely do you find a movie that needs to exceed its running. “Insurrection” could have gone on a good 45 minutes without wearing out its welcome. The filmmakers rely on the yucky looks of the Saran-wrap-skinned villains who bleed when they become enraged, but Frakes never explains why the Son’a resemble burglars with pantyhose stretched across their faces.
Happily, Frakes and his writers reveal enough to keep the action going at full-tilt. Although the first hour or so is largely devoted to talk, the last half-hour provides an exciting dogfight in space and Picard’s showdown with Ru’afo on board a satellite that will mine the planet’s rings. Jerry Goldsmith’s familiar “Star Trek” tune livens up this last reel confrontation between hero and villain. The trick that Picard and crew pull on Ru’afo to spoil his plans is foreshadowed early in the plot but so well integrated into the story that you only realize it in retrospect.
No, you neither have to be a Trekkie nor a Trekker to appreciate “Insurrection,” but it wouldn’t hurt. History will record “Insurrection” as more of a more crew intensive adventure.
CINEMATIC REVELATIONS allows me the luxury of writing, editing and archiving my film and television reviews. Some reviews appeared initially in "The Commercial Dispatch" and "The Planet Weekly" and then later in the comment archives at the Internet Movie Database. IMDB.COM, however, imposes a limit on both the number of words and the number of times that an author may revise their comments. I hope that anybody who peruses these expanded reviews will find them useful.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
FILM REVIEW OF "MIMIC" (1997)
Mutated cockroaches that stand as tall as Zulu warriors menace Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, and Charles S. Dutton in director Guillermo Del Toro’s claustrophobic horror opus “Mimic” (* OUT OF ****), a verminously boring piece of skullbuggery, that takes itself too seriously to have any camp value much less scare merit. While the bugs look convincing enough when you can see them, they don’t make the skin at the back of your neck crawl. Only somebody whose never screamed at a horror movie would have to sleep with their lights on with a can of Reid insecticide under their pillow after suffering through “Mimic.”
A pestilent epidemic spread by cockroaches is killing children by the hundreds in New York city when a group of scientists led by entomologist Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino) create a genetic mutant called the Judas Breed. They have manufactured a super cockroach in their labs that can kill other cockroaches, but these little buggers cannot reproduce themselves and have a life expectancy of six months. At least, that’s what Susan Tyler and Peter Mann (Jeremy Northam of “The Net”) thought. The Judas Breed eradicates the cockroach plague and spares a generation of children. Everybody breathes a sight of relief, while deep within those abandoned New York subway tunnels, a specimen has somehow managed to survive and breed. Three years later, out it comes to feed and its favorite lunch morsel is human.
Mann tracks these vicious critters into the subway catacombs with the help of Leonard, a grumpy subway cop (the ever reliable Charles S. Dutton), who doesn’t have a clue (like most characters in horror movies) what he’s gotten himself into as the scientist’s tour guide. Meanwhile, Susan finds herself alone in a subway when a bug snatches her up and flies off with her. Miraculously, the critter doesn’t chomp her like it does its previous victims. In fact, other than flying off with her, the bug leaves her intact, dumping her in its slime. Eventually, Susan scrambles through the maze of tunnels and finds Peter. So do a swarm of the bugs. Our heroes hole up in a subway car. Just as the bugs are about to tear their way inside and eat these human sardines, Susan figures out that the bugs can smell their blood. She gets everybody to smear themselves with dead bug guts, and they leave them momentarily alone. Talk about repellent!
The premise that “Mimic” neglects to explain is how these mutants found a way to replicate themselves and take the general shape and appearance of a man huddled up in a trench coat. Gifted scenarists such as John (“Lone Star”) Sayles, Matthew (“Dragonslayer”) Robbins, and Steven (“Kafka”) Soderbergh contributed to writer-director Guillermo (“Cronos”) Del Toro’s heavily derivative script, but none of them seems to have worked the bugs out of their roachy script. “Mimic” appears to mimic “The Lost World” in two respects. The “Mimic” scientists overlook the possibility that their genetic deviants could survive in the wild like “The Lost World” dinosaurs, and one of the film’s better set-pieces shamelessly rips-off the RV scene in “Lost World,” but with considerably less suspense or tension. The only sweat that you will break in “Mimic” is waiting for director Del Toro and his writers to scare you.
Despite this surfeit of talent, “Mimic” stinks because the filmmakers wait too long to flush out the bugs. They waste over forty-five minutes setting up the story before our heroes descend into the subway tunnels. Of course, you can guess when who is going to die, so predictability paralyzes the story. Worse than that is that director Guillermo Del Toro rarely conjures up anything that remotely terrifies. There are too few instances when you want to jump because something on screen shocked you. The scene where the huge roach scoops up Mira Sorvino and swoops off with her is hilarious. It’s like those silent movies where the eagle carries the hero off to its nest. Del Toro is good at showing us lots of yucky bug slime and the bugs themselves. Most of the movie is shot in darkness so that you cannot see the bugs until the movie is half-way over. As for the bugs, the cockroaches in “Joe’s Apartment” were more fun. “Mimic’s” villainous bugs simply don’t look as murderous as either an alien or as creepy as an anaconda, even when one crawls over one of our heroes. When these buggers run, they resemble the raptors from “The Lost World,” but they are far less tenacious or terrifying.
Nothing in this handsomely produced insect epic will peg your blood pressure. A good cast is wasted, especially F. Murray Abraham, and we care so little about these one dimensional characters that when they begin to drop like flies, who cares. The filmmakers ignore whatever potential that they might have stirred up by having bodacious Mira Sorvino strip-tease a la Sigourney Weaver and lure the roaches to their demise. Charles Dutton’s subway cop comes closest to enlisting our sympathies because he gets to curse loudly and bug out his own eyes when he sees the giant insects. There’s an expendable subplot, too, about a small boy who gets lost in the tunnels and befriends the bugs. Skip this bugger. Mexican writer-director Guillermo Del Toro may have breathed new life into the vampire genre with his 1992 masterpiece “Cronos,” but “Mimic” is nothing but a load of bull!
A pestilent epidemic spread by cockroaches is killing children by the hundreds in New York city when a group of scientists led by entomologist Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino) create a genetic mutant called the Judas Breed. They have manufactured a super cockroach in their labs that can kill other cockroaches, but these little buggers cannot reproduce themselves and have a life expectancy of six months. At least, that’s what Susan Tyler and Peter Mann (Jeremy Northam of “The Net”) thought. The Judas Breed eradicates the cockroach plague and spares a generation of children. Everybody breathes a sight of relief, while deep within those abandoned New York subway tunnels, a specimen has somehow managed to survive and breed. Three years later, out it comes to feed and its favorite lunch morsel is human.
Mann tracks these vicious critters into the subway catacombs with the help of Leonard, a grumpy subway cop (the ever reliable Charles S. Dutton), who doesn’t have a clue (like most characters in horror movies) what he’s gotten himself into as the scientist’s tour guide. Meanwhile, Susan finds herself alone in a subway when a bug snatches her up and flies off with her. Miraculously, the critter doesn’t chomp her like it does its previous victims. In fact, other than flying off with her, the bug leaves her intact, dumping her in its slime. Eventually, Susan scrambles through the maze of tunnels and finds Peter. So do a swarm of the bugs. Our heroes hole up in a subway car. Just as the bugs are about to tear their way inside and eat these human sardines, Susan figures out that the bugs can smell their blood. She gets everybody to smear themselves with dead bug guts, and they leave them momentarily alone. Talk about repellent!
The premise that “Mimic” neglects to explain is how these mutants found a way to replicate themselves and take the general shape and appearance of a man huddled up in a trench coat. Gifted scenarists such as John (“Lone Star”) Sayles, Matthew (“Dragonslayer”) Robbins, and Steven (“Kafka”) Soderbergh contributed to writer-director Guillermo (“Cronos”) Del Toro’s heavily derivative script, but none of them seems to have worked the bugs out of their roachy script. “Mimic” appears to mimic “The Lost World” in two respects. The “Mimic” scientists overlook the possibility that their genetic deviants could survive in the wild like “The Lost World” dinosaurs, and one of the film’s better set-pieces shamelessly rips-off the RV scene in “Lost World,” but with considerably less suspense or tension. The only sweat that you will break in “Mimic” is waiting for director Del Toro and his writers to scare you.
Despite this surfeit of talent, “Mimic” stinks because the filmmakers wait too long to flush out the bugs. They waste over forty-five minutes setting up the story before our heroes descend into the subway tunnels. Of course, you can guess when who is going to die, so predictability paralyzes the story. Worse than that is that director Guillermo Del Toro rarely conjures up anything that remotely terrifies. There are too few instances when you want to jump because something on screen shocked you. The scene where the huge roach scoops up Mira Sorvino and swoops off with her is hilarious. It’s like those silent movies where the eagle carries the hero off to its nest. Del Toro is good at showing us lots of yucky bug slime and the bugs themselves. Most of the movie is shot in darkness so that you cannot see the bugs until the movie is half-way over. As for the bugs, the cockroaches in “Joe’s Apartment” were more fun. “Mimic’s” villainous bugs simply don’t look as murderous as either an alien or as creepy as an anaconda, even when one crawls over one of our heroes. When these buggers run, they resemble the raptors from “The Lost World,” but they are far less tenacious or terrifying.
Nothing in this handsomely produced insect epic will peg your blood pressure. A good cast is wasted, especially F. Murray Abraham, and we care so little about these one dimensional characters that when they begin to drop like flies, who cares. The filmmakers ignore whatever potential that they might have stirred up by having bodacious Mira Sorvino strip-tease a la Sigourney Weaver and lure the roaches to their demise. Charles Dutton’s subway cop comes closest to enlisting our sympathies because he gets to curse loudly and bug out his own eyes when he sees the giant insects. There’s an expendable subplot, too, about a small boy who gets lost in the tunnels and befriends the bugs. Skip this bugger. Mexican writer-director Guillermo Del Toro may have breathed new life into the vampire genre with his 1992 masterpiece “Cronos,” but “Mimic” is nothing but a load of bull!
FILM REVIEW OF ''MEN IN BLACK" (1998)
The idea for “Men In Black” (**1/2 OUT OF ****), the latest alien opus about cracking down on extraterrestrials hiding out on earth, has a galaxy of surreal comic potential. If you’re looking for a moderately entertaining, mega-budgeted, far-sided farce that vapor locks just shy of “Ghostbusters,” then “Men In Black” is your ticket. Even if this uneven outer limits comedy doesn’t beam you up, its alleged million-dollar-per-minute special effects that infest the plot with a spawn of dorky aliens should impress you. Despite its abundant sight-gags and eye-popping aliens, “Men In Black” frizzles because it relies on the familiar oxidize the earth plot. “Men-In-Black” is a great looking movie hampered by a lame plot. The film is based on Lowell Cunningham’s obscure but sensational Marvel comic from the early 1990s. The story sounds like “Dragnet” meets “Ghostbusters.” The subversive but inventive Ed Solomon script struggles to keep a deadpan lid on its diabolical lunacy so that its gags will appear twice as funny. Basically, it’s the old idea of getting more mileage out of a joke by telling it as if you weren’t aware of the humor. The irreverent humor in “Men In Black” is so dry and sporadic that it sometimes fails to enthrall. You know that you’re watching a comedy, and you even laugh at what you see. After all, you know that these guys are straining to be hilarious. But they’re not funny enough all of the time to make you forget that they’re struggling so hard to make you laugh. Writer Ed Solomon wastes too much time integrating Will Smith’s character into the action and not enough time incorporating Linda Fiorentino’s character. The story never generates any suspense, just a lot of pastel slime. The ending is outrageously implausible even by this wacky elastic standards of this fantasy. Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith impersonate a couple of laced-strait Federal agents who work for a ultra-hush, hush agency known only as INS Division 6. Headquartered out of sight in Manhattan, INS 6 licenses, monitors, and polices all alien activity on Earth. According to the movie, about fifteen-hundred aliens reside on the planet in a state of apolitical harmony. Any alien critter that goes AWOL gets busted by these INS 6 dudes. When we first meet J, played by Smith, he is a New York cop whose been close-encountered. INS 6 recruits him because he nearly caught the alien. (If Will Smith doesn’t watch out, he is going to be type-cast as the John Wayne of alien butt kickers.) INS 6 chief Zed (Rip Torn) teams J with veteran alien buster K (Tommy Lee Jones). Even if you can tolerate the long expository build up, the story suffers again because these characters never develop the camaraderie of the “Ghostbusters.” After a UFO crashes into his pick-up truck, a creepy redneck farmer named Edgar (Vincent D’Onofrio) goes gunning for the aliens. They’re a bunch of murderously mutant cockroaches. They zap Edgar instead and take control of his body. (This scene recalls the Stephen King episode in the 1982 movie “Creepshow.”) Edgar stumbles through the rest of the movie like a zombie. He’s on a weird quest to kill two Arkillian aliens disguised as human and pinch a trinket hanging around a cat’s neck that contains the galaxy. When he gets it, the Arkillian threat to atomize the planet unless our heroes can recover the bauble. What we don’t learn about the aliens, the filmmakers are happy to show us. There are aliens galore in “Men In Black.” They resemble mutants sprung island of Dr. Suess. None of them are particularly threatening, but some are ugly and squid-like. The scene where J (Smith) assists a mother alien in birth is pretty funny, but it doesn’t match the impact of the Billy Crystal calf delivery in “City Slickers.” Juveniles will drool over the flashy gadgets. One device called a “neuralizer” resembles a tire gauge crossed with a pin-light. Our heroes use it to erase the short term memory of any spectators that they encounter in the line of duty. Remember, we’re not supposed to know that the aliens walk among us. Our heroes don their cool looking Ray Bans to dampen the effect on them. The Ray Bans are already available in stores, but you’ll probably have to wait for the chrome plated guns. Judging from its opening weekend haul of $50 million plus dollars, “Men In Black” should at least inspire a sequel as well as merchandising out the universe. There’s a cartoon series already in the works. Director Barry Sonnenfeld pulls out all stops. The hokey dragon-fly in the opening scene sets the smart aleck tone for the movie. One of the best scenes is the jewelry store confrontation which the moviemakers have already given up in the previews of “Men In Black.” The witty use of tabloid newspaper to tell the real truth is ironic, and the real story behind the New York’s World Fair is a hoot! Sonnenfeld keeps the light weight action moving at light speed. Sometimes the movie zips by so quickly they you have trouble keeping up with it. But “Men In Black” lacks the bizarre finesse of Sonnenfeld’s two “Adams Family” movies. No complaints about the casting. Tom Lee Jones of “The Fugitive” delivers the kind of stoic performance that would put Jack Webb to shame. Jones’s grim-faced, buttoned-down expressions would be the envy of Detective Sergeant Friday. Jones proves himself a master comedian with impeccable timing again and again in “Men In Black.” He never lets the zaniness of the last joke, special effects, or plot-twist get in his way to his next gag. William Smith of “Independence Day” blends his streetwise, ebonic, home boy charm with the sartorial elegance of his character as an interesting contrast to Jones’ tight-lipped stooge. These co-stars work well together, except that their cardboard characters never evolve in the two frantic days covered in the movie. You may remember actor Vincent D’Onofrio for his brilliant performance as a psychotic military recruit in “Full Metal Jacket.” He manages to be vicious, brutal, and stupid as ghoulish Edgar. The villain here mutates into an extremely upset bug whose the size of a dragon. Linda Fiorentino of “Jade” is cast as a sexy medical examiner whose seen one too alien corpses. Veteran character actor Rip Torn lends capable support as their gruff boss Zed. “Men In Black” misfires more often than it hits. The exam scene is as irritable as Edgar’s cockroaches are genuinely disgusting. You exit the movie theatre dazzled by the seamless special effects, but you may find that the dry, off-beat humor as memorable as a flash of light from a neutralizer.
FILM REVIEW OF ''STREETFIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN-LI" (2009)
This above-average distaff martial arts actioneer about a daughter’s revenge for the murder of her long-suffering father boasts Geoff Boyle’s spectacular cinematography and a sturdy cast, particularly with charismatic Neal McDonough as the dastardly chief villain and Michael Clarke Duncan as his right-hand man. Martial arts fight choreographer Dion Lam of “Exit Wounds” and “The Matrix Reloaded” stages several exceptional hand-to-hand combat scenes involving wire work. As the heroine Kristia Kreuk is convincing here as Chin-Li and handles herself well in the fight sequences. She possesses an expressive countenance,and this gives "Streetfighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" (*** out of ****) its heart and drive. Moreover, as Chin-Li, our heroine changes over the course of the story so that she emerges as a round rather than a flat character. “Exit Wounds” director Andrej Bartkowiak never lets the action stall out during its trim 96 minutes. Of course, the Justin Marks screenplay contains nothing but formula with the usual expository scenes for an origins story. A heroic heroine, ruthless villains, scenic locales, and a by-the-numbers crime empire building plot keep thing warm but rarely sizzling. Ostensibly, “Streetfighter” is a sequel to the Jean Claude Van Damme original.
The movie begins as an origins story with Chun-Li (Kristia Kreuk) talking about her youth in San Francisco. Her international businessman father Xiang (Edmund Chen of “Saigon Eclipse”) wants her to become a concert pianist. Eventually, the family relocates to Hong Kong, and her father teaches her Wushu while she practices the piano. Suddenly, one evening, criminals invade her house, and Xiang battles them until Balrog seizes young Chun-Lie and threatens to kill her. Bison (Neal McDonough of “Walking Tall”) and his men abduct Xiang. Later, Bison appropriates the Shadaloo Empire, the biggest crime syndicate in Asia. He has acquired his power and authority by having his assassin, Vega (Jaime Luis Gomez) decapitated the heads of all the crime lords in Bangkok. Bison has a grand scheme to lower property values in the Bangkok slums, buy up as much as he can, tear it down, and then rebuild it with luxurious housing for the affluent. Bison has no qualms about killing. He abducted Chin-Li’s father years ago and when she comes to Bangkok to straighten things out, Bison murders her father in front of her eyes. Previously, Bison had held Chun-Li's father captive for years and forced against his will to help develop his infamous plan.
Meanwhile, Interpol agent Charlie Nash (Chris Klein of “American Pie”) has pursued the elusive Bison through eleven major cities on four continents and only now comes close to catching him. He teams up with Bangkok Police Detective Maya Sunee (Moon Bloodgood of “Terminator: Salvation”) in the Gang & Homicide Division. While this is going on, Chun Lin is building a reputation as a successful concert pianist when she learns that her mother is ill. Eventually, Chun Li’s mother dies. The mother was an American and her father was Asian. Chun discovers a scroll in ancient Chinese. She looks for help in translating the document which she suspects will have something to do with her life. Our heroine takes the scroll with her and checks it out with her. The old lady observes, “This is not a letter, it is a light shining only upon you.” She advises Chun Li to travel to Bangkok and search for a man named Gen. Before she locates (Robin Shou of “Mortal Combat”) who gives her a brush course in defying gravity while decimating the dastards, Chun-Li lives in the streets, observes the crime-ridden slums first hand, and later interferes with a gang intent on beating up a helpless man. Principally, Gen shows Chun how to control her rage in a fight.
Not only does “Streetfighter: The Legend of Chun-Li” relate the story of our heroine’s humble beginnings, but the film also details the origins of the cruel villain. Son of Irish missionaries, Bison grew up as an orphan and stole fish from people in Thailand. Just to emphasize his evil, Bartkowiak and Marks show how Bison jettisoned his conscience. He does this by removing his infant daughter from his wife’s womb prematurely, killing his wife. This transferred his conscience into his daughter. Again, Bison is a first-rate bastard. Later, Bison’s thugs attack Gen while Chun-Li is away buying groceries and Balrog destroys Gen’s house with a RPG. Bison orders Vega to finish off Chun-Li, but he is surprised when Chun-Li whips Vega in a knock down, drag out fight, leaves the assassin hanging upside down over the side of a building. Chun-Li heads out to deal with Bison. She learns about a secret delivery of White Rose and determines to help Charlie Nash and Detective Sunee get Bison. Bison’s tentacles stretch to the police and Sunee is told to drop the case. Consequently, Charlie and Chun-Li take on Bison. The fight between Bison and Chun-Li is energetic and the outcome is nothing if not impressive.
Indeed, the producers tampered with the video game when they adapted it to the big-screen. For example, they removed the gloves that Balrog wore. Furthermore, they changed Chun-Li from strictly Chinese to Chinese-American. Producer Ashok Amritraj wanted the film “to stand on its own, not just for the gaming audience, but also as a movie.” “Streetfighter: The Legion of Chun-Li” with its formulaic plot doesn’t rank as a great martial arts film, but it is a good, exciting, action-packed saga with a surprise or two to keep you on your toes. As much as I like Jean Claude Van Damme’s “Streetfighter” (1994), “Streetfighter: The Legion of Chun-Li” tops the JCVD movie in every respect.
The movie begins as an origins story with Chun-Li (Kristia Kreuk) talking about her youth in San Francisco. Her international businessman father Xiang (Edmund Chen of “Saigon Eclipse”) wants her to become a concert pianist. Eventually, the family relocates to Hong Kong, and her father teaches her Wushu while she practices the piano. Suddenly, one evening, criminals invade her house, and Xiang battles them until Balrog seizes young Chun-Lie and threatens to kill her. Bison (Neal McDonough of “Walking Tall”) and his men abduct Xiang. Later, Bison appropriates the Shadaloo Empire, the biggest crime syndicate in Asia. He has acquired his power and authority by having his assassin, Vega (Jaime Luis Gomez) decapitated the heads of all the crime lords in Bangkok. Bison has a grand scheme to lower property values in the Bangkok slums, buy up as much as he can, tear it down, and then rebuild it with luxurious housing for the affluent. Bison has no qualms about killing. He abducted Chin-Li’s father years ago and when she comes to Bangkok to straighten things out, Bison murders her father in front of her eyes. Previously, Bison had held Chun-Li's father captive for years and forced against his will to help develop his infamous plan.
Meanwhile, Interpol agent Charlie Nash (Chris Klein of “American Pie”) has pursued the elusive Bison through eleven major cities on four continents and only now comes close to catching him. He teams up with Bangkok Police Detective Maya Sunee (Moon Bloodgood of “Terminator: Salvation”) in the Gang & Homicide Division. While this is going on, Chun Lin is building a reputation as a successful concert pianist when she learns that her mother is ill. Eventually, Chun Li’s mother dies. The mother was an American and her father was Asian. Chun discovers a scroll in ancient Chinese. She looks for help in translating the document which she suspects will have something to do with her life. Our heroine takes the scroll with her and checks it out with her. The old lady observes, “This is not a letter, it is a light shining only upon you.” She advises Chun Li to travel to Bangkok and search for a man named Gen. Before she locates (Robin Shou of “Mortal Combat”) who gives her a brush course in defying gravity while decimating the dastards, Chun-Li lives in the streets, observes the crime-ridden slums first hand, and later interferes with a gang intent on beating up a helpless man. Principally, Gen shows Chun how to control her rage in a fight.
Not only does “Streetfighter: The Legend of Chun-Li” relate the story of our heroine’s humble beginnings, but the film also details the origins of the cruel villain. Son of Irish missionaries, Bison grew up as an orphan and stole fish from people in Thailand. Just to emphasize his evil, Bartkowiak and Marks show how Bison jettisoned his conscience. He does this by removing his infant daughter from his wife’s womb prematurely, killing his wife. This transferred his conscience into his daughter. Again, Bison is a first-rate bastard. Later, Bison’s thugs attack Gen while Chun-Li is away buying groceries and Balrog destroys Gen’s house with a RPG. Bison orders Vega to finish off Chun-Li, but he is surprised when Chun-Li whips Vega in a knock down, drag out fight, leaves the assassin hanging upside down over the side of a building. Chun-Li heads out to deal with Bison. She learns about a secret delivery of White Rose and determines to help Charlie Nash and Detective Sunee get Bison. Bison’s tentacles stretch to the police and Sunee is told to drop the case. Consequently, Charlie and Chun-Li take on Bison. The fight between Bison and Chun-Li is energetic and the outcome is nothing if not impressive.
Indeed, the producers tampered with the video game when they adapted it to the big-screen. For example, they removed the gloves that Balrog wore. Furthermore, they changed Chun-Li from strictly Chinese to Chinese-American. Producer Ashok Amritraj wanted the film “to stand on its own, not just for the gaming audience, but also as a movie.” “Streetfighter: The Legion of Chun-Li” with its formulaic plot doesn’t rank as a great martial arts film, but it is a good, exciting, action-packed saga with a surprise or two to keep you on your toes. As much as I like Jean Claude Van Damme’s “Streetfighter” (1994), “Streetfighter: The Legion of Chun-Li” tops the JCVD movie in every respect.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
FILM REVIEW OF ''WHITEOUT'' (2009)
The trailer to the Kate Beckinsale murder-mystery “Whiteout” (** out of ****) makes it look like a remake of the classic horror thriller “The Thing From Another World.” Something crashes in the ice near a scientific research laboratory in Antarctica. A body that apparently fell from the sky is found on the frozen tundra, and a desperate murderer with an ice ax goes on the rampage. The only person standing between this maniac and his next casualty is a female U.S. Marshal who wants to resign and go home now that her stint is almost up. She has a past that is clouded with drama. The story synopsis also appropriates the “30 Days of Night” gimmick. The outpost is about to be plunged into six months of wintry oblivion while our heroes battle the killer. Moreover, a tumultuous storm forces the scientists to evacuate the base. In other words, the filmmakers do an exemplary job of establishing the inhospitable setting which they inform during the opening credits is “the most isolated landmass on Earth.” They put the heroine and her help between an icy rock and a hard place for the climactic showdown.
Unfortunately, “Whiteout” emerges as neither “The Thing” nor “30 Days of Night.” This thoroughly humdrum homicidal hokum lacks a sense of urgency. The gratuitous Beckinsale shower sequence near the beginning as she flaunts her tidy whites should titillate males. No body doubles there. Nothing else in “Swordfish” director Dominic Sena’s frostbitten yarn, however, will titillate anybody. Sophomore scenarists Jon & Erich Hoeber along with “House of Wax” (2005) remake scribes Chad & Carey Hayes serve up nothing but formula from start to finish. Furthermore, they’ve altered the 2001 graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber. Chiefly, they have eliminated the second heroine, a British secret service agent and replaced her with a bland United Nations investigator who may be the killer. A shortage of suspense, the expository-riddled but convoluted storytelling, and lackluster villains sabotage this shoddy saga. You might even call “Whiteout” a variation on the Sean Connery in space move “Outland” (1981) where he played a federal marshal. The plot grinds to a halt too many times. As fetching and credible as Kate Beckinsale was in the “Underworld” thrillers in her skin-tight leather suits, she looks all wrong for this comic book screen adaptation in parka and goggles.
The movie opens with a prologue set in 1957. A Soviet cargo plane—clearly a CGI replica--whips into view, like the evil space cruiser in “Star Wars,” in the first shot. The restless co-pilot wants to kill the three guys in the bay who are guarding a locked safe with a secret cargo. The co-pilot botches the job, and a gunfight erupts inside the fuselage. Everybody catches a slug in the shoot-out, and the cargo plane crashes in the in the Antarctica. Fifty years pass and the plane still hasn't been found. Meanwhile, U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) is serving out the last couple of days in her two-year shift. She holed up at the outpost because of trust issues. Sena intersperses flashbacks of her partner turning rogue on her after they arrest a drug smuggler in Miami. He tries to kill her, but she blasts him. Of course, this is to assure us that she can fire a gun. Now, she is the law at the South Pole. Mostly, Carrie walks a beat and sometimes even contends with a misdemeanor. The last couple of days before everybody heads home, our heroine discovers the corpse of a geologist in the middle of nowhere in 65-below temperatures with half of its head caved in and no trace of how it got where it did. Venerable Dr. John Fury (Tom Skerritt of “M.A.S.H.”) is the head physician and means something more to Carrie than Sena and his scribes ever show us. Again, it looks like a case of role & gender reversal from “Outland.”
Carrie crosses paths with a mysterious U.N. observer Robert Pryce (Gabriel Macht of “The Spirit”) and a happy African-American pilot Delfy (Columbus Short of “Cadillac Records”) flies them all over the stunning, snow-swept terrain. At one point, Carrie and Pryce try to track down where the dead geologist had been working. Robert and Delfy watch as Carrie takes one too many steps and plunges into the snow and lands alongside a buried cargo plane. This familiar discovery plot has been used in many films, such as the 1981 opus “Treasure of the Yankee Zephyr.” They investigate and find several shot-up stiffs. They locate a smashed metal safe and find empty but ominous looking canisters. Meantime, a madman is on the rampage killing people with an ice ax. Of course, he is covered from head to foot in a parka, hood, and boots. The scriptwriters litter the action with obvious red herrings galore. The quartet of writers who wrote this forgettable thriller retread all the usual clichés. The only suspense occurs in the exteriors when people have to attach themselves to a life-line cable to keep from being blown away or lost in the Antarctic blizzards. At one point, our heroine eludes the murderer, but she winds up sacrificing two fingers from frostbite.
Beckinsale gives it her best and she really looks smashing in her undies. Tom Skerritt of "M.A.S.H. plays the kindly base doctor who would not harm a fly. Macht is squandered and given little to do. The CGI work is horribly obvious, but cinematographer Chris Soos does a skillful job of using scenic Quebec and Manitoba masquerade as Antarctica. Somewhere in this predictable whodunit lurked a better movie. Typically, the term ‘whiteout’ is a synonym for poor visibility. “Whiteout” qualifies as a washout.
Unfortunately, “Whiteout” emerges as neither “The Thing” nor “30 Days of Night.” This thoroughly humdrum homicidal hokum lacks a sense of urgency. The gratuitous Beckinsale shower sequence near the beginning as she flaunts her tidy whites should titillate males. No body doubles there. Nothing else in “Swordfish” director Dominic Sena’s frostbitten yarn, however, will titillate anybody. Sophomore scenarists Jon & Erich Hoeber along with “House of Wax” (2005) remake scribes Chad & Carey Hayes serve up nothing but formula from start to finish. Furthermore, they’ve altered the 2001 graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber. Chiefly, they have eliminated the second heroine, a British secret service agent and replaced her with a bland United Nations investigator who may be the killer. A shortage of suspense, the expository-riddled but convoluted storytelling, and lackluster villains sabotage this shoddy saga. You might even call “Whiteout” a variation on the Sean Connery in space move “Outland” (1981) where he played a federal marshal. The plot grinds to a halt too many times. As fetching and credible as Kate Beckinsale was in the “Underworld” thrillers in her skin-tight leather suits, she looks all wrong for this comic book screen adaptation in parka and goggles.
The movie opens with a prologue set in 1957. A Soviet cargo plane—clearly a CGI replica--whips into view, like the evil space cruiser in “Star Wars,” in the first shot. The restless co-pilot wants to kill the three guys in the bay who are guarding a locked safe with a secret cargo. The co-pilot botches the job, and a gunfight erupts inside the fuselage. Everybody catches a slug in the shoot-out, and the cargo plane crashes in the in the Antarctica. Fifty years pass and the plane still hasn't been found. Meanwhile, U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) is serving out the last couple of days in her two-year shift. She holed up at the outpost because of trust issues. Sena intersperses flashbacks of her partner turning rogue on her after they arrest a drug smuggler in Miami. He tries to kill her, but she blasts him. Of course, this is to assure us that she can fire a gun. Now, she is the law at the South Pole. Mostly, Carrie walks a beat and sometimes even contends with a misdemeanor. The last couple of days before everybody heads home, our heroine discovers the corpse of a geologist in the middle of nowhere in 65-below temperatures with half of its head caved in and no trace of how it got where it did. Venerable Dr. John Fury (Tom Skerritt of “M.A.S.H.”) is the head physician and means something more to Carrie than Sena and his scribes ever show us. Again, it looks like a case of role & gender reversal from “Outland.”
Carrie crosses paths with a mysterious U.N. observer Robert Pryce (Gabriel Macht of “The Spirit”) and a happy African-American pilot Delfy (Columbus Short of “Cadillac Records”) flies them all over the stunning, snow-swept terrain. At one point, Carrie and Pryce try to track down where the dead geologist had been working. Robert and Delfy watch as Carrie takes one too many steps and plunges into the snow and lands alongside a buried cargo plane. This familiar discovery plot has been used in many films, such as the 1981 opus “Treasure of the Yankee Zephyr.” They investigate and find several shot-up stiffs. They locate a smashed metal safe and find empty but ominous looking canisters. Meantime, a madman is on the rampage killing people with an ice ax. Of course, he is covered from head to foot in a parka, hood, and boots. The scriptwriters litter the action with obvious red herrings galore. The quartet of writers who wrote this forgettable thriller retread all the usual clichés. The only suspense occurs in the exteriors when people have to attach themselves to a life-line cable to keep from being blown away or lost in the Antarctic blizzards. At one point, our heroine eludes the murderer, but she winds up sacrificing two fingers from frostbite.
Beckinsale gives it her best and she really looks smashing in her undies. Tom Skerritt of "M.A.S.H. plays the kindly base doctor who would not harm a fly. Macht is squandered and given little to do. The CGI work is horribly obvious, but cinematographer Chris Soos does a skillful job of using scenic Quebec and Manitoba masquerade as Antarctica. Somewhere in this predictable whodunit lurked a better movie. Typically, the term ‘whiteout’ is a synonym for poor visibility. “Whiteout” qualifies as a washout.
Friday, September 11, 2009
FILM REVIEW OF ''MY FAIR LADY'' (1964)
Warner Brothers film studios honcho Jack L. Warner paid CBS-TV mogul William S. Paley the sum of $5.5 million to acquire the movie rights to turn "My Fair Lady" into a movie. Moreover, Paley demanded 50 percent of the film's gross once it exceeded $20 million. Incidentally, "My Fair Lady" raked in $72-million during its preliminary theatrical release. Paley stipulated also that the film could not be released until "My Fair Lady" completed its Broadway engagement. According to Warner biographer Bob Thomas, Warner actually produced "My Fair Lady," something that he had rarely done since the 1920s. Initially, Warner had sought Cary Grant for the role of Professor Henry Higgins, but Grant not only turned him down but also threatened to boycott the movie if Rex Harrison did not star in it. Warner approached Peter O'Toole who had recently starred in “Lawrence of Arabia,” but O'Toole's price including profit percentages was astronomical. Warner hired the highly respected “woman’s picture” director George Cukor, who had directed such classics as "The Women" and "Adam's Rib," to helm this 170-minute film. Cukor received $300-thousand for a minimum of 52 weeks, from January 1963 to February 1964.
At the time of its release, "My Fair Lady" (**** out of ****) generated some controversy because the star of the stage version, Julie Andrews, did not receive the Liza Doolittle role. Principally, Warner chose Audrey Hepburn over Julie Andrews because Hepburn was a recognized commodity that would attract audiences to the cinema. Hepburn had made a bundle for Warner Brothers with “A Nun’s Story.” Indeed, Warner anted up one of the biggest pay checks ever for Hepburn, paying her a cool million. For tax purposes, the studio paid the million dollars over a period of seven years. Meanwhile, Warner ignored the fact that Andrews had played Liza Doolittle in 2,281 performances on the London stage and 2, 715 performances on Broadway. Interestingly, Audrey Hepburn did not receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. The 1964 Best Actress Oscar went to Julie Andrews for "Mary Poppins." Keep in mind, “Mary Poppins” was Andrews’ film debut. Reportedly, Andrews thanked Warner at the ceremonies for making her Oscar possible. According to Turner Classic Films historian Frank Miller, Rex Harrison wound up reprising his stage role as Professor Henry Higgins for $200-thousand. Harrison didn't sing a line but rather spoke his lyrics as he had done on stage. Harrison also lobbied on behalf of Andrews to get the Liza role. Veteran British character actor Stanley Holloway, the only other actor in the stage presentation, reprised his role and was a hoot as Liza's blue-collar father. Originally, Warner had sought tough guy hoofer James Cagney to play the role. Cagney had retired by then and could not be induced.
"My Fair Lady" wound up costing Warner a whopping $17-million to produce, one of the most expensive movies in Hollywood at the time. 'My Fair Lady" received the 1964 Oscar for Best Picture. The last time that a Warner Brothers movie had been accorded this high honor was in 1943 with "Casablanca" starring Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart won the statuette. "My Fair Lady" also brought home the Oscars for Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Art Direction, Best Color Costume Design, Best Adapted Musical Score, and Best Sound.
Director George Cukor's "My Fair Lady" is essentially Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's cinematic musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion." Shaw derived the idea for his play from Greek mythology. In one of Ovid's narratives, a Cypriot sculptor Pygmalion becomes enamored with a statue of a woman that he had carved out of ivory. Shaw adapted his play in 1938 for a British film that toplined Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller. Like "My Fair Lady," "Pygmalion" concerned a Victorian phonetician who wagers that he can teach a Cockney flower girl to speak correct English so that he can have her masquerade in high society as a lady. Wendy Hiller played Eliza Doolittle and Howard—best known for "Gone with the Wind"—was cast as Professor Higgins. Hiller and Howard both received Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Actress while Shaw actually won an Oscar for his screenplay that he wrote with W.P. Lipscomb and Cecil Lewis. Ian Dalrymple and Anatole de Grunwald also contributed to the screenplay but they never received credit, while Kay Walsh provided some additional dialogue. In 1956, Lerner and Loewe rewrote the play because Shaw's work broke two important musical conventions: the main story lacked a romance and allowed no place for an ensemble.
As in "Pygmalion," "My Fair Lady" has voice coach Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) challenges his incredulous colleague, Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White), that he can train boisterous Cockney street vendor Eliza Doolittle so she can talk in proper English and fool the lords and ladies at Buckingham Palace into believing that she is a duchess. Pickering not only takes the bet but also provides the funds to dress Eliza to fit the role. For six months Higgins toils day and night working on refining Eliza so that the aristocrats at the biggest social event of the season will believe that she is royalty. Of course, before it is over, both Higgins and Doolittle grow to hate each other but inevitably the hate sweetens into love at fade out. The early scenes between Harrison and Hepburn as they argue with each other at the station are hilarious. There isn't a bad song in the lot.
According to Frank Miller, virtually every cent of the massive production budget of "My Fair Lady" appears on screen. Lerner and Loewe complained when Warner decided to lens the film on the Warner Brothers backlot in Burbank, California. Nevertheless, Warner Brothers went to extreme lengths to recreate the actual British setting. For example, the stones for the cobblestoned Covent Garden streets were manufactured one at a time, rather than the usual practice of making them all for one mold. The sets were painted and retouched by Art director Gene Allen to give some of the edifices the illusion that they had been standing for hundreds of years. He also aged Hepburn's flower-vendor costumes so she wouldn't appear too prosperous. One thing that couldn't be fixed about Hepburn was her voice. Although Hepburn had sung songs in Funny Face” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” the “My Fair Lady” songs would prove to be beyond her range. The studio musical experts felt her voice wasn’t good enough. None of the meticulous rehearsals, recordings, and re-recordings passed muster. Ultimately, Warner hired ‘a voice double’ Marni Nixon to dub Hepburn in spite of the actress's extensive preparation for the part. Future Sherlock Holmes actor Jeremy Brett was cast as Freddy Eynsford-Hill. Although Brett had a fine voice, Bill Shirley ended up dubbing him.
Movie reviewers at the time largely loved “My Fair Lady.” The only complaint that surfaced concerned the casting of Audrey Hepburn rather than Julie Andrews. Many critics felt that Hepburn was not credible as a Cockney flower vendor. The final note of interest in this story about this celebrated hit movie is the October 1964 premiere. Jack Warner told his publicity manager Joe Hyams the following about the premiere. “I want this to be a Tiffany operation. Everything you do must be one-hundred percent style and class, money no object. Just remember: it’s a Tiffany product.” Hyams followed Warner’s orders to the letter.
In his book “The Clown Prince of Hollywood, the Antic Life and Times of Jack Warner,” Bob Thomas described an ironic event that occurred at the benefit party afterward that mirrored “My Fair Lady.” Mrs. William S. Paley, the Duchess of Windsor and Mrs. Winston Guest chaired the benefit party and were gearing up for the cream of New York society to attend. Mrs. Paley had arranged for Jack Warner to escort her daughter at the premiere and the ball, but Miss Paley was unable to attend because she had developed a cold. Hyams got back to Warner about this complication. “Now Mrs. Paley is worried about your having someone to sit with at the head table.” Hyams and Warner huddled in the bar at the Sherry Netherland hotel in New York City at the time. Warner spotted a girl in the bar who according to Thomas was “an attractive young woman, who appeared to Hyams to be one of the high-class hookers that were allowed to work the hotel as a convenience for guests.” Warner escorted the hooker to the premiere decked out in a gown that Warner’s designer Ceil Chapman had made and they had styled the girl’s hair, too. The girl could not believe the charade that Warner was requesting her to do, but she attended the events. Again, according to Warner biographer Bob Thomas, “In the midst of the festivities, the girl in the bar arrived, looking like Eliza Doolittle.” Warner introduced her as Lady Cavendish, and everybody at the party, with the exception of Rex Harrison, believed that she was Lady Cavendish. After Warner kissed the girl good night and told Hyams to make sure that the clothes were returned, she turned to Hyams and told him. “What an unbelievable night! And you know something? I had such a good time, I’m not going to charge him.”
In his biography about director George Cukor, Patrick McGilligan classified “My Fair Lady” as the “last great studio movie . . . produced by the last great studio mogul: Jack Warner.”
At the time of its release, "My Fair Lady" (**** out of ****) generated some controversy because the star of the stage version, Julie Andrews, did not receive the Liza Doolittle role. Principally, Warner chose Audrey Hepburn over Julie Andrews because Hepburn was a recognized commodity that would attract audiences to the cinema. Hepburn had made a bundle for Warner Brothers with “A Nun’s Story.” Indeed, Warner anted up one of the biggest pay checks ever for Hepburn, paying her a cool million. For tax purposes, the studio paid the million dollars over a period of seven years. Meanwhile, Warner ignored the fact that Andrews had played Liza Doolittle in 2,281 performances on the London stage and 2, 715 performances on Broadway. Interestingly, Audrey Hepburn did not receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. The 1964 Best Actress Oscar went to Julie Andrews for "Mary Poppins." Keep in mind, “Mary Poppins” was Andrews’ film debut. Reportedly, Andrews thanked Warner at the ceremonies for making her Oscar possible. According to Turner Classic Films historian Frank Miller, Rex Harrison wound up reprising his stage role as Professor Henry Higgins for $200-thousand. Harrison didn't sing a line but rather spoke his lyrics as he had done on stage. Harrison also lobbied on behalf of Andrews to get the Liza role. Veteran British character actor Stanley Holloway, the only other actor in the stage presentation, reprised his role and was a hoot as Liza's blue-collar father. Originally, Warner had sought tough guy hoofer James Cagney to play the role. Cagney had retired by then and could not be induced.
"My Fair Lady" wound up costing Warner a whopping $17-million to produce, one of the most expensive movies in Hollywood at the time. 'My Fair Lady" received the 1964 Oscar for Best Picture. The last time that a Warner Brothers movie had been accorded this high honor was in 1943 with "Casablanca" starring Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart won the statuette. "My Fair Lady" also brought home the Oscars for Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Art Direction, Best Color Costume Design, Best Adapted Musical Score, and Best Sound.
Director George Cukor's "My Fair Lady" is essentially Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's cinematic musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion." Shaw derived the idea for his play from Greek mythology. In one of Ovid's narratives, a Cypriot sculptor Pygmalion becomes enamored with a statue of a woman that he had carved out of ivory. Shaw adapted his play in 1938 for a British film that toplined Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller. Like "My Fair Lady," "Pygmalion" concerned a Victorian phonetician who wagers that he can teach a Cockney flower girl to speak correct English so that he can have her masquerade in high society as a lady. Wendy Hiller played Eliza Doolittle and Howard—best known for "Gone with the Wind"—was cast as Professor Higgins. Hiller and Howard both received Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Actress while Shaw actually won an Oscar for his screenplay that he wrote with W.P. Lipscomb and Cecil Lewis. Ian Dalrymple and Anatole de Grunwald also contributed to the screenplay but they never received credit, while Kay Walsh provided some additional dialogue. In 1956, Lerner and Loewe rewrote the play because Shaw's work broke two important musical conventions: the main story lacked a romance and allowed no place for an ensemble.
As in "Pygmalion," "My Fair Lady" has voice coach Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) challenges his incredulous colleague, Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White), that he can train boisterous Cockney street vendor Eliza Doolittle so she can talk in proper English and fool the lords and ladies at Buckingham Palace into believing that she is a duchess. Pickering not only takes the bet but also provides the funds to dress Eliza to fit the role. For six months Higgins toils day and night working on refining Eliza so that the aristocrats at the biggest social event of the season will believe that she is royalty. Of course, before it is over, both Higgins and Doolittle grow to hate each other but inevitably the hate sweetens into love at fade out. The early scenes between Harrison and Hepburn as they argue with each other at the station are hilarious. There isn't a bad song in the lot.
According to Frank Miller, virtually every cent of the massive production budget of "My Fair Lady" appears on screen. Lerner and Loewe complained when Warner decided to lens the film on the Warner Brothers backlot in Burbank, California. Nevertheless, Warner Brothers went to extreme lengths to recreate the actual British setting. For example, the stones for the cobblestoned Covent Garden streets were manufactured one at a time, rather than the usual practice of making them all for one mold. The sets were painted and retouched by Art director Gene Allen to give some of the edifices the illusion that they had been standing for hundreds of years. He also aged Hepburn's flower-vendor costumes so she wouldn't appear too prosperous. One thing that couldn't be fixed about Hepburn was her voice. Although Hepburn had sung songs in Funny Face” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” the “My Fair Lady” songs would prove to be beyond her range. The studio musical experts felt her voice wasn’t good enough. None of the meticulous rehearsals, recordings, and re-recordings passed muster. Ultimately, Warner hired ‘a voice double’ Marni Nixon to dub Hepburn in spite of the actress's extensive preparation for the part. Future Sherlock Holmes actor Jeremy Brett was cast as Freddy Eynsford-Hill. Although Brett had a fine voice, Bill Shirley ended up dubbing him.
Movie reviewers at the time largely loved “My Fair Lady.” The only complaint that surfaced concerned the casting of Audrey Hepburn rather than Julie Andrews. Many critics felt that Hepburn was not credible as a Cockney flower vendor. The final note of interest in this story about this celebrated hit movie is the October 1964 premiere. Jack Warner told his publicity manager Joe Hyams the following about the premiere. “I want this to be a Tiffany operation. Everything you do must be one-hundred percent style and class, money no object. Just remember: it’s a Tiffany product.” Hyams followed Warner’s orders to the letter.
In his book “The Clown Prince of Hollywood, the Antic Life and Times of Jack Warner,” Bob Thomas described an ironic event that occurred at the benefit party afterward that mirrored “My Fair Lady.” Mrs. William S. Paley, the Duchess of Windsor and Mrs. Winston Guest chaired the benefit party and were gearing up for the cream of New York society to attend. Mrs. Paley had arranged for Jack Warner to escort her daughter at the premiere and the ball, but Miss Paley was unable to attend because she had developed a cold. Hyams got back to Warner about this complication. “Now Mrs. Paley is worried about your having someone to sit with at the head table.” Hyams and Warner huddled in the bar at the Sherry Netherland hotel in New York City at the time. Warner spotted a girl in the bar who according to Thomas was “an attractive young woman, who appeared to Hyams to be one of the high-class hookers that were allowed to work the hotel as a convenience for guests.” Warner escorted the hooker to the premiere decked out in a gown that Warner’s designer Ceil Chapman had made and they had styled the girl’s hair, too. The girl could not believe the charade that Warner was requesting her to do, but she attended the events. Again, according to Warner biographer Bob Thomas, “In the midst of the festivities, the girl in the bar arrived, looking like Eliza Doolittle.” Warner introduced her as Lady Cavendish, and everybody at the party, with the exception of Rex Harrison, believed that she was Lady Cavendish. After Warner kissed the girl good night and told Hyams to make sure that the clothes were returned, she turned to Hyams and told him. “What an unbelievable night! And you know something? I had such a good time, I’m not going to charge him.”
In his biography about director George Cukor, Patrick McGilligan classified “My Fair Lady” as the “last great studio movie . . . produced by the last great studio mogul: Jack Warner.”
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
REVIEW OF ''THUNDERBALL'' (1965)
The fourth James Bond movie, director Terence Young's "Thunderball," (**** out of ****) by far the most ambitious 007 escapade when it came out in 1965, is the only Bond picture that won an Oscar for Best Special Visual Effects. Scenarists Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins brought back the worldwide criminal organization SPECTRE, the Special Executive for Counterespionage, Terror, Revenge, and Extortion, to menace Bond after his previous adventure against Auric Goldfinger, who had cooperated with the Red Chinese. SPECTRE was behind Dr. No in "Dr. No," the villains in "From Russia with Love" as well as here in "Thunderball." Blofeld appeared in close-ups with a white cat in his lap in "FRWL" and here at a criminal organization summit when he kills a traitor. Nevertheless, you don’t get to see his face. You just hear his ominous voice. The Bond producers let Blofeld come out into the open for the next Bond epic "You Only Live Twice."
Like the best 007 movies, "Thunderball" takes advantage of actual events and the main real life event was the loss of two atomic bombs in the early 1960s. Blofeld's number two man, Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), hatches a grand scheme to steal two Atomic bombs from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and use them to hold the world for ransom. Bond villains come in three types: those like Blofeld who are criminals and want to make the world powers pay, but they don't want to destroy the world. Those villains, like Stromberg and Drax in later Bond movies "The Spy Who Loved Me" and "Moonraker," who want to destroy the world and recreate civilization in their own image. Finally, there are the independent villains, like Franz Sanchez in "License to Kill," Mr. Big in "Live and Let Die," "Goldfinger," and Max Zorin in "A View to a Kill" who want to corner a market, but who have no designs of world domination. There is also a mention about the real life British train robbery that occurred in England before "Thunderball" was released. The actual train robbery netted the thieves £2.6 million. They committed the robbery on 8 August 1963 at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn near Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, England.
The "Thunderball" pre-credit sequence ranks one of the top five James Bond pre-credit sequences because it contains a surprise and a gimmick. James Bond and a French agent attend a funeral and the casket bears the initials JB, but the initials stand for Jacques Bouvard. Bond knew Bouvard as an assassin who had murdered two of his colleagues. He watches a veiled widow leave and climb into a limousine. She pulls the rear door shut without help from the chauffeur and the vehicle drives off. At a French château, the widow enters a large drawing room to find 007 awaiting her. He rises, expresses his condolences, and then decks the lady with a right cross that sends her flying across a table. "My dear, Colonel Bouvard," Bond informs the man in drag, "I don't think you should have opened that car door yourself." A brief but potent slugfest ensues until Bond chokes Bouvard to death with a fireplace poker. Bouvard's henchmen break down the door seconds before Bond exits. He straps on Bell Aero systems Rocket belt jet-pack and flies off to his Aston-Martin where the French agent is waiting. They shove the jetpack in the trunk. Bond activates the bulletproof shield from the trunk. Never mind that the jetpack and the retractable shield could occupy the same space, then unleashes to stream of water that knocks Bouvard's gun-toting henchmen down.
Bond gets himself into several tight spots in "Thunderball." At the Shrublands clinic, Colonel Lippe (Guy Doleman of "The Ipcress File") catches Bond on the exercise machine and cranks up the speed. Bond is harnessed to it and cannot stop the machine. Later, he exploits his advantage over the nurse and has sex with her to maintain his silence over the incident. Bond is trapped during a fight in a swimming pool with one of Largo's henchmen and Largo lets in the sharks while placing a shutter over the pool. Bond is nicked in the ankle during the Junkanoo parade, and later a Largo henchman almost spears him under Largo's yacht.
Adolf Celi makes a superb villain with his scimitar shaped snout, the black eye patch, and his razor sharp voice. He is despicable from start to finish, especially when he threatens to apply hot and cold torture to Domino with a burning cigarette and ice cubes. He feeds one of henchmen to the sharks when the man fails to deal with 007. Later, after the RAF Vulcan lands in the Bahamas, he refuses to cut the impostor pilot Angelo Palazzi (Paul Stassino of "Escape to Athena") free of the cockpit straps but slashes the man's air hose so that he drowns. Earlier, after the villains killed the real RAF pilot, Palazzi demanded more money because of the plastic surgery that he had to undergo to impersonate the pilot. Clearly, Palazzi's greed motivated Largo in part to kill him, but Largo is just enough of a dastard to have done it anyway to keep from paying Palazzi period.
They plan to crash land an RAF Vulcan at sea, retrieve the bombs, and camouflage the aircraft with sharks swimming around it is inspired itself. While the landing isn't that convincing, it will do, but once the plane is on the ocean floor, it looks cool. The climactic undersea battle off the coast of Miami has been vastly underrated. At the time, this represented the biggest underwater battle in cinema history; indeed, the Bond producers would mimic it in outer space for "Moonraker." Despite the continuity problems in the underwater battle, Young and second unit director Peter Hunt have a blast; even the lobster trying to avoid the fighting is amusing. All the scenes with the sharks are neat. Bond's first two encounters with Largo at the casino and later on Largo's estate where they shoot skeet are first-rate. Young keeps the tone of the film rather serious and the one-liners and puns pay off beautifully. The briefing of the double-00s in London in that cavernous room with the huge wall map is very atmospheric. John Barry's music is tops, especially the underwater music.
“Thunderball” represented the high water mark for the James Bond franchise in the 1960s. By the time that “Thunderball” appeared, everybody else had jumped on the bandwagon to produce espionage thrillers. The parody “Casino Royale” with a host of top names came out in 1967 had nothing to do with the series of films that United Artists was producing and apparently it fooled the fans who thought it was a Sean Connery James Bond picture, which it wasn’t. “You Only Live Twice” followed “Thunderball,” but the box office receipts slackened up. The 007 producers blamed Columbia Pictures’ for releasing “Casino Royale” and believed that that terrible parody may have scared away moviegoers. As far as I am concerned, the Bond pictures did not reach the high water mark until “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (1969) where George Lazenby replaced Sean Connery.
Like the best 007 movies, "Thunderball" takes advantage of actual events and the main real life event was the loss of two atomic bombs in the early 1960s. Blofeld's number two man, Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), hatches a grand scheme to steal two Atomic bombs from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and use them to hold the world for ransom. Bond villains come in three types: those like Blofeld who are criminals and want to make the world powers pay, but they don't want to destroy the world. Those villains, like Stromberg and Drax in later Bond movies "The Spy Who Loved Me" and "Moonraker," who want to destroy the world and recreate civilization in their own image. Finally, there are the independent villains, like Franz Sanchez in "License to Kill," Mr. Big in "Live and Let Die," "Goldfinger," and Max Zorin in "A View to a Kill" who want to corner a market, but who have no designs of world domination. There is also a mention about the real life British train robbery that occurred in England before "Thunderball" was released. The actual train robbery netted the thieves £2.6 million. They committed the robbery on 8 August 1963 at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn near Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, England.
The "Thunderball" pre-credit sequence ranks one of the top five James Bond pre-credit sequences because it contains a surprise and a gimmick. James Bond and a French agent attend a funeral and the casket bears the initials JB, but the initials stand for Jacques Bouvard. Bond knew Bouvard as an assassin who had murdered two of his colleagues. He watches a veiled widow leave and climb into a limousine. She pulls the rear door shut without help from the chauffeur and the vehicle drives off. At a French château, the widow enters a large drawing room to find 007 awaiting her. He rises, expresses his condolences, and then decks the lady with a right cross that sends her flying across a table. "My dear, Colonel Bouvard," Bond informs the man in drag, "I don't think you should have opened that car door yourself." A brief but potent slugfest ensues until Bond chokes Bouvard to death with a fireplace poker. Bouvard's henchmen break down the door seconds before Bond exits. He straps on Bell Aero systems Rocket belt jet-pack and flies off to his Aston-Martin where the French agent is waiting. They shove the jetpack in the trunk. Bond activates the bulletproof shield from the trunk. Never mind that the jetpack and the retractable shield could occupy the same space, then unleashes to stream of water that knocks Bouvard's gun-toting henchmen down.
Bond gets himself into several tight spots in "Thunderball." At the Shrublands clinic, Colonel Lippe (Guy Doleman of "The Ipcress File") catches Bond on the exercise machine and cranks up the speed. Bond is harnessed to it and cannot stop the machine. Later, he exploits his advantage over the nurse and has sex with her to maintain his silence over the incident. Bond is trapped during a fight in a swimming pool with one of Largo's henchmen and Largo lets in the sharks while placing a shutter over the pool. Bond is nicked in the ankle during the Junkanoo parade, and later a Largo henchman almost spears him under Largo's yacht.
Adolf Celi makes a superb villain with his scimitar shaped snout, the black eye patch, and his razor sharp voice. He is despicable from start to finish, especially when he threatens to apply hot and cold torture to Domino with a burning cigarette and ice cubes. He feeds one of henchmen to the sharks when the man fails to deal with 007. Later, after the RAF Vulcan lands in the Bahamas, he refuses to cut the impostor pilot Angelo Palazzi (Paul Stassino of "Escape to Athena") free of the cockpit straps but slashes the man's air hose so that he drowns. Earlier, after the villains killed the real RAF pilot, Palazzi demanded more money because of the plastic surgery that he had to undergo to impersonate the pilot. Clearly, Palazzi's greed motivated Largo in part to kill him, but Largo is just enough of a dastard to have done it anyway to keep from paying Palazzi period.
They plan to crash land an RAF Vulcan at sea, retrieve the bombs, and camouflage the aircraft with sharks swimming around it is inspired itself. While the landing isn't that convincing, it will do, but once the plane is on the ocean floor, it looks cool. The climactic undersea battle off the coast of Miami has been vastly underrated. At the time, this represented the biggest underwater battle in cinema history; indeed, the Bond producers would mimic it in outer space for "Moonraker." Despite the continuity problems in the underwater battle, Young and second unit director Peter Hunt have a blast; even the lobster trying to avoid the fighting is amusing. All the scenes with the sharks are neat. Bond's first two encounters with Largo at the casino and later on Largo's estate where they shoot skeet are first-rate. Young keeps the tone of the film rather serious and the one-liners and puns pay off beautifully. The briefing of the double-00s in London in that cavernous room with the huge wall map is very atmospheric. John Barry's music is tops, especially the underwater music.
“Thunderball” represented the high water mark for the James Bond franchise in the 1960s. By the time that “Thunderball” appeared, everybody else had jumped on the bandwagon to produce espionage thrillers. The parody “Casino Royale” with a host of top names came out in 1967 had nothing to do with the series of films that United Artists was producing and apparently it fooled the fans who thought it was a Sean Connery James Bond picture, which it wasn’t. “You Only Live Twice” followed “Thunderball,” but the box office receipts slackened up. The 007 producers blamed Columbia Pictures’ for releasing “Casino Royale” and believed that that terrible parody may have scared away moviegoers. As far as I am concerned, the Bond pictures did not reach the high water mark until “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (1969) where George Lazenby replaced Sean Connery.
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