Flight

Flight is a movie about an alcoholic's journey to rock bottom. I'm fortunate, in that my family doesn't have a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. Consequently, I haven't been exposed to the disease in a personal way. I'm not qualified to speak to the film's realism, or lack thereof, in its depiction of the affliction.

I am, however, a professional airline pilot. While I don't go to the movies looking to nitpick, I feared that I wouldn't be able to help doing so while watching this film's depiction of my job. Well, the people behind Flight did their homework. The movie has the “getting to know you” chitchat of a couple of pilots flying together for the first time. It gets little things like radio calls right. Once the mishap that propels the film's story gets underway, the plane behaves in mechanically and physically appropriate ways. The plane reacts to pilot inputs as one would expect. Even the instrument panels look right.

The film gets other parts of my job right: it films in hotels many airline pilots would recognize. It has union reps and lawyers and NTSB people doing all the things I've been trained to expect them to do in the wake of a mishap. Its protagonist occupies an economic rung that's about right for someone in his position. In other words, the Flight crew expends an enormous amount of effort on accurately portraying my world.
That effort pays off because it helps me suspend my disbelief in the face of its story-critical whopper: that a professional airline pilot could function as a hard core, career alcoholic and drug abuser without (a) it affecting his stick & rudder skills, and (b) not having anyone on his flight crew call him on it. I'm here to tell you: if I were ever to fly with the senior line check airman at my airline and smell alcohol on him when he climbs into the cockpit, I would not go flying with that person on that day. In fact, my union has given me specific, scenario-based training on what to do; and that training makes sense to me. I've been in this game for a few years now, and I have yet to have to use that training. But I would not hesitate to do so, because it's my life and the lives of everyone in that plane on the line if I don't.

Ok, I'm sure all this inside baseball stuff fascinates you, but what you really want to know is whether Flight is a good movie. It is, for a couple of reasons. First, Robert Zemeckis knows how to direct a film. The initial mishap sequence is a masterpiece, the film keeps up a steady and brisk pace, and the musical cues aren't overdone. Second, Denzel Washington knows how to carry a film. His performance feels note-perfect, taking us through his descent while keeping us on his side, and even managing to make us complicit in some of his questionable choices.

All my buddies at work have seen Flight, except for those who just can't accept the movie's premise. Everyone agrees that it's technically extraordinary. I think you'll agree that it's also a fine, fine movie.

Star Trek

STAR TREK does all the things a good summer action movie should do. It has pathos. It has jokes. It has sex. It blows lots of stuff up real good. It's also a surprisingly good picture, one made to entertain the general public while throwing plenty of bones to the trekkies in the audience.

Here's the deal: the charismatic and dangerous Eric Bana (Really, you should see CHOPPER) plays an angry guy out for revenge through multi-planetary genocide. BOTTLE SHOCK's terrific Chris Pine is li'l Captain James T. Kirk, the only cat in the Federation bad enough to take him on. Joining li'l Kirk is li'l Spock, li'l McCoy, and the rest of the gang. They crack jokes. They have conflict. They blow stuff up. Li'l Spock gives li'l Kirk one of those manly nods of the head saying, "I guess you're ok, after all." Most importantly, Leonard Nimoy shows up as Big Spock, and there is no such thing as a film that is worse off for the presence of one Leonard Nimoy.

The thing about "Star Trek" that the post - original series showrunners never got was that nobody cares about make believe diplomacy among imaginary alien races. Nobody cares about heavy handed, though well meaning, depictions of of the Marxist utopia of the future. People care about the friendship of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. That's the dynamic that has always made Star Trek worth watching, and J.J. Abrams gets it. STAR TREK may spend lots of time on space battles and angry villains, but it's really about that friendship, about sharing in the feeling that there are people around you who've got your back. It's a good feeling, and it's a good way to spend a couple of hours at the movies.

Below

It's WWII. We're aboard an American submarine on patrol in the North Atlantic. Bruce Greenwood is the skipper. So far, so good.

The sub picks up three survivors of a sunken hospital ship and, before you know it, things get bad. So does the movie.

BELOW, you see, is a "ghosts on a sub" movie. It's a terrific premise, one that promises a combination of claustrophobia and creeping horror. Unfortunately, the film is happy to settle for jump scares, sound effects, and confusion. Greenwood lazily channels Sam Neill in EVENT HORIZON, and the rest of the cast can't even keep up with that.

What a disappointment.

Capote

Hi gang,

The blog has been running in fits and starts lately. I'm too busy to see many films, much less write about them, but hang in there: I expect to have more time for film in the next few weeks. For now, here are some thoughts on CAPOTE.

The more I think about CAPOTE, the less I like it.

The film utterly absorbed me as it unspooled, but in retrospect it
seems like a fabulous confection. It looks great and it tastes
wonderful on first bite, but once I start chewing, there's nothing
there. So Capote is just like Perry. I get it. What else have you
got?

The World's Fastest Indian

In THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN, Anthony Hopkins plays an eccentric Kiwi engineering genius. He lives in a shack and tinkers with his motorcycle, and he eventually decides to head to the U.S., where he plans to take his bike the Bonneville Salt Flats for the speed trials. Once in the U.S., he meets a variety of colorful and harmless characters, makes some friends, sets some records, and generally has a delightful time.

And that's the problem with THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN: it's basically a movie about a nice fellow having a delightful time. There's no real conflict (at least nothing that can't be cleared up in no time), no real character development, no real anything. Now, I like Anthony Hopkins, but not enough to justify a whole movie without a compelling dramatic throughline.

What a disappointment.

Deja Vu

I liked DEJA VU well enough, but I never lost track of time and I never got swept away.

DEJA VU should be the kind of movie that I go for: a thriller with a science fiction twist. It has a clever script, a likeable cast, and a healthy respect for the laws physics (not that it lets those laws get in the way of the story, but it does at least tip its hat to them). It's script is of the type whose scientific genius, when calling for more power for his time-travel gizmo, shouts, "I'm gonna need more cowbell!" It stars the reliable Denzel Washington, who really needs to do a romantic comedy for a change, and noted time travelling veteran Jim Caviezel makes a fine, if rather one-dimensional, foil. Its understanding of the physical universe struck me as plausible, which is rare for a time-travel movie, but there's something about it ...

I never really bought Washington as an ATF agent with an expertise in explosives. I was ready to, but then the film uses him as the audience surrogate for the exposition about time-warping device. By forcing him to ask dumb questions and come off as anti-intellectual, the film makes him dumber than he could be and still do his job. Additionally, I never felt for the distressed damsel, a woman whose sole character trait appears to be that she looks good in underwear. Finally, the movie itself jumped and danced and exploded so much that it kept reminding me that it was a movie and not a portal into its particular sliver of space-time.

My God: what's happening to me? I'm digging movies about the Queen of England's bad week more than movies about stuff blowing up. Before I know it, I'll start listening to soft rock.

Eight Below

I went into EIGHT BELOW with low expectations. It was a Heroic Dog movie, after all, and those generally run from kitschy to depressing. Additionally, I thought that Bruce Greenwood played a villain. I like Bruce Greenwood; I didn’t want to see him play a villain.

What a pleasant surprise. While EIGHT BELOW begins slowly, it quickly picks up steam and keeps us involved in the adventure right through to the end. Here’s the short version: scientists must leave a team of sled dogs behind when they evacuate their Antarctic research station in the face of a coming storm. The movie, which is loosely based on a true story, chronicles the team’s struggle to survive and their human master’s struggle to mount an expedition to save them.

Paul Walker plays the master, and he builds on his fine work in RUNNING SCARED to deliver a character whom we accept as an Antarctic dogsledder and audience surrogate in our concern for the dogs. The dogs are heroic, of course, and though they do engage in behavior that runs counter to my understanding of sled-dog dynamics (As a former malamute owner, I have a passing interest in the subject.), they manage to hold our sympathy and win our respect.

Frank Marshall made EIGHT BELOW in Canada, but the film looks like he shot it in Antarctica. It’s stark, forbidding, and beautiful, and I can’t wait to see this thing in high definition.

Ultimately, I liked everything about EIGHT BELOW. And Bruce Greenwood doesn’t play a villain, after all.

Ararat

With ARARAT, Atom Egoyan applies his considerable skills to the Armenian Genocide, an issue that's clearly of profound importance to him. He weaves together multiple storylines and timelines (a technique that seemed revolutionary with his first film and now feels pedestrian) to generate dramatic tension while he builds a two-hour long testament to a war crime committed long ago and far away.

It's an artfully made film, and I cared for its characters, many of whom are longstanding members of Agoyan's repertory company. But here's the problem, articulated by Elias Koteas (he plays an actor who lands the role of Jevdet Bey, a major player in the genocide) in conversation with a young man of Armenian descent:

Koteas: Look, I was born here. So were you, right?
Young man: Yeah.
Koteas: This is a new country. So let's just drop the f^cking history
and get on with it.

The young man feels the pain of the genocide like it happened yesterday. He carries that pain like Serbs carry the pain of their defeat at the Field of Blackbirds in 1389, transmuting into a kind of impotent rage. In fact, most of the ethnically Armenian characters in the film carry that rage, and I can't help but think that that rage is precisely the kind of thing that keeps cultures locked in cycles of retribution.

How much better a place might the world be if we could just drop the f^cking history and get on with it?