Ragnarok (2013)

Tags

Action, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Foreign, Thriller

(Today’s final NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo prompt was to write a translated poem, so I tried to write something homophonically similar to “The Half-Finished Heaven” by Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer. Doing that, I could have ended up with something as inscrutable as some of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ work, so instead I simply began each line of the poem below with the same letter as the original poem and chose a Scandinavian film to review.)

Mid-look was my life cut short,
Aghast at the proven report.
Goodbye to my daughter and son;
Dear father will never see port.

A brave man was I, no mistake.
Oh, Vikings would never forsake.
Vigor was rife in our bones,
Alas, till they littered the lake.

Veiled are we here in our sleep,
Veiled in the dangerous deep.
Still does our conqueror live,
Drowsing upon our corpse heap.

Valiant and foolish to tarry
Is he who finds our cemetery.
______________

MPAA rating: PG-13

Ragnarok may be the first Norwegian film I’ve seen, in a way the Norwegian equivalent of a late-summer blockbuster. Perhaps the closest thing I can compare it to is 2008’s Journey to the Center of the Earth with Brendan Fraser, loaded as both are with clichés and genuinely thrilling moments. Both films start out much the same; like Fraser’s volcanologist, archaeologist Sigurd Swenson (good Scandinavian name!) is desperate for funding, and when an enigmatic clue arises, he brings along his two kids Ragnhild and Brage and a couple colleagues on an ill-advised search for answers that doesn’t go as planned. In lieu of a Jules Verne novel as inspiration, Norse mythology stands in with the story of Ragnarok, a.k.a. the end of the world.

The expedition walks into danger when they raft across a remote, far-north lake to a central island where both Vikings and Russians once visited, never to leave again. It’s an effective build-up to what is ultimately a creature feature. The monster hidden below the surface and the foolish decisions of the humans will bring to mind films like Jaws, Eragon, and Jurassic Park III, but this Norwegian equivalent of those movies usually manages to make the material its own. A few set pieces involving a zip line and a bunker are edge-of-your-seat highs, and my VC was far more terrified than I at one prolonged suspense scene.

It may not be entirely original, but Ragnarok is an entertaining action adventure with some tense thrills that never become un-family friendly. The special effects are usually as good as most American productions, and the isolated Arctic scenery makes for a stunningly rich setting. I will be interested to see how Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok compares. For a first accessible foray into Norwegian cinema, I’d recommend Ragnarok, though don’t watch the English dub. Most dubs don’t bother me, but when children are screaming and some English voiceover dully says “Help me,” it kinda ruins the moment.

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2016 S. G. Liput

385 Followers and Counting

 

Still Alice (2014)

Tags

Drama

 

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a poem based on memories, so in honor of a film focusing on Alzheimer’s disease, I wrote it in three progressively uncertain parts.)

 

I remember the house where I grew,
The hibiscus bush out to the right of the yard,
The oak tree so eager its leaves to discard,
The carpet a cringe-worthy blue.
I remember it clearly in every regard,
And I miss the old house that I knew.
_____

I remember the house where I spent
My childhood, garnished with roses, I think,
Or was it hibiscus, a picturesque pink?
The maple tree I did resent.
I remember the rug was as purple as ink,
And that Mom wasn’t very content.
_____

I remember a house with a tree.
A bush was nearby, with some flowers that grew.
I now want to say that I gathered a few;
And something inside was ugly.
Whose home that house was, I wish that I knew,
But failing is my memory.
______________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

Based on a 2007 novel, Still Alice is one of those laudable films that give an actor or actress the perfect outlet to prove their worthiness of an Oscar, and in this case, Julianne Moore delivered. As successful linguistics professor Alice Howland, Moore takes an unexpected Alzheimer’s diagnosis from its distressing onset to its heartbreaking end. She has the support of her husband (Alec Baldwin) and grown children (Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parrish, and Kristen Stewart), but it’s a personal struggle that neither they nor anyone without Alzheimer’s can fully understand.

I don’t personally have any experience with Alzheimer’s (though some old age dementia) in my family, but watching the details of Alice’s everyday life provided further appreciation for her efforts to maintain her memory. She tries to keep her extensive vocabulary intact, but its loss is gradual and relentless. When she can’t remember how to navigate her own house or recognize someone she just met, both she and her family cannot help but grieve, even in a pained glance, at the decline of an accomplished woman, slipping away a day or a minute at a time. Despite an inspiring speech that triumphs despite her waning ability, by the end, her power over nothing is harrowingly pitiful.

Kristen Stewart as Alice’s free-spirited actress daughter shows she has stronger acting chops than Twilight and Snow White might indicate, but this is Moore’s film from start to finish. There is no doubt whatsoever why she won the Best Actress Academy Award and swept many similar awards. Even if it upheld the theory at the time that acting an illness was a sure way to an Oscar, Still Alice makes Alzheimer’s personal, in all its familial compassion and sorrow. It’s not a film I’d watch often, but it’s one in which everyone can find empathy.

Best line: (Alice, speaking to an Alzheimer’s conference) “And please do not think that I am suffering. I am not suffering. I am struggling. Struggling to be part of things, to stay connected to whom I was once. So, ‘live in the moment’ I tell myself. It’s really all I can do, live in the moment.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2016 S. G. Liput

385 Followers and Counting

 

Love Story (1970)

Tags

Drama, Romance

 

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a story told in reverse, so I chose a film that begins with its famously tragic end.)

 

No one expected a young wife to die.
The shock of injustice preceded the tears.
Her husband’s bereft
At the hole that she left
In their fleeting but passionate years.

No one expected, when they found success,
And scraping at pennies at last found reward.
Their happiness shone
At what they called their own
Before happiness fell on its sword.

No one expected, when poverty galled
And left them with little but love to sustain.
Their family fund
Had been purposely shunned
For unstable financial terrain.

No one expected, when vows were exchanged,
And hopes for the future loomed higher than fears.
Parental objections
Swayed not their affections,
Romantic and rash pioneers.

No one expected, when sweethearts were paired
In college, where many a romance is born.
They teased and poked fun
Till true love had begun
And devotion had discarded scorn.

No one expected a young wife would die
When she and her unlikely husband first met.
Yet if they had read
Of the heartaches ahead,
I know from love’s source
They’d have sailed the same course,
A course neither of them would regret.
___________________

MPAA rating: PG (probably should be PG-13 for the language)

Decades before John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars captured people’s hearts and minds with its intelligent but doomed romance, Love Story did the same thing for the children of the ‘70s, first as a book, then as a 1970 film. With two appealing leads in Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal and an Oscar-winning Francis Lai score that brings tears to my VC’s eyes, Love Story is considered one of the great romantic movies.

That distinction is accompanied by a reputation for sappiness, and somehow I expected to be more amused than moved by the melodrama. Love Story exceeded my expectations in that regard, thanks in large part to the sardonic banter between young Oliver Barrett IV (O’Neal) and Jenny Cavalleri (McGraw) as their initial love/hate relationship quickly drops the hate part. The chemistry is both obvious from the start and confirmed gradually until Oliver dismisses assumptions of a temporary affair and proposes marriage. Their bond is further proven by Oliver’s dismissal of his wealthy father’s objections, despite the loss of his financial support. Of course, living on love alone is nobly impractical, but watching the couple support each other just heightens the romance further.

And then she dies…. That’s not really a spoiler since the very first line and scene reveal it, but it still comes as a devastating tragedy after all that came before. The mawkish sentimentality that I was expecting is kept to a minimum, mainly during the pristine hospital scenes in which McGraw doesn’t look particularly ill and the most famous line: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” That quote is the main reason I expected silly schmaltz, since it’s both mystifying and utterly untrue. Having seen What’s Up, Doc? first, I always follow up that line with O’Neal’s comedic answer from 1972: “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Since I now know that Love Story is actually a good movie, I suppose the main question is how it compares with its spiritual successors like The Fault in Our Stars. In this case, I definitely side with Fault in Our Stars, mainly because of a key fault in Love Story. My VC saw it long before I did and has told me that her main sticking point was the modern, areligious beliefs of the characters; my complaint is the same. The stated lack of belief in God only illustrates atheistic emptiness since the closing scenes end with no comfort or hope. She dies; it’s depressing. The end. At least The Fault in Our Stars leaves open the possibility of God and heaven, thanks to the optimism of Augustus Waters, and though the ending is equally heartbreaking, the one who died has extended meaning into the life of the one left behind. Love Story is tragic, and that’s it. Perhaps the poorly received sequel Oliver’s Story was meant to compensate for this weakness. Despite said flaw, the bulk of Love Story still provides a perfect dose of chick flick romance that can make women sob and men perhaps discreetly wipe a tear away.

Best line: (Oliver) “You know, Jenny, you’re not that great looking.”   (Jenny) “I know. But can I help it if you think so?”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2016 S. G. Liput

384 Followers and Counting

 

Waterworld (1995)

Tags

Action, Drama, Sci-fi

 

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a poem with long lines, so I used twenty-syllable lines in this meditation on the ocean.)

 

Look to the north, to the south, to the east, to the west, and as far as you can;
Your whole field of view is a blending of blue with the sea and the sky in your sight.
At the end of the day, in first orange, then gray, they display for the sea-faring man
The blush that soon fades in the darkening shades as the two become one in the night.

Again, when the sun declares darkness is done and awakes from its sunken abode,
The sea and the sky heave a secretive sigh as the line that divides them is drawn.
The sailor can stare with a personal prayer as he plies the invisible road,
But all he will glean is duel aquamarine till the sundering stria is gone.

A seafarer seeks the foreseeable peaks that he hopes the horizon will yield,
And promise of land is as sharp a command as any ship captain could give.
Yet after he’s tasted the crowd and embraced the stability water can’t wield,
He’ll miss the blue pair and their distant affair where the loneliest mariners live.
____________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

After years of huge successes like The Untouchables, Field of Dreams, and Dances with Wolves, Kevin Costner delivered one of the most notable career-stalling bombs in Hollywood history, 1995’s over-budget Waterworld. Despite the jeering reviews at the time, Waterworld did break even in the end, but it has pretty much receded into the ranks of forgettable science fiction. This is a waterlogged shame because, regardless of its reputation as a flop, I enjoyed Waterworld. In fact, I watched it with the incredulous realization that “Hey, this is a great movie.” (Note that I say movie rather than film. It’s not what I would consider Oscar-worthy, but it’s darn good.)

Perhaps Waterworld didn’t take off simply because it was ahead of its time. It’s essentially Mad Max: Fury Road on water. An unrealistic cataclysm has covered the world in water rather than desert, forcing humans to adapt and settle in isolated communities or else join roving gangs of water-skiing thugs. A laconic wayfarer lacking a name (Costner) wanders this dystopia where seeds and dirt are rare commodities (as opposed to seeds and water) and is grudgingly forced to protect some fleeing females (Jeanne Tripplehorn and young Tina Majorino) in search of a fabled paradise, while being chased by the hammy head of a cult-like water gang (eyepatch-wearing Dennis Hopper). Like Fury Road, it takes a while for any of the characters to get some actual development, but the explosive action ably makes up for such faults. It even ends in similar Fury Road fashion, with an unlikely happy ending and a reluctant departure.

The themes and characterizations don’t quite have the nuance of Fury Road. There’s no female empowerment subtext or criticism of utilitarian societies, but when Deacon the villain stands high above a crowd of his followers with promises of survival, it’s hard not to see the resemblance. Waterworld does include a few mockable elements, such as making Costner’s mariner a mutant with gills, but they work with the story, and hey, Fury Road had some silly aspects too (“V8! V8! V8!”). The eccentric characters and expansive action were clearly influenced by the earlier Mad Max films, but the plot seemed to prefigure the latest installment.

It’s certainly not on par with his best films, but Kevin Costner didn’t deserve the mockery he received for Waterworld. From what I’ve read, it did take his ego down a peg, but I for one found it to be a fun and exhilarating boat ride with many set designs and effects worth praising, one particularly awesome boom, and more water than you can shake a lit flare at. I just don’t understand why Fury Road earned universal acclaim while Waterworld became the butt of jokes. Waterworld is proof that one shouldn’t always trust the critics.

Best line: (Deacon) “Let’s have an intelligent conversation here: I’ll talk, and you listen.”

 

Rank: List-Worthy

 

© 2016 S. G. Liput

384 Followers and Counting

 

Newsies (1992)

Tags

Disney, Drama, Family, Musical

 

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a call-and-response poem, with a repeated refrain or chorus. I applied such a refrain to a news crier like those in a certain musical.)

 

Read all about it: the latest taboos!
-I’ll buy a paper; I do love the news.

Read all about it: new victims accuse!
-I’ll buy a paper; I do love the news.

Read all about it: strike workers refuse!
-I’ll buy a paper; I do love the news.

Read all about it: new game with horseshoes!
-I’ll buy a paper; I do love the news.

Read all about it: the war was a ruse!
-I’ll buy a paper: I do love the news.

Read all about it: your favorite teams lose!
-I’ll buy a paper: I do love the news.

Read all about it: erased interviews!
-I’ll buy a paper: I do love the news.

Read all about it: a new witness sues!
-I’ll buy a paper: I do love the news.

Read all about it: a brave few refuse
To stand by and watch those in power abuse
Their privilege and threaten the rights and the views
Of people whose justice nobody pursues!
-. . . Where’s the Enquirer? I want real news.
___________________________

MPAA rating: PG

Despite all the bad reviews and Razzie nominations it garnered upon release, I watched Newsies expecting and hoping to like it, both because I enjoy musicals and because it was the directorial debut of Kenny Ortega, who helmed my beloved teenage High School Musical films. Unfortunately, Newsies did not live up to my hopes, but neither was it as awful as the 39% Rotten Tomatoes score indicates. It was trying to be a grand, heartwarming musical but didn’t succeed, and I can’t even put my finger on why.

Set in 1890s New York, Newsies fictionalizes the real-life story of the newsboys who began their own strike when Joseph Pulitzer (an overwrought Robert Duvall) increased the cost of the papers that provided their meager income. Leading the charge against Pulitzer is a very young Christian Bale as Jack “Cowboy” Kelly, whose Brooklyn accent covers up Bale’s British accent with panache. Accompanied by new friend David (David Moscow, the young Josh Baskin in Big) and a single ally from a rival newspaper (Bill Pullman), Kelly unites the newsies of New York while trying to stay ahead of the corrupt orphanage keeper (Lost alert for Kevin Tighe, who does play a good meanie).

Newsies is at its best when the limber cast are belting out Alan Menken’s songs and performing Ortega’s remarkable choreography. The opening anthem “Carrying the Banner” and the now semi-classic “King of New York” are the high points, but Bale also gets a solo in the wishful “Santa Fe,” and none of the songs are what I would call bad. Sadly, there’s not enough of them, and long stretches of unengaging drama in between the musical numbers made much of the film unfortunately boring. I could tell that both the writers and the young actors were trying to create something potentially classic, but the necessary level of interest just wasn’t there. Not to mention, the strike scenes included some of the aspects that bug me about unions, such as the persecution of “scabs” who can’t afford not to do their job.

While it might be considered a misfire for Disney, I do admire Newsies for being one of the few non-animated musicals to be entirely original without being based on an earlier Broadway play. In fact, more songs were added to a stage production in 2011, and it later became a hugely popular, Tony-winning Broadway musical. That musical has its roots in this film, so I believe everyone involved in it can still be proud. Newsies does have something of a cult following, and I wonder now whether I would enjoy it more if it had been a mainstay of my childhood. Plenty of people hate the High School Musical films, but my nostalgia helps me forgive whatever they criticize. Perhaps if I’d seen Newsies at a much younger age, I would have enjoyed it more.

Best line: (Crutchy, one of the boys) “It’s this brain of mine; it’s always makin’ mistakes. It’s got a mind of its own.”

 

Rank: Honorable Mention

 

© 2016 S. G. Liput

384 Followers and Counting

 

The Social Network (2010)

Tags

Drama, History

 

(Big thanks to NaPoWriMo.net for featuring my Austenland poem today! Today’s prompt, though, was to write a poem beginning with a line from another poem. I’ve actually had in mind to do that for this review for a while, so I incorporated a line from one of my favorite poems, Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life.”)

 

Lives of great men all remind us
Even they can act like jerks,
Even when they build a website
Quick to grow that really works.

Websites are a dime a dozen,
But when fame and wealth are earned,
Some regret their path because in
Burning bridges, all are burned.

When one’s social enterprising
Gains more enemies than friends,
Even great men ask while rising
If the means made worth the ends.
__________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

Despite all the awards and adulation and bloggers including it among their favorite movies, I honestly had little desire to see The Social Network and for one simple reason: I don’t use Facebook. I know that seems weird for a college guy in today’s hashtagging, selfie-loving world, but social networking has never been of interest to me; and while Mark Zuckerberg’s rise to millionaire is an American success story, I didn’t expect to be interested in a film about the creation of something I don’t use.

Leave it to Aaron Sorkin to prove me wrong. Some screenwriters just know how to write dialogue (Nora Ephron, for example), and then there are the few like Sorkin who write dialogue on steroids. His Oscar-winning screenplay probably boasts two or three times as many words as the typical Oscar nominee, and the consistently talented cast articulate it with the cadence of a machine gun, particularly Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg.

Eisenberg’s version of the college-age billionaire is obviously so smart that he never even has to think before responding, though he’d surely have more friends if he did think, since his responses usually come with enough caustic banter to make Will Hunting blush. His capabilities with website creation are quickly made clear after losing his girlfriend turns into a drunken blog rant and then a sophisticated, network-crashing girl comparison site. Approached by the Winklevoss twins (both played by Armie Hammer) and Divya Narendra (Max Minghella) to develop a dating site for Harvard, Zuckerberg instead teams with his friend Eduardo Saverin (surprisingly excellent Andrew Garfield) to create The Facebook, the concept and extent of which evolves swiftly into what so many people now check one hundred times a day. Unfortunately, as Zuckerberg expands and gains the dubious collaboration of Napster founder Sean Parker (also surprisingly excellent Justin Timberlake), Saverin gets left behind both technologically and financially, and both he and the Winklevosses file separate lawsuits against Zuckerberg. If placed at the end, these legal proceedings would have dragged the film down, so instead the depositions are expertly sprinkled among flashbacks.

Winning Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Score, and Best Film Editing, The Social Network boldly confirms the fact that nerds will inherit the earth, but even bolder is the fact that such a high-profile biopic was made about a 26-year-old (at the time) creator of a six-year-old website, which might have easily been a fading fad like Myspace. One might consider it an honor, but the film’s depiction of Zuckerberg could hardly be called flattering. While key, real-life events were used in the story, Zuckerberg himself has written much of the film off as fiction, which I find rather probable. He criticized the characters’ wild partying, for example, and I too believe that multi-billion-dollar corporations are most likely built on a bit more restraint and discipline, which aren’t as entertaining in a movie.

Despite the likely liberties taken by Sorkin, his treatment of Facebook itself is laudably balanced. On the one hand, he shows that it revolutionized how collegiate students and everyone else interact with one another. On the other, that very cultural revolution is sarcastically faulted for the shallow change in social life that has kept me away from Facebook in the first place. Likewise, the film’s Mark is a genius and a visionary deserving of praise, but a regrettable current of callousness often lurks beneath the admirable. While I have a better appreciation for it, I must admit that I won’t be joining Facebook any time soon.

Best line: (Zuckerberg) “I’m not a bad guy.”
(Marylin Delpy, a lawyer) “I know that. When there’s emotional testimony, I assume that 85% of it is exaggeration.”
(Zuckerberg) “And the other fifteen?”
(Delpy) “Perjury. Creation myths need a devil.”

 

Rank: List-Worthy

 

© 2016 S. G. Liput

384 Followers and Counting

 

Austenland (2013)

Tags

Comedy, Romance

 

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to combine highfalutin language with unpoetic words, so I reviewed a film that mixed 19^th-century and modern comedy.)

 

When life gets infelicitously boring or abhorrent,
One may become a little smitten
With the literature of Britain,
Perchance a smidgen more besotted than one’s misadventures warrant.

For those who hate ornate oration,
I’ll provide a rough translation:

When life goes down the toilet, some folks get more stupid and obsess
With either lunar landing theories
Or some British mini-series,
Forgetting that the times ahead of indoor plumbing were a mess.
__________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

I’m not much of a Jane Austen fan, but many are. There are fans and then there are fans on the level of those in Austenland, where people obsessed with Regency-era manners and Mr. Darcy can live out their corset-wearing, side-saddle-riding, man-in-need-of-a-wife dreams. Keri Russell plays starry-eyed Jane Hayes, whose apartment is decked out in Austen paraphernalia, including a life-size cardboard cutout of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in BBC’s 1995 Pride and Prejudice mini-series. (My mom and grandmother always had a soft spot for Firth because of that very role.) Being such a fan, she expends her limited resources to travel to her Jane Austen paradise, only to find it’s not quite as perfect as she had hoped.

Austenland has its strengths, but its weaknesses are much more noticeable. Jennifer Coolidge is dreadfully obnoxious as Jane’s fellow attendee Miss Charming, whose wealth compensates for her behavior and earns her far more attention than the lower-tier Jane. Likewise, Georgia King as the other visitor to Austenland is so effusively melodramatic that she seems to be acting more than the Austenland employees.

It is these employees that catch Jane’s eye since her Austenland experience is meant to end with “true love.” JJ Feild is the Mr. Darcy of the bunch, treating everything with equal disdain, while Bret McKenzie (Figwit from Return of the King, if you can believe it, and there’s a joke for that) is the handsome, down-to-earth handyman. Neither seems fully part of the theme park charade, and Jane can’t be entirely sure where the masquerade ends and “real” love begins.

Austenland is a mixed bag of a rom-com. Russell, the men, and Jane Seymour as Austenland’s snobbish owner are quite decent, but the other females range from amusing to annoying, especially when combined in an awkward “performance” toward the end. As inelegant as it gets at times, Russell and the ending are winsome enough to be worthwhile, and big Jane Austen fans, such as producer Stephanie Meyer, will probably enjoy the film’s Janeite appeal.

Best line: (Miss Charming, offering encouragement after Jane has been slighted) “Besides, you’ll feel totally different tomorrow. Think about all the people in the world that hang themselves. And then, the next day, they feel different, but there’s nothing they can do about it. Don’t hang yourself, Jane.”

 

Rank: Honorable Mention

 

© 2016 S. G. Liput

383 Followers and Counting

 

Time of Eve (2010)

Tags

Animation, Anime, Drama, Sci-fi

 

 

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a sonnet, which can be considered an essay in verse. Thus, I chose a Spenserian sonnet inspired by a fascinating film well worth an essay or two.)

 

As God made Man in image same as He,
For years mankind has tried the same rare feat,
Creating sculpture, doll, and effigy,
And now most recently the great conceit
Of making human service obsolete
With robots meant to wear a human guise.
Can such attempts end only in defeat?
If not, has playing God been ever wise?
As children, we may gaze deep in their eyes,
Intent on some faint flicker of a soul;
While lack of one should come as no surprise,
Perhaps it’s but too much under control.
Within and out, this can of worms we dread,
And yet progress proceeds full steam ahead.
__________________

MPAA rating: Not Rated (should be PG)

Time of Eve was a series of six fifteen-minute Japanese animations released online from 2008 into 2009, which were then combined with slight additions into a 2010 film. It also is one of the most thought-provoking entries in the robot genre and an exceptional example of speculative fiction, allowing its themes to play out in an advanced world that remains decidedly plausible.

As the opening sentences explain, “in the future, probably Japan” (which is undoubtedly Japan, based on all the signs and names), “’humanoid robots’ (androids) have come into common use.” Their uses range from office duties to making coffee, and they are often owned by a family and treated more like an appliance than a maid, with their passive expressions and a glowing holographic ring above their heads distinguishing them from their masters. After studying the memory logs of his houseroid Sammy, highschooler Rikuo notices a mysterious log labelled “Are you enjoying the Time of Eve?,” a repeated question with the same uncertain mystique as “Who is John Galt?” When Rikuo tracks down the location of the log with his friend Masaki, who protests too much that he doesn’t own a robot, they discover the titular café, where a sign prominently declares that no one may discriminate between humans and robots here.

Over the course of several days, the boys visit and get to know the regular patrons, all lacking the holographic ring, in this gray zone flouting governmental robot laws: the cordial barista Nagi, whose enforcement of the rule doesn’t really extend beyond annoyed warnings; outgoing Akiko; a pair of lovers Koji and Rina; the grandfatherly Shimei and young Chie; and discreet Setoro, who often just reads in the corner. As Rikuo gets to know these customers, analyzing their personalities and actions to see if they are machine or human, his own opinions are challenged. When robots begin acting on their own, can they really be considered nothing but tools? If they can be considered even close to being human, is not the constant prejudice shown them worth opposing? Rikuo is at first troubled and then intrigued by what the café represents, and knowing Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics about how robots must protect and obey humans, he explores how his robotic acquaintances manage to test their independence with humans and each other.

While most of the story has a straightforward focus on Rikuo, his explorations are clearly part of a bigger whole. The enigmatic Ethics Committee is a persistent presence with TV ads warning against the over-personalization of robots, and constant peer pressure from friends and the danger of being labeled a robo-freak often guilt people from even thinking to thank machines for their help. One of the creative choices that makes Time of Eve special is what it doesn’t explain. Key plot points are often hinted at early with merely a brief scene or still (which rewards repeat viewings), while clues about forces in the background supporting or resisting the Ethics Committee are left intentionally ambiguous. It’s the stuff of fan theories, but the filmmakers give just enough information that the uncertainty adds to rather than detracts from the story.

The narrative’s emotional involvement crept up on me with profound emotions hidden behind even a small smile, and the challenging of Rikuo’s views also challenged my own. While I personally don’t think that robots will progress to the point of sentience, the world is well on its way to trying. Just recently, Chinese scientists created a realistic-looking female robot named Jia Jia, prompting Ethics Committee-style headlines that included words like disturbing and creepy. If androids should ever reach the level of humanity seen in Time of Eve, I might even be open to considering them people, though the idea of a soul is a different debate. Still, there would be a line at which only truly human-like machines would earn my sympathy, yet Time of Eve challenges that too, suggesting that even primitive intelligences are worthy of pity or comfort. Even if real-life robotics never reaches that point (and I hope it doesn’t), the questions raised by this animated tale have remained with me.

Time of Eve: The Movie is not much different from the series, simply tying the episodes together, but small additions provide a little more clarity to the original’s ambiguity. It may not have the action and fantasy of other anime, but within its subdued tone and handsomely intimate animation, its provocative themes surpass many better-known titles. In fact, though I’ve already compiled my Top 12 Anime List, I think Time of Eve would now replace Princess Mononoke as my #12 favorite. In addition to the cogent sci-fi drama, I also liked the small touches of humor, some of it awkward, some of it genuinely funny, especially a great moment at the end that lightens up the most poignant scene. It even ends in my favorite Neverending Story-style fashion, suggesting further stories for another time and (at least in the series) adding a barely visible question mark to The End. There’s no shortage of robot movies, from Short Circuit to A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Bicentennial Man to Ex Machina, but Time of Eve ranks up there with the best.

Best line: (Official Ashimori, quoting another barely seen character) “Preconceptions distract from the truth.”

 

Rank: List-Worthy

 

© 2016 S. G. Liput

383 Followers and Counting

 

Everest (2015)

Tags

Disaster, Drama, History

 

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was inspired by Earth Day, which I incorporated as a mountain-shaped acrostic below.)

 

Everest:
As ladybugs climb,
Reaching toward the apex,
Toward the one place from which to fly,
Humans will strive for the summit, but do they know why?
Do we know why we cherish a challenge, perhaps our muscles to flex?
A conqueror’s motives are not so complex, and yet the worst danger or risk he expects is stoking his soul to the sky and arms him with courage to live or to die.
Your trials, O Nature, are hopelessly high, and yet mankind eagerly seeks to defy and, foolish or fearless, adventurers try and search for what you have next.
____________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

I haven’t seen many mountain-climbing movies, but the 1996 Everest disaster is such a fascinating example of human hubris gone wrong that it has warranted several books and films on the subject. My VC is well-versed on Jon Krakauer’s bestselling account Into Thin Air, and I somewhat remember the 1997 TV movie Into Thin Air: Death on Everest with Christopher McDonald. In light of more recent deadly incidents, like last year’s avalanche caused by the Nepal earthquake, the 1996 events seemed like a timely tragedy worth giving the big-screen, star-studded Hollywood treatment, and this is one example of the Hollywood treatment doing it right.

One of the shortcomings of the Into Thin Air movie and one of the causes of the deaths in the first place was the sheer number of climbers involved. The original film had so many characters whose faces were usually covered by necessary goggles or masks that I had trouble telling them apart. Everest fixes that problem by sacrificing some realism; I was much better able to distinguish between actors, but that was because they kept illogically removing their masks. My VC pointed out that impracticality, and considering the extreme cold endured by everyone, it became more noticeable yet still forgivable from a movie standpoint.

The presence of many famous actors didn’t detract the overall believability at all, from rising stars like Jason Clarke as expedition founder Rob Hall to better-known A-list actors like Jake Gyllenhaal as second team leader Scott Fischer or Keira Knightley as Hall’s pregnant wife, who gets the most emotional scenes. As for the climbers, we get to know the most important with some well-paced calm-before-the-storm introductions: Josh Brolin’s adventurous family man Beck Weathers; John Hawkes (Lost alert!) as desperate-to-summit Doug Hansen; Naoko Mori as Yasuko Namba, who has only Everest to complete her climbs of all Seven Summits; and a host of other amateurs and professionals (Sam Worthington, Martin Henderson). While the introductions aren’t thorough, it’s fair to say that everyone is worth liking and rooting for, and my ignorance of who survived and who didn’t made the eventual tragedy all the more potent.

In addition to the talented ensemble (who filmed on location only as high as base camp), the vision of Everest itself is immense and thrilling, with cinematography that easily could have earned an Oscar nomination. Sadly, disaster movies are no longer the award magnets of Irwin Allen’s day, and save for a lone SAG and Saturn award, Everest has been mostly snubbed. Even without the physical accolades, Everest deserves the positive reviews it has earned, and I rather wish I’d been able to experience it on the big screen. It is a sad story open to miracles that reminds us just how dangerous a sleeping giant can be.

Best line: (Doug Hansen) “I’m climbing Mount Everest… because I can… because to be able to climb that high and see that kind of beauty that nobody ever sees, it’d be a crime not to.”

 

Rank: List-Worthy

 

© 2016 S. G. Liput

383 Followers and Counting

 

The Raven (1963)

Tags

Comedy, Fantasy, Horror

 

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write in the voice of a minor entity in some myth or fairy tale. It’s not exactly a myth, but I chose the bust of Pallas, a.k.a. Athena, in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” and took the message in a different direction. It may not have much bearing on the film, but it let me experiment with one of my favorite classic meters.)

 

As I waited, stern and stonely, with my master, looking lonely,
Watching as he excavated stacks of books he rarely read,
Never had I seen him sadder since he placed me with a ladder
Up above his chamber door, a bust of Pallas’ pious head.

Since his lover had descended down where all Earth’s tales are ended,
He had dwelt in constant sorrow for his loveliest Lenore.
Being just a statue modest of a lesser-known Greek goddess,
I could offer little comfort perched above his chamber door.
Rather poor was our rapport.

Feeling life was but a blooper, there he sat within his stupor,
Only moaning now and then to prove he wasn’t lifeless yet.
Suddenly, a sound’s ascension, almost too minute to mention,
Brought both his and my attention to the latest cause to fret.

First, the door decreed a knocking, as if someone there were stalking,
But he only found a shocking emptiness no guest would fill.
Then again we heard the slightest tap, and Master, not the brightest,
Opened up the window widest to investigate the sill,
Letting in more than a chill.

From the darkness of the window (I would not have let him in, though)
Flew a fateful sable raven, harbinger of darkest dread,
And my master, undecided if this bird by fate was guided,
Let the impudent intruder perch upon my marble head.

Though he was a learned scholar, he did not have many callers,
And this visitor perhaps had made him giddier than before.
Thus, he started conversation with this bird in desperation,
And to Master’s consternation, it replied with “Nevermore,”
Just the one word “Nevermore.”

This shock made him rather edgy, and as if he took a pledge, he
Started questioning the raven, asking it about Lenore.
The same response it kept dispatching, while my forehead it kept scratching,
And the Master grew more vexed with each retort of “Nevermore.”
That’s not easy to ignore.

When he even started yelling at the raven so compelling,
I considered maybe telling Master he should not accost it.
How I coveted to curb him, but I wished not to disturb him.
Hearing bird and statue speak, he’d surely think that he had lost it.

When he’d tried his guest to banish and it did not seem to vanish,
Master seemed to then accept its pilfered place above his door,
But the levelheaded raven, solid in its stolen haven,
Then proceeded to reproach in words exceeding “Nevermore.”
This is what the raven swore:

“Forces far beyond my ken have bid me speak like mortal men
In enigmatic utterances open to interpretation,
But the sight of your rebelling from my simple fortune-telling,
Even here within your dwelling, makes me sure of your stagnation.

Here I see a wealthy scholar wallowing in inner squalor,
With his grief a clenching collar, all because of lost Lenore.
In this bitterness you’re tasting, you are palely, daily wasting
Life and love and all the blessings thou art foolish to ignore.
Once they’re gone, they’re nevermore.”

Well impressed at this debating raven once so irritating,
I was now anticipating how my master would reply.
Slowly, he arose from sitting, set his jaw to keep from spitting,
And with venom not unwitting bade the raven quickly fly.

“If I wish to sit in mourning, keep your useless words of warning.
Even your persistent perching, I will manage to ignore.”
Still, I rest here, sick and saddened at my seeing Master maddened;
Still he sits, more scared of life than of the Raven’s “Nevermore.”
Closed below me is the door.
__________________

MPAA rating: G

Not to be confused with the 2012 thriller of the same name, this film version of The Raven is actually a 1963 B movie, one of director Roger Corman’s eight adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe works. It starts off in familiar territory, with Vincent Price as Dr. Craven, the unnamed griever of the poem who in this version is a reclusive magician. In contrast to his famous villainous roles, Price is a kind and unassuming figure, not nearly as obsessive as the character in Poe’s poem or mine, and when the titular raven enters his chamber, he earnestly asks if he shall ever see his lost Lenore again. The raven replies, in Peter Lorre’s voice, “How the hell should I know?” before explaining that he is a cursed sorcerer in need of a potion to turn him back into a human. What follows is a rather amusing and fun fantasy, with a quest to stop the evil magician Dr. Scarabus (Boris Karloff).

Price, Karloff, and particularly the easily irascible Lorre are all game players in a film that any of them might have considered beneath them. Accompanied by a jaw-droppingly young Jack Nicholson, the three magicians partake in a twisty game of cat-and-mouse and wizard duels to see who comes out on top. Interspersed with the B movie melodrama and macabre moments are clever little scenes of comedy, such as the characters removing and carefully folding a coffin cover only to toss it on the ground over their shoulder. The Raven departs widely from its source material and can hardly be called fine cinema, but it’s an unscary, good-natured horror-comedy on the level of the original Scooby-Doo, with a surprisingly worthwhile moral.

Best line: (Dr. Craven) “Instead of facing life, I turned my back on it. I know now why my father resisted Dr. Scarabus. Because he knew that one cannot fight evil by hiding from it. Men like Scarabus thrive on the apathy of others. He thrived on mine, and that offends me. By avoiding contact with the Brotherhood, I’ve given him freedom to commit his atrocities, unopposed.”

 

Rank: Honorable Mention

 

© 2016 S. G. Liput

383 Followers and Counting