Henry V (1989)

Tags

Drama, History, War

It seems the English language is intent on, over time,
Discarding excess letters, which are just an uphill climb.
In Milton’s and in Shakespeare’s era, words were often longer,
So literarians believe their eloquence was stronger.
Yet, slowly we have shed the eths and ests that ended verbs
And kicked the gifts of diction to their metaphoric curbs.
Not “dost” but “do,” not “thou” but “you,” not “wherefore,” no, but “why,”
And going back in time to read can make you want to die.

Yet, even now the language still is mutating in place,
With idioms and acronyms it can’t help but embrace.
The letter-shedding carries on with “YOLO”, “app,” and “ref”
And “LOL, JK, IDK WTF.”
Abbreviations have their place; archaic words as well;
For me, too much of either one is glossolalic hell.
So savor language while you can, for generations hence
May not know what the heck we’re saying when it’s in past tense.
________________________

MPA rating: PG-13 (for battlefield violence)

Since it’s been hard fitting this blog into my busy schedule of work and college, I’ve decided to try to shorten my reviews so I don’t end up posting only twice a month. Let’s start the compressed reviews with Shakespeare, shall we? I am not a fan of William Shakespeare. I’ve read Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and a few sonnets, and that’s quite enough for me. Even so, I feel I need to be familiar with his work, if only to be prepared for when I some day get on Jeopardy. So surely watching Henry V is better than reading it, right? I think so, at least, especially when brought to life by the accomplished Kenneth Branagh, who both directed this 1989 epic and played the title character.

Knowing nothing of the original play, I was intrigued by the framing device of a one-man Chorus (Derek Jacobi) providing an introduction and occasional commentary throughout. Branagh is intense and committed as the young King Henry, who sets out on a supposedly justified war to claim kingship of France, and he delivers the big speeches with enough stirring authority that you can believe the patriotism he inspires in his men. I recognize that Shakespeare’s poetry-flecked prose is eloquence epitomized, but the simple fact is that it was a constant effort to understand what was being said, which would have been even harder without captions. The action on-screen made it clearer at least, so perhaps it would be easier to read the play now that I know what happens. Plus, the presence of seasoned thespians elevated the production even more, such as Brian Blessed, Ian Holm, Paul Scofield, and even early roles for Christian Bale and Emma Thompson (who married Branagh the same year).

Henry V might well be one of the finest faithful Shakespeare adaptations; I just haven’t seen many others to give it due comparison. Branagh’s treatment, though, is certainly praiseworthy, and one climactic tracking shot after the Battle of Agincourt was awe-inspiring to behold. You can’t do that on any stage, after all. With its nearly three-hour runtime, I was tempted to give up, but I typically try to finish any movie I start, and I’m glad I did. (Still not a Shakespeare fan, though.)

Best line: (Henry, addressing the troops) “And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by from this day until the ending of the world but we in it shall be remembered. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother. Be he ne’er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition, and gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves acursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whilst any speaks, that fought with us upon St. Crispin’s day!”

 

Rank: Honorable Mention

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
697 Followers and Counting

Knives Out (2019)

Tags

Drama, Mystery, Thriller

I don’t quite believe that the truth is subjective,
A trite protocol
That changes and varies
‘Twixt contemporaries,
From person to person.
Such thoughts only worsen
The idea that truth isn’t out there at all.

No, no, there is truth, even-handed, objective,
But often concealed
In worry and caring,
Fake news and red herring.
It leads us on chases
To unpleasant places.
The few who keep up get to see it revealed.
__________________________

MPA rating: PG-13 (a bit heavy on language, as much as they could fit in while retaining its rating)

I still have Blindspots to catch up on, but it seemed past time to watch a movie that I’ve been wanting to see since it came out last year (until a certain virus kept me from the second-run theater I was planning to visit). The murder mystery genre has fallen by the wayside in recent years, but if any film can revitalize it, Rian Johnson’s Knives Out is the one to do it. Being a fan of Johnson’s contentious The Last Jedi, I was eager to see what he’d do next, and Knives Out did not disappoint.

Named after the Radiohead song of the same name, the film doesn’t waste time getting to the murder, as the first scene involves the morning discovery of mystery writer Harlan Thrombey’s body (Christopher Plummer) after he apparently cut his throat in his study sometime during the night. Like so many other classic mysteries, the large ensemble cast is full of splashy characters, most of whom have a potential motive for the Thrombey patriarch’s death. At first, there doesn’t seem to be a main character as detectives (Lakeith Stanfield, Noah Segan) interview Harlan’s discordant family: his arrogant daughter (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her husband (Don Johnson), his insecure son (Michael Shannon), and his self-absorbed daughter-in-law (Toni Collette), among others. Gradually, though, famed Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, handily covering his British accent with a Southern drawl) takes the stage, as does Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), Harlan’s personal nurse who physically cannot tell a lie.

Replete with flashbacks to the night of Thrombey’s death, Knives Out is artfully organized to show only what Rian Johnson wants to show, which is often more than you’d expect. In fact, the story seems to show its cards much earlier than you’d expect from a film over two hours long, seeming to go from a mystery to a cover-up, but it still has plenty of twists to trigger second-guessing and culminates in true murder mystery form with some climactic revelations. And through it all, the story’s convolutions and colorful characters played by actors in peak form (including Chris Evans) make for prime entertainment.

Craig is likably hammy as his Benoit Blanc doesn’t always seem as self-aware as a master sleuth should, though he proves his deductive abilities by the end; and Ana de Armas is a special stand-out in what is likely a star-making role, considering she was singled out for a Golden Globe nomination, as was Craig. Considering the overwhelmingly positive reception Knives Out has received, including being named one of AFI’s Top Ten Films of the Year, I’m actually a bit surprised it didn’t get more attention at the Oscars beyond a Best Original Screenplay nod; with all the flashbacks in the Thrombey mansion, I would think it deserved some attention for editing or production design.

The murder mystery genre has been so oversaturated over the years, from cozy Hallmark mysteries to decades of primetime series, that it’s a noteworthy exception when one can warrant this kind of all-star cast and big-screen appeal, subverting and embracing clichés in equal measure. Boasting a sly political subtext that paints both sides negatively and lauding compassion over selfishness, Knives Out proves that, in the right hands, any genre can be resurrected. Rian Johnson hit gold here, and I can’t wait to see if he can hit it again with the inevitable sequels to which Benoit Blanc lends himself.

Best line: (Blanc) “The complexity and the gray lie not in the truth but what you do with the truth once you have it.”

 

Ranking: List-Worthy

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
695 Followers and Counting

2020 Blindspot Pick #3: Annie Hall (1977)

Tags

Comedy, Drama, Romance

Love is hard to pin down –
What it is, where it’s from,
Why it makes you a clown
Or remarkably dumb,
Why it strokes you one minute with gentle caress
And pounds you the next with a cold callousness,
Why it fills you with joy at a memory made
That turns bittersweet as the joyful times fade,
Why it brings you to tears
At the thought of a laugh,
Why the grain is so worth
The abundance of chaff.
No, I can’t explain it, doubt anyone could.
You’ll know when you feel it, the bad and the good.
________________________

MPA rating: PG (should be PG-13 nowadays)

Have you ever watched a movie that you can appreciate for everything it does well but still just not connect with it? That was my reaction to Annie Hall. This Best Picture-winning rom com is among Woody Allen’s most iconic films, and I can see why. From innovative storytelling to an insightful script, it deserved acclaim, but I can only offer it so much.

Allen himself plays Alvy Singer, a neurotic Jewish comedian, who after a couple failed marriages, falls for the offbeat beauty Annie Hall (Diane Keaton), with whom he shares a rollercoaster of a romance. The longer I watched Annie Hall, the more a thought continued to grow in my mind: “This is just like (500) Days of Summer!” Sure, Alvy has little in common with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character in that much later film, but there were so many parallels: the non-linear storyline, the quirky girlfriend, the occasional use of split-screen, the digressions with unconventional styles (an animated sidebar here vs the musical number in the other), the ultimate depression as a once happy romance peters out. The 2009 film is practically a remake, though not exactly, sort of how I felt about the plot similarities between Hidden and A Quiet Place.

Annie Hall has so many creative choices that just feel unique and revolutionary even, such as Alvy repeatedly breaking the fourth wall, the visual representation of how a lover feels distant, characters’ inner thoughts being shown as subtitles to contrast with what they’re saying, or his discussions with random people on the street as if they were parts of his subconscious. And then there were the plethora of cameos, from Paul Simon and Carol Kane in larger roles to Christopher Walken used for a one-off gag, not to mention certain stars who had yet to become famous, like Jeff Goldblum, John Glover, and Sigourney Weaver.

And yet, for all those strengths that I enjoyed, I was left feeling oddly cold. For the film being considered the 4^th greatest comedy by AFI, I recall a chuckle here and there but no big laughs; it was full of lines where I didn’t laugh but instead thought, “That’s humorous,” which doesn’t seem like what a comedy should do. Perhaps it was the presence of Woody Allen himself. His overly neurotic Alvy, obsessed with death and Jewish discrimination, is quite a character, but I couldn’t stand to be around someone like him in real life. Plus, there’s the mental baggage of the real-life Allen and the scandalous allegations surrounding him. My VC says he makes her skin crawl and didn’t enjoy the film because of him; the only film with him she rather liked was The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, in which he’s constantly disparaged.

So, I guess I can count Annie Hall with so many other classics that just didn’t quite live up to expectations, right alongside the likes of The Third Man and The Philadelphia Story. I can appreciate it for its groundbreaking eccentricities, but when I consider that it won Best Picture over Star Wars, I just have to shake my head. Considering all the things I liked in Annie Hall, I just thought I would like the whole package more.

Best line: (Alvy Singer’s Therapist) “How often do you sleep together?”
(Annie Hall’s Therapist) “Do you have sex often?”
(Alvy, lamenting) “Hardly ever. Maybe three times a week.”
(Annie, annoyed) “Constantly. I’d say three times a week.”

 

Rank: Honorable Mention

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
692 Followers and Counting

 

2020 Blindspot Pick #2: Double Indemnity (1944)

Tags

Classics, Drama, Romance, Thriller

A murderer for money never thinks that he or she
Will be found out like all the rest who murdered foolishly.
“Those others never thought it through; they never planned it out;
They just weren’t careful to remove the slightest shred of doubt.
They acted on an impulse, failed to hide the fatal flaw,
But we would know exactly how to circumvent the law.
We’re smarter, right? More clever, right? When one of us commits,
No justice could contend in this, the coldest war of wits.”

Deep down within the killer’s mind, unconsciously or not,
They soothe themselves with thoughts like these to justify their plot.
And always they delude themselves, for justice, soon or late,
Will find out every criminal and lead them to their fate.
________________________

Rating: Passed/Approved (an easy PG)

Darn, I did not expect to post only one review in the whole month of May, but college is as college does. Nevertheless, I’m back to continue my long-delayed Blindspot series. (Now I’m only four behind this year!) I’ve heard of Double Indemnity for years, noticing its high placement on lists by AFI and other film organizations, yet I never really knew what the name even meant, not being versed in insurance terminology. As it turns out, I’ve seen versions of this plot plenty of times on true crime shows, but this influential film noir treatment brought it to a national audience way back in 1944.

Based on a James M. Cain novella, the script for Double Indemnity was the result of a tenuous collaboration between director Billy Wilder and famed detective novelist Raymond Chandler. As such, it utilizes a clever tool for narration; right from the beginning, insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred McMurray) admits into a dictaphone his role in the death of a man named Dietrichson, beginning an extended flashback of his plot. After meeting the man’s alluring wife Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), Neff allows her to talk him into a murder conspiracy to get rid of her distant husband and collect on some ill-gotten life insurance, with Neff using his insurance experience to sweeten the pot with a double indemnity clause (which doubles the payment in the case of certain unlikely causes of death, such as a train accident). Yet, their “perfect crime” slowly unravels as Neff’s boss (Edward G. Robinson) becomes more and more suspicious during the investigation.

I haven’t seen many films of the film noir genre, but Double Indemnity certainly fits the bill with its shadowy angles and conspiratorial tension and indeed predates the widespread use of the term by a couple years. Plus, Barbara Stanwyck is a quintessential femme fatale figure, manipulating McMurray’s everyman character into taking charge of the plot she initiates. The film was apparently controversial for its portrayal of murder, which is tame by today’s standards, but the characters’ growing anxiety after the deed is done translates well to the audience. As Neff is forced to “assist” Robinson’s skeptical insurance man in following a trail that leads back to him, I happened to think of other similar plots that must have taken some inspiration from this one, such as 1987’s No Way Out.

Double Indemnity is a Grade-A film noir, but I can’t say it’s a new favorite since film noir is far from my favorite genre. Neff and Stanwyck do a fine job as the conspirators, but their cynically flowery dialogue, sometimes clever, is also sometimes a bit much, carrying on metaphors in ways people just don’t talk, though that’s mainly at the beginning. Robinson, though, is in top form here, stealing his scenes with a vocal panache that can’t be taught. I don’t always have to love a film to recognize it as a classic, and Double Indemnity is, another cinematic testament to the lesson “crime does not pay.”

Best line: (Neff) “Do I laugh now, or wait till it gets funny?”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
689 Followers and Counting

Harriet (2019)

Tags

Drama, History

Harriet, oh Harriet,
What daring feats you managed!
Your life was like a chariot
To bear the disadvantaged.

You fled the yoke of slavery
To Northern sanctuary,
And yet displayed your bravery
By seeking more to carry.

You earned the trade name “Moses” and
Freed slaves without the pleading.
You knew what God opposes and
Agreed to do the leading.

Harriet, oh Harriet,
What lives you liberated!
The weight, you knew to carry it,
And free whom God created.
_____________________

MPA rating: PG-13

My apologies for the long delay. After getting through NaPoWriMo, I didn’t anticipate taking a two-week break, but school, work, and adopting a new cat kept me busy. Anyway, it’s time to get back into movie mode, starting with a wonderful biopic from last year. The story of famed abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman has been long overdue for the big-screen treatment, and Harriet does her tale justice.

Making a name for herself on the stage, including the Broadway production of The Color Purple, Cynthia Erivo may only have three films to her name, but this (her third) is undoubtedly a star-making role. The film follows Harriet’s life from her time as a Maryland slave named Minty, captive to the Ross family, to her daring escape northward to her repeated journeys back to help other fugitive slaves reach freedom. Harriet’s indomitable courage and faith in God carried her through heartache and danger, and although she suffers from fainting spells, they turn out to be visions from God. She manages both the ferocity of the big moments, like a face-off with her former master (Joe Alwyn), and the sensitivity of small ones, as when she hops over the Pennsylvania border into sunlit freedom.

Harriet is notable for me because, for the first time, I actually know someone who was an extra in it, and I was able to spot her on a few occasions after she described which scenes she was in. It might not be like knowing a movie star, but it certainly felt cool to me being able to point at the screen and say “I know her!” Beyond the title role and the extras, the secondary cast does good work as well, including Leslie Odom Jr. of Hamilton and Janelle Monáe of Hidden Figures. And while the horrors of slavery could have warranted an R rating, like 12 Years a Slave, Harriet manages enough restraint to be more accessible as a history lesson suitable for older kids as well.

Common complaints I’ve read include that Harriet is too formulaic or that it treats her fainting spells as a superpower, granting her warnings and visions from God. The latter has a basis in history, and as for the former, I don’t mind a “predictable” story if it’s well told. Not being familiar with all the details of Tubman’s life, there were still moments that surprised me and kept me invested. It was also fascinating to watch elements of history I hadn’t thought of, such as how the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 affected the efforts of Tubman and the Underground Railroad.

Although I’m not black, the story of the Underground Railroad, freeing souls in bondage, resonates strongly with me; it’s why I think Operation Underground Railroad today is such a laudable charity, since slavery is still very much alive today. So many biopics leave me with a lowered opinion of a figure I’d thought I liked (The Theory of Everything, Ray), but Harriet made me admire her even more as an American hero. From the period detail to the stirring Oscar-nominated credits song “Stand Up” (partly written and sung by Erivo herself), Harriet is exactly the kind of biopic I most enjoy.

Best line: (Harriet, to her former master) “God don’t mean people to own people, Gideon! Our time is near!”

 

Rank: List-Worthy

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
685 Followers and Counting

Ben Is Back (2018)

Tags

Christmas, Drama

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to describe a notable bedroom from the past. I went a less comfy direction and explored a bedroom’s significance in the life of a drug addict.)

I’d like to pack
And hurry back
To the room in which I grew,
That room I hoarded toys within,
Where I’d retreat from nosy kin,
Where I first tried my blackest sin
That trails me still today.

I’d count to ten
And come again
To the room in which I grew.
And if I could, myself I’d see
And slap the needle far from me
And ruin reckless privacy
That made me easy prey.

No more to roam,
I’ll go back home
To the room in which I grew.
Because they never would disown,
To Mom and God, I must atone.
And yet my body starts to groan
To make my will give way.

Although I burn,
I can’t return
To the room in which I grew.
_______________________

MPA rating: R (for mainly language)

As part of last year’s NaPoWriMo, I reviewed Beautiful Boy, a memoir-based tale of a man struggling to help his son, who struggles with drug addiction. In another case of similarly themed films being released at the same time, Ben Is Back covers the same kind of story, though fictitious in this case. Instead of a father-son dynamic spanning years, it focuses on a single Christmas night, during which a mother named Holly (Julia Roberts) copes with the sudden return of her son Ben (Lucas Hedges) from rehab.

I personally have never been drawn to drugs of any kind, yet the numbers affected by the opioid epidemic clearly show how widespread and devastating addiction can be. Like Beautiful Boy, Ben Is Back personalizes the statistics by showing that every addict has someone mourning their self-destructive decisions and rooting for their bumpy road to recovery. The first half of Ben Is Back is a deeply poignant portrait of a broken family, with Ben earning immediate distrust from his mother, sister (Kathryn Newton), and stepfather (Courtney B. Vance). While Ben himself seems penitent and likable, his own history and self-doubt make both his mother and the audience wonder how sincere he really is. Although it was spurned, the acting of all involved is Oscar-quality, and one scene where Ben breaks down to a church performance of “O Holy Night” is especially affecting, as is a sober visit to a graveyard.

Unfortunately, the film’s second half loses some of its emotional heft by trying to inject some thriller elements where Ben and Holly drive around town after the family dog is stolen by a drug dealer Ben knows. And the ending, while harrowing, is strangely abrupt, providing no closure to the story, which is perhaps the point since the cycles of addiction are rarely tied up with a clean bow. Beautiful Boy was easily a better film overall, but Ben Is Back had its fair share of powerful scenes; together, they are a sad testament to the victims of America’s drug crisis and reinforced my decision to never go down that dark road.

Best line: (Holly, to Ben) “Just tell me, son, where you want me to bury you.”

 

Rank: Honorable Mention

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
684 Followers and Counting

The Aeronauts (2019)

Tags

Drama, History, Thriller

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to review something not usually reviewed, so I decided to provide some thoughts on gravity – the force, not the movie.)

Dear readers, I had overheard the stories about gravity
Long before I put myself at risk to feel it fully.
I didn’t think it quite deserved the talk of its depravity,
But now I can confirm that it’s a mean and selfish bully.

Of all four fundamental forces, gravity’s the only type
That visibly affects mankind and all that it attracts.
It strikes with every trip and fall and when the fruits of trees are ripe,
And tortures people on the scales with inconvenient facts.

It’s true it keeps us on the ground instead of floating into space,
But never has it once allowed a flexible exception.
It’s so obsessed with physics’ laws that when we climb above our place,
It tugs and tells the ground to give a less-than-soft reception.

Though gravity will have its way, its power is not absolute;
A bit of caution and respect can keep its pull at bay.
Few acts of nature are as quick to prophesy and persecute,
But gravity’s control will fade the more we disobey.
____________________

MPA rating: PG-13

I love a good historical adventure drama, and The Aeronauts on Amazon Prime had my attention right from its first trailer. Eddie Redmayne plays James Glaisher, a scientist intent on proving his hypothesis that studying the atmosphere can allow the weather to be predicted, but as with so many 19^th-century visionaries in film, his theories are ridiculed by the Royal Society of London. (Seriously, Hollywood apparently thinks the Royal Society was so narrow-minded, it’s a wonder that anything was discovered at all. I’m sure such disbelief did happen, but I’m noticing it so frequently in these kinds of movies that the villainizing for villainizing’s sake is starting to annoy me.) To prove his ideas, he enlists the aid of the only aeronaut willing to risk such a venture high into the atmosphere, a woman named Amelia (Felicity Jones), whose balloon takes them on a dangerous upward journey.

There’s a lot to like about The Aeronauts, not least of which are the visual wonders the pair encounter, from swarms of butterflies fluttering along air currents to the rainbows backed by mountainous clouds. As they get higher, the danger sets in as Glaisher especially struggles with the rarefied air and extreme cold. The high-altitude thrills keep the adventure from boredom, and regular flashbacks provide steady doses of character development along the way. Both actors do a fine job as well, reuniting without the romance five years after their pairing in The Theory of Everything, and it was nice to see Himesh Patel from Yesterday as a scientist friend of James’.

Yet for all its quality, The Aeronauts feels somehow lacking. Perhaps it’s because of its tenuous claim to being based off a true story. James Glaisher indeed made a historic balloon flight, but it was with a man named Henry Coxwell, making Amelia a composite character of other female balloonists who, while a laudable figure, feels shoehorned into the story. Certain elements do strain believability and historical accuracy, but The Aeronauts still does its best to build a grand scientific adventure on its half-fabricated foundation. It entertains doing just that, which is good enough for me.

Best line: (Amelia Wren) “You don’t change the world simply by looking at it, you change it through the way you choose to live in it.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
684 Followers and Counting

What Happened to Monday (2017)

Tags

Action, Drama, Mystery, Netflix, Sci-fi, Thriller

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a poem about a letter of the alphabet, so I went through the week and compiled couplets for each day.)

The M in Monday dips and dives
And puts a strain on all our lives.

The T is Tuesday’s cruciform,
The closest shelter from the storm.

The W is Wednesday’s smile,
As crooked as a crocodile.

The T in Thursday spreads each arm
In peace, surrender, and alarm.

The F in Friday has buck teeth
That shield a smile underneath.

The S is Saturday’s great treble,
Quite the sinner, saint, and rebel.

The S in Sunday tries to swerve,
But hits Monday and hits a nerve.
__________________________

MPA rating: TV-MA (strong R)

Netflix films can be hit-or-miss, but when a good one comes along, its relegation to a single TV streaming service makes it feel perhaps more underrated than if it had received a theatrical release. Released to theaters in Europe and Asia but to Netflix elsewhere, What Happened to Monday falls somewhere between hit and miss, but it still feels underrated for the things it does well. The dystopian thriller takes a familiar dystopian threat like overpopulation and runs with it in a way not seen before.

Actors seem to enjoy the test of inhabiting multiple characters and playing off themselves, but Noomi Rapace snagged a special challenge here, playing seven identical sisters raised in secret to protect them from the government’s rigidly enforced one-child policy. Although siblings are simply put into cryostasis, the septet’s grandfather (Willem Dafoe) kept them off the books entirely and fashioned a singular identity of Karen Settman; each girl is named after a day of the week and takes turns going out as Karen Settman on the day of their name: Sunday on Sunday, Monday on Monday, etc. However, when Monday doesn’t return at the end of her day, the other sisters find themselves in danger and must figure out what happened to her and her ties to the politician who first advocated the one-child policy (Glenn Close).

It’s no secret that I love science fiction, and What Happened to Monday is the kind of unique genre tale I enjoy, usually more than the critics do. The plot zips along without a moment of boredom, and Rapace does wonders with a script that doesn’t quite manage to make each of the Settman sisters stand out. Some are easy to pick out (Saturday has blonde hair, Friday is mousy and wears a knit cap), while others don’t really distinguish themselves much (Tuesday and Wednesday). Nevertheless, Rapace breathes personality into the ones that matter most, and the effects allowing her to interact with her doubles are top-notch.

Many films on Netflix don’t seem to bother holding back on their TV-MA ratings, and sadly the same is true for What Happened to Monday, marred by several bloody deaths and a gratuitous sex scene. It’s really a shame because the film otherwise warrants repeat viewings. Some twists are hardly surprising to anyone familiar with the dystopian genre, but it still holds plenty of mystery and thrills to overcome the occasionally thin characterization. It even ends up with a surprisingly pro-life sentiment by the end. It’s far better than its mixed reviews indicate, and if you can overcome the R-rated content, it’s one more what-if example of why I love sci-fi.

Best line: (Sunday, quoting their father) “Seven minds are better than one.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
684 Followers and Counting

Guarding Tess (1994)

Tags

Comedy, Drama

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to find inspiration in an idiomatic expression from another language, which are often similar to but distinct from our English equivalents. I chose the idiom of “ironing one’s head” being used in Armenian and Turkish to mean annoyingly repetitive, like the constant requests of a shrewish woman, and also tried to develop a few of my own idioms.)

I think she once invented wringers
Just to put me through them daily.
I grit my teeth
And dig beneath
And wish that looks had stingers.

My head is being ironed solely
For the joy of seeing it flat.
My wrinkles never
Hurt her ever,
So why, for love of all that’s holy

Does she get such twisted jollies
Watching me squirm on her hook.
This fly is caught
‘Twixt web and swat,
And someone’s laughing at his follies.

A fool’s not down until you’ve kicked him,
Seems to be her school of thought.
I’m not the first
And not the worst,
So why am I her favorite victim?
______________________

MPA rating: PG-13 (solely for language)

I don’t have much to say about Guarding Tess, which is why it’s a good fit for a day when I don’t have as much time to devote to writing. Plus, it’s an interesting contrast to Shirley MacLaine’s much earlier role in What a Way to Go! that I reviewed a couple days ago. This dramedy follows a perplexed Secret Service agent named Doug Chesnic, who is assigned (forced really) to continue guarding former First Lady Tess Carlisle (MacLaine). Famously difficult to work with behind the scenes, Tess is outwardly an American sweetheart, and when she takes a liking to Doug, not even the President is going to turn her down.

Guarding Tess isn’t really anything special beyond the love-hate relationship formed between Cage and MacLaine. There’s humor to be had in their battle of wills, but it’s neither funny enough to be a comedy nor compelling enough to be a drama, though it has flashes of poignancy surrounding Tess’s late husband, whom Doug also admired deeply. It tries to ramp up some slightly unrealistic tension near the end, but Guarding Tess is little more than a diversion, not that that’s a terrible thing. Fans of Cage and MacLaine should enjoy it, but it felt like the idea behind the story held some missed potential.

Best line: probably the best gag with Secret Service agents radioing each other over supermarket prices

 

Rank: Honorable Mention

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
682 Followers and Counting

The Wandering Earth (2019)

Tags

Action, Drama, Foreign, Netflix, Sci-fi, Thriller

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write about items gathered during a walk. In my house, I latched onto a nearby globe and decided to write about the planet at large, even though the film is more about disaster than discovery.)

What ancient cartographer could have imagined
A world as small as this?
Back then, the maps ended without a true edge
In blurry oblivion. One would allege
A brand new discovery, and they would wedge
The new land upon the abyss.

And now we know everything, satellite-view;
No land is left to miss.
But now we look upward and see a frontier,
More blurry oblivion. Scorning the fear,
We still must endeavor to find what’s not here.
We just can’t abide an abyss.
___________________________

MPA rating: TV-MA (it’s a PG-13-level movie, but the English subtitles have more F words than the original Chinese for some reason)

When you think of Chinese films, science fiction isn’t a genre that immediately comes to mind, but The Wandering Earth might change that. Based on a 2000 novella and released through Netflix outside of China, this big-budget blockbuster is like Asia’s answer to Michael Bay, a solar-system-spanning disaster flick that is just over-the-top enough to work.

Anyone remember the Spongebob episode with the Alaskan bull worm threatening the town, where Patrick says they should just take Bikini Bottom and push it someplace else? Well, that’s the brilliant idea the future world leaders in this film came up with to escape an expanding sun. Studding the earth’s surface with enormous rocket engines, they push the planet out of its orbit toward a safer system while most of the population retreats underground to escape the freezing surface. Years into the journey, the roaming planet gets caught in Jupiter’s gravity, forcing young adult Liu Qi (Chuxiao Qu), his sister, and their accomplices to fix one of the failing engines and save the world, while his father (Jing Wu) on a space station tries to do the same.

With tiny people causing planet-level effects, everything in The Wandering Earth is on such a humongous scale that even its semi-plausible elements seem utterly ridiculous, yet the earnestness of the characters and coolness of the visuals make the suspension of disbelief possible. In creating China’s first big sci-fi movie, the filmmakers certainly went all out with their emulation of similar Hollywood blockbusters: collapsing ice towers, a single-minded AI to fight, huge explosions, questions about saving the many vs. the few, last-minute heroics and touching sacrifices.

There’s a reason it made $700 million, making it the third highest-grossing non-English film ever. (Netflix has an English dub, but I’d only watch it if you absolutely can’t stand subtitles or want fewer obscenities.) I don’t know how the current pandemic will affect China’s film industry, but The Wandering Earth is proof that it can compete with Hollywood on special-effects extravaganzas. I wouldn’t say it’s better than films like Armageddon or Sunshine, but it’s certainly bigger.

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
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