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© 2006-2008 by Sarah Beach. All Rights Reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced without permission. ScribblerWorks and the ScribblerWorks logo are trademarks (TM) of Sarah L. Beach 2007
TRUE
BLUE, THE TOPS 
RECOMMENDED 
NOT RECOMMENDED
A
BOMB, BUT YOU MIGHT ENJOY IT 
ABSOLUTELY DEADLY, FORGET IT
DVDs
starring Will Smith,
Eva Mendes and Kevin James
directed by Andy Tennant, written by Kevin Bisch
Now, I'm a fan of Will Smith's. He's engaging and open, and brings a joi de vivre to his work. Hitch shows off these charms delightfully. Smith pays the title "Hitch", a date doctor who coaches guys on how not to overwhelm the girls of their dreams, so that the relationships can progress to deeper levels. Of course, he's been so badly burned in his past, he's not very good at getting to his own deeper levels. Given that, when he's dropped into the circumstances of coaching an accountant on how to win a high-profile heiress, he's not prepared to find himself falling for a major gossip columnist.
It's a perfectly tangled situation, but the real charm of this movie is that all the characters (well, except for an incidental jerk crucial to the plot) are appealing. We're not watching a story of people overcoming unappealing flaws, we watching nice people overcome misunderstandings and their own defenses.
The extras on the DVD are fun. In the interviews, there is also the information that Smith insisted that the script be reviewed by a psychologist. That's an interesting tid-bit, and may indicate one of the factors that makes for the film's charm: time and energy was spent on getting the characters "just right". In an age when too many films are rushed before cameras without polishing, the craftsmanship here shines.
Smith also wins points with me by not trying to up-stage Kevin James. James, a funny man in his own right, is very sweet as the unlikely accountant Romeo. The scenes with these two guys together are very funny and human. The different styles mesh, and they work together very well indeed.
I admit that I did not hop on board Farscape at the beginning of its run. I had followed Babylon 5 for its entire run, and then been disappointed by the way Crusade was handled. So I wasn't quite ready to follow another space opera, especially one that was as continuity-heavy as Farscape seemed to be. It looked great and I am always inclined to trust the Henson Company when it comes to creature creation. But I wasn't ready to deal with it.
But then, just before the beginning of Season 3, I caught a rerun of the Season 2 finale.
I was very impressed. Not just with the look of Farscape. The writing and acting were both excellent. In spite of the fact that I actually knew very little about the established backstory, I had no problem following that episode. The reasons for that, which I'll go into in a minute, are the consistent qualities of the series throughout its run. As I began to get into the series, I was seeing it piecemeal at first. Only later in Season 3 did I get completely plugged in.
The show has a very good conceptual presentation. The "look" is distinctive. The mix of make-up and puppetry to create the various alien races is far more successful than the "give them a weird forehead" attitude of later Star Trek series. In particular, Pilot is a completely believable creature.
The writing is sharp and full of life. The writing is crucial for creating the ability to reference backstory "incidentally" for each episode plot, making it possible to view almost any episode out of context and still be able to follow the events of that episode. The writing presented essentials by way of character interactions and reactions. Because, in the end, what the audience needs is not necessarily the history, but rather the significance to the characters.
Which leads to the last element that makes this show shine: the cast. Always, the cast delivers the emotional reality of the characters. The clarity of the performances succeeds in conveying all the crucial information about backstory which the writing might leave out. The nature of the relationships, down to the subtlest variations in how the relationships may be at any particular moment, always comes through.
Like any series, there are some episodes that are less sterling than the standard. But over all, Farscape is a very engaging, thought provoking science fiction series. It has a moral compass and advocates love and compassion, even when the circumstances are difficult and painful. And it does all this without preaching. Instead, it makes you feel it. And that's entertainment.
starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman; directed by Dean Parisot; story by David Howard, screenplay by David Howard and Robert Gordon
For anyone who loves television science fiction shows, but especially those who love the original Star Trek, Galaxy Quest is a complete delightful romp. The script presents an observant yet affectionate portrait of fan phenomena, from the young geeks fans (born after the original show as off the air) to the effect on the actors.
That may sound eep for a comedy that speculates on "what if aliens though the broadcasts of a corny science fiction show were historical records?" That proposition sets the story rolling. And along the way, we're given a rather substantial story about the nature of leadership, of heroism. It touches on how we can acquire those qualities we have only been pretending to have. And above all, it shows us the power of inspiration and the need for heroic models.
This is currently one of my favorite "feel good movies". It cheers me up.
The cast is outstanding. Alan Rickman obviously has fun playing the sour, classically trained actor stuck with a nonsensical tag-line -- well, nonsensical until he is given real cause to recite it. Sigourney Weaver, known for playing many smart characters, flounces along as the air-head actress who has a truly empathic heart. But the most exceptional performance, in my book, belongs to Tim Allen, who plays the Shatner parody without making a cartoon of it: instead, his blow-hard actor visably learns that playing a hero and leader doesn't make you one, at least not until you accept the responsibility of the job.
starring John Travolta, Barry Pepper, Forest Whitaker; directed by Roger Christian; from the novel by L. Ron Hubbard, screenplay by Corey Mandell and J.D. Shapiro
I went to see this opening night in the theaters, in order that my friends would have someone who actually had seen it, to give them a first hand report on it. Trust me, it is riddled with problems.
I had to wonder at the production. Just on a visual level, the quality of special effects and make-up and costuming were poor, worse even than a 1960s science fiction show. The aliens, who are supposedly eight feet tall, are unconvincing. Their size is conveyed by putting everyone of them on high platform shoes and an outrageously lofty wig. The result of this is that their faces are too small for their apparent size. When I saw this in the theater, The Green Mile had been previously released. In that film, the character of John Coffee was supposedly a similar giant. Yet his excess size was successfully conveyed by a combination of CGI effects and staging tricks. So I wondered why Battlefield Earth's designers chose such a sorry route. There were other problems in the visual presentation of the aliens, but I'll stop with a reference to their hands. Supposedly their fingers were over-long. The production gave the actors rubbery gloves with long fingers, the fakery of which is easily spotted in the way the "fingertips" quiver whenever the characters move their hands.
We will quickly pass over such plot inanities as how people who, for most of the film, are illiterate and yet successfully manage to teach themselves how to fly complicated 20th century fighter jets. Or that fighter jets that have been sitting around (we are told) for a thousand years, manage to be perfectly functional (let alone be still gassed up). And as another friend (Erik Burnham) pointed out, after all the centuries the aliens have been removing the gold from Earth, they still managed to miss the vault at Fort Knox?
One of the most irritating film choices was the editor's decision to use a wipe transition, wherein the wipe began from the center of the screen and swept to the sides. This was used regardless of what the final image of a scene was. It became absurd when the final scene image was someone's face: there's nothing like having a crack cut through the face of the main character and then having it all be "swept away."
I'm sure we are all aware of the forces behind the film, which caused it to be made. What I do not understand is how the filmmakers seemed to have totally chucked any sense of craftsmanship out the window.
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (TV: SEASON 1)
The lit dynamite fuse burning across the screen. The driving theme music. The snappy images of bits of "this week's" episode. You know what it is right away. It's the original Mission: Impossible.
Looking at the show across the distance of time, wherein television film technology has improved and the visual style has gotten more and more cinematic, you realize the series is an element of its time. But once you step beyond those visual reminders, you are right in the middle of fast-paced intrigue, well written and well acted.
Tops worth noting is Barbara Bain, the quintessence of elegant cool and sophistication. I wracked my brains to think of an actress now in her 30s who had the same presentation of classy smarts, and it's just not there. That she's a terrific actress as well puts the spice to the show – in this case, Cinnamon. The rest of the cast settles into their parts easily. Back in the day, the casting of Greg Harris as the technology whiz was notable in that the show never made a deal out of his race: he's presented as the best in his craft and that was the end of it. It might seem like a small thing today, but it had its impact.
Anyway, how can you not like the prototype for fast paced intrigue with surprising twists along the way. After all, the missions don't always go according to the original plan.
It definitely holds up after all this time. Well worth watching.
CADFAEL
- SET 1
starring Derek Jacobi, Sean Pertwee
The Cadfael Mysteries are well crafted novels, plopped in the midst of mediaeval conflict. Ellis Peters conveys the historical period without forcing you to endure a history course in order to follow events. In the midst of this, she plants her "rare Benedictine" of a detective, an astute, observant former soldier, who has (quite seriously) become a Benedictine monk and herbologist. His worldy experience makes him unsurprised by human actions, while his religious calling gives him compassion for those stressed beyond their endurance.
These dramatizations of the books shine in their adaptations. Jacobi is perfect as Cadfael, bringing depth, humor and a touch of steel to the character. In "One Corpse Too Many", Cadfael crosses wits with Hugh Beringar (played by Pertwee in this set, and in my opinion, the best of those to play the role of Beringar) in trying to find out how and why a murdered man's body winds up among those of some executed rebels. The other episodes in the set are also good. "Monk's Hood" brings a former love of Cadfael's back into his life, when her son is suspected of murder. "The Leper of St. Giles" combines murder and thwarted young love. "The Sanctuary Sparrow" presents a murder in a setting of class conflict and prejudice.
Now, I'd be willing to sit and watch Jacobi read from laundry lists. So, it's easy for me to praise his work. Even so, he's very good here. Also, as a medievalist, I like the setting. And of course, the mystery story fan in me loves a good puzzler. Here I get it all in one fell swoop, all nicely done.