Flawed Movies

     Do errors in movies bother you? What if the errors are scientific impossibilities?

     What I usually notice in movies is errors in human judgment. People in movies often do things that peopl in real life simply wouldn’t do. For example, if a car began to chase me, I wouldn’t continue to run ahead of it, as movie characters do. I would dive to the side and run into a building or run down a narrow alley.  Or if I had only a small knife on me, I would not walk into a camp of heavily armed guards and expect to take them all out or even to walk back out alive.  But people in movies do those things.

     Tom Chivers has listed some other movie errors that involve breaking scientific laws.  One is the sound of spaceships traveling through empty space.  Another is laser guns that have beams that travel more slowly than the speed of light.  (In case you don’t know, sound waves cannot travel through empty space, and light beams always travel at the speed of light.)

     Check out the other errors, unless you don’t want any of those fantasies tainted by reality.

Moore the Millionaire

     Michael Moore was on Sean Hannity’s program, talking mostly about his new movie.  During the conversation, Hannity tried to get Moore to admit that he is a millionaire.  All Moore would say was that he had “done well.” 

     Come on.  His movies have grossed hundreds of millions of dollars.  Even if Moore’s take was a small percentage, it would be in the millions.  If he has gotten good financial advice he should have tens of millions, I would guess.

     Why does it matter?  If you are going to make a movie that castigates wealthy people and capitalists, then you had better not be one yourself.  To do so is hypocritical.

     Besides pointing out Moore’s hypocrisy, I would like to make an even more significant point.  If Moore doesn’t believe the message that he is selling, then why should anyone else buy it?

     Why doesn’t he make and distribute his movies in Cuba, a country he seems to love so much?  Why does he depend on America’s evil capitalist movie industry?  Why does he depend on America’s movie-going public, who can only afford the expensive tickets at movie theaters thanks to capitalism?  Why not ask all those free, well-taken-care-of Cubans to fork over the price of a movie ticket?  Better yet, why not ask Fidel Castro to fork over $300 million dollars to bankroll the film and make it free to the public to view it?

     And why support capitalistic movie theaters and capitalistic movie rental companies and capitalistic food vendors and capitalistic advertisers who also get rich from the showing of the movies?

     Michael Moore should make a film about the fee clinics that he has built with his own money.  Then I would listen to him complain about rich people having no compassion and how “we” need to provide health care for needy people.  Until then he is the man behind the curtain.

Old Movie Reivew: The Bat (1959)

     While I was reading about Agnes Moorehead, an actress that I admire very much, I ran across a reference to a movie called The Bat, in which she stars as an author of mystery and suspense books.  Her character in The Bat, Cornelia van Gorder, encounters a real life mystery involving embezzled bank money, a criminal called “The Bat,” and real bats.

     The movie also stars Vincent Price, another of my favorite old-time actors.  I was surprised at the way he portrayed his character in the movie–pleasantly surprised.  I think of him as a heavy-handed actor with an eerie melifluous voice.  In this movie he spoke in a standard miwestern American dialect and was very subltle in his technique.

     An interesting fact about the cast of the movie is that Darla Hood, the Darla of the Our Gang and Little Rascals movies, plays a minor role.

     I watched The Bat last night on Google Video.  It was brilliant.  The humor was understated and brilliant.  At times the acting was overdone, as was common in that era; nevertheless it was superb acting.  The plot did not actually leave me in suspense that much, but it was captivating, and there were some wonderful twists at the end, which I shall not spoil for you.

     If you have any interest at all in good, old movies, you ought to watch this one.  As I mentioned, you can watch the entire movie on Goggle Video.  It is also available for sale on DVD.

Movie Review: Fireproof

     I watched the movie Fireproof  with some friends and colleagues.  It is one of the best movies that I have ever seen, and I’m very picky about movies.  Technically it had many flaws, but the story was completely engrossing.

     Let me get the negative comments out of the way.  Many of the actors in the movie are amateurs, so there are some less-than-perfect performances.  The movie was produced by a church, so what would one expect?  The Gospel is clearly spelled out in the movie, and that will certainly turn off some people.  It was produced by a church, so what would one expect?  There are also a few hokey things in the movie, but even some of the hokey things make it endearing.  It was very down to earth and very accessible and relevant to the average person.

     Now let’s get to the good stuff.  The movie portrays love, true love.  By true love I do not mean the Hollywood version of love, which seems to have something to do with hearing violin music when you make love with that one perfect person who will always please you and never disappoint you.   What I mean is the kind of love that is based on a choice–a choice to give sacrificially to another person no matter how imperfect he or she is and no matter how often or how much that person might disappoint you.  In other words, “for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health.”

     The movie is about a firefighter and his wife who are having serious marriage problems and who are on the brink of divorce.  The firefighter is given advice from family and friends on how to save his marriage.

     It sounds like a boring plot, but this movie is far from boring.  There are two intense rescue scenes which support the main plot and the themes of the moive.  The firefighter is willing to risk his life to save strangers, so what is he willing to do to save his marriage?  The firefighter tells a rookie that you never leave your partner during a fire, just as he learns that you should not leave your partner in life either.

     It is  a very funny movie.  There is a lot of comic relief, as the firefighters express bravado and engage in playful banter at the station.  There are some ladies who work at the same hospital as the firefighter’s wife who also provide a lot of laughs.  The people I watched it with laughed so hard at times that some of them had tears in their eyes–me included.

     We also had tears in our eyes as the story progressed.  I don’t want to give away too much, but I will say that only a very calloused person could watch this film without being deeply moved.  Unlike many Hollywood movies, this one is about real love–and real life.  It could be about your parents, your friends, or about you and your spouse.

Really Bad Movies

     I’ve written before about my favorite movies.  Now it’s time to write about some of my least favorite.  These movies might not be the five worst movies, since I try to avoid bad movies–based on reviews from friends.  I’ve avoided the Speed movies, the Rambo movies, and Howard the Duck.  However, these are movies that I somehow ended up having the displeasure of seeing.

     Do you remember the film Ishtar?  Unfortunately I do.  It is the most boring and pointless movie that I have ever sat through.  It stars Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty, but it is the worst project that either of them has ever participated in, as far as I know.  It was written and directed by Elaine May, who has been involved as a writer in some truly great movies, including Reds, Tootsie, and Primary Colors.  Apparently it lasts for only 107 minutes, but you won’t believe it if you see this dreadful film about two very bad lounge singers who try to find work in Morocco.  You’ll swear that the boredom must have gone on for three hours.  Some films are entertaining because they are bad.  This one is simply bad.

     The Scarlet Letter is almost as bad as Ishtar, and it’s 28 painful minutes longer.  At least it had some beautiful music and excellent cinematography.  If you take out all the acting, it would be a nice film to look at and listen to.  As a fan of the novel, I was excited to watch the movie.  As a fan of the novel, I was disgusted with it.  The worst thing about it was the idiotic rewrite of Hawthorne’s brilliant story.  Come on!  Douglas Day Stewart knows better than the author how the story should end?

     My brother took me to see the next film on my list.  I used to like my brother; then he took me to Three Amigos!  I’m not sure how Lorne Michaels, Steve Martin, and Randy Newman could have written such a weak script.  They are very talented comedy writers, but this film should not even be called a comedy, since it is not even funny.  My brother laughed at how bad it was, but I couldn’t even muster up a groan, let alone a laugh.  Steve Martin is one of the funniest men alive today, but he just blew it with this one–both as a writer and as an actor.  (Martin Short had some good moments in it, however.)  I wondered if the writers were trying to make a parody of themselves, but I don’t think so.  I just think that they had an off-year.  (I still like my brother, but I haven’t trusted his movie picks since then.)

     The next movie on my list is more recent, but it is almost as bad as the earlier ones.  For Love of the Game is probably the movie that had the most potential but that falls the shortest of reaching it.  The acting is superb–understated, the way I like acting.  Kelly Preston, the female lead, is truly remarkable, and Kevin Costner, the male lead, is excellent in this movie, too.  It’s the story I hate.  How in the world could anyone in 1999 make a movie about a man who uses, ignores, and takes for granted the woman who loves him, all because he is egocentrically obsessed with baseball.  Even that plotline could work, except that at the end she comes back to him.  It’s disgusting, and I say that as a man.  Any guy who is as much of a loser in life, which matters a bit more than baseball, should not get the girl in the end.  He just shouldn’t.  I wanted to punch his lights out, and I’ve never punched anyone in my life.  (Actually I vascillated between wanting to slap her for going back to him and to punch him for foisting himself on her again.)

     Another movie with a disgusting plotline is Fly Away Home.  Yes, the story of the girl saving the geese is touching, but the father’s extreme environmentalism and rebelliousness is just too much to stomach.  I admire and respect naturalists and nature lovers, but I don’t admire or respect hypocrisy.  The father in the story lives in a nice house, drives a truck, and sculpts and invents elaborate objects.  However, he goes berserk when some developers want to clear some land that they own adjacent to his property.  It’s okay for him to have a house and a vehicle and a huge barn-cum-studio, but it’s not okay for anyone else to.  The worst scene in the entire movie is when he jumps in his pickup truck to go to city hall to protest the clearing going on next door.  Yuck, yuck, yuck!  In another scene a game warden wants to clip the wings of the geese for their own protection.  Anyone who truly cared about the animals would want to make sure that they stayed safe during the winter time, which they could not do if they tried to fly south.  (The birds had not been taught the route because they were hatched in captivity.)  The father physically tosses the warden out the door and tells him something to the effect of “Stay off my property!”  Hmm. . .private ownership is good for the goose but not for the gander. (I do love the song at the end of the movie and used to play it over and over.   Now I have a digital recording of “10,000 Miles” sung by Mary Chapin Carpenter.  It’s gorgeous.)

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     What are your least favorite movies?  Do you agree or disagree with my critiques?

Songs About Rainbows

     There’s a song that asks, “Why are there so many songs about rainbows?”  I never realized that there were that many.

     The song I refer to is “The Rainbow Connection” by Paul WIlliams and Kenneth Ascher and featured in the first Muppet Movie.  Kermit the Frog sang it in  that fun movie back in 1979.  I have liked the song from the moment I heard it, but I wonder if there really are that many songs about rainbows.  Here are the ones I know about:

• “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz
• “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” a song adapted from a Chopin Prelude
• “I Can Sing a Rainbow”–a children’s song used to teach kids the names of the colors
• “Look to the Rainbow” from Finian’s Rainbow

     Can you think of any others?  It’s funny for Williams and Asher to ask why there are so many songs about rainbows, if there aren’t that many.

Douglas Gresham

    

     You can read an interesting interview of Douglas Gresham at Townhall.  He is the stepson of C. S. Lewis.

     I haven’t been very enthusiastic about the new Narnia movies, because I think they are missing key aspects of the themes of the books. 

Movie Review: The Great Debaters

     I just saw The Great Debaters, the film about the debate team from Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, in the 1930’s.  I was blown away, and I don’t say that lightly.  I’m a pretty tough critic, but I must give this movie the highest possible praise.  I did not find a single flaw in it, and that is unusual for me.

     The film was directed by Denzel Washington.  He also acted in it, playing the debate coach Melvin B. Tolson.  As usual, Washington acted brilliantly, and the direction seemed flawless to me, as well.

     All the actors did an excellent job, but I was extremely impressed by Forest Whitaker’s portray of Dr. James Farmer, Wiley College professor and father to one of the debaters, James Farmer, Jr.  Whitaker performed the role just as brilliantly as Washington performed his, and the two were a breathtaking pair, especially in one scene in which they are in a calm but intense argument over the political activities of Washington’s character.

     The movie was based fairly loosely on the real story.  For example, some of the debaters names were changed, and the Wiley team never went to Harvard University in real live.  However, the movie exactingly captured the essence of the time.  The Great Debaters shows in gut-wrenching detail what it was like to be an African American person in the South in the 1930’s.  It also shows the partial and tenuous solidarity that existed between the poor white sharecroppers and the poor black sharecroppers.  Political issues of the day are covered in the various debate scenes–issues such as the New Deal and educational equality of all Americans.  More than any film I have seen it shows the roots of the Civil Rights movement.

     As a moive that dealt with racial injustice, this one was authentic, fair, honest, uplifting, and inspiring.  I am not exaggerating one bit to say that it is a “must see” movie.

For further reading:

Wikipedia enttry on The Great Debaters

Handbook of Texas entry on James Farmer, Sr.

Medal of Freedom entry  on James Farmer, Jr.

Wikipedia entry on Melvin B. Tolson    

 

Prince Caspian Blog Reviews

  Here are some reviews that I read on Prince Caspain, the second installment of the Chronicles of Narnia.  Feel free to link to your review, or some other review, in the comment box.

• Dr. Melissa Clouthier gave Prince Caspian 4/5 stars.  She liked the unavoidable morality in the story. the set design, and the attractiveness of Ben Barnes, who played Caspian.  Like me she thought that the storyline and editing were choppy with lots of actions left unexplained.

 

• Amy Letinsky thought that Christ was very apparent in the movie.  She focused on three main points:  We should act in Jesus’ strength instead of our own, we should follow Jesus even when it’s not popular, and the longer one walks with Jesus the bigger He gets.  She put a very positive slant on her review because she had read some negative reviews concerning the weaking of the Christian message in the film.

 

• The Brock at The Brock n’ Roll Blog gave the film 4 stars (excellent).  He thought that the cinematography and the music were amazing, with which I agree.  He thought that the sword play in the film was well done.

 

• Chas Andrews had three problems with the movie, although he liked it.  He wanted more information about what happened between the time of the first film and the time of the second film.  he thought it was lacking a lot of the magic of the first movie, and he thought that more background information was needed for one of the beings that appears in the movie.

 

• The blogger at Proleptic Life thought that the movie departed from the book too much, especially in regard to the dialogue.  He was disappointed that the pivotal scene between Lucy and Aslan was modified so as to weaken the spiritual teaching in it.  Like me he felt that the storyline was very hard to follow, unless you have read the book.

 

• Matt Boone liked the film very much.  He liked the imagery, the dialogue and the characters and felt the same kind of excitement as reading the books for the first time.

 

• The blogger at Beyond Faith MInistry gave it 3/5 stars.  He thought that the difference in maturity between Peter and Caspian was not workable, and he thought that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was better overall. 

 

• C. E. Moore at The Christian Manifesto gave the movie 4/5 stars for Family Value and for Entertainment Value and 5/5 stars for Spiritual Value.  As I and other people have written, he thought that there was less story than in the first Narnia movie, which was both a plus and a minus.  He thought that the movie developed the themes more than the characters, which was also both a plus and a minus.

 

• Stel Pavlou thought that the film was very good.  He espeically liked one of the battle scenes.  He agreed with many others that the movie’s storyline had problems.  He feels that the Christian message is there, all right, just as in the book.

 

• Kris Rasmussen at Idol Chatter was highly disappointed that the film weakened the spiritual themes of the book, as I was.  He thinks that it is wrong for critics to excuse the lack of fidelity to the book, when they would never let the Harry Potter series or the Lord of the Rings series get away with it.  He wrote, “I think part of the mistake with this adaptation is that the key moments that were at the heart of the book, didn’t truly make it on screen.”  Nevertheless, he thought that Prince Caspian was good.

Movie Review: Prince Caspian

     If you love the Narnia books as much as I do, you might not appreciate Disney’s movie version of Prince Caspian.  It resembles the book somewhat, but its biggest flaw is not capturing the real theme of the book or its mood.  I found it to be mostly an action movie in which the story is there to fill in the gaps between the fight scenes.  And there are lots of fight scenes. 

     As movies go, it is a very good movie.  If you don’t care that it doesn’t actually convey the same ideas as the book, then you will probably enjoy it very much.  I was so excited in some parts that I actually had a physical sensation of exhileration.  The music is superb, and it carries you along as though you are right there with the characters instead of watching them as a spectator.

     At times I could not figure out why certain characters did what they did.  There was no internal logical consistency, I thought.  In addition, the characters just do their own thing and don’t work together much or discuss their problems to determine cooperative solutions, which definitely departs from the story Lewis wrote.  Instead of working out their problems, the characters spend a lot of time glaring at each other or simply staring.  They also spend a lot of time sulking and brooding.

     Very few of the conflicts are actually resolved.  People are just killed, and then things are set right.  The book has lots of subplots involving important conflicts that all end up getting resolved somehow.

     If you want great entertainment, watch the movie.  If you want enlightnment, read the book.

Official Website

Wikipedia Article with Links to Reviews