Drew McWeeny (who has a terrific blog over at Hitfix.com) has a series called “The Basics,” in which he writes about a film that he considers one of the “essentials” — a film that anyone who takes film seriously should see — and then another, younger writer, William Goss, writes a response.  To read more about this series, click here and then here.  Recently he and Mr. Goss invited other writers to get involved in their film conversations.  Since the last film under discussion was Woody Allen’s Manhattan (1979), I was really excited to chime in.  (Here’s Mr. McWeeny’s piece about Manhattan.  Here’s what Mr. Goss wrote, and here’s what I had to say.)

Now Mr. McWeeny is writing about Albert Brooks’ 1981 film Modern Romance. What a terrific choice!  It had been a few years since I had last seen the film, so I was happy to have an excuse to pull it off my DVD shelf and give it a viewing.

The great Albert Brooks (who also directed and co-wrote the film) plays Robert Cole, one one the most neurotically messed-up characters I’ve ever seen captured on film.  As the movie opens, Robert breaks up with his girlfriend Mary (Kathryn Harrold, who I always think of as Francine from The Larry Sanders Show).  From her reaction it is clear that this has happened before, and I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying that this opening-scene break-up doesn’t exactly break that cycle.

Modern Romance is very leisurely paced, with long scenes that aren’t in a rush to get to the punchline.  But don’t let that lead you to think that the film isn’t funny.  Quite the contrary, it is hysterical.  This is one of the most quotable comedies that I know.  It might be my favorite Albert Brooks movie, and that’s mostly because of the script’s tremendous wit.

In his review, Mr. McWeeny comments that he loves the way that Mr. Brooks isn’t afraid to digress in the film.  That pretty well sums up one of the strongest aspects, in my opinion, of Modern Romance.  My very favorite moments in the film are the ones that have nothing at all to do with Robert’s on-again off-again cycle with Mary.  I’m talking about the glimpses at Robert’s job as a film editor, working on a lousy-looking science-fiction picture.  That the film takes ten minutes to present us with a scene that’s all about how editing works (as Robert makes an edit to the sci-fi film that he feels strengthens the suspense of a scene) is just wonderful to me.  It helps, of course, that the greatly-missed Bruno Kirby (When Harry Met Sally, The Godfather Part II) and James L. Brooks (the director of films like Broadcast News, here playing the crappy sci-fi movie’s director) appear in these segments of the film.  These are the scenes that I most look forward to every time I re-watch Modern Romance.

The only place where I disagree with Mr. McWeeny is in his description of the film’s ending as perfect.  I must admit that I always find myself deeply unsettled when the ending arrives.  I’ll tread carefully here, to avoid ruining the film’s conclusion for any newbies.  Let me just say that my sympathy for Mary, who I have come to adore over the course of the movie, overwhelms the humor a little bit for me as the final text pieces arrive.  Perhaps that’s the point, but for me the film — which to that point had perfectly balanced comedy with some frank, awkward moments — looses its balance a teensy bit.  (It’s hard to find a place to end a film that is all about two characters’ never-ending love/hate cycle.)  But any quibbles that I have about the ending do nothing to dilute my overall love for this very funny ride.

It would be overly simplistic for me to assert that they don’t make comedies like this anymore.  Surely there are still great, complex comedies being made that also have real dramatic heft.  (One might site Judd Apatow’s recent film Funny People as an example.)  But Modern Romance does, to me, feel like a type of film that is hard to find these days.  I’ll admit that there’s is a nostalgia factor that might be coloring my opinion somewhat.  As I re-watch it, I can clearly remember being in college and discovering this film (along with Lost in America, as well as so many other great comedies, such as Woody Allen’s previously-mentioned Manhattan, as well as Annie Hall, Zelig, I could go on forever…) and feeling like I had stumbled upon a whole new world of incredible films.  But even separate from those emotions, it’s hard for me to imagine anyone denying that Modern Romance is a comedy classic.  (Though I do know some people who find this film boring.  My heart weeps for them.)

If you only know Albert Brooks from Finding Nemo (which is a great movie, don’t get me wrong), you need to track down this film immediately.

The new documentary Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story tells two interwoven stories: one is an overview of British comedian Eddie Izzard’s life-story, while the other is a more detailed look at the process by which, in 2003, he crafted an entirely new stand-up routine (that would eventually become his world-wide Sexie tour) from scratch.

While fun and interesting, Believe is more the sort of thing that one might expect to see as a special feature on one of Mr. Izzard’s DVDs, as opposed to a documentary feature that stands on its own.  This isn’t really a warts-and-all sort of presentation — Mr. Izzard is presented in an almost uniformly positive light.  Although perhaps that was not the intention of the filmmakers, in the end the film functions more as a promotional piece for Mr. Izzard than it does as a true documentary.

Which is not to say that it’s not a worthwhile promotional piece!  I enjoyed the look at Mr. Izzard’s life — particularly his grueling efforts at creating a name for himself as a performer and, eventually, a stand-up comedian.  It’s an astonishing tale, frankly, of Mr. Izzard’s stubborn persistence in the face of overwhelming odds, and through an impressive array of recovered footage (of Mr. Izzard’s years performing on the street, as well as a number of his early days working the stand-up circuit) it is fascinating to see him slowly develop his comedic style and rock-star glam persona.  (It’s a hoot to watch his early break-out performance of the “wolves” sketch in plain men’s slacks and a garish baggy shift.)  These are the best aspects of the film.  When Mr. Izzard returns to his childhood home and gets teary-eyed reminiscing about his mother, I must confess that I checked out.

In the other half of the film, we see Mr. Izzard travel from gig to gig in small venues across England as he struggles to develop all-new material for his 2003 show (having committed to use NONE of his old jokes) before the launch of his scheduled world tour.  This part of the film is also wonderfully filled with actual footage (rather than talking-head reminisces).  Apparently Mr. Izzard had all of his workshop gigs recorded, and it’s neat to watch him struggle and stammer his way through those early gigs, slowly beating his material into a polished shape.

A similar story was told in the terrific documentary, Comedian, which chronicled Jerry Seinfeld’s efforts to create an entirely new act in the year after the end of his show (and his subsequent commitment to retire all of his old material).  Comedian is a much more polished film, and I think did a better job of showing how a working comedian uses gig after gig to shape an act.  That’s not to say that there is nothing of interest on that topic in Believe — there certainly is.  It’s just that the material in Believe is presented a little more simplistically.

In the end, this is for the hard-core Eddie Izzard fans only.  It’s worth a look, but I doubt it’s something that you’ll find yourself drawn to revisit.  For better luck, go rent Live at Wembly, the just-released DVD that contains one of Mr. Izzard’s final performances from his Sexie tour.  Or, even better, go watch Dress To Kill, Mr. Izzard’s best stand-up performance, and one of the greatest stand-up routines of all time.  ”Cake or Death!”

I’m a big Kevin Smith fan, and I have enormous, unabashed love for his first five films (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back). His more recent installments have been a bit shakier – Jersey Girl didn’t work for me (though admittedly I haven’t seen it again since my disappointing first viewing in theatres when it came out), Clerks II and Zach & Miri Make a Porno both had some truly hilarious moments but also some unfortunate left-turns into schmaltz, and I skipped Cop Out (which Mr. Smith directed but didn’t write).

But not only are his early films phenomenal, they also boast some of the very best DVDs ever produced. Over the years Mr. Smith (working with the various studios involved) has released dynamite special editions of his films that are filled-to-overflowing with deleted scenes, gag reels, all sorts of making-of featurettes, and some of the funniest group commentary tracks ever recorded. I’m telling you, these commentaries are a scream, whether one is listening to the snoring of a passed-out-drunk Jason Mewes on the Clerks commentary (I’m not kidding) or to Ben Affleck’s spot-on impersonation of Denzel Washington in Malcolm X on the Chasing Amy commentary.

As often as I like to pop in one of Mr. Smith’s films to re-watch for the umpteenth time, I also often find myself sitting down to re-watch some of the marvelous special features. The recent blu-ray release of Clerks and Chasing Amy prompted me to check out several of the amazing making-of documentaries found on these discs.

First up was The Snowball Effect, a documentary about the seat-of-the-pants making of Clerks.

(This doc was first released on the Clerks X tenth anniversary DVD.) There are a lot of famous legends about the way Kevin Smith maxed out all of his credit cards to make Clerks with his friends in the convenience store where he worked. This doc covers all of those stories, but also goes a lot deeper into exploring just what prompted young Mr. Smith to decide that he was going to make a movie, and how this dude working in a convenience store went about making his dream a reality. It’s a pretty incredible story, made all the more incredible by this documentary’s in-depth recounting of all of the hurdles, large and small, that Smith (working with a tight group of co-conspirators including the man who would become his long-time producer, Scott Mosier) had to overcome. The documentary includes interviews with pretty much anyone and everyone involved in the making of Clerks, and doesn’t shy away from the juicy stories when all wasn’t quite well amongst Smith & the gang.

The new Clerks blu-ray also includes a never-before-released documentary (though it was made several years ago and has been shown at various film festivals) about the making of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, called Oh What a Lovely Tea Party. (That title is a reference to the punch-line of a crude joke in the film.) This film is comprised entirely of footage that Mr. Smith’s wife, Jennifer Schwalbach, shot on the set of Jay and Silent Bob – footage both of the filmmaking process and of her interviews with the film’s participants. This is an interesting documentary in that there is no narration, and no new talking-head interviews, to give the film a structure. Instead, it creates a you-are-there approach as the viewer is presented with this behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the film.  The doc has a very episodic feel, as we progress chronologically through the making of the film, bouncing every few minutes from the making of one sequence from Jay
and Silent Bob to the next. The “fly-on-the-wall” style of the documentary is its best quality, and there were times when it was truly fascinating to sit back and watch this intimate view of Smith & his team at work, having fun and screwing around. But the down-side to this approach is that there wasn’t any sort of momentum built up as the documentary progressed.  It’s just one sequence of behind-the-scenes footage after another, and as a result I started getting a bit bored after about 45 minutes.

Not to be out-done, the new Chasing Amy blu-ray also contains an elaborate new documentary. Tracing Amy (an excellent title that, of course, refers to the famous “you’re a tracer!” joke from the film) is one of the best making-of documentaries that I have ever seen on disc (and I’ve seen a lot of them!). It’s an engrossing, incredibly detailed look at every aspect of the making of this film. I’m pretty familiar with a lot of the stories from the making of Chasing Amy, following the commercial and critical failure of Mallrats, but this doc was filled with new stories and information that I had never heard before. As with The Snowball Effect, Tracing Amy contains exhaustive interviews with an enormous number of the major (and peripheral!) players in the film, both in front of and behind the camera. It’s a hoot – Mr. Smith and many of his team (especially Ben Affleck) are a riot as they re-tell the stories of the making of Chasing Amy. But it’s also really endearing to see how personally invested these people were in the making of that unique film. Tracing Amy is almost as long as the film it’s documenting, but I could have easily watched another hour of footage.

These types of special features are the reason that I love DVDs/blu-rays, and they exemplify the potential of this format. I really love getting all of the nitty-gritty inside scoop behind the trials and tribulations of the making of films that I love. I wish that more DVDs/blu-rays contained making-of documentaries that were put together with as much care and attention as these were. Simply marvelous.

I’ve been wanting to see Death at a Funeral ever since it was first released (back in 2007), so it’s a funny coincidence that it arrived in my home (via Netflix) the same week that the American remake (featuring a predominantly African-American cast) opened in theatres.

The remake has gotten some decent reviews, but trust me, friends — after watching the phenomenal original version you’ll have absolutely no interest in any other take on this material.

Directed by the great Frank Oz (the voice of Miss Piggy & Yoda and the director of films including Little Shop of Horrors, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, In & Out, and Bowfinger), Death at a Funeral features a mostly British cast.  Matthew Macfadyen (MI5, Pride & Prejudice, Frost/Nixon) plays Daniel, who is attempting to arrange the funeral for his father.  Friends and family are gathering for what is supposed to be a quiet, dignified funeral service at Daniel’s parents’ home.  Of course, you can be assured that an escalating series of lunacy quickly unfolds.  Death at a Funeral is a classic farce, and there’s great joy in watching the filmmakers carefully set up all of the dominoes, in the first 30-45 minutes of the film, that they will spend the rest of the movie knocking over to hilarious effect.

This film is a RIOT.  Mr. Macfadyen is great as the straight man trying desperately to hold things together.  He’s surrounded by a terrific ensemble, including Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent) as an old friend of Daniel’s father with a big secret; Andy Nymen & Ewam Bremner as two of Daniel’s fairly hapless friends; Keeley Hawes as Daniel’s wife Jane (and, seeing as she played Zoe Reynolds in MI5, it’s great fun seeing her paired again with Mr. Macfadyen); Rupert Graves as Daniel’s more-successful writer brother Robert; and many more talented actors & comedians.  But the film belongs to Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly) who plays Simon, the nervous fiancee of Martha (Daisy Donovan), Daniel’s cousin.  At the start of the film, Daisy gives Simon what she thinks is a Valium to calm him down.  Of course, the pill isn’t a Valium at all, but a much, er, stronger concoction.  Now, that might sound like a hackneyed comedy set-up, and maybe it is.  But you’re really not prepared for the insanity that Mr. Tudyk unleashes in the film once the drugs that Simon has taken take effect.  This is  one of the great comedic performances of all time, and one of the primary reasons that I’m recommending this film so strongly.

I don’t really understand why Hollywood has chosen to remake an English-language film that was released in the U.S. only three years ago.  And, you know, I’m just not going to waste any brain-power thinking about it.  Just trust me when I say that you should ignore the remake and go seek out the original version.  Remember my motto: when there’s gold out there, silver sucks.

And Death at a Funeral is comedic gold.

It is easy to run short on adjectives when describing Bill Watterson’s beloved comic strip, Calvin & Hobbes.

Running from 1985-1995, Calvin & Hobbes is undoubtedly one of the triumphs of modern newspaper cartooning, and the strip has lost none of its humor, warmth, or potency in the over-a-decade since its end.

In the prologue of his new book Looking for Calvin & Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and his Revolutionary Comic Strip, Nevin Martell writes:

Though Watterson’s influences are somewhat easy to ascertain, the man himself is an enigma.  During the ten years that Calvin & Hobbes was drawn and was entrancing millions and millions of readers around the world, the man behind it tried to remain as anonymous as possible.  As the boy and his tiger reached new highs in readership, their creator shrank deeper into self-imposed obscurity.  Watterson never felt comfortable sharing himself with his readers in a public way and he never allowed his work to be licensed.  On the extremely rare occasion that he did make a public appearance or grant an interview, he only spoke openly about his work and went to great lengths to avoid discussing, or divulging, any details from his personal life.

To call him the J.D. Salinger of American cartooning is to take the easy road, but the fact remains that this incredibly talented comic artist is one of the most elusive characters of the late twentieth century — so elusive, in fact, that only a handful of pictures of him have ever been published.  He gave his last interview with a journalist in 1989 and his last public appearance was a commencement speech he gave at his alma mater, Kenyon College, in 1990.  Since officially retiring Calvin & Hobbes, Watterson has emerged infrequently and sporadically, and never in person.

So how do you find the man who doesn’t want to be found?

Although Mr. Martell does make some effort to actually find Mr. Watterson physically in order to conduct an interview with him (spoiler alert: it doesn’t happen), most of Looking from Calvin & Hobbes consists of Mr. Martell’s attempt to piece together a picture of Mr. Watterson’s life and work based on an exhaustive review of pretty much every interview Mr. Watterson has ever given and every essay he has ever written, supplemented by an array of new interviews conducted with a wide variety of Mr. Watterson’s friends, family, and peers, as well as the legion of creative folk who were inspired by his work.

It’s an effective approach, and the result is a fairly comprehensive look at Mr. Watterson’s development as a cartoonist as a kid and in college, his years-long post-college efforts to establish himself as a cartoonist, the creation and development of Calvin & Hobbes, and his many struggles with the success that followed which lead to his ultimate decision to abandon the strip.

As has become popular for many documentary filmmakers these days (I’m thinking of people like Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock), Mr. Martell has inserted himself as a character in his book.  While of course Mr. Watterson is the primary focus, as Looking for Calvin & Hobbes progresses we continually return to Mr. Martell’s descriptions of his efforts to put the story together, to track down his interview subjects, to answer his questions about Bill Watterson, and his thoughts on those experiences.  This is occasionally distracting (I didn’t really need to read about Mr. Martell’s google searches in order to find cartoonists who felt they had been influenced by Watterson, nor was I all that interested in his description of his recurring nightmare in which Mr. Watterson calls him for an interview, only for Mr. Martell to discover that his digital recorder is broken), but on the whole this lends the book a light, peppy style that makes it engaging and easy-to-read.

For me, the most interesting sections of Looking for Calvin & Hobbes were the chapters entitled Working on a Dream and Making Friends.  These chapters recount, in impressive detail, Mr. Watterson’s early years as a cartoonist and his efforts to establish himself as a working illustrator.  It was very interesting to read about the ups and downs that Mr. Watterson went through after college, and I was endlessly fascinated by all the little twists and turns that lead his early comic strip ideas to develop into what would become Calvin & Hobbes.  How easily he could have gone in a slightly different direction, and the world would have been denied a masterpiece!  Mr. Martell does a great job at filling in the blanks of Mr. Watterson’s younger days, and, despite my being fairly knowledgeable about Bill Watterson and Calvin & Hobbes, these chapters were a treasure trove of new information for me.

I was slightly less interested in the sections of chapter 4, A Boy and His Tiger, that recounted the different characters in the strip.  Anyone who has bought a book called Looking for Calvin & Hobbes surely doesn’t need to be reminded who Miss Wormwood is.  I also found myself getting a little bored by chapter 8, Under the Influence.  This chapter is filled descriptions of Mr. Martell’s interviews with a variety of cartoonists and other creative individuals about how they were influenced by Calvin & Hobbes, and while I was extraordinarily impressed by the depth of Mr. Martell’s research (and the wide variety of individuals he contacted, including Jonatham Lethem, Craig Thompson, Jeff Smith, and Dave Barry), the interviews got pretty repetitive, pretty fast.

But on the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed Looking for Calvin & Hobbes.  For fans of that dearly-missed comic strip (and who isn’t??), I recommend this new book.  I also highly recommend the Calvin & Hobbes 10th Anniversary Book (from which Mr. Martell quotes liberally).  Published in 1995, this wonderful collection of cartoons from throughout the strip’s run are accompanied by extensive essays and notes by Mr. Watterson himself, in which he details numerous aspects of his work on the strips, his goals and aspirations, his struggles with the syndicate, and much more.  If there is a reason why some aspects of Looking for Calvin & Hobbes felt like they covered familiar ground for me, it’s because I have pored over that 10th Anniversary Book for years and years.

No matter.  I applaud Nevin Martell for his efforts in devoting scholarly attention to one of the greatest creative talents of our time.  Looking for Calvin & Hobbes only reinforces my appreciation for Bill Watterson’s genius, and my sadness that he has not produced any new public work since 1997.  Needless to say, after finishing the book, I went over to my bookshelf, picked up my battered copy of Something Under the Bed is Drooling, and started reading.  What a delight it is to re-live, once again, the brilliance of Calvin & Hobbes.

“Why do you think nobody’s ever tried to be a superhero before?  You’d think all these guys talking about it online every day, at least one would give it a try.  Not everybody gets to be a rock star, but it doesn’t stop people buying guitars.  Jesus, man.  Why do people want to be Paris Hilton and nobody wants to be Spider-Man?”

That is the question posed by teenager Dave Lizewski to his friends in the fantastic new film Kick-Ass.  Originally an eight-issue comic book by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. (read my review of the comic here), Kick-Ass the comic was juvenile, profane, hyper-violent, and absolutely wonderful.  I am pleased to report that the film adaptation directed by Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Stardust)is equally juvenile, profane, and hyper-violent, and also equally wonderful.

Kick-Ass is the story a strange, lonely kid who seizes upon a crazy idea: to become the world’s first real-life super-hero.  Dave Lizewski doesn’t have any super-powers; he doesn’t have a large inheritance that he can use to buy incredible gadgets; he doesn’t really have any special skills at all.  But he’s not going to let that stop him.  What unfolds is a quickly-escalating spiral of chaos, as Dave finds himself neck-deep in a bloody struggle between crime-lord Frank D’Amico (played by the great Mark Strong, who it seems to me can do no wrong after his great performances recently in Stardust, Body of Lies, and Sherlock Holmes) and two real-life super-heroes, Big Daddy (Nic Cage) and Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz).

The casting in this film is superb.  Nobody plays a bad-guy better than Mark Strong these days, and Chloe Moretz has found herself an extraordinary break-out role.  Speaking of break-out roles, bravo to the filmmakers for their casting of Aaron Johnson as Dave Lizewski.  This relative unknown absolutely kills in the part.  I was also really thrilled to see Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad) well-used here as Chris D’Amico.  Again, perfect casting, and its nice to see Mintz-Plasse in a different sort of role that nonetheless takes advantage of his bizarre geekiness.

We’re living in a good time for comic book fans, as Hollywood seems to be getting the message that faithful adaptations of great comic books is a wiser strategy than complete reinventions.  (Then again, Mark Millar’s terrific comic book Wanted, about super-villains who have successfully taken over the world, was completely mangled into an Angelina Jolie vehicle about assassins who take their orders from a magical loom, and that movie made hundreds of millions of dollars, so maybe I’m being hopelessly naive.)  But I look at a film like Watchmen, and I look at a film like Kick-Ass, and I am delighted at the respect that these filmmakers have paid to the source material.

Sure, Mr. Vaughn and his co-screenwriter Jane Goldman have made changes to the source material.  (They developed the film while the comic was still being written, so this is no surprise.)  They’ve added in some loopy new ideas of their own (a whole bit of business with a bazooka, for example), but I was delighted that so many of the rough edges of the comic — the things that made it such a unique, idiosyncratic work — have been maintained by the film.  This is not your average all-ages super-hero film!!  Kick-Ass is filled with harsh language and tremendous violence that is guaranteed to shock (particularly due to the fact that much of both is delivered by the pre-teen character Hit-Girl).

OK, Vaughn & co. have on occasion bowed a little bit to audience expectations.  There are a few instances when they’ve made Dave a little less of a dweeb, and his relationship with his crush Katie Deauxma unfolds a bit more conventionally than in the comic.  But I can’t really say that I objected to either of those small changes, as I actually think that both adjustments helped the narrative.  (Frankly, my biggest complaint is a nit-picky bit of annoyance at the way that the filmmakers re-wrote Kick-Ass’ first big case — his encounter with a bunch of drug-dealers that turns into his first violent encounter with Hit Girl — as being set in motion by Katie.  Connecting her to those drug-dealers seemed totally out of place, and I preferred the comic’s original set-up of that sequence.  I’m also not sure I quite connected with Nic Cage’s weird, stilted delivery of his lines when in costume as Big Daddy, but what the hell, it’s Nic Cage, so I guess weird is on the menu.)

Kick-Ass bobs and weaves between comedic moments and scenes of great intensity and drama.  The film is somewhat of an homage to and a parody of super-hero films, without ever slipping into becoming a total spoof.  Rather, as Dave’s adventure unfolds, it becomes a kick-ass super-hero movie all its own (in the same way that Galaxy Quest mocked Star Trek films and then in its second half turned into an awesome Star Trek-like film).  I credit director Matthew Vaughn for maintaining that delicate balance of tone.  The closest thing I could compare this film to is Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill volume I, in the way that the film giddily moves from comedy to incredible, over-the-top orgies of violence.

This is not a film for everyone!  There’s no question about that.  Here’s a quick barometer: if you know which comic book movie the quotation “Wait’ll they get a load of me!” comes from, then this is a film that you’re going to love.  If you have no idea what I’m talking about then, well, I’d bet Date Night is still playing at a theatre near you.

I am a bit of a nut for movie soundtracks.

I don’t purchase a lot of CDs — but I do own quite a number of great movie soundtracks.  Not every movie soundtrack can stand on its own — but the ones that do are pure gold.  James Horner’s score for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan; John William’s Star Wars scores, Howard Shore’s scores for The Lord of the Rings — these are epic creations that I can listen to over and over and over again.

Recently, two phenomenal scores from the ’80s were finally released in their complete form on CD: Alan Silvestri’s score for Back to the Future, and Dave Grusin’s score for The Goonies.  Both are absolutely PHENOMENAL.

Intrada released the Back to the Future score on two discs, with disc one being the complete score as heard in the finished film, and disc two being an alternate, early version of the score.  The wonderfully detailed liner notes (written by Mike Matessino) detail the process by which, after Mr. Silvestri recorded his score for the film in May, 1985, it was decided (in consultation with director Robert Zemeckis and Executive Producer Steven Spielberg) that Mr. Silvestri would re-work and completely re-record the score.  This is extremely unusual.  As Engineer Dennis Sands recalls: “Steven Spielberg loved the theme so much that he felt more of it was needed in the score.  So Alan augmented a number of the cues and we recorded them on a second set of dates.”  As usual, Mr. Spielberg’s instincts were right on the money.  Alan Silvestri’s Back to the Future theme is incredibly iconic, and the filmmakers absolutely made the right decision to feature it more prominently in the finished score.

I enjoyed listening to the original version of the score on disc two, though I wouldn’t have objected to paying a little less for a version of this release without that second disc.  Many of the alternate cues are pretty similar to the finished versions found on disc 1 — and where they’re different, they’re mostly inferior.  It was fun to listen through once, but I doubt I’ll spend too much time listening to that second disc in the future.

But Mr. Silvestri’s final score, on disc 1, is absolutely magnificent.  No surprise, the stand-out piece of music is track 19: “Clocktower.”  This ten-minute-long track is a tour-de-force of action movie music, in which most of the major character themes from the score are interwoven to create a powerful, suspenseful sequence.  It works wonderfully with the edited film, and is also quite effective when listened to on its own.  This track has gotten a lot of play on my ipod recently.

Varese Saraband’s release of Dave Grustin’s score for The Goonies is a one-disc affair, but it also features a number of bonus tracks that contain early, alternate versions of several key cues from the film.  Mike Matessino also contributed detailed liner-notes for this release, and I was intrigued to learn how, here again, executive producer Steven Spielberg encouraged the film’s composer to re-record several cues from the film in order to emphasize the main themes.  A comparison of track 1 “Fratelli Chase,” with the alternate version of that cue found on track 31, reveals a night-and-day difference that reinforces Mr. Spielberg’s wisdom.  The revised version (which opens the movie, and prominently features the compelling, toe-tapping “Fratelli” theme) is a show-stopper, and probably the best piece of music in the entire score.

But the rest of the score ain’t too shabby, either!  Track 2, “Map and Wille,” introduces the somber One-Eyed Willie theme that recurs throughout the film, often during the quiet moments.  Speaking of quiet moments, track 13, “Wishing Well,” is a beautiful piece of music that plays under one of the stand-out scenes in the film.  (”This is our time!”)  On the opposite end of the spectrum are the exciting action-music pieces like track 18, “They’re Here and Skull Cave Chase,” and track 20, “Water Slide and Galleon.”  I also really got a kick out of track 19, “Playing the Bones.”  I was really impressed at how well that piece worked even without any of the film’s dramatic visuals.  The off-key organ music gives the whole thing a really spooky vibe.

What a great delight it was to see these two phenomenal scores get treated to such elaborate CD presentations, a quarter-century after their films’ original releases!

Some awesome new trailers for the summer movies have appeared recently:

Here’s the terrific trailer for Robert Rodriguez and Nimrod Antal’s new film Predators.

That’s a pretty sweet trailer.  Could this possibly be good??  Could it??

Here’s a new TV spot for Iron Man 2 with some intriguing new footage:

I can’t wait for this.  I really hope it doesn’t disappoint.

Now here’s a comic-book movie of an entirely different sort: Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead)’s adaptation of the indie comic Scott Pilgrim vs. The World:

This is going to be a FUN summer…

Can we all just agree that The Wire is the greatest television show ever made?

Anyone who has seen The Wire surely must agree with that (admittedly bold) statement.  As for the rest of you — what are you waiting for??  (Until you’ve seen this masterpiece, I’m really not interested in your opinion.)

I would imagine that anyone in the cult of The Wire couldn’t help but be interested, as I was, in creator David Simon’s new HBO series Treme (pronounced Tre-MAY) set in New Orleans three months after Katrina.  I took in the premiere episode, “Do You Know What it Means” earlier this week, and I am happy to report that I am totally and unabashedly hooked.

The Wire was a devastating critique of the modern American city.  Over the course of five seasons, Mr. Simon and his extraordinary team of writers explored the inadequacies and failures of society on every level of the city of Baltimore: from the kids on the corners to the cops on the street to the politicians in their offices, not to mention the detectives, the judges, the newspapermen (and women), the D.A.s, the crime lords, and on and on.  So when I read last year that Mr. Simon was developing a show about New Orleans, that seemed to me to be a logical follow-up.  In New Orleans after Katrina, Mr. Simon had found a city in which the seemingly intractable problems of Baltimore paled in comparison.

And yet, I was pleasantly surprised by just how upbeat the pilot of Treme was.  Oh, don’t misunderstand me, there is plenty of horrible tragedy on display, and I have no doubt that, as the season progresses, further Job-like troubles await many of the characters to whom we were introduced in this first installment.  But along with the horror, Treme contained a lot of hope as well.

An enormous factor in that tone is the way that so much astoundingly wonderful music is interwoven into the story being told.  Many of the main characters in Treme (such as the trombone-player Antoine, played by Wendell Piece, who so memorably played Bunk on The Wire) are musicians, and the pilot frequently pauses to allow us to immerse ourselves in the wonderful music of New Orleans.  The music is almost the primary character in the show.  And so much of the music is so phenomenal that it’s hard not to feel good listening to it.  This provides a powerful counterpoint to the tough drama found in the story of a city on the brink.

The pilot episode introduces us to a large ensemble of characters.  As in The Wire, these characters are from a wide variety of professions and social strata.  Also as in The Wire, each character seems — even in just this first episode — to be fleshed out and interesting.  I can’t wait to see where all of their stories go.  To try to list every character would be folly — suffice to say that there are some terrific actors (some familiar, some not) to be seen here.  Standout characters for me include Wendell Pierce’s trombone-player Antoine and the beleaguered restaurant-owner Janette, played by Kim Dickens (familiar to fans of Lost as Sawyer’s former flame and Kate’s former partner-in-crime Cassidy).  The only actor in the ensemble I wasn’t quite taken with was Steve Zahn’s character Davis.  But I guess he’s supposed to be a bit annoying.  We’ll see where his story goes.

In addition to being narratively compelling, this initial installment looked absolutely stunning.  The cinematography was beautiful, and there was some really interesting camerawork, shot-composition, and editing on display.  A lot of time was invested in this episode in introducing viewers to the neighborhood of Treme, and so the camera would often highlight a background character in the crowd, or the hands of a musician working his instrument, or some other detail that, when taken with all of the other tiny details, really helped bring the viewer into the experience of life in New Orleans.  In every way, this episode really looked to me like a movie.  (And at a run-time, for this pilot episode, of almost an hour-and-a-half, it practically WAS a movie!!)

Based on this first episode, Treme appears to have much of the sophistication and complexity of The Wire, while also being an entirely different, unique creation of its own.  What more could I ask for?  Can’t wait for the remaining nine episodes of season one.

Whew!  At last, today, we come to the end of my journey through the Odyssey series of films and novels by Arthur C. Clarke.  Over the past several weeks I have written about 2001: A Space Odyssey the film and the novel,  the follow-up novel 2010: Odyssey Two and its film adaptation, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, and the third novel in the series, 2061: Odyssey Three.

I mentioned in my review of Odyssey Three my recollection that, when I first read this series of novels around 15 years ago, I didn’t enjoy 2061 or 3001 nearly as much as 2001 and 2010.  I wondered if my opinions would have changed now, many years later.  That didn’t turn out to be the case with 2061 (which had some fun bits but that didn’t, I felt, add anything to the epic story begun in 2001 and 2010), but I had high hopes that I would enjoy the saga’s conclusion, 3001: The Final Odyssey, more upon my rereading.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

The novel starts out strong.  There’s an intriguing hook — the body of Frank Poole (believed to be long-dead as a result of his murder by HAL 9000) is found and resuscitated, and through his eyes we are introduced to the astounding developments of human society a millennia in the future.  I have commented before about how much I have enjoyed the scientific speculation that Mr. Clarke has woven into his Odyssey novels, in which he takes the time to explore his ideas about how science and technology might progress in our future, and how that can explain some of the sci-fi activities found in the stories.  Mr. Clarke goes to town during the first 100 pages of 3001.  As Frank learns about life in the year 3001, so too do we.  There’s a lot of fun to be had as Mr. Clarke fleshes out this world of tomorrow, and I relished all of the fascinating scientific speculation.

Unfortunately, all of that interesting set-up never leads to a story that goes anywhere.  In my review of 2061, I commented that I didn’t feel there was much significance to the goings-on in that novel — the rescue mission that provided the main thrust of the book’s plot paled in comparison to the cosmic story-lines of 2001 and 2010.  Sadly, 3001 has even less plot to speak of.  (I tried to keep things vague, but some SPOILERS are ahead, gang, so beware.)

I kept waiting for the book’s story to kick into gear, but every-time it seemed like something interesting was about to happen, things stopped cold.  After Book I (3001: The Final Odyssey is divided into six “books”), when Frank Poole once again finds himself on a ship heading for Jupiter, I started to get excited.  But hardly anything happens in Books II & III.  We get caught up a bit more with human colonization of the solar system in the year 3001, and we are provided with a lot of information about the moons of Jupiter that feels familiar and repetitive to readers of the first three novels in the saga.  Finally, at the end of Book III, Frank makes contact with the entity that once was Dave Bowman.  Aha!  Here at last things are picking up, I thought.  The confrontation between these long-separated former shipmates is going to be potent stuff, and maybe will lead us towards some definitive answers about what Dave had become, and the true nature and larger purpose of the Monoliths.

Unfortunately, after Frank and Dave exchange their first words, Mr. Clarke cuts away, shifting to a first-person narrative in which Frank recounts his meeting with Dave to one of his new colleagues.  Throughout the novel Mr. Clarke chooses to advance the plot by having one character — usually Frank — tell another what has happened.  Shakespeare was able to pull that off pretty well — Arthur C. Clarke, not so much.  I found that this device totally deflated any dramatic tension.   (Since Frank is alive and well to recount the story, clearly everything turned out OK.)

Then, before we learn anything new, Book III ends and Book IV picks up the story THIRTY YEARS LATER.  I was stunned by the total lack of consequence, significance, or impact of Dave and Frank’s meeting in Book III.  Nothing happened as a result of their encounter — clearly the universe had continued peacefully apace for three decades.

Then in Book IV, Frank receives a message from Dave — a warning.  A thousand years earlier, the Monolith transmitted a message about humanity to its far-off masters and now, at long last, the Monolith has received a reply.  Dave, who still maintains a small connection to his human origins, is afraid about what actions the Monolith might take next.  OK, I thought, maybe the whole novel to this point has been a prelude to this plot twist that would lead to much larger, universe-shaking events, and perhaps provide to some of the greater mysteries of the series that I alluded to above.

But again, this goes nowhere.  The scant information that Frank (and we the readers) learn from Dave about the Monolith were long-ago clear to careful readers of the original novel, 2001.  The terrible danger about which Dave warns Frank never seems to materialize.  And the plan that Dave and Frank devise to render the Monolith harmless to humanity is so ridiculously simplistic as to be laughable.  (Hint: Independence Day has the same ending.  That’s a bad sign.)

I have only the highest of praise for Arthur C. Clarke’s novels 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: Odyssey Two.  But I advise readers to stop there.  2061 is a decent story but one with zero significance to the larger Odyssey storyline, and 3001 ends with a stunning anticlimax.  I expected a novel whose subtitle is The Final Odyssey to be filled with cosmic drama on the level of the first two novels, and I had hoped that we would be provided with some answers to readers’ lingering questions in a way that would bring closure to the saga.  But that was not to be.  What a letdown.

Despite my disappointment with 2061 and 3001, it has been great fun to revisit this epic film and novel series!  I’ll be back next week with another book review, of an entirely different sort: my thoughts on the new book Looking for Calvin & Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and his Revolutionary Comic Strip.  See you there!

By now, you’ve all probably heard that this season will be the last for 24.

I was an enormous fan of 24 when it began.  I still remember, a few days after the premiere episode aired, my folks sitting me down and insisting that I check it out.  (Fortunately they had taped that first episode.)  I was blown away, and I remained gripped throughout that phenomenal first season.  The production values were extraordinary — it was like a mini-movie every week, filled with incredible action and nail-biting suspense.  I was also really taken by the “real-time” conceit of the show: that each of the twenty-four episodes of the season was one hour in the no-good, terrible, very bad day of beleaguered super-agent Jack Bauer.

I still hold the first two seasons of 24 as two of the finest seasons of television ever forged.  (The gutsy death of a main character in the season 1 finale remains a high-point for me, and it helped cement my love for this dark show.)  Sure, there are some weak spots in those first two years (mostly pertaining to the misadventures of Kim Bauer), but having watched those seasons through several times, over the years (bless you, DVD — let’s not forget that 24: Season 1 was one of the first-ever full-season DVD sets ever released), I think they hold up remarkably well.

Things began to go awry in season 3, when the writers decided to abandon all of the dangling story-lines left hanging by the cliffhanger end of season 2, and instead create an entirely new scenario, with Jack involved with drug-dealers in South America.  In hindsight, I respect the writers’ attempt to find a whole new paradigm for the show (something that, sadly, they’d never attempt again, much to the show’s long-term detriment), but at the time, Jack Bauer’s adventures in South America seemed like a big mis-step.  Things picked up in the second-half of the season, when suddenly the show became about stopping the release of deadly nerve gas in LA (the first but not the last of the show’s mid-season story-telling about-faces).  But looking back this signaled the end of the show’s ability to create a unified story for  each season that could sustain over the full 24 episodes.  It also signaled the unfortunate end of the writers’ interest in maintaining any semblance of plausibility to the “real-time” aspect of the show’s story-telling.

Though I kept watching, with each subsequent season I became more and more frustrated with 24.  It boggles my mind why the writers continued to re-use the same tired story-lines again and again and again.  How many moles in CTU could there possibly be??  How many ill-fated trips back to the dimly-lit server-room do we have to sit through??  Just what the hell was Chloe doing each time she “opened a socket,” anyways???  Each time the show cut away from the main story-line to delve into one of the side-characters’ ever-escalating ridiculous personal problems, a little bit of my love for the show chipped away.

Ultimately, this once ground-breaking series became a cartoonish caricature of its former self.  Which is why every episode of season 8 sits, unwatched, in my Tivo queue.  And there they will remain.  I’ve decided that I’m a much happier person NOT watching the show and banging my head in frustration.  Maybe I’ll tune in to the series finale, for old time’s sake, but that will be that.

However, I am intrigued by the idea that the show will return as a feature film.  I’ve been excited by that idea ever since they first started floating it, several years back.  I’d pay ten bucks to see Naked Mandy cavorting on the big screen — wouldn’t you??

My journey through the Odyssey series continues!  Over the past two weeks I have written about 2001: A Space Odyssey the film and the novel, as well as the follow-up novel 2010: Odyssey Two and its film adaptation, 2010: The Year We Make Contact.

Only five years after writing 2010: Odyssey Two, in 1987 Arthur C. Clarke released the third Odyssey novel, 2061: Odyssey Three.  (This would prove to be the shortest span of elapsed time between the novels. 2001 was written in 1968, and Mr. Clarke did not release the final novel, 3001: The Final Odyssey, until 1997.)

Fifty years after Heywood Floyd and the crew of the Leonov’s journey to Jupiter, and the cataclysmic re-ordering of the solar system that resulted from the wakening of the Monolith they encountered there (I am being vague here so as to avoid spoiling the wonderful ending of 2010), interplanetary travel has become, if not commonplace, at least much faster and more convenient.  Mankind has established colonies on several bodies in the solar system, including the Jovian satellite Ganymede, and the wealthy Chinese tycoon Sir Lawrence has created a fleet of luxurious interplanetary space-liners.  His newest and most elaborate vessel, Universe, has been tasked with an extraordinary maiden voyage: to rendezvous with and land upon Halley’s comet, making its regular journey through our solar system.  Sir Lawrence has invited a number of world-famous celebrities to make the journey on-board Universe, including a very elderly Heywood Floyd, aged 103 (still alive and remarkably fit due to a lifetime spent living in low-gravity environments).  But this scientific (and PR) mission is cut short when news arrives that another of Lawrence’s space-liners, Galaxy, has been hijacked and forced to land on the forbidden world of Europa (go read 2010 for the full story on why mankind is not supposed to set foot on the Jovian satellite Europa).  Now Universe must speed across the solar system in an attempt to rescue the crew of Galaxy, as its crew hopes to avoid another confrontation with the Monolith (and the mysterious entities responsible for their creation).

My recollection, from the first time I read through Arthur C. Clarke’s four Odyssey novels about a decade-and-a-half ago, was that I found 2061 and 3001 to be far inferior to the first two installments.  I was curious if I would still feel the same way, re-reading those novels now.

Sadly, the answer is yes for 2061: Odyssey Three.

Don’t get me wrong: 2061 is an enjoyable read.  Mr. Clarke’s prose is engaging and fast-paced.  Although the novel is filled with Mr. Clarke’s scientific ruminations (about the mechanics of interplanetary travel; the nature of various bodies in the solar system including, in this novel, Halley’s comet; and many other digressions), the text is never dull and the story moves along at a brisk pace.

2061 boasts more of Mr. Clarke’s educated guesses at the progression of our technology, culture, etc. over the course of the next almost-century (from the time of his writing, in 1987).  I particularly enjoyed moments in chapter 3, “Reentry,” in which Mr. Clarke details a wonderfully optimistic prediction for a growing cooperation amongst the nations of the world.  He writes: “By the decade of 2020-30, a major war between Great Powers was as unthinkable as one between Canada and the United States had been in the century before.  This was not due to any vast improvement in human nature, or indeed to any single factor except the normal preference for life over death.  Much of the machinery of peace was not even consciously planned: before the politicians realized what had happened, they discovered that it was in place, and functioning well…”  It’s a lovely, utopian vision.  While Mr. Clarke did not predict the struggles with terrorist groups — groups not necessarily tied to one particular Great Power — that currently occupy a great many nations of the globe today, I certainly hope that, in the long run, his efforts at foresight on these issues prove to be as well-founded as many of his other scientific predictions!

So why do I feel that 2061: Odyssey Three is inferior to 2001 and 2010?  It is primarily a question of scale.  2001 and 2010 were both enormous, epic tales.  Those stories spanned the entire course of human history, and the events in those novels affected the very development of human evolution and the lay-out of our solar system in Mr. Clarke’s fictional universe.  2061 is a much smaller-scale adventure.  The story of a hijacked spacecraft and the attempted rescue certainly make for an interesting basis of a sci-fi story, but those events pale in significance to the cosmic nature of the stories told in the first two novels.

Given the nature of Galaxy’s predicament on Europa, readers of 2001 and 2010 might be expecting the story to lead to another significant encounter with the Monolith, or perhaps with the entity that was once Dave Bowman.  But that is not the case.  The only encounter with the Europan Monolith is a very brief moment in which two members of Galaxy’s crew land nearby, late in the novel.  There is one mysterious event that happens (which I won’t spoil here), but it is nothing of any earth-shattering significance.  Dave Bowman appears only once, at the very end of the book, in a chapter that has no real connection to the story being told.  (It’s a great chapter — one of my favorites of the entire book — but it feels more like a set-up for the final novel.)

All in all, the story feels a bit like much ado about nothing.  It’s a slight adventure story set in the universe of 2001 and 2010, but it is not a story with anything approaching the significance of the solar system-shaking events of those two novels.  It’s an enjoyable, quick read, but not much more.

On now to 3001: The Final Odyssey.  I’ll be back next week to let you know how I feel about Mr. Clarke’s conclusion to his saga!

I received a lot of response to my post last week in which I discussed my disappointment so far with Lost’s sixth and final season.  Some people vehemently disagreed with my assessment, while others were pleased that I had come around to their way of thinking.

Here’s my more specific episode-by-episode run-down of the season so far:

6.1/2 — “LA X” – A strong start to the final season!  All the stuff on the plane was a lot of fun.  Here in this initial installment there was nothing but promise to the alternate-universe story, and I was intrigued to see where that half of the story is going.  (Sadly, after ten episodes, it seems to be going nowhere…)  Glad to see that Boone is still a numbskull in any universe, and I was pleased to see Jack again desperate for a pen to help with a medical procedure.  The dude should just start carrying a couple in his pocket at all times.

I was also pleased to see several mysteries get addressed right up front, such as the Locke/smokey revelation (which I called before the show aired, thank you very much, no applause, just throw money).  I was also intrigued by the Other Others inside the Temple, particularly the Dennis-Hopper-in-Apocalypse Now translater dude.  Is the asian Other Other related in some way to the enigmatic Alvar Hanso?  I would love to learn that Hanso had once spent time on the island, the way Charles Widmore did.  (Sadly, we have so far gotten little-to-none of the backstory of this Temple-dwelling group of Others.  One more unanswered mystery to add to my list…)

Why did all the time-jumping castaways on the island stay in the positions/locations they were in at the end of last season when Jack dropped the bomb, except for Kate who was suddenly up in a tree?

6.3 — “What Kate Does” — After a strong start with the premiere, season 6 took a big nose-dive in this, one of the worst episodes of the entire series.  Aside from the title, which was a clever play on the title of the season 2 episode “What Kate Did,” there was nothing of interest happening here.  The Claire/Kate stuff, which was supposed to be the dramatic centerpiece of the episode, was absolutely ridiculous.  I guess we’re supposed to understand that there’s some sort of connection between the two women, even in this alternate timeline, and that’s why Claire trusted Kate.  But it didn’t really work for me.  Plus, why weren’t there a thousand police cars following Kate out of the airport??  Why didn’t Claire call the police after getting out of the cab, rather than just waiting patiently at the bus stop?  Why didn’t the cops who had figured out that Kate was with Claire at the hospital put a guard or two by the door to Claire’s room, or by the hospital entrance?  Why did the mechanic dude cheerfully let Kate out of her cuffs even after she a) threatened him with a gun, and b) admitted that she was wanted for murder?  None of it adds up at all.

6.4 — “The Substitute” – A terrific episode, and the highlight of the season so far.  It was fast-paced and interesting, with LOTS of fun connections to Lost lore.  My favorite moments include:  The weirdest damn funeral ever.  Seeing Jacob’s list at last.  Hurley’s commiserating with Locke about Locke’s boss (since attentive Lost fans know that the douchey Randy was not only Locke’s boss back in season 1’s “Walkabout,” but also Hurley’s boss at Mr. Cluck’s in season 2’s “Everybody Hates Hugo”!!)  Rose.  Science-teacher Benjamin Linus.  Alternate-universe Locke’s alarm clock, which sounded quite a lot, to my ears, like the alarm in the hatch.  Sawyer again discussing his favorite book, Of Mice and Men (which, as I recall, he last discussed while trekking with Ben to be shown that he was being held prisoner on an entirely different island, back in season 3).  The return of Locke’s long-held “don’t tell me what I can’t do!!” mantra, along with the return of Helen.  That John Locke, Lost’s “man of faith” has, in the alternate universe, become a man of science (teaching biology, and denying the existence of miracles), the position long-held on the show by Jack.  The return of the numbers.  But my favorite moment in the episode, the one that made me giggle with glee, was the glimpse of the black & white rocks in Jacob’s cave.  Back in season 1, Jack found a black and white rock near the Adam & Eve skeletons, and I’ve been LONG WAITING for that particular plot point to be referenced again.

6.5 — “Lighthouse” —  While not as unwatchable as “What Kate Does,” with this episode the show sunk back into mediocrity.  The on-island stuff was OK (I enjoyed seeing more of Rousseau-Claire), but the Jack off-island story just didn’t grab me.  It was watchable, but not nearly as compelling as Locke’s yarn last week.  I also thought the “breakthrough” moment with his son was ridiculous.  No kid actually talks like that, explaining to their parent exactly what their deep internal issue is.

6.6 — “Sundown” —  How could an episode called “Sundown” not be about Jin and Sun??

I was totally bored by Sayid’s story here.  Why?  Because the writers have removed any dramatic stakes by not explaining to us whether this is really the Sayid that we’ve come to love over the course of the show, OR some sort of mind-controlled evil version of him.  Without knowing that key piece of information, I couldn’t invest in the story.  If this isn’t our Sayid at all, or if he’s somehow being controlled or otherwise influenced, then there is no impact to the decisions that we see him make.  The drama is totally undermined.

6.7 — “Dr. Linus” –  After a couple of poor episodes in a row, we finally get another engaging installment.  In this episode there was actually a compelling dramatic storyline both on the island and in the alternate world, as both Ben Linuses were confronted with tough choices.  I couldn’t care less about whether alternate Sayid was going to shoot Keamy in the kitchen, but I did invest in the story of whether or not the alternate Ben would value his own power over all else.  And it was great to see Alex again.  That’s another thing this episode had going for it (as did “The Substitute,”, which is pretty much the only other episode this season that I’ve really loved) — lots of little nods to past events and continuity (Arzt, the diamonds buried with Nikki and Paulo, etc.) and pay-offs to other story-lines (verification that Richard Alpert arrived on the Black Rock, Hurley admitting to having visions of Jacob, Ben owning up to his murder of Jacob, etc.)  This story felt to me like the culmination of three years worth of Ben’s story as we see, finally, that there may be some hope for him.  I also LOVED the scene with crazed Jack and suicidal Richard in the Black Rock.  It reminded me of the scene with Tom Friendly and Michael in the alley, when Tom gets Michael to realize that the island won’t let him die.

6.8 — “Recon” —  Aaand we’re back to lames-ville.  In season 5 Sawyer was the most interesting character on the show.  But I really didn’t care at all about mopey Sawyer on the island or mopey Sawyer off the island.  (Though it was fun to see him paired up with Miles again — that was the episode’s only saving grace.)

6.9 — “Ab Aeterno” –  Things are looking brighter, as this spotlight on Richard Alpert was pretty good, even though they glossed over some rather enormous issues (such as how the Black Rock wound up in the middle of the island, and how exactly a wooden ship could break a stone statue).  I loved the way the MIB set up Richard the same way that now-dead Temple dude did Sayid, and I enjoyed seeing the MIB tell Richard “nice to see you out of those chains” as he would again, over a hundred years later (in Locke’s body).  I liked seeing white/black stones again.  Nice to see that obscure first season plot point getting some play.

Frankly, the jury is still out on all of this backstory until we get more of an explanation about the natures of Jacob and the MIB (who I like to call Esav).  Just what sort of entities are they, really?  Can Jacob change shape the way the MIB can?  Why or why not?  What stopped the MIB from killing Richard?  (We’ve seen the MIB unable or unwilling to kill “candidates” — was Richard a candidate?  How does one become a candidate?  If the MIB can just kill everyone who Jacob brings to the island, then a) what’s the point, and b) why didn’t he/it kill all of our castaways the second they crashed on the island, as it did the poor pilot in the pilot episode?)  I also thought the explanation of Richard’s role of intermediary was WAY too easy.  Jacob doesn’t want to get involved… but in a flash he decides it’s OK as long as he gets involved through someone else?  I don’t buy it…

This really is an episode that we should have gotten much earlier in the run of the show, I think, maybe during season 4 or 5.  Putting it off until the final run of episodes put undue pressure on the episode to be the BEST EPISODE EVER to make it worth the long wait — and it definitely wasn’t.

6.10 — “The Package” — We’ve had two watchable episodes in a row, which in this mediocre season is cause for rejoicing.  With the exception of Sun’s ridiculous amnesia/ephasia/whatever (which sort of sums up the show’s stubborn insistance, since season 1, on having its characters unwilling/unable to communicate with one another) I thought this week’s episode was pretty solid.  It was nice to see Mikhael, and his ultimate fate was pretty poetic.  (Guess the alternate-universe Mikhail doesn’t have as many lives as his island counterpart…)  I liked Sayid’s Apocalypse Now moment at the very end.  It was also nice to see room 23 again, although the woman’s line about it being used for subliminal messaging experiments is the type of frustrating confirmation-of-things-we-already-knew-rather-than-addressing-the-larger-questions sort of answers that we’ve been getting so far in season 6.  Like the Richard Alpert episode (which confirmed a lot of the guesses that attentive fans of the show had made, but didn’t really tell us anything startlingly new), it was pretty obvious when we first saw room 23 in season 3 that it had been created for mind-control (or at least mind-altering) experiments.  But to what END?  WHAT were the Dharma folk trying to accomplish in that room?  How did that connect to the other work they were doing on the island??  THOSE are my questions, and they remain unanswered.

On Monday I wrote about Arthur C. Clarke’s magnificent novel 2010: Odyssey Two.  After completing the novel, I couldn’t resist taking another look at Peter Hyams’ film adaptation, with the revised title of 2010: The Year We Make Contact.  (It’s a film I had only seen once, back in the mid ’90s on video.)

Somehow it seems acceptable to me for Mr. Clarke to choose to write a follow-up to his own novel (2001: A Space Odyssey).  Yet the idea of a movie sequel to Stanley Kubrik’s iconic and influential film — particularly a sequel helmed by another director, and one whose story would set out to answer many of the questions that Kubrik so pointedly left unanswered — seems almost sacrilegious.

2010 is not a film that should be any good.  It could have so easily wound up being Blues Brothers 2000.  And yet, somehow, while  it’s nowhere near as great as the novel, it is a far better film than it has any right to be.

Whereas Stanley Kubrik’s 2001 was slow and lyrical and notably short on any actual plot or character development, 2010 is more of an adventure film.  There is no shooting and there are no fist-fights, thank goodness.  But there’s solid narrative thrust throughout the film, as we follow Heywood Floyd (recast here as the wonderful Roy Scheider) on his odyssey towards Jupiter.  Once there, tension mounts as the mysteries deepen and an enormous potential danger is discovered.

I was very pleasantly surprised, rewatching this film, at how many talented and familiar faces make up the cast.  There’s Roy Scheider, of course, who makes a potent lead.  His Dr. Floyd is a man of great intelligence and integrity, and a bit more of an action hero than the rather administrative version of the character as played by William Sylvester in 2001.  John Lithgow plays the American engineer Walter Curnow, and he brings a lot of warmth and humanity to the role.  I was disappointed that the Indian character of Dr. Chandra, HAL 9000’s creator, was recast in the film as an American — but when that American is played by the terrific Bob Balaban, I really can’t complain.  Then there’s Helen Mirren — yes, THAT Helen Mirren — as the Russian captain of the Lenov (the vessel launched towards Jupiter in an attempt to rescue the Discovery and discover what happened to Dave Bowman).  She doesn’t have a whole lot to do in the film, but she’s great whenever she’s on screen.  It’s fun to see her in this type of sci-fi/adventure role.

While the visual effects of the film don’t quite hold up as well as those in 2001: A Space Odyssey — they don’t have quite the same degree of stately grandeur — 2010 looks pretty great for a film made back in 1984.   Leonov and Discovery are very well realized, as are the different environments of Jupiter and its moons.  The sequence in which a flaming Leonov sling-shots around Jupiter is probably the film’s dodgiest sequence, effects-wise.  But on the other hand, the tense climax — in which the Monoliths multiply on the surface of Jupiter and begin to consume the planet — comes off fantastically well.  The set design and art direction also suffer somewhat in comparison to 2001 — the sets mostly look like, well, sets — but, as with the visual effects, they’re still pretty darned good.

I give great credit to director (and screenwriter, working from Mr. Clarke’s novel) Peter Hyams for pulling this off.  He’s created a fun, tight little adventure film that honors its predecessor and seems of a piece with it, and yet doesn’t seek to slavishly emulate Mr. Kubrik’s film.  Rather, Mr. Hyams has taken the characters and settings established in 2001: A Space Odyssey and created an entirely different type of film set within that narrative “universe.”  This is a stunningly brave thing to do, and I think it’s the key ingredient to the film working as well as it does.

My main quibbles with the film mostly deal with the areas where Mr. Hyams & co. diverged from the source material.  Although, on the whole, 2010 is a pretty faithful adaptation, there were some changes that rubbed me the wrong way.  The most major change to the film was the elimination of the novel’s storyline involving the separate Chinese mission to Jupiter.  This means, for example, that in the film it has to be our heroes on the Leonov, rather than the Chinese, who make an important discovery on Europa.  That makes sense in theory, but the way that sequence was shoehorned into the story felt awkward to me.

The narrative tension from the Chinese competition has been replaced in the story by the addition of a subplot about rising Russian-American tensions back on Earth.  Here too, I understand the reasons behind this decision, but sometimes I found its execution to be awkward, as references to the problems back home had to be continually inserted into scenes so that we wouldn’t forget about it.  The is change also affected — not for the better — the very first scene of the film, in which Heywood Floyd is visited by a Russian who imparts some key information that gets the story going.  In the novel, the Russian was an old friend and colleage of Dr. Floyd’s, whereas in the film it’s established that the two have never met (I guess because of the US-Russian problems), and they have a somewhat antagonistic relationship in which they shout to speak to one another.  I get that the filmmakers wanted to emphasize that Americans and Russians aren’t really getting along — but without that prior friendship, there’s no real reason for the Russian to trust Dr. Floyd with the information that he gives him.  There was also, incredibly, a change made to the critical final message given to mankind at the end of the story.  Now this message directly addresses these political issues on Earth.  I found that change to be heavy-handed and silly, whereas Mr. Clarke’s original, briefer text made the same point far more gracefully.

But these are, on the whole, minor complaints, and they say more about my great love for Mr. Clarke’s novel as opposed to any serious problems that I have with the film.  While I’d love to see this saga brought to life using today’s visual effects tools, 2010: The Year We Make Contact stands as a very successful (if somewhat forgotten, today) science fiction film for adults, in which the issues confronted by our heroes are intellectual, scientific, and moral, and they’re not solved by shooting guns or blowing things up.  If you’re a fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but have never seen this follow-up film, it is well-worth your time.  Hard to believe that we’re actually living, today, in the year 2010!!

Last week was the second annual Talk Like William Shatner Day!  (It’s in honor of William Shatner’s birthday on March 22nd, of course.)  Let’s celebrate, shall we, with Maurice LaMarche and Kevin Pollak!

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