Reviewing Movies

Two immediate reactions. First if a child fought in school the way Scout does today her teachers would have permanently expelled her from school and suggested counselling and/or institutionalization. Second had I defied my father the way Jem does here I would not have expected to survive the experience. The children do not appear to be particularly obedient.

Jem and Scout have internalized their Father’s values without even knowing it. When they arrive at the courthouse and find the main floor packed they have no second thoughts about going upstairs to the balcony, the section to which Blacks were relegated. In a very real sense Calpurnia is their mother, fulfilling that role in their lives save for the relationship with their father.

Save for the absence of any ethnic minority whatsoever the village in which I grew up in Nova Scotia is not unlike that of Jem and Scout. Everyone knew everybody, nobody locked their doors, and strange characters were accepted for whom they were. In an agrarian society the mentally deficient or emotionally disturbed managed to survive with the support of their neighbours. In fact it was a point of honour that we looked after our own.

I thought nothing of my freedom to walk for miles through our woods and forests, to go berry-picking, or swimming at the mill pond. No one thought to caution me when I hopped on my bicycle and pedalled the 1.2 miles uphill to my grandfather’s home or walked across the hills to visit my Great-Uncle and Grandmother who kept house for him. The security I knew then I took for granted.

Crime, if it existed, was of a moral nature, the town seven miles distant had its own police department but the RCMP who patrolled the county were rarely seen and unknown to us. Murder was something one read about in the news and robberies happened far away in big cities. Night time was for sleeping and by day no one did anything their neighbours didn’t know everything about before they had finished doing it. My Father, for example, sat in his rocking chair watching the road in front of our house and identified every car that passed. He could identify anyone who visited the graveyard in front of our house by the section of the cemetery they paused at.

Just finished watching James Cameron’s Titanic. The ship as it appears in the movie has a rather grotesque, brutish, utilitarian look about it in the long-range exterior shots. It was constructed to slice through the water as efficiently as possible; not for the beauty and grace of its lines as sailboat would have been crafted. Above the waterline it was built to hold as much cargo, human or otherwise, as possible.

Having seen the Titanic Exhibit at the Johnson Geologic Museum in Saint John’s, NFLD I am aware that the lifeboat capacity of the ship exceeding legal requirements in 1912; by the math

60X20=1200-2200=-1000.

The death toll was far higher due to the under-loading of many of those boats. God forbid First-Class passengers be incommoded. Steerage passengers were kept locked below decks even as their companionways flooded for good reason. They weren’t expected to survive.

Among other details. Morse Code transmission was still in its infancy, indeed the universal distress call was CQD, S.O.S. still being an experimental signal. Despite repeated signals warning of icebergs in the waters ahead the Captain at the owner’s urging steamed full-speed ahead into ice infested waters. Unaided by binoculars the men in the crowsnest searched for bergs on a glassy sea.  The ice sighted dead ahead another ship’s failing became apparent—the rudder was too small to turn the ship. It has been theorized that had the ship struck the iceberg head-on it would have devastated the bow section of the boat and created a mighty concussion throughout but the boat would probably have survived. Striking a glancing blow along its side flooded the forward compartments and once more by design the watertight bulkheads were not extended all the way to the top decks so as not to incommode the First-Class passengers hence the cascading foundering of the ship.

Having set in motion the launching of the lifeboats it became apparent that neither the crew nor the passengers had undergone any lifeboat drills or training. In fact Titanic put to sea never having undergone any sea trials which might have made evident its rudder’s deficiencies. The icy winter waters off Newfoundland and hypothermia did the rest.

To add a human dimension to the recreation of a historical event the movie makers insert a hypothetical love-story into the mix. A spoiled society lass is about to be married off to money by her bankrupt mother and runs into an artistic adventurer in the person of Jack Hawkins. We are shown his gravestone. In the end it is Rose’s self-indulgence that kills Jack Hawkins. Had she listened to Jack and her fiancé Jack would probably have survived the sinking, as it was he was unable to keep both Rose and himself afloat and the cold North Atlantic claimed him.

What is lacking in this story is any background as to how Hannah came to be illiterate or what in her childhood caused her to be the frigid, emotionally detached, totally logical individual she became in later life.

In her relationship with Michael passion or love had no place, they experienced mutually rewarding needs and indulged them. For her part no emotional attachment was placed on them.

When her faithful employment record threatened advancement to a position that would have revealed her illiteracy her fear of the exposure lead her to seek other employment. She joined the SS to become a guard because the job did not require that she be capable of writing.

After she came to post-war trial her detached logical nature was interpreted as heartlessness and enthusiasm for her task. Rather than admit she couldn’t write when asked for a hand-writing sample she confessed to writing a report she obviously was incapable of having submitted. Revealing is the manner in which her co-accused jumped on the bandwagon and openly made her the scapegoat for their collective actions.

The reader centres on the future lawyer who, as a fifteen-year-old carries on an affair with a woman twice his age, who as a law student attends her Nazi War Crimes trial but fails to come forward with material information because he knows the condemned would not wish it made public. Who has not the courage to even confront her in prison then or even later in adulthood. Who rather continues reading books to her as he did that summer as a teen but now via tape. Who failed to attend his own father’s funeral but visits his mother to tell her of his divorce.

What is it with Hollywood conventions, I lived through the 60ies and clothing did not look like it had hung in mothballs, furniture like it had moulded, or wall paper like it had been fading for half a century. And the sky did not have a twilight cast. That may have described my  Great-Uncle’s house but then he didn’t have electricity either. Were jets capable of Mach II in 1947?

What Dark Skies has going for it is Eric Close’s good looks, square shoulders and solid frame. The show seems to incorporate every possible conspiracy theory ever associated with Area 51 and whatever occurred at Roswell, New Mexico. So far it’s touched on Frances Gary Powers, Saturn Rocket Launches at Cape Kennedy, The Kennedy Assassination, The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, and Howard Hughes.

Just past the midway point of the first and only season the character of Julliette is introduced. By now a Soviet cliché she is the ultimate ball crusher who chews through her first scene like a hot knife slicing butter. Shortly after John’s girlfriend is essentially written out of the series and guess who becomes his love interest.

GONE WITH THE WIND

Here is a movie worthy of one of the few remaining Grand Ole Theatres. In 1939 computers were barely the stuff of Science Fiction so that railway scene of thousands of wounded soldiers represents real extras, those warehouses really did burn and collapse, those boxcars blew up. Movies still rivalled live theatre productions and began with a Musical Prelude, had Intermission Music at the 2 hour mark and ended with Exit Music. I’d forgotten that the movie title was blown across the screen in full-size letters.

I’d also forgotten that Scarlet O’Hara was Katie-Scarlet. Again that Southern predilection for double names: Sue-Ellen, Jim-Bob, Billy-Bob, Billy-Ray—a child knew it was in real trouble when addressed as William-Robert. There is also the iconic Mammie and Prissey who epitomizes the name. The actress who played her just died. Aunt Pit-a-Pat shows she’s a real Southern Lady by fainting at any provocation.

Like the gracious South it portraits the movie unfolds in unhurried fashion. Never-the-less it manages to encompass the five years of Civil War and the twelve years of Reconstruction that followed. Although historical background is provided by onscreen lettered commentary the movie concentrates on the social, economic, and physical cost to the people involved. When Scarlet returns to Tara and finds her Mother Dead from Typhus with a cow in tow her two remaining faithful slaves declare—we don’t know how to milk, we’s house slaves. However the House Slaves remained because they had more personal ties with their Masters.

The second half of this movie—yes, it is 4 hour long—is on Disk 2. It follows the lengths to which Scarlet will go to protect her beloved Tara. The emphasis here is not on the Reconstruction but how it affected Scarlet. Like Scarlet herself the movie shows how the people around her serve to meet Scarlet’s motives, they are never important for themselves. Scarlet loses her Mother and the loss of his wife drives her Father mad. Although she develops a shrewd business sense Scarlet never matures beyond her self-centred, indulged, petulant teenage self. Totally lacking in any moral sense save her over-arching desire to protect her beloved Tara she will stop at nothing in its defence. Incapable of feeling love for anyone but herself she maintains a childish obsession with her neighbour Ashley who cannot be faithful to his wife save in a technical sense.

It is Mammy who holds the story together and it she who summons Melanie after the death of the Butler’s daughter, not for Scarlet but for the Master. When the strain of that visit leads to Melanie’s death it is Scarlet’s exit from the death chamber into the arms of Ashley rather than her nearby husband that provides the final provocation. The movie ends with Rhett’s famous line, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”. Somehow I get the sense that the writer/director couldn’t come up with anything to truly complete the story after that bombshell. Did I say I found the ending unsatisfying and incomplete?

Calling the series “V” high concept is an understatement. Coming out in 1985 ten years before Independence Day the Mother Ships bear an uncanny resemblance to the ones that hovered over major world cities in the feature film. The series jumps into the story with no preparation or explanation. I have never been able to access the mini-series that would provide the back-story. By the final third of the series the opening credit sequence adds background too little, too late. The alien invaders bear an uncanny resemblance in their tactics, militarism, and jingoism to Nazi Storm-troopers right down to the hanging of large red flags. This time the invaders objective would seem to be the annihilation of the world’s entire population. Watching these lizard creatures swallow mice, scorpians, and other creepy crawlies can be rather off-putting.

Although a nebulous off-world leader is oft mentioned the ‘Visitors’ are lead by two woman with various men thrown in and disappearing again with little explanation. Lane Smith, who later played editor of the Daily Planet in Lois and Clark, is the collaborationist leader of Los Angeles. The Resistance is lead by Marc Singer, the muscles in the Beastmaster Movies; how he manages to squeeze into those form-fitting jeans and perform those athletic manoeuvres without any ‘costume malfunctions’ is a mystery. Plenty of eye-candy provided with the pectorally endowed Jeff Yagher and the visitor Charles wearing revealing outfits to little avail. Lots of pretty women as well. Whether Singer’s moves were choreographed or dictated by skin tight jeans I’m not sure, when did they develop stretch fabric? The clothing styles definitely date the series.