Untimely Movie Review: Bullitt

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Tom Garrett

Bullitt, the next film in the Warner Brothers 50 Film Collection, is the perfect palate-cleanser after the fantastic but mystifying 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Rather than exploring existential questions of humanity and our place in the universe, Bullitt is quite simply an action-packed cop movie with superb editing, a little grit, and a tighter narrative.  It holds a 97 percent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which seems a tad high, but not absurdly so.

Bullitt stars Steve McQueen at his McQueen-est, along with Robert Vaughn and, in a small, but star-making turn, Jacqueline Bisset

One point it does share to some extent with 2001 is ambiguity.  While not aspiring to ask metaphysical questions of the sort that Kubrick’s masterpiece poses, Bullitt does leave viewers to ponder what the true motivations of some of the film’s characters were, particularly Robert Vaughn’s Senator Chalmers.

Specifically, the politically craven senator’s seeming indifference to the closing events of the movie causes the viewer to reconsider what Chalmers’ angle was from the outset, and where his loyalties actually lie.

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Untimely Movie Review: 2001: A Space Odyssey

Posted on April 20, 2020 by Tom Garrett

For about 25 minutes, there’s not a single line of dialogue in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Yet, Kubrick, using only a phenomenal, classical score (WHOOOO!) and striking, brutal, beautiful, and sometimes alarming visuals produces a remarkably well-told story.

As a whole, 2001 is less a film than it is an experience.  Except for a couple of scenes in the middle of the film that lay out some exposition, the movie is devoid of much dialogue.  Instead, the score and the imagery (even when it’s incomprehensible) wash over the audience to evoke the desired effect.

In fact, the next selection in the Warner Brothers 50 Film Collection is one of the most visually-striking movie I’ve ever seen.

The story is simple enough for a modern audience to understand (although it would have been more challenging for a 1968 audience that hadn’t grown up with an almost limitless canon of serious, space-based science fiction movies): some higher intelligence has provided humanity with monoliths that serve as evolutionary touchstones.  The purpose is unknown, as are the designers.  But 2001 tracks humanity’s attempt to discover and understand these artifacts, and, in doing so, understand itself.

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Untimely Movie Review: Cool Hand Luke

Posted on April 13, 2020 by Tom Garrett

With my renewed, pandemic-commitment to reviewing the Warner Brothers 50 Film Collection, I moved on to the next film in the collection, Cool Hand Luke.

Like Doctor Zhivago and numerous other titles in the set, Cool Hand Luke is based on a book I’ve never read.  Unlike most of the other book-based titles, Cool Hand Luke does a much better job of not seeming like a book.

Whereas most book-to-film translations are plagued by seeming at once too much and too little, this movie does not: through a customarily excellent Paul Newman performance, we come to understand who Luke Jackson is via just a handful of subtle but potent scenes.

What’s less subtle is the Christian imagery, which includes not one, but two on-the-nose pseudo-crucifixions.

In short, Luke Jackson is a Christ figure for the inmates of the Florida work camp that is the subject of the film.  He is first met with heavy skepticism, but, through his example, gradually attracts and inspires followers who ultimately remember him and his “works,” even after his death.  The film examines prison life, or at least as it is meant to have existed in early 1950s Florida.

Cool Hand Luke is a rare example of a film that holds a 100 percent positive rating on the movie-review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes.  And deservedly so—the movie is quite good.

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Untimely Movie Review: Doctor Zhivago

Posted on April 7, 2020 by Tom Garrett

I thought there could be no better time to resume my on-again, off-again relationship with the Warner Brothers 50 Film Collection than during a global pandemic.

In fairness to me, the reason I hit pause after the most recent few entries was that the runtime for the next film, Doctor Zhivago, checked in at a daunting 300 minutes.

Now, with all the time in the world, I turn my attention to the 1965 sweeping epic.

The bulk of Part I is fairly dull, albeit with impressive costumes, sets, and visuals.  The film uses the conventional substitution of an English accent for a foreign tongue.  However, what’s somewhat curious is that this film goes even farther, with characters using quintessential British-isms like “old chap.”  What’s more, the aristocracy uses French terms (e.g. “Monsieur” Komarovsky), and the servants and attendants for the elites have French accents.

Outside of that, and the amazing sets and costumes, it was a fairly typical, big-budget, 1960s melodrama until a few minutes before the intermission.  That’s when the titular Zhivago, now returned to Moscow after World War I, is first introduced to the utter horrors of communism and the Russian Revolution.

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Timely Movie Review: The Rise of Skywalker

Posted on December 31, 2019 by Tom Garrett

*MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD*

“The dead speak!”

The first line of The Rise of Skywalker‘s opening crawl was an immediate red flag.

In Episode IX, the dead don’t just speak.  They give speeches.

Much as I did with The Last Jedi, I made it to The Rise of Skywalker without any significant spoilers.  And, much like Episode VIII, the Rotten Tomatoes score seemed to be telling.

In case you don’t recall, The Last Jedi scored very well with critics, but fans rated it poorly.  The Rise of Skywalker was the reverse—the audience score stands at 84 percent, while critics rate it at just 55, which is about the same as the worst-reviewed live-action Star Wars film of all-time, The Phantom Menace.

In the case of The Last Jedi, I agreed with the audience.  In the case of The Rise of Skywalker, I agree with the critics.

My biggest issue with TLJ was its frustrating story structure, which was particularly puzzling, given that Rian Johnson had also written and directed the excellent Looper.  The enjoyable, recent whodunit Knives Out proved that Johnson’s pre-TLJ work was no fluke.  But, for whatever reason, he just didn’t “click” with Star Wars, at least not as far as the audience (myself included) was concerned.

I can say confidently that Episode IX didn’t suffer from the same flaw.  J.J. Abrams put together a competently structured story, especially considering that the actor playing one of the key characters was, in fact, deceased at the time of filming.

Unfortunately, the movie suffers from numerous other flaws, some small, others more significant.

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Continue? (OR: The Subtle Art of Extracting Meaning from Meaninglessness)

Posted on December 13, 2019 by Tom Garrett

It’s easy for me to pinpoint the moment that got me hooked on “Continue?”

I can’t recall how I initially stumbled across the show.  Probably via a YouTube suggestion algorithm.  I was a bit late to the party.  I don’t think I watched my first episode until early 2013 or so, over three years into Continue’s lifespan–and well after the show’s wry, witty co-founder Dom Moschitti had departed.

By the time I caught up to it, the hosts were Pixies fan and legitimately skilled gamer Nick Murphy, de-facto leader / middle-seat-occupier and sometimes bad gamer Paul Richey, and irascible scoundrel and occasional time-traveler Josh Henderson, Dom’s replacement.

In any event, I had watched and enjoyed several episodes before getting to the then fairly recent show that covered the Super Nintendo game Plok.

About six minutes in, Paul, the primary player on this particular episode, stumbles across what appears to be a large present, complete with ribbon and bow.  As a giant, Mode-7-ified question mark displays on screen, Paul, Nick, and Josh shriek in anticipation  . . . before Plok suddenly reappears in a hunter’s outfit, carrying a large gun.

“I GOT A BLUNDERBUSS,” screamed Paul.

That moment inexplicably yet organically led to a riff about offensive jokes, with the decidedly unoffensive premise actually being that Paul’s version of a “joke” is simply to blurt out the name of the topic.

“I’m going to tell a 9-11 joke.”

“OK, go ahead.”

” . . . . . . . 9-11!!!”

Equal parts glee and good-natured, friendly mockery, Paul’s reaction to a random power-up and the subsequent conversation made me a fan of Continue for life, as well as an eventual, enthusiastic Patreon supporter.

Tomorrow, December 14th, 2019, marks the tenth anniversary of the upload date of the show’s oldest episode.  I thought this would be as good a time as any to share my love of Continue, and explain what, from my POV, makes the show so uniquely good.

First, the basics.  Explaining what Continue isn’t is actually more efficient than explaining what it is.  It isn’t a “let’s play.”  It certainly isn’t a tutorial, as the guys only occasionally bother to learn the games’ basic controls before playing.  It isn’t really even a video game review show.

Ostensibly, the show’s format is a snap judgment on a (usually classic) video game, based on picking up and playing it for 15-30 minutes, ending with a verdict of “Continue” or “Game Over.”

Except that’s not really what the show is about.

The subset of people who are trying to make a decision about whether to buy, say, 1988’s Snoopy’s Sports Spectacular for the NES is pretty small.  That’s why I say it’s not really a review show.

It’s something far better.

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Untimely Movie Review: How the West Was Won

Posted on December 2, 2019 by Tom Garrett

As part of my flagging recommitment to this blog, I’ve dusted off my Warner Brothers 50 Film Collection, which I purchased back in early 2014.  I fairly regularly provided reviews of the films in that collection, which I’ve gradually watched in chronological order.  That ended in 2017, when my job duties increased and my time devoted to this blog declined even further.

That’s changing.  I finally published the review of Ben-Hur I began almost two years ago, and, now, I move on to the next film in the set: How the West Was Won, from 1962.

With an Infinity-War-esque breadth of cast, How the West Was Won sets out to tell the ambitious tale of, well, how the American west was “won” from approximately 1840 until about 1890.  The portrayal of this half-century includes a series of segments divided by significant time jumps.

The film includes portions on westward migration via river and its dangers (circa 1840), westward migration across the plains (circa 1850), the Civil War (1861–65, obviously), the creation of a transcontinental railroad (late 1860s), and, finally, the last days of the Wild West outlaws (circa 1890).  Although there are new, critical characters introduced in each segment, the story is tied together loosely by following members of a single family across four generations.

I wasn’t kidding when I referenced the massive cast.  Although some of these actors only have a few minutes of screentime, the all-star players include Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Karl Malden, Debbie Reynolds, Lee Van Cleef, Agnes Moorehead, Gregory Peck, Eli Wallach, Lee J. Cobb, Harry Morgan, Carroll Baker, Walter Brennan, and a young Harry Dean Stanton.  Spencer Tracy narrates.

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Father’s Day (Redux 2019)

Posted on June 14, 2019 by Tom Garrett

It was.

As part of my now-annual Father’s Day tradition, I’m re-posting this 2016 podcast episode I recorded.  It details the story of my favorite Father’s Day of all time.

Even if the Father’s Day theme doesn’t resonate for you, if you’re a Red Sox fan who enjoys any excuse to reminisce about the impossibly magical run of the 2004 postseason, you’ll likely enjoy it.

Either way, Happy Father’s Day!

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Bill Buckner Never Needed Redemption, But He Got It Anyway

Posted on May 27, 2019 by Tom Garrett

There was a moment a few years ago on Curb Your Enthusiasm that caught me by surprise in a way that I’m not sure any other television show has.

The season in question revolved around Larry’s misadventures in New York, where he coincidentally meets Bill Buckner.  During the scene, Larry encounters Buckner again, and then this happens:

Curb Your Enthusiasm is one of the funniest shows of the past 20 years, up there in the lofty heights occupied by 30 Rock, Arrested Development, and a handful of others.  Yet, I wasn’t laughing during this scene.  I was holding back tears.  I imagine a lot of other Red Sox fans were as well.

Why?  Because it gave Buckner the redemption that he never should have needed in the first place.

It was a touching, sweet, albeit fictionalized send-off of sorts.  The send-off that Buckner should have always had.  Instead, prior to 2004, he was the poster boy for “The Curse,” the guy who let that ball go between his legs in the tenth inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.

By 1990, the fans had forgiven him, greeting his return to the Red Sox with a standing ovation.  But the media, which profited from the pre-2004 romanticism of the idea of a cursed franchise, could never let it go.

And, so, after retiring from baseball, Buckner took his family and moved to Idaho, the victim of an entirely unjust exile.

Unjust in the micro sense that Red Sox fans know well (Why wasn’t Dave Stapleton in at first?  Why isn’t Calvin Schiraldi remembered for his part in the Game 6 collapse?  Why does nobody talk about the Red Sox blowing a three-run lead in Game 7?), but also in the macro sense: Buckner played 22 years in the big leagues, was an All-Star, won a batting title, and had more career hits than Ted Williams.

By all accounts, Buckner was also a gentleman.  Even though he had every reason in the world not to be.

He found God later in life, and, with that, came acceptance, peace, and forgiveness—even toward those who did not deserve it.

Bill Buckner died today.  And I now know why that Curb scene touched me on an emotional level.

Guilt.

Guilt for reveling in the worst moment of a very good baseball player’s career.  Guilt for assigning far too much blame to one man.  Guilt for being one more voice in a chorus that eventually caused a man to move his family thousands of miles just to escape the noise.

Criticism comes with the territory in pro sports.  I was a just a small child when the Red Sox lost in 1986.  But the nature of the Red Sox’ (formerly) star-crossed history, coupled with the powerful scrutiny of the Boston media, turned the Buckner incident into something beyond the normal, understandable heat that pro athletes should be expected to take.

Things are different now.  As I’ve said before, the events of 2004 and beyond rendered everything that happened in 1986 not as a career-defining moment, but, rather, as part of a painful-if-necessary prologue that suddenly all made sense in a poetic, dare I say spiritual way.

In the end, Buckner was a good ballplayer and a better man.  For many reasons.  Not the least of which because he found it in his heart to extend grace to a whole bunch of people who had done little or nothing to earn it.  That is a greatness that transcends the fielding of a ground ball.

I am so thankful that he can truly rest in peace.  For his sake and for ours.

As such, this is the way I’ll always remember Bill Buckner:

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Timely Movie Review: Avengers – Endgame

Posted on April 28, 2019 by Tom Garrett

The culmination of a 22-film franchise, Avengers: Endgame represents one of the most ambitious projects in filmmaking history—if not the most ambitious.

Providing a thorough synopsis of a complex, multifaceted, three-hour film is both overly cumbersome and unnecessary for a review like this one, so I’ll skip that.  I’d rather analyze it from a narrative and storytelling perspective, which is what matters to me, anyway.  Understand, though, that there will be numerous spoilers ahead.

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