Category: Marc’s Reviews

THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT

By Marc S. Sanders

I’m looking forward to seeing a film that pokes fun at the life and career of actor Nicolas Cage.  After seeing his new film, The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent, I’m still waiting.

The title is the best thing about this film.  In fact, it might be the best title of any film to come out this year. 

Cage portrays an account of himself, Nicolas Cage.  His career in Hollywood seems to always be scraping the bottom of the barrel and he comes up desperate for the next film that will financially sustain him.  Look actors gotta work too!  He’s so anxious for a part that he’ll recite a monologue with a dreadful Boston accent to a Hollywood producer as he’s waiting for the valet.  Alas, no roles are coming his way and he’s over $600,000 in debt.  Best that his agent (Neil Patrick Harris) can do is get him a million-dollar paycheck to spend a weekend at a supposed super fan’s island chateau.  Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal) is that fan. 

As Nicolas’ stay commences, somehow, he finds himself caught up in a real-life action-packed story.  The CIA inadvertently recruits him to stay on top of Javi as they suspect he’s kidnapped the daughter of a foreign country’s President.  Yet, Javi doesn’t seem to give off any clues.  He’s only enthusiastically concerned with entertaining his celebrity guest and selling the adventure screenplay he’s written with Cage in mind.

I gave up on this film after the first fifteen minutes.  If I laughed three times during the course of the picture it was a lot.  The oversight that I think occurred here is that it never felt like a spoof of the actor Nicolas Cage.  Cage has a lot of suspect material in his past.  He’s a die-hard Superman fan.  After all, he named his son Kal-el.  Who does that?  As well, he’s infamously known to have recorded himself in a terrible looking Superman suit for Batman director Tim Burton to consider for a film revival with Cage in the superhero role.  Cage has also been married multiple times, including to Elvis Presley’s daughter at one point.  I believe his most recent marriage lasted all of three days.  He has his odd collection of film roles, and he’s a member of the famous Hollywood family, the Coppolas (as in Francis Ford and Sofia).  Yet, none of this material that comes to me off the top of my head makes its way into The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent.  The title seems to scream Nicolas Cage and yet this film is hardly about Nicolas Cage.

Instead, this film directed by Tom Gormican, who also co-wrote it, opts to actually turn the second half of the film into an actual shoot ‘em up adventure with clumsy comedy scraps.  Cage and Pascal scream amidst the bullets and car chases, but none of it is funny.  It certainly doesn’t reach the heights of Lethal Weapon fanfare.

I think back to a film called This Is The End which features the Judd Apatow fraternity of actors (James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill and Jay Baruchel).  Earth is coming to an end and the celebrities play themselves.  The inside jokes were abundant with nods to their film careers, their penance for smoking weed and various gossip stories.  If Nicolas Cage is truly playing himself and this new film is selling itself on that message, then show me Nicolas Cage.  If you are just going to show an unfunny Pedro Pascal and clumsy gun fire galore, then you can easily swap out the celebrity at the center of it all and replace him with any other well-known actor.  Don Knotts could have been inserted here, or Charles Nelson Reilly.  Kim Kardashian could have had opportunity with this script.

Sure, there are some salutes to Cage’s film credits.  Javi’s secret man cave of all things Nicolas Cage is a little fun for the short while we are there.  Yet, what’s so relatable with a forgettable film like Guarding Tess?  It’s actually a good movie with Shirley MacLaine in the title role.  How many people actually saw it though, much less remember it?  Face/Off gets a nod but nothing great beyond the gold-plated prop guns he used.  Gone In Sixty Seconds is mentioned in one sentence of dialogue.  Con Air hearkens back to the bunny in the box for a beat.

Other than one well known celebrity cameo for a blink and you miss close up, the Hollywood populace doesn’t even turn up to roast the film’s star.  Imagine if Francis Ford Coppola made an appearance.  “Nic, stop embarrassing the family.”  Consider Sean Penn having a beer with Nicolas to reminisce about Fast Times At Ridgemont High (Nicolas’ first film appearance as a stoner dude, when his surname was Coppola).  There’s not even a mention about his Oscar winning turn in Leaving Las Vegas.

I am happy to admit that Nicolas Cage has a very storied career and life behind him, and yet hardly anything is touched upon in this film.  Instead, we are distracted with a kidnapped young woman that I don’t recall has even one line of dialogue in the picture.  If she did, it happened when I dozed off.

One avenue seems so obvious for a film intending to spoof this actor.  Walk with me for a second.  Nicolas Cage did the film Con Air with actor John Malkovich.  There’s already a much better film called Being John Malkovich that had a little fun at the expense of that real life actor.  It was written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze.  Know what else Kaufman & Jonze wrote and directed?  A film called Adaptation with Nicolas Cage.  See where I’m going here?  This stuff writes itself.  I’d love to have watched a scene where Malkovich walks in and says “I know what you’re going through Nic.  I really do. Charlie and Spike never let up.”  There’s much to play with here. 

Yet instead, we are belabored with the unbearable weight of this unfunny film. 

STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE

By Marc S. Sanders

22 years after the first Star Wars film made a ginormous cultural impact on the world, George Lucas finally returned to the franchise to make the first film of a new prequel trilogy with Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. It was hyped beyond measure, and it sold gazillions in ticket sales but was nevertheless a letdown for diehard fans and pretty much everyone else. I don’t think it’s a terrible movie. I just don’t understand how necessary the film is.

There’s a lot of irrelevant moments here. Early on two Jedi step off a ship, and a droid introduces herself to them and says “this way please,” and the three figures literally walk out of frame. This takes up time that I don’t understand. Why couldn’t the three just end up in the room they were supposed to be in? There are a lot of “so what?” moments in The Phantom Menace, and it all weighs the film down, hindering a story.

Listening to an audio commentary a number of years ago, one of the visual effects makers pats himself on the back of a shot midway through the film that consists primarily of CGI characters and sets. That was when I realized the conception of The Phantom Menace was completed with a short-sighted intent. Sure the scene might have been a technical breakthrough in 1999, but where’s the story? Fact is, there is no story and little regard for the celebrated franchise in Episode I. Lucas and his team were more concerned with shooting new CGI discoveries blended with human interaction. They offered next to no regard for intelligent plot and storytelling. The film suffers because of Lucasfilm’s hubris.

Consider the pod race. There’s a moment where young Anakin’s (Jake Lloyd) racer falls apart at high speed and he’s gotta get it back together. He uses a magnetic tool to get a cable plugged back in. If this child is “the chosen one” and potentially “dangerous,” why not show the child potentially use the force to bring the cable back in place? Why not show moments where unexplainable power emits from Anakin, to what would imply the inevitablity we are aware will eventually happen?

Lucas is also all over the place in his storytelling and characters. From the Shakespearean manipulator, Senator Palpatine, to the immature cartoon like Jar Jar Binks. I think they all serve a purpose to entertain. Yet while adults and die hard fans will relish the return of Ian McDiarmid (a terrific actor) they’ll be bored to death with actor Ahmed Best in the Jar Jar role. This I expect happens in vice versa with 8 year olds seeing their toy figures come to life. There is a silly charm to Jar Jar, but what 8 year old wants to pay attention or even comprehend debates among galactic senators over taxation and trade? It’s as if Bugs Bunny entered the halls of Congress, or Othello walked in on a pie throwing melee among the Three Stooges. At almost every point in The Phantom Menace something doesn’t belong or seems out of place.

The film moves far away from the tradition of the original trilogy. For the first time the human characters are enormously flat. Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor…all flat, all bland. There’s no snarkiness to them. No sarcasm. Before The Phantom Menace when was it ever said that the Jedi order was so formal in their ways? It doesn’t feel very fun to be a Jedi, like it did for Alec Guinness and Mark Hamill before.

The two redeeming qualities of this film belong to the pod race which is thrillingly edited in sound and visuals. There’s some fun shots of each racer, the pit droids, the crowds in the stands and even Jabba The Hutt. The film really comes alive here much like the memorable cantina scene from the original Star Wars. The other best feature is the villain, the apprentice to the phantom menace, the red and black tattooed Darth Maul played by the agile martial artist Ray Park.

Lucas didn’t use Park enough in the film. With his double bladed lightsaber, the two on one dual Park has with the Jedi characters towards the end is one of the greatest sword fights in film. I would’ve welcomed an additional five minutes of this scene. Shamefully, this would be Ray Park’s only appearance in the film franchise, as well as Darth Maul. This was a great blend of actor and character. Lucas abandoned a good thing too soon.

Yes! I have much to complain about The Phantom Menace. Yet it is not all bad as a whole. I love the political trickery that McDiarmid displays and the senate meeting among the delegates is a nice foreshadowing for what we know will come of it. Visually, it’s a treat as well. (Again, though, what kids are going to be entertained by all of that?) The pod race and lightsaber dueling are masterful as well. There’s some good material here. There just could’ve been a whole lot more….and a whole lot less overall.

NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN

By Marc S. Sanders

Sidney Lumet is the director known for shining a light on police corruption. His films were not crime dramas or legal thrillers really. They were an examination in what turns righteous professions within the confines of law and order into something tainted in violations of morality. Night Falls On Manhattan showed what can happen when the politics of New York City could be stained by the policemen who lost their sense of distinguishing right and wrong.

Andy Garcia plays Sean Casey, a newly deputized, very green district attorney and former street cop. His image looks perfect to prosecute a big time drug dealer who wounded his own policeman father, Liam (Ian Holm), and killed two other cops. Richard Dreyfuss does an inspired Alan Dershowitz personality portraying the defense attorney for the dealer, by angling a theory that police corruption is unfairly working against his client. It seems like a very open and shut case for Sean, which occupies the first half of the film.

Afterwards, Sean appears to have a white hot image in the public eye and he is quickly nominated and wins an election as Head District Attorney for the city, following a heart attack from the incumbent and his boss played by Ron Leibman. Conflicts arise though when it is uncovered that perhaps Liam, along with his partner Joey (James Gandolfini), have been taking money under the table as part of a group of dirty cops spread among three precincts.

Sidney Lumet’s films always present topical and complicated real life problems with no expected solutions. These issues of transgressions exceed any kind of quick fixes. He’s shown this time and again with films 12 Angry Men, Serpico, and The Verdict. With his original script here, Lumet gets a little personal. What can you do when a city relies on your image of ethical practice, but your own loving father may be a traitor to the laws he’s vowed to uphold? How can Sean work ethically for his constituents while his father and his longtime partner are possibly betraying sworn policy?

I was always engaged in Night Falls On Manhattan. What is Sean going to do? The dilemma is never patched up with a band aid. It actually feels like it gets worse and worse because it is next to unsolvable. Cops are heroes in this film and a cold blooded killer seems to have been rightfully sentenced? So how can Sean, Liam, Joe and the rest of the cast live with themselves when the end results they wanted all arrive, but came about in all the wrong ways?

This is a terrific assembly of talent. Most especially, credit has to go Ron Liebman as the head DA whose overbearing loud mouth is necessary for the city that never sleeps and the endless amount of police troops and city prosecutors he has to answer for. If New York City had an actual voice that emanates and speaks the endless noise of the Big Apple , it is Ron Liebman. He should have been Oscar nominated. He comes carved out of the concrete of the city landscape.

This is really an unsung picture of Lumet’s that should be seen, much like Find Me Guilty with Vin Diesel. My one issue is the preachy monologue that Sean delivers at the end of the picture. It comes off like a concluding statement and left me with the impression that the conflict of the story painted these characters into an inescapable corner. So, tack on a speech to bring on the credits. The monologue just didn’t work for me though. It didn’t give me that bookended impact I was hoping for.

Other than that, however, Night Falls On Manhattan is another fine piece of filmmaking rooted in a metropolitan setting that becomes a character all its own. Lumet was a genius about acknowledging his settings. This is another perfect example.

GRAN TORINO

By Marc S. Sanders

I had a few reasons to watch this movie. One, a good friend, Greg Spiegel, had given this film his full endorsement on a number of occasions. Two, as some of you know, I’ve been a huge admirer of Clint Eastwood for as long as I can remember, since age 8 or 9 I imagine, when I saw his Dirty Harry films and even Fido Beddow in Every Which Way But Loose (and its sequel; those films are much better than maybe they are given credit for actually).

Eastwood matured as a filmmaker during the mid 80s and on into the present. He transitioned into films that delivered messages that sometimes even contradicted his past films as the gunslinger who never asks questions and always knew where to shoot. Films like Unforgiven and A Perfect World really showcase the tragedies of violence perfectly, and I think Gran Torino is worthy of being added to that list.

Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a racist Korean War veteran, who never left the war he used to fight in. The war comes home with him 50 years later to his Michigan neighborhood where he seems to be the only Caucasian American to live among a melting pot of other races; highlighted especially here are his Hmong neighbors who look past Walt’s prejudices to befriend him following his unintended gesture of protection from an intrusive gang. From there, Walt makes a bond with young Tao, a boy with no male influence in his life, and Tao’s sister.

Eastwood is probably the best director to direct himself. He knows how to position his camera and lighting, or lack thereof, to carve out the lines on his face and hide himself in haunting shadows to show a riddled history to Walt. He also adheres to similar themes that worked well in other films. A defiance to religion represented by a young minister looking to help Walt is reminiscent to the sarcastic approach Eastwood’s character used in Million Dollar Baby. The neglect of a protagonist’s family, and most especially, the connection of the pessimistic old man with the young child, barely adult, as well echos the Clint Eastwood/Hilary Swank pairing in that film. I don’t mind if it’s a repeat actually. Relationships like these are hardly shown in films these days, and I think they are important. Films like Harold & Maude and The Karate Kid show that gaps in generations are not an excuse to separate ourselves. (Heck, I even attempted it when I wrote my play, Arnie & The Itch.)

Eastwood has great, uncompromising racial affection (yes, those two words work nicely here) with his two Asian co-stars Bee Vang and Ahney Her, who are well cast in their own right.

Name calling is a method of maintaining a relationship in a film like this. The PC bandwagon is tossed out so the actors, especially the minority Asians, find something more wholesome to a prejudiced old coot.

The language is strong in Gran Torino, but I say it’s an important film to show to many kids to learn of a neighbor’s tolerance; of what goes on behind a closed door or even if that neighbor sits quietly on his porch with a dog by his side and a beer in his hand. We learn of the roads they have crossed, the battles they have fought, and the accomplishments they’ve made. Learn from these people. Learn from the humanity they carry; the honest humanity that may look offensive on the outside yet is present due to a tormented history inside.

I could say “these whipper snappers with their phones” but it’s honest frustration. It’s hard to learn what a person really is by means of a handheld device. To learn about a person, you have to eat with them, work with them, speak to them and even appreciate their 1972 restored Ford Gran Torino, automobile.

This was a great effort in performance and production from Clint Eastwood. I’m glad I watched it finally.

TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE

By Marc S. Sanders

Roles for the “aging has been” who is either about to retire or refuses to retire seem reserved these days to Robert Redford or Clint Eastwood.

Back in 2012, Eastwood gave up his director’s chair to star in a little known film about an aging baseball scout in Trouble With The Curve. I’ve seen him play this kind of role many times before like In The Line Of Fire, or Grand Torino.

There’s nothing memorable about Trouble With The Curve, but it does feature some good scenes between Eastwood and Amy Adams as his tough as nails attorney/estranged daughter who forces herself upon his scouting trip to look after him when it seems his health, particularly his vision, is deteriorating. Adams is good as the underestimated baseball expert. She can recognize a 95 mph pitch and she can triumph over you in reciting RBI stats, batting averages, etc. Give her a bat and she can also cream a ball outta the park.

Justin Timberlake is the necessary pretty boy romantic interest for Adams, but he doesn’t offer much to the film in the way of humor or even sex appeal. This guy is a great actor beyond his music. (See The Social Network)

The movie belongs to Eastwood alone.

First time director and regular Eastwood crewman, Robert Lorenz does well with the baseball footage of young prospects and the end is satisfying as the argument weighs whether experience and instinct can still trump the power of technology.

Has baseball truly come to rely on what a computer says is the best first round draft pick? Wow…how sad.

PREDATOR

By Marc S. Sanders

Predator is not only my favorite Arnold Schwarzenegger film, but it also remains as one of the best action films of all time.

The main reason for my praise stems from its cast consisting of the Austrian headliner followed by Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, Bill Duke and Sonny Landham. The cast is sensational because they take the science fiction material seriously by evoking their machismo gradually evolving into fear. Director John McTiernan displays all of this very well through quiet and covert close ups as each character sums up the possibility that they are being hunted for sport by an entity they are not familiar with.

McTiernan makes use of his setting to the point that the real-life dense jungle of trees amid thick humidity, within South America, is its own character. I don’t know how he did it but, in this film, McTiernan and his cinematographer capture flawless tracking shots of running over uneven grounds and roots, leaves and low hanging foliage. It’s really spectacular how it all moves fast without any chopped up quick cuts like a Michael Bay movie for example. In this movie, the chases are actual chases.

An outrageous Oscar crime is that this film lost its Visual Effects prize to Innerspace. That gnaws at me when you consider the vagueness of the Predator’s chameleon like invisibility shape. It leaves the viewer intentionally as confused as these expert Gung Ho military men are. They can’t quite make out what this thing is because McTiernan wisely follows Spielberg’s Jaws technique by not showing you the creature until all the cards are dealt. The viewer is left curious and aware but still in suspense. There’s a kaleidoscope of transparency in the figure that scopes these men but what is it, really? The best horror films present the horror by literally not showing you the horror.

I like how this rescue team is continuously displayed with their talents for covert sabotage, hand signals, caution and focus. The actors are actually setting up the booby traps and climbing and ground crawling.

It’s honestly a very well-acted piece most especially from, yes Schwarzenegger, as well as Bill Duke and his psychological trauma during the 2nd half of the film, and Sonny Landham as the Tracker Billy who can relay what transpired with a keen Native American sense of environment. It’s a great collection of characters all together.

Sadly, the majority of the follow up films in the franchise do not live up to what originated here. In the first installment, the story is condensed in an efficient 90 minutes that leaves enough time for one story of adventure and rescue before it gets to all its sci fi suspenseful showpieces. The follow up films never took advantage of the strengths used here from over 30 years ago.

Predator is a brilliantly edited, well shot, taut and a gripping yarn of imagination and fear.

From 1987, it hasn’t aged a bit.

THE VERDICT

By Marc S. Sanders

Sidney Lumet is a master filmmaker at shooting predominantly talkie films. In The Verdict by David Mamet, his best special effect is, at least, the just as legendary Paul Newman as washed-up alcoholic attorney Frank Galvin. Lumet opts to shoot Newman for the screen talent he is. Occasionally, his camera points up at Newman, who looks as if he will fall over. Lumet also makes Newman look great as he runs down a hallway, or with a stare of his familiar blue eyes. The chemistry of camera and performance are blended rhythmically.

Alcoholism has been depicted countless times, but Newman’s interpretation ranks at the top of the list. He can’t function without his drink whether it’s gaining a high score on pinball, flirting, reading a brief or even getting a fast protein fix by dropping an egg yolk in a beer. Paul Newman makes you wonder if Frank Galvin is going to pass out or fall asleep even while he’s barely practicing legal brilliance. He toes the line beautifully between coming undone and barely squeaking by. This is one of his best roles ever.

Frank is given a chance to salvage himself as goes up against the Boston Archdiocese and the hospital it owns in a case of medical negligence, who are represented by a conniving antagonist in the form of James Mason with his limitless resources, power, strategies and army of lawyers. If this were a silent film, I’d buy it with Mason twisting a handlebar mustache. He’s absolutely a man you love to hate.

The dialogue crackles against simply the inflection of vocals from Newman, Mason, an unexpected Charlotte Rampling as Galvin’s sudden love interest, a difficult judge played by Milo O’Shea, and Frank’s assistant played Jack Warden. The delivery of lines, the twisty double crosses, and conflicts play to the precision of great Shakespeare. So much so that when on the rare occasion these characters curse or the ominous cue of music steps in, it’s all shocking and applauded.

The settings are great for atmosphere too. Worn in leather chairs, polished cherrywood tables and courtrooms with their squeaky floors. This is a well-worn Massachusetts backdrop of legal reputation and intimidation.

Every member of the filmmaking team from Lumet to the cast, to the composer,Johnny Mandel, and David Mamet’s fantastic script have been thought out and measured to completion.

Some will say this film is dated (rotary phones, ladies’ hairstyles, wardrobe; year of release was 1982). I say its themes are still significant. Power is something that must always be overcome by a weak, flawed protagonist. Whether or not Frank Galvin can do it, matters not. It’s the struggle that’s important to follow in a film like The Verdict.

STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME

By Marc S. Sanders

We owe a lot to H.G. Wells, author of The Time Machine.  Without Wells, Marty McFly would not become familiarized with a souped-up DeLorean, and Earth as we know it would be decimated by the year 2286 because a probe, in the shape of a Ring Ding pastry, from the far reaches of space could not find its humpback whale friends to say hello to.  If Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is not the best of the film series, it is certainly the most fun and delightful.  (For the record, my personal favorite is Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan but sometimes I switch to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.)

Kirk, McCoy (William Shatner, DeForest Kelley) and company have managed to resurrect their comrade Spock (Leonard Nimoy, also returning to the directing chair). Now, they are enroute from the planet Vulcan to Earth awaiting trial for the crimes and violations they committed in the prior film.  However, they must follow a detour back in time to the year 1986 and pick up a pair of humpback whales.  The sea mammals are the only creatures that can speak with an alien probe and salvage the Earth from becoming destroyed.  The probe isn’t an enemy.  Its arrival is simply unsettling the planet’s oceans and core because it can’t communicate with whale life, that is now extinct by the time 2286 has arrived.

So, in a Klingon Bird of Prey that they took command of and dubbed the HMS Bounty, our favorite Federation crew, arrive in late 20th century San Francisco.  Problems lay ahead though.  Their dilithium crystals (fuel) are depleted, they are unfamiliar with the daily activities of life during this period, and just how are they to find a pair of mammoth whales by walking around the city?  As well, Spock is not exactly himself since his rebirth.  His knowledge is there, but his common sense that stems from his human half is lacking.  This leads to some funny engagements with the city folk as he develops a habit for some colorful language not commonly used in the 23rd century.  A scene on a city bus with a punk rocker is a terrific highlight. 

Well, within the film’s two-hour time frame a pair of whales is located at The Cetacean Institute and they are overseen by a spunky and emotionally caring guide named Gillian portrayed by Catherine Hicks.  Now the gang has just gotta get home to their time before it’s too late.

The script for The Voyage Home is really quite brilliant and such a pleasant surprise.  All of the characters have their own moments for humor to occur.  The best being that Chekhov and Uhura (Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols) have to find a nuclear power source to make up for the lack of dilithium crystals.  Imagine, during the time of Reagan/Gorbachev Cold War politics, a man with a heavy Russian accent politely asking a motorcycle cop where he may find the “nuclear wessels…NUCLEAR… WESSELS.” It’s also inspiring to place a cynically cranky Dr. McCoy in a city hospital only to question how medical practices were ever tolerated at this time. “Is this the dark ages?”

William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy make such a sincere pair of friends as Kirk and Spock.  Shatner is especially good in the Star Trek films because he performs with a way of sarcasm and whimsy.  He works like Errol Flynn, unreserved while he swings into the danger.  Yet, he’s also so sincere.  There’s a flirtatiousness to him that’s impossible not to like.  He’s just so personable.  You also feel for his Kirk when he wishes his old friend, Spock, would just return to the way he once was and simply address him as “Jim,” not Admiral.  I couldn’t help but relate to it as someone who may wish that with a relative suffering from dementia.  The loved one is still there, and yet he/she is not there.  That’s how Shatner touchingly approaches this relationship.  The chemistry between Shatner and Nimoy is unparallel.  The recasting of the roles in later years has not matched up.  The original actors just read each other’s timing perfectly like Laurel & Hardy or Felix & Oscar.  There’s Newman & Redford.  There’s Lemmon & Mathau.  There’s Shatner & Nimoy.

I always had my facts mixed up.  I was always under the impression that this film was nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar.  It in fact wasn’t.  Yet, it really should have been.   The Voyage Home has a message on the importance of preservation of life and an urge to hold on to the integrity of our environment.  Thankfully, it’s not preachy.  There’s a combination of science fiction, adventure and humor at play here that I don’t think has ever worked better in what I’ve seen of the Star Trek universe of films and TV series. This is just a very, very smart film with good, insightful direction from Leonard Nimoy. 

Nearly forty years later and this picture still holds up.  So many of our planet’s species remain endangered.  Many are suspected to be extinct by the hands of man.  The Voyage Home touches upon these facts.  It still feels so up to date that you even get a lump in your throat at the top of the film when a dedication is made to the memory of the Space Shuttle Challenger crew.  The makers of this Star Trek installment really presented a timeless film with the help of time travel, and you don’t have to be a Trek fan to appreciate its merits.

COMING TO AMERICA

By Marc S. Sanders

Now Coming To America is a special kind of film. It’s rare movie where you’ll find a G rated story wrapped in R rated material and ultimately that is what Eddie Murphy and director John Landis brilliantly achieved.

Murphy plays Prince Akeem living a privileged life in the country of Zamunda where he has his own personal butt wipers and concubines who ensure him the royal penis is clean. He is now of the age where he is ready to meet his bride who has been groomed since birth to accommodate every need and preference the Prince has. However, Akeem is mature enough to realize that he wants to be married to someone who likes him for who he is, and not his wealth and stature. So with his best friend Simi (Arsenio Hall) in tow, they travel to Queens, New York under the guise of poor, humble people to find Akeem’s true love.

The story is Disney like and very simple. The gags are what has allowed Coming To America to hold on to its beloved longevity over thirty years later. It is one of Murphy’s last great films before he resorted to a lot of silly kiddie tripe like Daddy Day Care. This is a film that does a 180 flip on the Beverly Hills Cop storyline. In Cop, Murphy was the loudmouth offensive stranger in strange land. In this film, he remains a stranger, only this time the setting is full of loudmouths; this is Queens after all. Akeem is a lovable guy with good intentions and sensitivity. When he meets Lisa (Shari Headley) the daughter of a McDonald’s rip off franchisee (a hilarious John Amos), he becomes enamored and approaches with care despite her dating a jerk (Eriq La Salle) who inherited his family’s “Soul Glo” hair product enterprise.

The best attraction of the film however are Murphy and Hall’s various other characters they portray like Murphy as Randy Watson, lead singer of the band Sexual Chocolate (you know him as Joe the Policeman from the What’s Going Down? episode of That’s My Momma) and Hall as Reverend Brown who believes “There is a god someWHERE!!!” Not to mention the barbers who hang out beneath their apartment. Murphy and Hall are such a skilled pair of chemistry together. Why didn’t they do more films together? Harlem Knights? Ahem…let’s just not talk about that.

Landis was a good comedy director, a staple of the 1980’s films who would let the talents play for the camera and not try to reinvent the wheel. His approach here is the same as when he directed Murphy with Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places, or when he helmed Michael Jackson’s legendary Thriller music video. He knew these guys knew what they were doing. So, he just positioned the camera and let them go. Coming To America does run a little too long in some moments. I’m impressed by Paula Abdul’s choreography of tribal dancers, but I didn’t need to see all three minutes of it. A few of those moments run long, when all I want to do is get to the next gag or story development.

Still, if you are not a prude, I recommend Coming To America for a family viewing with your pre teen kids. I showed it to my daughter who is at the age when the sheer utterance of a curse word is hysterical; that’s a rite of passage in childhood as far as I’m concerned. The film contains no overt sexually active scenes, but there is some female nudity, and so what? My daughter knows what she is looking at. Bottom line Coming To America is a sweet Cinderella story that kids will love and adults will laugh at, over and over again until they know every line by heart.

THE FIRM

By Marc S. Sanders

Sydney Pollack was the first director to take a crack at adapting one of John Grisham’s best-selling books, namely the still most popular novel, The Firm. Wisely, and with a measure of risk, Pollack took the script from David Rabe, Robert Towne and David Rayfiel and maintained a true adaptation for the first hour of the film while inventing a new kind of second half that I think improves upon Grisham’s story.

Mitchell McDeere (a well cast Tom Cruise) is the most sought after Harvard law graduate in the country. A small Tennessee firm makes an offer to him that outbids any of the big leaguers. Considering that Mitch comes from a poor broken home with a brother (David Strathairn) currently in jail for manslaughter, the offer and treatment given to Mitch and his school teacher wife Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn) could not be more enticing. A house, a car, school loan payoffs, and a near six figure salary in the first year is not something anyone would walk away from.

Once the happy, young couple are comfortable though, a curious FBI man (Ed Harris, an MVP of this stellar cast) inquires if Mitch finds it odd that this firm has four of its lawyers dead within the last ten years. The two most recent casualties perished in a boat accident.

The sharp minded Avery Tolar (another welcome performance from Gene Hackman) is assigned to make sure Mitch follows the path the firm expects of him. Avery also has his sights set on Abby. For a guy who has never been regarded as good looking, Hackman plays a pretty effective flirt.

The firm, led by a seasoned Hal Holbrook with a charming Mark Twain like bow tie, and a perfect henchman villain played by Wilford Brimley (definitely on my top list of best bad guys) are involved with the Mafia and their shady dealings of money laundering, racketeering, murder and embezzlement. Now Mitch is stuck.

The FBI want to use him to uncover the firm’s activities but that risks blowing his career and maybe his and Abby’s life. If he doesn’t cooperate, then the Feds will run him in with the rest of the gang.

A second hour focuses on a complicated way for Mitch to get out of this ordeal. It means a lot of white collar work and contrived timing in the script. Fortunately though, Pollack builds suspense with foot chases and some allies on Mitch’s side, including Holly Hunter as an hourglass figured, bombshell secretary to a private investigator (Gary Busey) that Mitch went to see. His plan involves traveling to and from the Cayman Islands, and making copies of legal documents to build evidence of mail fraud against the firm.

Mail fraud???? That’s right mail fraud. It’s not a sexy crime, but the script with Pollack’s direction and a hard pounding piano soundtrack from Dave Grusin manage to keep the suspense up and alert.

Pollack directs Cruise to sprint across downtown Nashville for some great sights and hideouts in broad daylight. Your adrenaline moves with the film even if you can’t connect all the dots of Mitch’s complex plan.

In fact, it’s best to just give up on following every little step Mitch and his team take to stay ahead of the firm. What works best is the seemingly no win scenario for Mitch and Abby. Pollack follows a Hitchcock trajectory. He leaves the bomb on the table but doesn’t detonate it right away. Thus the suspense holds steady.

So, the best kind of counsel I can give is to just enjoy The Firm as it runs through its paces. It’s a solid white-collar thriller.