R.I.P. Carrie Fisher: Postcards From The Edge Had So Much Potential!

The Good: Good performances, Some wonderful lines (both funny and dramatic), Good direction
The Bad: Glosses over much of the complexity of recovery and narcissism
The Basics: The moments of insight and wit make Postcards From The Edge a worthwhile film to watch, even if it is not nearly as complex in its resolution as the set-up indicates it might be.


When news broke that actress Carrie Fisher had suffered a heart attack on December 23, my heart sunk. 2016 has been a brutal year for deaths of beloved celebrities, writers, musical artists, and actors and while I joined my voice to wish for the best for Carrie Fisher and her speedy recovery, I had no reason to believe that 2016 would alter its momentum and Fisher would recover from her good health. So, when I awoke yesterday to the news that Fisher had died, I was very sad, but not surprised. The days between the two major news stories gave me time to consider what I would write as a tribute to Carrie Fisher.

Like most people, my first and enduring encounter with Carrie Fisher came from her iconic portrayal of the strong-willed Princess Leia Organa in the Star Wars Saga (reviewed here!). Fisher also delivers brilliantly the lines that help create my favorite moment in When Harry Met Sally . . . (reviewed here!) and that got me thinking about how much I came to enjoy watching interviews with Fisher over the years for her candid nature and wry wit. So, when Fisher was hospitalized, it occurred to me that the greatest tribute to Carrie Fisher I could provide would be in reviewing something new (to me) that illustrated Fisher's humor, honesty, and creative skill. For that, I decided it was time to watch Postcards From The Edge.

Postcards From The Edge was released cinematically when I was a teenager, shortly after I had discovered and become obsessed with Star Trek and was fully immersed in that culture. Ironically, a film that addressed in a straightforward manner mental illness probably would have served me better at that time in my life, but Carrie Fisher's cinematic adaptation of her own novel on the subject of substance abuse and living in the shadow of parental pressures is worthwhile and smart. This review is of Postcards From The Edge, which Fisher loosely based upon some of her own life experiences; while some might belabor making the connections between the art and the reality, I am opting for a pure review of the film as it stands on its own.

Actress Suzanne Vale is working on the set of a film, where she is having a rough time of getting through her lines because she is high and the director she is working with tries to avoid cuts in his shots. Shortly thereafter, Vale is unresponsive in bed with Jack Faulkner, who rushes her to the hospital. After her stomach is pumped and she regains consciousness, Vale has to confront her drug abuse. Her celebrity mother comes to visit her in rehab, whose narcissistic tendencies make it difficult for Suzanne to confront her issues. Coming out of rehab, Vale discovers that it is hard for her to get work again because of her history with drugs.

Vale is given the chance to act again if she stays with "a responsible party" during the shoot. Drug tested on the set, Vale is forced to live under her mother's roof where she is subjected to her mother's expectations and pressures. Doris (Vale's mother), puts Suzanne on display and pressures her to perform publicly at a party she throws for her daughter and it becomes clear that Doris is trying to remain relevant and active through Suzanne. Returning to the set the next day, Vale gets a lot of notes on her performance and overhears people talking about her physique, which make it tough for her to give a good performance. After her second day of work, she runs into Faulkner, who starts to pursue her. When Faulkner visits Vale's home, Doris hits on him, but Vale willingly gets into a relationship with him. But, when she learns that Faulkner is sleeping around and she tires of her mother's drinking around her, Vale begins to fight for her own identity and stand up for her own hopes and dreams.

Postcards From The Edge is tough to discuss without some references to Carrie Fisher because Meryl Streep's portrayal of Suzanne Vale so perfectly captures some of the cadences of Carrie Fisher as to make it painfully obvious that the character, or Streep's performance, is based upon her. Streep adapts a speech pattern virtually identical to Carrie Fisher's in many of Vale's most potent deliveries of irony and exasperation. Streep makes Vale accessible and interesting, even as viewers become more and more frustrated with the environment she is in and the people who surround her.

When Vale starts to realize that Doris is her "x-factor" that brings her the stress that begins to make her tempted to use drugs and alcohol, Streep is able to break out and make Vale seem vital in a way that the first half of the movie does not. When Vale asserts herself, Postcards From The Edge starts to take on a richness and level of intrigue that turns the uncomfortable comedy into a potent drama. Streep succeeds more as Vale when she can be heard - there are a number of scenes where she and Shirley MacLaine talk over one another - and Postcards From The Edge works best when it is focused on her.

It is not long into Postcards From The Edge that it becomes obvious that Suzanne Vale is struggling under the yolk of pressure and expectations from her narcissistic mother, Doris. Doris hijacks the party thrown in Suzanne's honor and flirts with Faulkner in a troubling way. Postcards From The Edge does an excellent job of creating a narcissistic character in the form of Doris Mann, but glosses over the complexity of confronting and surviving toxic people in order to deliver a "feel good" ending.

Postcards From The Edge does a rare thing in confronting familial alcoholism and substance abuse and creates a vivid portrait of a horrible narcissist . . . but to get the film into a hundred minute run time and be easily classifiable, the movie creates a situation that is complex and realistic, but then resolves it remarkably simplistically. That makes Postcards From The Edge a bit less satisfying than it ought to be, especially given how good all of the performances are and how decent the characters are when they are allowed to breathe and develop.

Perhaps that is the most fitting epitaph for Carrie Fisher, who railed against having to look a specific way in order to appear in the newest Star Wars films; she worked in an industry that values style over substance and Fisher had a mind for complexity and realism where consumers buy into flash and simplicity. The sad truth is that Carrie Fisher might well have been better as a writer and human being than she was ever allowed to be as a performer and she (and her audience) deserved better.

For other 2016 tribute reviews, please check out my reviews of:
Blackstar - David Bowie
Mother's Day - Garry Marshall
Strangers - Merle Haggard
Firefly Soundtrack - Ron Glass

6/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Rapidly Diminishing Returns: Why Weeds Isn’t Worth It!

The Good: Moments of character, Moments of humor
The Bad: Repetitive, Terrible protagonist, Ridiculous plot
The Basics: In a story that does little more than prove that enough is never enough, Weeds (the complete series) wears out its welcome long before all eight seasons are viewed.


There are few television series’s that I continued with based on inertia alone the way I did with Weeds. Weeds is a 102 episode (roughly a half hour each) television series that has an immediately original concept that is quickly milked to death and then extended for about six more seasons. The show, which aired on Showtime, won awards for the acting of Mary-Louise Parker (for no discernable reason that I can find given how poorly she acts and differentiates her character of Nancy Botwin from, for example, her character of Amy Gardner on The West Wing, reviewed here!) and writing (from series creator Jenji Kohan), but otherwise was a frequently-nominated strike out for comedy on the awards circuit. The thing is, outside the premium cable amount of drugs and nudity presented, Weeds has shockingly little going for it and that is never more clear than when one sits down and watches Weeds The Complete Series.

The full-series boxed set has all of the content of the previously released DVD (or Blu-Ray) sets of:
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4
Season 5
Season 6
Season 7
and Season 8.

While I usually do an intensive analysis of a television series’s plot and characters, I find that with Weeds, I am unable to muster up the enthusiasm. What is the show about? Nancy Botwin and her family and the people she uses. Who is Nancy Botwin? Nancy Botwin is a high-functioning sociopath whose husband dies in the series premiere. Botwin and her two children live in Agrestic, a gated community for the wealthy and privileged. When her husband dies, Nancy is forced to acknowledge that she has no marketable skills and so in order to maintain her standard of living, she becomes a pot dealer in the suburbs.

What follows is the story of Nancy Botwin and her descent into crime. Nancy, accompanied by her brother-in-law who lusts after her, her two children and various sidekicks dimwitted (Doug and Dean) and treacherous (Heylia and Celia) gets into trouble with rival dealers and suppliers, local law enforcement and the DEA. She gets out of her troubles by lying to, having sex with or marrying her adversaries when simply setting her enemies against one another or burning a place to the ground does not work. And then she runs away. Dragging her family, Doug, and whichever other lackey is around at the time with her, Nancy relocates to San Diego, Dearborn (Michigan), New York City and Connecticut over the course of the series. So, Weeds is a simple idea relocated repeatedly in an attempt to stay fresh, but utterly failing after its first two seasons to engage the viewers sufficiently to be worth the investment of time and money.

What is so bad about Nancy Botwin? Nancy shows no real regard for anyone in her life. She uses her children as an excuse to do horrible things and she is willing to turn on even her kids when the situation calls for it. In fact, outside protecting her son Shane from a murder charge after he kills a woman in defense of Nancy, Nancy shows no real regard for even her children (whom she claims to be doing everything for). Moreover, Nancy drags Andy around and constantly uses him, even after she learns that he is hopelessly in love with her. She has no qualms about using his love for her to get what she wants from him and then abandoning or betraying him. She is, literally, a sociopath the way she betrays everyone with her single-minded focus on her own survival. As a result, she is neither an empathetic character, nor one who is particularly enjoyable to watch.

What is so bad about Weeds then? In addition to having a pretty lousy protagonist, Weeds has a disturbingly limited concept that makes no real sense. Nancy Botwin is faced with a big financial crisis, like millions of Americans are every day. She makes a bad initial choice, which is to stay in Agrestic and become a pot dealer. The thing is, America is huge and there are plenty of places she could move (one garage sale would have given her more than enough money to move to a place with a lower cost-of-living) and get a job to make ends meet. So, the show starts off with a lousy decision . . .

. . . and then it just keeps making the same bad decision over and over again. There are several times in the course of Weeds where Nancy Botwin gets ahead: she is not just scraping by, she has more than enough to keep her and her family provided for for the foreseeable future. And she never quits while she is ahead. Instead, she gets into increasingly preposterous situations that force her and her family into worse (usually life-threatening) situations. And she never learns. Weeds sucks because Nancy Botwin is horrible, short-sighted, and remarkably stupid for a drug-peddling mother and she is surrounded by idiots who continue to let her use them over and over again. And the ones who manage to escape the dark cloud of Nancy’s influence . . . invariably return to her, even after they can acknowledge how abysmal she actually is!

Outside Mary-Louise Parker, the acting in Weeds is good. Justin Kirk, especially, is impressive with an uncommon amount of range and depth as Andy Botwin. Young actors Hunter Parrish (Silas Botwin), Alexander Gould (Shane Botwin) and Allie Grant (Isabelle Hodes) all grow up over the course of the eight-season series and illustrate an incredible amount of talent and performance ability, even when their characters are emotionally stunted. Like Mary-Louise Parker consistently hitting on only one note, Kevin Nealon plays Doug Wilson with a constant goofy quality one expects from anyone who saw him perform on Saturday Night Live in the 1980s or 1990s.

The end result is a simple analysis for a simple show: Weeds is not clever, not particularly original after the set-up and not enduringly great in any way, shape, or form. That makes it easy to pass up and not worth adding to one’s permanent library.

For other shows that premiered on Showtime, please visit my reviews of:
Dexter - Season 1
The L Word
Dead Like Me
Jeremiah - Season 1
An American Crime

2.5/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Hazards In Traveling, Hazards In Cinema, The Utter Boredom Of My Life In Ruins.

The Good: Good scenery
The Bad: Not funny, Not charming, Utterly predictable, Emotionally simplified, Pacing
The Basics: Disappointing on so many levels, My Life In Ruins is a romantic comedy which is not funny and lacks any charm worth calling "romantic."


I see a lot of movies each year, especially during Summer Blockbuster Season, so it admittedly takes a lot to impress me with new movies. Conversely, it also takes a lot for me to utterly pan a film, to find that I have enjoyed nothing or as close to nothing as possible in seeing a movie when I do catch something new. Yet, this morning as I consider My Life In Ruins, I am overwhelmed by feelings of utter disappointment (whereas, I was more neutral on the other film I caught last night). My Life In Ruins is the latest "romantic comedy" to try to offer an alternative to the big special effects and "guy" movies that Summer Blockbuster Season is usually all about. I put quotes around "romantic comedy" because My Life In Ruins is neither funny, nor particularly romantic.

Instead, this is the exact type of predictable, charmless fare that makes one wonder if American cinema is truly dead. Moreover, because this film is geared toward women, one has to wonder if Hollywood actually thinks that women are so stupid as to find this sort of movie engaging (my answer is a resounding NO!" That Tom Hanks is involved as an executive producer, no doubt hoping for a runaway grosser like My Big Fat Greek Wedding says something as well, but I am not sure what (though, in this case it could just be that he made a bad investment). Judging by the otherwise empty theater I suspect that Hanks and others involved are realizing a tough lesson; it is not enough to simply be the only alternative to the big budget films of summer, one has to produce something worthwhile and good. My Life In Ruins is not that movie.

Georgia is an American living in Greece whose teaching job there disappeared, forcing her to seek other employment. She works for Pan Glass Tours giving tours to tourists from around the world on a hot, smelly bus for a week at a time. After her competitor, Nico, vows to get Georgia to quit so he can make all the money for the agency, Georgia is set upon by a group of tourists she finds both typical and hellish. Her driver is replaced at the last minute by a heavily-bearded man named Porcupio, who goes by the nickname "Poupi."

As the bus rolls through Greece, Georgia tries to engage each member of her ragtag tour: a spoiled sixteen year-old, an aged kleptomaniac, a joking widower, two Americans, a pair of divorcees and a trio of women who do not speak either language she does. Georgia's tours are serious, but not fun like Niko's and soon the bus is revolting over the fact that there is no air conditioning and they are not having fun. But between Irv (the joking widower) and Porcupio, Georgia is about to overcome her obstacles, loosen up and have fun on the road.

Because my instinct is to leap in with the bad right away, it behooves me to start with the redeeming factor of My Life In Ruins: the cinematography. Actually filmed on location in Greece and Spain, My Life In Ruins looks beautiful. The historical landmarks and shots of water and sky are absolutely beautiful, adequately selling the viewer on the greatness of Greece. This is a very easy film to watch in that regard.

Unfortunately, the rest of it is just awful. From the tired voice-overs to the predictable plot to the atrocious acting, My Life In Ruins is a mess that starts mediocre and dives into absolutely horrible with a speed I've not seen since The Out Of Towners (reviewed here!). Voice-overs seem to be used excessively in "chick flicks" for the establishment of plot and character aspects which are otherwise obvious in the visual medium of film. In other words, if a film is doing what it is supposed to well enough, voice-overs are usually not necessary. My Life In Ruins, unfortunately, starts the film off with Georgia's inner monologue as she explains how she ended up in Greece and what the status of her life is now. This includes a commentary on modern Greece that is otherwise pointless and repeated in more personal ways later in the film, making the initial statement of it redundant.

My Life In Ruins is terribly predictable as well. From the first moment that Porcupio shows up with his heavy beard, the educated viewer knows that: 1. He will be the primary male love interest and 2. He will shave the beard and suddenly look attractive in a more traditional fashion. These things do come to pass and when Porcupio shaves, he spends the rest of the film looking remarkably like Brendan Fraser. The rest of the film is problematically predictable in that it is so telegraphed that it would only entertain someone who has never once seen a romantic comedy before.

In addition to lacking any real zest or unique characters or character issues, My Life In Ruins mortgages any real emotional resonance in favor of making the film family-friendly (which is odd for a PG-13 film). So, for example, when the film seemed like it would make a reasonable and potentially touching departure for Irv, it retracts the sacrifice in a way that feels cheap. The result is a film where everything is happy and all moodiness comes to an end because nothing of consequence actually happens in the film. Similarly, there is an annoying tendency in the move for Georgia to deal with every character, so there is a whole sense of "she can win them all" to the story. So once Georgia makes the biggest changes to herself, there is still time to spend with her solving the minor problems of the next character or the next one and the result is that large tracts of the film feel entirely like filler.

Outside the ridiculously obvious romantic comedy aspect to the film, My Life In Ruins attempts to portray the humor of the hazards of traveling. Georgia defines her customers by "types" - the drinking Australians, the ugly Americans, the fighting Europeans who ought to be divorced, the etc. - and after she does that, the joke is simply in repeating her observation about each "type" over and over and over and over and over again. Wow does that get old! Beyond that, the humor is so banal that it ought to be enough for the WGA to revoke Mike Reiss's membership. "Humor" in this film consists of such things as dust in the air conditioning system spraying down on the tourists, a shoplifting tourist, a tourist getting sunblock in his eyes and Georgia thinking he is interested in her, elevators that do not work and small hotel rooms with a lumpy bed where nothing works. The closest to humor that the movie achieves with dialogue comes from Georgia telling the tourists that the bus is locked at each stop, so they can leave their cameras, purses, etc. on the bus which is followed by various characters asking "Can I leave my purse?" "camera" "etc." on the bus? Being that the film is set in Greece there is the obligatory gay joke, but it is more lame than offensive.

As for the acting, the less said about that, the better. Richard Dreyfuss is playing his "crank with a good heart" persona which we have seen before. Rachel Dratch is off with any sense of comic timing she might have had and Alexis Georgoulis is flat and dull as Porcupio, as opposed to silently mysterious. Nia Vardalos, who broke out with My Big Fat Greek Wedding, appears here slimmer, less funny and without any on-screen chemistry with Georgoulis. Unfortunately, here Vardalos's idea of acting is to simply look like she is charmed by what she is experiencing and that wears off quickly, especially when it comes at inappropriate moments.

My Life In Ruins is about keeping people happy and Georgia soon realizes that means spicing her stories of Greece up with sex and taking people shopping. There's only one demographic that would find that entertaining and it is not the "chicks" who like "chick flicks." It's the dumb chicks, the ones who like dumb chick flicks and unfortunately, My Life In Ruins insults the intelligence of even the most pedestrian viewers. There is nothing here worth seeing for anyone with a mature viewing palate.

For other works with Richard Dreyfuss, be sure to check out my takes on:
Weeds - Season 6
Piranha 3D
W.
Tin Man
The American President
Jaws

2/10

For other film reviews, check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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The American President: The American Intellectual, Sorkin Hits The Big Time!

The Good: Intelligent dialogue, Interesting characters, Romantic, Quality acting
The Bad: Standard plot, Light on DVD extras
The Basics: A fun romantic comedy that is intelligently written and wonderfully acted and foreshadows more greatness to come from writer Aaron Sorkin, The American President is still worth seeing!


Aaron Sorkin, the literary brains behind the brilliant Sports Night (reviewed here!) and the television blockbuster The West Wing (reviewed here!), started off with plays and films and this is one of his. When I first saw the movie, I enjoyed it so much I watched it a second time immediately. Seriously. I can count on one hand the number of times that I have seen a movie and sat and rewatched it right away.

President Andrew Shepherd is finding life as President less than stellar when a political rival begins to publicly attack his policies as a ramp up to election season and his own bid for the presidency. As Shepherd tries to ignore Senator Rumsom's sabre-rattling, he marshals his staff to try to pass a gun control bill which he watches steadily get gutted of all meaning. At the same time, the environmental lobby puts pressure on Shepherd to pass a strong environmental bill.

The environmentalists hire Sydney Ellen Wade, one of the best lobbyists in the business and she begins to work her magic of drumming up support for the bill. Wade and Shepherd collide and the president finds himself instantly attracted to her. As the two begin a relationship, Sydney's past, Shepherd's widowerhood and the ambitions of Rumsom all begin to get tremendous media attention. When Shepherd's chief of staff sees an opportunity to get the gun bill passed while burying the environmental one, a conflict is set off between the new lovers that threatens both of their careers and their agendas.

The plot is fairly simple: Michael Douglas plays the widowered president of the United States who falls in love with an environmental lobbyist. In the course of their courting, political adversaries fight the president and personal rivals attack Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening) and their budding relationship is threatened. Pull out the social roles and it's just about every other romantic comedy ever written. The plot is not at all original. Indeed, the plot is terribly formulaic and director Rob Reiner seems to know that. He directs The American President with a very safe look, such that it appears as virtually every other romantic comedy does.

But that is where the conventionalism of The American President ends and it comes back to the genius that is Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin has an amazing knack for dialogue and characters. Sorkin's Shepherd, Wade, and staff members Lewis, Robin, and Leon all speak like we wish our American politicians and public servants would speak. They use a level of diction that makes them seem like they know what they are doing. They sound convincing and they take principled stands. But the level of dialogue, the sheer volume of words spoken in this film so truly captures the reality of human interaction and conversation like too few films do.

And the thing is, Sorkin does not shrink away from this. He even acknowledges it. One of the funniest moments in the film involves Shepherd watching Rumsom on television doing a campaign speech and critiquing his closing line. It's great and it acknowledges for the audience that Sorkin understands he is creating an ideal world that fills the viewer with some sense of hope and yet roots it with a realism that is just on the recognizable side of fantasy.

The characters are niche characters that manage to overcome their niches. So, for example, First Daughter Lucy acts like the docile daughter who has lost her mother, but also is able to confront her father in a way that is realistic and not bratty. The few scenes she is in humanize Shepherd like none of the rest of the scenes do. Similarly, Lewis Rothschild could easily be seen as the generic young upstart as one of the President's aides. But when one would expect him to be motivated solely by personal ambition, he takes an ethical stand and works with the president rather than to usurp him.

And Shepherd and Wade are not the typical romantic comedy lover characters. For sure, their jobs define much of what makes them different and unique, but Wade's past and her sense of ethics makes for a compelling character. Similarly, Shepherd's refusal to mudsling, even in the face of Rumsom's attacks, makes him a truly compelling character that is unlike most politicians we see on screen. He has a very Capra-esque quality to him.

And Wade and Shepherd make for an intriguing couple that works. Their romance may be somewhat predictable, but the characters work well with one another and there is a very real sense of chemistry between them. It helps that Shepherd is quite presidential and Wade is quite self-motivated, making for two strong, opinionated characters to come together, which usually works quite well for a story.

Shepherd is played by Michael Douglas and for an actor who seems to be relegated to many roles with action and adventure subtexts, he pulls off being presidential in this with amazing quality and consistency. Douglas is nothing like, say, his performance in The Game (reviewed here!). He is rational, dignified and always in control. Even while Shepherd's poll numbers slip, Douglas maintains a strong backbone and the sense that he is ready to accomplish anything. He infuses the character with a true sense of fighting spirit, despite the almost complete departure from anything resembling a physical role in this part.

Similarly, Annette Bening gives another phenomenal performance as Sydney Ellen Wade. A tremendous departure from her neurotic, stressed out role in American Beauty (reviewed here!), Bening is articulate, collected and surprisingly normal as Wade. Indeed, the strength of her performance is that she takes the character who - on the page - could be fiery and overshadow the leader of the free world and instead tempers her performance with a very realistic quality of deference. Bening's strength is illustrated in her scenes where she plays Wade as a tough lobbyist and her humanity is illustrated by the way she softens - especially her facial expressions - when Wade and Shepherd begin their courting. Bening makes much of the film seem realistic as a conduit into the unreal world of Capitol Hill politics!

But more than that, the supporting actors are wonderful. The American President has a tremendous supporting cast which includes Martin Sheen, Richard Dreyfuss and Michael J. Fox. The actors are astounding and believable. They were perfectly cast and the film is just packed with talent.

They come together under the writing of Aaron Sorkin who has a ridiculously amazing control of the American English language. He knows how intelligent people speak and he creates a situation filled with intellectuals speaking fast and smart to each other. A fair number of the lines are packed with double meaning or deeper meanings or understandings. And the film holds up well over multiple viewings, even when you watch it one time right after another.

On DVD the film suffers from a lack of genuine bonus features. Sure, there's the trailer and a few production notes, but there are no commentaries, no featurettes, no flair. This is a film that deserves a better DVD treatment.

But this is an occasion where the strength of the material makes it easy to recommend, despite the limitations of the media it is presented in.

For other works with David Paymer, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Bad Teacher
In Good Company
Bounce
State And Main
Payback

9/10

For other film reviews, be sure to visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Josh Brolin May Be Many Things, But He's No W.

The Good: Moments of character insight and decent direction, General format of story
The Bad: Pacing, Acting (casting), Light on DVD extras
The Basics: Oliver Stone's W. is strangely unsatisfying - especially to those who despise the administration of the former president - from the casting on down.


Having survived the administration of George W. Bush (which was not always a forgone conclusion in my case), I finally found myself at an emotional place where I was ready to open up to some entertainment about the former president. I had, previously, watched the documentary George W. Bush: Faith In The White House (reviewed here!) and been irked at the propaganda feel of that. So, when I felt ready to lighten up and allow myself to be entertained by the foibles of the former president, I got out W. on DVD. If there was anyone ready and eager for a film the ripped into the administration of George W. Bush, it was me.

Unfortunately, W. is not that film. Oliver Stone, strangely, takes the safest possible route creating a timid, neutral presentation on the 43rd president that ultimately makes no real statement in any direction. This is the story of a hapless man, trying desperately to live up to his father's expectations, not of greatness, but rather of productivity. In W. George H.W. Bush does not have aspirations that his son Junior will do anything extraordinary, merely that he will do something and stick with it long enough to accomplish something. Sadly, Oliver Stone allows most of the compelling moments in the last eight years fly by with little recognition of their importance or George W. Bush's role in creating the history we have just lived through.

Following the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, George W. Bush and his cabinet and advisors consider how to strike back at those involved. As Bush's approval ratings soar, key members of his inner circle - Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, George Tenet, and Condoleezza Rice - encourage Bush to link Saddam Hussein to the terrorist attacks to allow a strike against Iraq by U.S. forces. As the speeches are altered and interrogation techniques are approved, the United States moves closer to war and George W. Bush considers how he got to the most powerful position in the world.

He reminisces of time in Texas and at Yale, his fraternity days and the times when he was just a young, rowdy guy who drank, danced and had sex with some blonde he didn't have money for a ring for. He dreams of baseball and catching a hit that might otherwise be a home run and he slouches from oil rigs to investment banking jobs to working on his father's presidential campaign, while George H.W. Bush continually bails him out of jams he gets in (sometimes literally). George W. Bush meets Laura, finds god, gets sober and on his father's campaign meets with the extremists in the Republican base, specifically Karl Rove, who sees in George W. Bush the potential to be the tool the ideologues need to restore their vision of America to the presidency.

W. might have succeeded has it not been released in 2008. Seriously. I write this not because the film would be any better years from now, nor because of the hope the Obama Presidency created to foster the impression many of Bush's most egregious positions and executive orders would be overturned, but rather because the film had to compete against Frost/Nixon. The strength of Frost/Nixon is arguably on the performance of Frank Langella, a man who neither looks nor sounds like former President Nixon. Langella could not (obviously) get over the first part, but within moments of his appearance on screen, Langella's body language and speech patterns are those of Richard Nixon. Langella transforms into Nixon and it is eerie and powerful to watch the movie because the performance is so amazing.

Sadly, Josh Brolin does not pull off George W. Bush. Josh Brolin, who impressed me with his performance in No Country For Old Men (reviewed here!), is cast to embody George W. Bush and he fails utterly, save two shots in the entire movie, one on the baseball diamond, one talking to his speechwriters with his hair rumpled. The rest of the time, Brolin utterly fails to embody Bush. It is not just that he does not look much like Bush, but Brolin does not move like the former president at all. Will Farrell had a much better take on George W. Bush for one simple reason; presenting a parody of George W. Bush often presents the most real body language of the man. Before those who still adore our previous president jump on that, go back and watch videos of George W. Bush; the man has a very loose body language. His head wobbles, when he speaks - especially in the early years of his administration - he shifts from foot to foot, and when he first appears before cameras, he looks more determined to not break into a smile than anything else. He's an easygoing guy . . . he's a GUY. What some found charming or appealing was his accessibility and that largely came from his body language of being a loose, cool guy one could sit down, have a beer with and watch the game with.

Josh Brolin completely fails to get that. He is stiff throughout W., treating everything as if it is serious and while he appropriately furrows his brow whenever anyone asks Bush to consider something, Brolin doesn't get the performance right. Thandie Newton, who plays Condoleezza Rice, pulls off her brief supporting role better than Brolin manages to get the main role.

Unfortunately, because so many of the figures are public figures still at the forefront of the American consciousness, the look of the characters is incredibly important and here the casting and make-up were not as precise as they ought to have been. Jeffrey Wright's Colin Powell's forehead is a little too high, Toby Jones's Karl Rove is too obviously toady and James Cromwell - whose work I usually adore - is hit or miss as George H.W. Bush depending on the scene. In fact, the only casting that is perfectly executed is Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney. Dreyfuss assumes the look and bearing of the former vice president perfectly, though he essentially replays his role from The American President to pull this off. Elizabeth Banks and Ellen Burstyn both evolve into the roles of Laura and Barbara Bush, respectively, but they do not appear on screen convincingly as either at their first appearances. Oliver Stone ought to get credit, though for taking two beautiful women and toning down their looks to try to fit the roles (conversely, Newton plays her Hollywood good looks perfectly in the role as Rice, who always seemed attentive to her appearance).

So, the casting is seriously off. Add to that, W. is poorly paced and more than the character lacking direction, there are too many portions where the viewer is left feeling like Oliver Stone does not know what he wants to be saying with the film. Ultimately, he ends up saying very little. As Bush is pressed toward war by Rove and Cheney, Powell stands as the lone dissenter and Bush gleefully steamrolls over his objections to the group's plans. Powell, unfortunately, is presented with only limited backbone and the viewer ends up feeling more empathy for him than for the hapless title character.

More than anything, Oliver Stone seems to be making a film that takes the tact that George W. Bush was a guy who did not truly care about anything who stumbled into the presidency. Once there, he was content to let others do what they felt, signing off on critical orders based on how many pages he was handed. He is not a caricature here as a witless man or incompetent president, merely a guy who roams uncaring through the world until he is at an important office that actually makes demands upon him. The character is not pitiable, nor is he or his exploits interesting to watch (just as many of us were uninterested in participating in his years as president).

Now on DVD, W. features a similarly listless and controversy-free commentary track by Oliver Stone where he avoids any real thorny issues and talks more about the making of his boring film. There are trailers for other Lionsgate films and there is a mildly more engaging featurette on the actual Bush Administration in which several liberals decry his policies without getting too specific or relating it back to the film.

And keep in mind, I was ready to like this film! But at the end of the day, I wanted W. to inform or entertain or some combination of both. It did neither. Instead, it plodded along for far too long with a guy who could be virtually any Southern or Midwestern heir doing little and evoking little empathy or interest for doing it.

For other works with Toby Jones, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Snow White And The Huntsman
The Hunger Games
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
My Week With Marilyn
Captain America: The First Avenger
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part II
Frost/Nixon
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets
Ever After
Orlando

5/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Politics of Fear: How To Make A Horror Movie PG: Jaws

The Good: Interesting story, Good characters, Moments of tension, Lead acting, Direction
The Bad: Bogged in politics, Some very lame acting moments
The Basics: Well-directed and frightening both for the shark and the capitalist issues, Jaws is a well-developed argument against blind capitalism.


Back in the day, my life took an awkward and abrupt turn from The Way Things Were Supposed To Go to The Way Things Are Going. My training in my childhood and the beginning of my young adulthood was in marine biology, specifically the study of sharks. Unlike the usual childhood "phase" where "sharks are cool," I spent years voraciously eating any information I could find on sharks. I was set to become a marine biologist (though my mother, for some inexplicable reason, always thought "oceanographer") and live by the ocean studying sharks. Then there was the right turn in my path and I became a writer (novelist) instead. My mother's been cheesed with me ever since.

From an early age, therefore, I was exposed to Jaws, the classic shark horror movie that spawned multiple sequels and is now available in a beautiful 30th Anniversary 2-disc DVD set. My father was never worried about Jaws scarring me because: 1. It's rated PG (he has a lot of faith in the MPAA) and 2. He watched it and realized what any objective viewer would; it's more about politics than the shark attacks.

Police Chief Martin Brody is working Amity - a summer beach town - for the first time as the head of the police and finding himself on the outs with local politicians and businesspeople when a young woman is killed by a shark. Brody is pressured to keep the beaches open - and the local economy alive - despite the fatality and soon the presence of the monstrous shark is undeniable when it kills a boy in the middle of the day in front of hundreds of people. Brody acts quickly to bring the carnage to and end by closing the beach, but locals demand the economy not suffer and the beaches be open on the Fourth of July.

The bodies begin to mount (or disappear) as the locals begin a shark hunt, which is complicated by mayor Vaughn keeping the beaches open. Brody enlists the aid of shark researcher Matt Hooper, who determines that the shark is still at large (hunters kill one, smaller shark and assume it is the one). When more people die in ways that Vaughn cannot deny, Brody enlists the aid of the dark fisherman Quint, who takes Brody and Hooper out to hunt the beast.

Jaws is billed as a groundbreaking horror movie, which on the DVD release's commentary becomes a function of failed technology (Spielberg could not get the mechanical sharks to work, so a number of shots that were intended to have the shark were scrapped, which in turn added to the menace), but while this movie has horrific moments (very mild by today's standards), it is no more a horror movie than Wall Street (reviewed here!) is. Like Wall Street, Jaws is about the influence of capitalism on our society. In the case of Jaws, capitalism becomes so overwhelming as to put people in mortal danger to satisfy those dependent on this economic system.

Brody is arguably the socialist character; his job is to enforce laws and basically establish a border between right and wrong. As a result, he is the character least motivated by money (though as a rich-beyond-care scientist, Hooper is right up there). Immediately upon the revelation of the problem, Brody declares that the right thing to do is shut down the beaches to prevent any further deaths.

The main conflict in the movie is not man vs. nature (Quint/Brody/Hooper vs. the shark) until the very end. Far more predominant is the conflict of man vs. society as Brody takes on the local politicians and businesses in his quest to simply do the right thing. The capitalist forces rise up against Brody embodied by Mayor Vaughn and the local businesspeople who want the beaches open so they won't "have to be on welfare all winter." Rather than rely on right and wrong - as meted out by Brody, Vaughn and the locals are ruled by the pursuit of money and they override Brody in the attempt to financially gain. Quint, the shark hunter, becomes just another piece in the capitalist dogma that dominates Jaws. Quint is the embodiment of the demands of the market, which capitalists believe control everything. Others attempt to catch or kill the shark and fail. Quint names his price and the market (the local businesses and government) eventually agree to pay it because he is in a position to provide a service they are dependent on and their greed calculates that the price is reasonable vs. the potential loss of not being able to keep the beaches and their businesses open. For those of us socialists watching Jaws, the richness of this argument is that while Quint is a symbol of the Capitalism ideal of the Market, at the end of the day, he's just a man. Socialists like to remind Capitalists that the Market is not a nebulous force, but actually made up of people.

Ironically, mega-rich director Steven Spielberg - who, to be fair was not as rich when he made this movie - seems to want to remind the audience of that as well. Brody is given moments of character that are soft and deep, where he watches his son imitating his actions at the dinner table. Humanizing Brody this way, and none of the other characters, illustrates an affection for placing morality and human togetherness above the pursuit of personal wealth. At the end of the day, Brody is motivated by the desire to protect and do right. Spielberg and writers Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb emphasize his goodness and place in the world constantly through his relationships and conflicts.

More than just a Socialist argument, Jaws does tell an entertaining story about men on a boat fighting a shark in a decent "man vs. nature" tale. Jaws is well-paced and it devotes a lot of time to building mood, despite the first hour of politics. Out on the open sea, where money matters little, the struggle becomes between protectionist humans and a creature who is just doing what it was made to do (eat!).

It is on the Orca, Quint's boat, that Brody, Hooper and Quint begin to illustrate real amounts of character as they begin to relate to one another. The latter half of the movie - far more referenced than the overtly political first half - involves male bonding and the pursuit of victory over a heartless killer. It's a pretty old story, but Jaws tells it well. All three characters are well-defined on the boat, believable and they play off one another well.

Part of what makes the characters is the acting. One of the few weaknesses of Jaws is in the background actors. One of the local businesswomen, for example, delivers her lines with a very clunky and unconvincing delivery that noticeably shakes up the flow of the film. The extras are unimpressive and they distract a lot from the better performances. Murray Hamilton, however, rounds out the main cast well with a very understated performance as Mayor Vaughn. Hamilton is quiet and insistent and when he breaks, he breaks well, making his character almost sympathetic with his slumped body language and quiet delivery.

It is no surprise to me that Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss share top-billing in Jaws. These three are masterful as Brody, Quint and Hooper. Robert Shaw is the embodiment of the salty fisherman as Quint and he has a greasy quality to his performance that makes his character utterly believable. Indeed, having read the novel by Peter Benchley before seeing the movie the first time, Shaw was perfectly cast to embody the knowledgeable but somewhat overconfident fisherman.

Richard Dreyfuss illustrates why he has become the actor of such distinction as he has. Dreyfuss is young, eager and rich as Matt Hooper and he plays the role with the wide-eyed enthusiasm that one associates with youth and arrogance. This is a performance unlike any other on Dreyfuss's resume, with an inherent goodness and scholarly quality that illustrates his talent as an actor.

But it is Roy Schieder who is given the most legwork as Police Chief Martin Brody. Schieder is well-chosen as he carries in his face - from the beginning of the movie - the fatigue of a police officer who has seen a lot, yet still believes in a distinction between right and wrong. Schieder's ability to emote disgust, love and fear make his performance memorable and completely realistic for a man being pressured by so many sources.

Ultimately, Jaws is a decent story of the conflict between socialism and capitalism embodied by one man who must take on the local society to put right over the almighty dollar with a nice literal man vs. shark story to carry the heavy philosophies embodied within it. It's entertaining and at PG, there's no reason your children should not be exposed to it. Odds are they won't catch the politics or economic issues; that goes over the head of most adults, too.

For other films Steven Spielberg directed, check out my reviews of:
Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
Minority Report
Schindler's List
Jurassic Park
The Indiana Jones Trilogy

9/10

For other movie reviews, click here to see my index page of all I have reviewed!

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Piranha 3D Is One Of The Summer's Dumbest Movies (And One Of The Worst Movies Ever!).

The Good: Three-dimensional effects are all right.
The Bad: Terrible story, Awful acting, Lack of character development, All the worst horror conceits, Make-up effects are unimpressive.
The Basics: A terribly predictable, special-effects driven summer horror movie, Piranha 3D is not worth watching.


Right off the bat, it is worth noting that I am not a fan of gore flicks or horror. Despite actually being impressed by last year's A Nightmare On Elm Street, I loathed the reboot of Friday The Thirteenth and I tend to steer away from the genre in general. So when I was offered the opportunity to sit in on a test screening of Piranha 3D last year, I was not exactly excited. First, there was the fact that this was yet another horror remake. Second, the film did not come out until late August, so the studio screening was intended to get feedback on what worked and what didn't. As a result, there is the small chance that some changes might be made to the film before it is released from the version I screened. That said, they cannot change nearly enough to make Piranha 3D a movie that is even remotely worth suffering through.

It is worth noting at the outset that I have not seen the original horror movie Piranha and so I cannot speak to how much this is a remake or a reimagining of the original. That said, the movie seemed pretty self-contained and easy to follow.

Lake Victoria is the site of annual Spring Break debauchery and the current spring season seems to be no exception. However, as the moronic youth and other travelers descend upon the little town for fun in the lake, things take a turn for the worst when an earthquake lets loose a school of prehistoric piranha who have an appetite for human flesh. The piranha are abnormally large and the local crazy scientist, Goodman, identifies the creature as having ancient origins. The Sheriff, Julie Forester, makes the reluctant decision to cut into tourist dollars and she had her deputy, Bishop, close the waterfront.

Unfortunately for the town, the adults are outnumbered by the idiots and the spring break visitors are consumed in a bloody mess which leaves some stranded on the water in the middle of piranha-infested waters. But while some continue to break the quarantine on the lake and are consumed, Forester must protect her family and stop the threat the piranha represent. With the aid of Dr. Radzinsky and Mr. Goodman, Forester tries to save as many lives while eliminating the piranha who have the community in a stranglehold while her son is out on a boat in piranha-infested waters with pornographers.

Piranha 3D is one of those movies guaranteed to make adults hate young people, if only one could get adults to sit through this tripe. Featuring all the gore one can handle (the waters run predictably red as bodies are eviscerated), Piranha 3D is unfortunately predictable and the stylized elements of the film take the place of any real sensibility for reality. The movie is not about characters as much as it is about the baring of young breasts, special effect fish and as a result, the flick is short and it feels short. After the initial underwater earthquake unseals the prehistoric piranha, there is a pretty fast learning curve about the danger it represents, then the idiot kids get slaughtered and Forester has to do what she can to try to stop the piranha from continuing to kill or migrating where they might harm another community.

The special effects are surprisingly mundane and Piranha 3D is more hampered by trying to create its own menacing reality than anything else. As the viewer watches swarms of giant piranha head toward the screen, they are meant to feel helpless and afraid. Unfortunately, in many of the scenes this turns into a realistic chaos which is not at all satisfying to watch. In other words, the special effects continue moving so fast that the fish seem unstoppable, but it is so blurry that it is hard to tell what is actually happening on the screen. The only thing that is worse than when the fish speed by is when director Alexandre Aja slows the visual effects down for maximum emphasis or effect. It never seems to happen when the viewer actually cares about the person about to be mauled or torn apart. Moreover, the make-up effects are pretty bad in several points.

The characters are largely superfluous in this type story. The viewer initially feels bad for Sheriff Forester and deputy Welleger, but soon enough, the film is populated by scantily clad chicks who are happy to get drunk, take off all their clothes and get killed, usually as they swoon over equally dumb jock types. And largely, the viewer doesn't care. Until the idea of the school migrating comes into play, there is an almost cathartic enjoyment to watching the lowest common denominator characters get wiped out in a bloody wave.

Sheriff Forester, then, becomes the pretty generic hero character and she is aided by equally generic sidekicks who fill more niche roles than actually seem like vital characters. There is a campy quality to most of the film and there are annoying subplots with romance among those who have been traumatized by the piranha that is not so much sensible as it is obvious. There is a formulaic quality to the script that the movie never overcomes. This never becomes a satisfying movie or even a guilty pleasure. It is homogeneously weak on the character and plot fronts, up to and including how the movie is resolved.

Finally, the acting is problematic in far too many places. Elisabeth Shue is stiff in many of her scenes, especially when interacting with virtual fish. That said, when required to, she yells, runs, jumps and swims like a pro. The real mystery of Piranha 3D is how so many fine actors, like Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd, and Richard Dreyfuss got sucked into this campy horror flick.

What is not a mystery is why this movie was made. It is an inexpensive horror film filling out the August doldrums at the end of Summer Blockbuster season. It will be a rightful flop and one may only hope it does not bank enough to even have Dimension contemplating a sequel.

Now on DVD, Piranha lacks the 3D effects and comes with feaurettes which make it in no way more worth watching.

For other horror films, please be sure to check out the reviews of:
Quarantine
Repo! The Genetic Opera
Legion

.5/10

For other film reviews, check out my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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One Protracted Run Away From Anything We Care About, Weeds Season Six Roams Away From Likability.

The Good: The show develops, Decent character development for Andy and Silas, Good acting
The Bad: Predictable arcs, Light on DVD bonus features, Nancy becomes utterly unlikable, Doug's presence is largely pointless.
The Basics: With Weeds Season Six, Nancy Botwin mortgages any likability and the show fails to land as the Botwin family goes on the run.


It is either some form of twisted optimism or blind faith that keeps me coming back to Weeds. It is certainly not that I like the show and there is even less of a chance that it is because I either like the lead protagonist, Nancy Botwin, or the performance of Mary-Louise Parker. The ship sailed on those two aspects early on and never, respectively. I think there is the good chance that I keep getting Weeds out of the library when it comes in simply because I've gone this far with the show and I want to be able to write authoritatively about how it ends or some such nonsense. Needless to say, if I were not a reviewer, I would have given up on Weeds after the second season. Yet, when Weeds Season Six became available to me from my local library, I got it out and my wife and I did a Weeds marathon.

Cramming the thirteen episodes (averaging about twenty-five minutes per episode) into the course of twenty-four hours allows me to compliment the sixth season of Weeds thusly: it goes fast. In the sixth season, I grew from an antipathy for Nancy Botwin to outright hating her, but the episodes flow exceptionally well from one into another and the season moves quickly toward its resolution, though my wife and I called where it ended (close enough) by the second episode. For those not yet invested in the show, season six puts the Botwin family on the run from Esteban, Nancy's current husband and from the outset, I bet my wife that the season would end with Esteban catching up with Nancy. My wife bet it would be the FBI that caught her in the season finale. Either way, Weeds Season Six is all about the journey, not the destination and it almost ekes its way up to "charming" status, though it doesn't quite get there. In fact, the sixth season of Weeds is only charming for a handful of lines spread out through the thirteen episodes and it bears no real resemblance to the show as it had been, save that the least likable character, Nancy Botwin, continues to ruin the lives of those around her.

Weeds began as a show about a soccer mom dealing marijuana in the suburbs after her husband died and left her to raise two children alone. Desperate, she struggles to pay bills and get ahead of the game, while keeping her kids on the straight and narrow. But at this point, Nancy Botwin is so far from actually having to deal drugs to keep her family alive that her choice to deal at every opportunity seems more and more contrived and, frankly, idiotic. Following the events of the fifth season's finale, though, Nancy feels she must flee with her family or Esteban will kill them all. Rather sensibly, Esteban only hunts for Nancy because she fled; the cause (that's a spoiler alert because the sixth season cannot be discussed plainly without mentioning the important detail of how the fifth season ended) is tolerable for Esteban and his goons, the fleeing is not.

With Shane having murdered Pilar, Esteban's political director and rival of Nancy, to defend the family, Nancy Botwin panics and packs Shane, Stevie and Silas in the car to flee Ren Mar. Collecting Andy from Audra's house, where he has chickened out on saving her from an anti-choice protester, the Botwins flee the scene of the crime. Wandering north, Andy quickly becomes useful in getting the quintet off the grid by getting supplies and cash and an alternate ride. They shed their past identities, take new aliases as the Newman family and the gang lands in Seattle where Randy (Andy), Mike (Silas), and Nahtalie (Nancy) Newman all take up working at the same hotel. As Randy begins to thrive as a chef, Mike explores college life and even Sean finds some happiness trying to fit in with a group of mothers in the park.

But, Nahtalie is restless and sees an opportunity to make fast money, getting involved with a medicinal marijuana grower, acquiring the trimmings and making hash. Doug unwittingly leads Cesar and Esteban's other goons to the Newmans and they have to flee again. Having survived another near-fatal encounter, the Newmans buy a mobile home, end up in the wastes of Montana and when they are forced to flee there, they find their way to Dearborn. In Dearborn, Nancy's home town, the group moves in with a former teacher Nancy once hooked up with and they plan to make a big score to escape once and for all . . . to Copenhagen!

While the sixth season of Weeds might have its moments, it is more often agonizing to watch, both for its graphic nature - the severed penis in the penultimate episode was pretty gross - and for its characters who continue to make ridiculously bad choices (why Silas and Andy do not cut their losses and ditch Nancy and Shane makes no sense!). Whatever sense of pathos the audience might have once had for Nancy, it is gone now. It is so far gone, in fact that when the arguably psychopathic Shane suggests to Nancy that they leave the others to their own fate, it seems reasonable. And Nancy seems even more the monster for not going along with it.

What the sixth season of Weeds does well is develop from the little niggling ideas. Early in the season, the comment is made about how Silas does not look like Nancy or his dead father, Judah. What seems like an offhanded remark plays out with real consequences when the family arrives in Dearborn and it offers Silas a chance to truly grow as a character. And yet . . .

While that kind of character detail works and sees to conclusion any problem one might have had with the initial casting of Hunter Parrish since the beginning of the show, Weeds is not as tightly constructed as we might hope. Celia Hodes is gone, as is her daughter, and yet Doug finds his way back into the narrative. Doug is an utterly pointless character at this point and he serves only two niches: 1. To move the plot reasonably toward Esteban's people tracking the Newman family and 2. To keep Kevin Nealon on television. As one who liked a lot of Nealon's early work, it is disappointing to watch him flail through this season of Weeds. The show does not need his star power to keep going and so when he reappears it feels as unnecessary as it actually is. Moreover, Nealon is not given much in the way of opportunities to shine and play to his comedic strengths, so Doug is more annoying than funny in this season of the show.

Unfortunately, while most great television is about great characters, the sixth season of Weeds is heavily plot-based, as opposed to ripe with character growth moments. In the sixth season, this is what happens to the principle characters:

Nancy Botwin (Nahtalie) – Determined to keep Shane from going to prison for murder, she freaks out and flees Esteban. That move puts her on the road, wearing a bad wig and assuming the name Nahtalie (“French spelling”) and having anonymous sex (which feels more like contractually-obligated nudity for Mary-Louise Parker than anything organic for the show) in the middle of nowhere. Despite fearing that Shane might actually be a psychopath, she lets him play to his strengths, outside the perfect day they share in Montana. Upon returning home to Dearborn, she discovers an unlikely person following her and a resource in a crazy old, former lover,

Silas Botwin (Mike Newman) – Reluctantly running with the family, his life is turned upside down in Seattle where he discovers the joys of college and college women. He becomes determined to stay on the straight and narrow and succeeds, save for his obsession with sticking with his family. But even that changes in Dearborn when he learns a truth others only suspected about him,

Shane Botwin (Sean) – Cold and calculating, Shane shows no remorse for killing to try to save the family. He takes care of the baby Stevie more than anyone else and in Seattle, that leads him to hand out with a bunch of mothers who quickly suspect his child is being maltreated. Shane stops trying to fight his instincts and he goes toe to toe with Esteban’s goons, making him even more of a liability than before! Getting him out of the country becomes more of a priority as the chase accelerates and others suspect Shane, not Nancy, killed Esteban’s aide,

Doug – Wanders back to the Andy’s house and is captured by Cesar and is kept alive only because he believes he can lead the goons to the Botwins. Arguably saved by god, he goes in another direction after Montana and ends up fighting for a family he doesn’t even truly care about,

and Andy Botwin (Randy) – Guilt-stricken by running out on Audra when she is held hostage, he is pushed back into the house by Nancy and the fight that ensues leaves him heartbroken. With nowhere else to go, Andy helps Nancy and her family escape Ren Mar and get off the grid. In Seattle, he finds true happiness fighting an arrogant chef at the hotel for a cooking position (he is hired as a dishwasher) and no sooner does he wow the chef than the family has to run again. As Randy, he becomes a priest in the Montana wilderness to make the RV the family acquires blend and he comes up with the plan to escape the country.

While not much happens in terms of character, the acting in the sixth season of Weeds is largely wonderful. The stand-outs in this season are Hunter Parrish and Justin Kirk. While Alexander Gould does an awesome job playing Shane as a psychopath, he had that nailed in the prior season. Parrish makes Silas tortured and hurt and as the season goes on, the strength he infuses into Silas is gone and he plays vulnerability masterfully. When Silas encounters someone from Nancy’s past, Parrish acts expertly with his eyes. Justin Kirk also balances the comedic and dramatic awesomely and has a real presence when he is playing Andy seriously in the Seattle arc.

But Mary-Louise Parker brings nothing new to the role of Nancy Botwin and at this point, Nancy is utterly unlikable. Those waiting for Parker to learn to act with her mouth closed (since her performances on The West Wing, it seems directors or the actress wants everyone to see her teeth constantly and there’s something ridiculous about the look) will be disappointed as she hasn’t kicked that habit yet.

On DVD, Weeds Season six comes with minimal bonus features. The featurette on how the Botwins change their names is fairly ridiculous considering how they do not truly stick with the changed names and there is another featurette on the evolution of the season. The commentary track is not particularly enlightening, either.

Ultimately, Weeds Season Six is a season of transition, but it is virtually impossible to care about the characters and where they are going.

For prior seasons of Weeds, please check out my reviews of:
Weeds Season 1
Weeds Season 2
Weeds Season 3
Weeds Season 4
Weeds Season 5

4/10

For other television season reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Tin Man: Oz Reimagined For A New Generation Works Surprisingly Well!

The Good: Decent production values, Good character growth, Decent (enough) acting
The Bad: Moments of plot predictability, Moments of stiff acting
The Basics: The Sci-Fi Channel's mini-series Tin Man makes for a good reimagining of the Oz story and a decent enough DVD.


It might surprise my regular readers to note that I’ve never reviewed The Wizard Of Oz. In fact, it has been over a decade since I last saw it and I realized that I’ve seen and also failed to review Return To Oz more recently. In fact, for a person who lives near the birthplace of L. Frank Baum (Chittenango, New York), I’ve done pretty poorly in developing my Oz-credentials. In fact, the only thing Oz-related I’ve done in recent years was read the scandalous account of Dorothy in the graphic novel Lost Girls (click here for that review!). So, when my wife picked up Tin Man, I actually approached it with a very open mind and uncluttered by memories of what Oz and the stories of Oz were “supposed” to be.

For those unfamiliar with it, Tin Man was the Sci-Fi Channel’s reimagining of the Oz story with more contemporary characters, effects and concepts. The mini-series appears on DVD as a two-disc set with all three episodes and minimal bonus features. The smart thing about the film is that it is not a musical, it is not simply a modernized version of the story and it has a remarkably fresh feel to it.

DG lives in Kansas where she has dreams of a beautiful woman with lavender eyes. Her parents realize something is amiss, but before they can tell the truth to DG, soldiers from a distant place appear and DG is sent through a storm into the O.Z. (Outer Zone). While DG begins to explore the O.Z. and learn its secrets, her parents are captured by the sorceress Azkadellia, who is the merciless ruler of the O.Z. and is hunting for a mystical Emerald. DG finds herself in the company of Glitch, a former advisor to Azkadellia who was lobotomized to keep the secrets of his Sun Seeder weapon from him. She also meets Wyatt Cain, a former sheriff of Central City. Wyatt had been imprisoned for years in a chamber that forced him to relive the killing of his family over and over again. Released by DG, he becomes an ally of hers even as he seeks revenge for what was done to his family. The trio also encounters Raw, a being with telepathic abilities and whose species is being exploited by Azkadellia for that talent.

As Azkadellia learns the secrets of the weapon which will allow her to put a stranglehold on the O.Z., DG begins to learn her secret history. Discovering her adoptive parents are androids from the O.Z., DG goes in search of the Mystic Man, a brilliant man who knows the answers to all questions. Even though he has fallen to the edge of madness, he gives DG clues which set her searching around the O.Z. for the truth about her heritage, the Sun Seeder and her relationship with Azkadellia and the O.Z.! With her former Tutor, a shapeshifter, joining her band, the group sets out to learn DG's secrets and stop Azkadellia.

What Tin Man does so well is that it truly develops the story it is telling and characters it is using. DG might be an occasionally confused young woman, but she is surrounded by people who have talents she is able to use. Glitch, despite his memory loss, does know some places, concepts and even devices that DG has no experience with in our world. Similarly, Cain is both highly motivated and ruthlessly efficient and makes for a good tracker and guide. While Raw is fearful - legitimately so as his people have been enslaved by Azkadellia and are being psychically raped to help her twisted purposes - his ability to look into the brains of people allows him to help DG to unlock some of the mysteries surrounding her. Tutor continues to aid DG with magic and even the Mystic Man becomes lucid enough to point DG in the right direction for her quest.

But even though DG's journey is one where she learns more and more unsettling aspects of her past, she grows into a generally likable character. Still, much of the true emotional journey happens to Wyatt Cain. Cain is psychologically scarred from the beginning of his journey and as he watches Azkadellia's forces close in on them, most notably her agent Zero, who is ruthless and directly responsible for what happened to his family, Cain begins to grow beyond a simpleton out for revenge. Instead, he comes to realize that by adopting Azkadellia's methods, he risks becoming as bad as she is. The journey from revenge plot to aide to DG is a reasonable series of leaps and Tin Man develops his story well.

While the mini-series is not nearly as annoying as the musical was (how is it anyone in The Wizard Of Oz survived if they were all so clueless and powerless?!) there are some issues most contemporary audiences are likely to have with it. Glitch repeats a number of lines because, frankly, he's too braindamaged to realize he is doing it. But that joke both wears thin and is dropped unrealistically soon. Like characters who stutter losing their speech defect with unrealistic ease, Tin Man has Glitch recalling things too soon that ought not even be in his brain and not repeating things with any frequency in the latter half of the film. This is odd as there is no healing process for him.

What isn't as annoying is how the story develops. It is rather early on that the viewer learns the identity of the lavender-eyed woman and her relationship with both DG and Azkadellia. But what is most refreshing is the twist the story takes in the climax of the second part. When the viewer learns the essential truth about Azkadellia and DG's role in her ascent to subjugating the O.Z., the film takes on a surprising depth.

Also wonderful is the acting, or most of it anyway. Alan Cumming is amusing and subtly tortured as Glitch, Richard Dreyfuss lends credibility and power to the Mystic Man and Callum Keith Rennie is appropriately menacing as Zero. The one who steals the show is Neal McDonough as Wyatt. McDonough actually uses his piercing gaze and stony demeanor to flesh out the character of Wyatt and he is not menacing, but efficient. He makes Wyatt a plausibly damaged character who has buried his heart and at the moments he has to play emotionally connected, he does it expertly, like a man who has been detached from his feelings for a long time.

But the lead is Zooey Deschanel and she makes DG likable and smart enough that the viewer actually cares about what happens to her. Unlike many good-looking protagonists, Deschanel's DG does not trade on her appearance, she acts appropriately startled and shaken with each new revelation. But the strength that DG has to show at the film's climax is arguably made plausible by the force with which Deschanel speaks even in the earliest scenes of the film.

In fact, the only notably clunky acting comes from Blu Mankuma, who plays Tutor. He telegraphs far too much of his performance, so the character's surprises are anything but.

In Tin Man, the special effects are generally good and they enhance the story, as opposed to overwhelm it. CG effects, like Azkadellia's tattoos becoming flying monkeys, are pretty well-executed.

On DVD, Tin Man is light on bonus features, but does contain three behind-the-scenes featurettes and a gag reel. The featurettes basically have the cast gushing about the mini-series and how imaginative it is.

For those looking for an imaginative journey with good special effects and characters, Tin Man has it. It is a bit dark for children, but for young adults and adults looking for a fresh take on Oz, Tin Man succeeds.

For other fantasy world on film, please check out my reviews of:
Alice In Wonderland
Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone
Edward Scissorhands

7.5/10

For other television and film reviews, please check out my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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