Part Political Comedy, Part Political Thriller, All Entertaining: Man Of The Year!

The Good: Funny, Interesting concept, Some good acting, Some decent characters
The Bad: Robin Williams entertains but does not act much
The Basics: Clever and alternately funny and intense, Man Of The Year creates a political satire that is populated with interesting characters and generally good performances.


While I often attempt to interject my personality - and certainly my views - in my reviews, I try to leave myself out of my reviews as much as possible. But on this occasion, I would like to open my review with a little personal history. In 2005, I ran for the United States House of Representatives as an Independent candidate in New York's 23rd Congressional District. For those checking the dates, you'll note that 2005 was not an election year. My strategy, as it was, was to spend two years campaigning and in that fashion give people in the district a chance to know me and what I stood for. Circumstances having less to do with the campaign, combined with my inability to raise a lot of money to campaign, forced me to fold the campaign after six months. From the first moments I campaigned, I knew I was a long shot, but I was undeterred because I believe there are certain principles in democracy that have been mortgaged in the United States in our times.

Tom Dobbs, a political satirist with a late night show, takes a cue from a fan and decides to get involved in the political process by running for president of the Unites States. Aided by his manager, Jack, and his television production staff, Dobbs makes a serious run for the Presidency and inadvertently wins. Dobbs is elected using new voting machines that have a serious flaw in their programming, a flaw realized by the program's designer. Once Dobbs is elected, Eleanor does her best to come forward, but she finds herself hunted by the company she worked for and her life is put in jeopardy.

What I enjoyed most about Man Of The Year was the political philosophy of it. Writer/Director Barry Levinson, well known for political movies like Wag The Dog, nails it on the head again with the concept that American politics is ruled by special interests, that the political candidates - professional politicians - are a huge part of the problem and that the American people are kept away from the machinations that control their fate. It's refreshing to see a movie rail so effectively against the flaws in the systems of our great nation. It's refreshing to hear characters arguing for a future in such a way that none of our elected officials actually do.

Man Of The Year ought to be required viewing for members of Congress.

This is not to say that Man Of The Year is a perfect film; it's not. But what it does succeed at is being clever. A portion of the movie is political satire. Lewis Black and Robin Williams deliver shtick that is often hilarious. This is an excellent use of their comic talents and they use the forum to make jokes that (at least Williams) they might not otherwise have a forum for.

Equally smart, perhaps more biting, is the latter half of the movie, which focuses more on Eleanor as she deals with the voting machine company. Intent on protecting their ill-gotten stock gains and government contracts, the company drugs, assaults and hunts Eleanor, even waging a media campaign to discredit her. What resonates about this is the fanatical devotion to profit that such companies operate with. Man Of The Year correctly exposes the motivation of such companies and it is not the integrity of the voting system. Sadly, and too few people know this, the only thing that it checked in order for a voting machine to be certified by the federal government is power supply integrity. The FEC certifies voting machines based on whether they turn on and stay on, not for the accuracy of how they collect data. It's enough to make one want paper ballots.

The film moves well as a political thriller, which is what it essentially becomes when the chase of Eleanor begins. Dobbs stops appearing on screen as a wisecracking host and takes on a mantle of credible disbelief while interacting with Eleanor after she reveals the truth to him. And overall, this ends up as a decent mix of political philosophy and entertainment.

In fact, one of the few things that does not work especially well in Man Of The Year is Robin Williams. Williams works very well as comedian Tom Dobbs, the problem is it's not much of an acting job. Williams is presenting standup and it feels like Robin Williams. It's entirely possible that this would have been a better film as a mockumentary of Robin Williams running for president, as opposed to creating a fictional character who so closely resembled Williams's stage performance as to distract those who were appreciators of his art.

Conversely, in the latter half of the movie, Williams illustrates he can act by playing Dobbs playing the president-elect. In the latter half of the movie, Williams plays a character struggling with a very real ethical dilemma and it is there that he convinces us of his abilities.

Man Of The Year has an exceptional supporting cast. Christopher Walken plays Jack and he does it with a detachment that is different from any other role I've seen him in. Jeff Goldblum makes occasional appearances as the company executive who understands how disastrous Eleanor's information could be to the company. Goldblum plays the role with a menace that perfectly portrays the self-preservation instinct of Big Capitalism. Lewis Black delivers very funny lines, though it doesn't seem like much of an acting stretch for him.

It is Laura Linney who is the surprise performance of Man Of The Year. As Eleanor, Linney - who was awesome in Love, Actually (reviewed here!) - must convince the audience she is credible and her attempts to convince others have to be questionable. Linney does this by creating an utterly believable aura of paranoia and articulation. She's the one to watch here.

Man Of The Year is a success for Barry Levinson and - as a reviewer, political columnist, and former candidate - it's a shame that this movie was not better received. It certainly is timely enough. What I wish it wasn't!

For other works by Barry Levinson, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Envy
Bandits
Homicide: The Movie
Homicide: Life On The Street
Rain Man

8/10

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

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Expectations Of Exceptional: Mystic River, The Average Great Film

The Good: Acting, Soundtrack, Moments of plot/character
The Bad: Movie never reaches its emotional potential, Somewhat predictable character arcs
The Basics: In a truly great, though unsurprising film, Mystic River presents a murder mystery centering around three childhood friends who have taken different paths. Does not exceed expectations.


If there were ever an "average great film," it would have to be Mystic River, the Clint Eastwood-directed drama that features one of the most impressive casts in Hollywood. In fact, if there is anything truly wrong with Mystic River, it is that the film is set up to dazzle an audience with such practiced, confirmed actors and themes as to make it almost impossible for the movie to ultimately underwhelm the seasoned moviegoer.

Jimmy, Dave and Sean are growing up together in a neighborhood as close friends, playing the street, planning pranks and writing their names in wet cement, when one day their lives change drastically. Two men approach the kids, scold them and because they are posing as police officers, they convinced Dave to get in their car under the auspices of taking him home to tell his mother about the trouble he's been getting into. Sean and Jimmy immediately inform their parents, but Dave is gone. Dave is held in a cellar for four days before he successfully escapes the tortures of the men who have captured him.

Flash forward twenty-five years. Dave is quietly raising his son, Jimmy is running a business and raising his three daughters and Sean finds himself trying to reconcile with his wife who abandoned him and left him shaken. Sean is a detective and when he and his partner, Whitey Powers, catch an especially brutal homicide, Sean finds himself in an unenviable position. The deceased is Jimmy's oldest daughter, Katie, and the best suspect for the murder is Dave.

Mystic River has all of the markers of a great movie: a wonderful cast, a dense and disturbing plot, phenomenal direction, layered characters and actors who are performing at the top of their game. Mystic River has all of these things. So, why was I so underwhelmed?

The movie is underwhelming because these are the expectations going in. Watching the trailer promises that this is going to be a big, bold movie in all the ways listed above. Are the performances good? Yes. Is the plot disturbing and complicated? Certainly. Does director Clint Eastwood deliver as far as establishing and developing a mood that tells the story well? Yes. But that was the expectation going in. The problem is, it doesn't do anything more. The movie lives up to expectations, but because the expectations are of greatness, when the movie is great in every technical sense, it merely reinforces the expectations.

One of the nice things about Mystic River is that the male characters are all utterly dependent upon the female characters for reassurance and genuine definition, which is why Whitey remains somewhat distant from the spotlight. Jimmy's actions throughout the movie characterize him strongly as a man who will defend his family at all costs. He is a man of love and vengeance, hardened by time in jail and likely criminal behavior since - there's no other good reason for his lackeys who have a parallel murder investigation to the police - and all that humanizes him and allows him to live with himself comes from his wife Annabeth. Annabeth removes his doubts and justifies all of his actions. Similarly, Sean's estranged wife provides him with definition and balance outside the job.

The proof of the value of women in the men's lives is evident in the relationship between Dave and his wife, Celeste. Celeste is suspicious when Dave returns home the morning of Katie's murder with blood on his clothes and a nasty cut on his chest. She listens as he tells other people different reasons for the blood and becomes troubled when his stated reason - taking out a mugger who tried to attack him when he left the bar - does not appear in the newspapers. Celeste stops believing in Dave, reinforced when he reveals the truth about what happened when he was abducted to her. It is when Celeste stops believing in Dave that his reality shatters and he begins to be unable to function.

And Dave is a sympathetic character. The viewer empathizes with his struggle; the idea of him being tormented and trying to live a normal life after that is a compelling character journey. When Dave's truths are revealed, he becomes vivid and pitiable. It is difficult to watch him struggle, so vivid is his experience and the ramifications of it.

Similarly, Jimmy Markum is exceptionally empathetic. In the world we hear is increasingly dangerous, Jimmy becomes the logical extension of the desire to protect one's family from the realities of those dangers. Jimmy is arguably a man who is doing what society demands of him - reinforced by the love and support of his wife for doing it.

Jimmy is played by Sean Penn. Penn, who has impressed me in All The King's Men and I Am Sam (reviewed here!) continues to prove he can be a true dramatic heavy. With a gaze, with the setting of his jaw, Penn is able to create a vivid characterization. From his earliest appearances on screen, the audience is able to figure out exactly what kind of man Jimmy has become in the years since his childhood. The viewer is able to buy completely a quasi-thug who is still able to ask his childhood buddy, "Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you had gotten into that car?" because of the way Penn portrays Jimmy. He's not just a dumb thug or hitman here, he's layered and that role is somewhat demanding. And Penn delivers.

Kevin Bacon is surprisingly good as Sean Devine, though the role is not much of a stretch for the intense actor. Instead, Bacon comes naturally to the role of a detective. Similarly, Laurence Fishburn, who plays Sean's partner Whitey, seems naturally cast as a detective and the role falls more within his established caliber of acting rather than an actual challenge for him. Marcia Gay Harden (Celeste), Laura Linney (Jimmy's wife Annabeth), and Emmy Rossum (Katie) all give wonderful supporting performances. All three have been in roles where they are leads and prove their acting worth and Mystic River merely offers them another outing, continued practice. Harden, particularly, is unchallenged by the role she plays in this film as she plays it quite closely to her character from The Spitfire Grill (reviewed here!).

The performance that makes Mystic River worth coming back to more than once is that of Tim Robbins as Dave. Robbins is quiet and understated, the very model of deeply wounded in this movie. Robbins plays Dave in such a way that the viewer knows he's not right even before he delivers his first line. With his body language and soft-spoken delivery of most of his lines, Robbins wonderfully embodies a man whose childhood demons still live within him.

The DVD is scant on extras, which I was disappointed by. It is, however, the only real disappointment coming out of Mystic River. Everything else lived up to the viewer's expectations, high as they were.

For other works with Spencer Treat Clark, check out my reviews of:
The Last House On The Left
Unbreakable
Gladiator

6/10

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

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Unsimple Twists Are Well-Explored In A Simple Twist Of Fate

The Good: Funny, Witty, Intelligent, Well-acted, Cinematography
The Bad: Utterly predictable plot
The Basics: Witty dialog, excellent actors actually acting and a very even pace overwrite the plot, which the intellectually aware viewer may easily predict within five minutes of the film's opening.


Steve Martin is one of "those comedians" who it's almost hard to take seriously. Or he used to be. More and more he's been displaying his other side, the one that is intelligent, dignified and, well, adult. A few years ago, while reading The New Yorker, I was quite delighted to realize that the Steve Martin whose article I was finding brilliantly ironic and sophisticatedly sardonic was THAT Steve Martin, the same one who amused me with less than intelligent humor in Three Amigos when I was too young to know better.

That said A Simple Twist Of Fate is a far better outing than I anticipated. Martin is wonderful as an adult being . . . an adult!

The plot is based upon George Eliot's novel Silas Marner which I've yet to read, so my film review is pretty pure. A miserly man, played by Martin, is robbed of a very valuable gold coin collection. (The robber, by the by, is played by none other than Stephen Baldwin, which is pretty nice). Dejected, he becomes a recluse and spends his days in isolation making furniture.

Following the robbery, a woman drives off into the snowy night. This is completely unrelated to the robbery, so don't think I've lost my finesse for these reviews! Rather abruptly, we're in a car with a rejected drug addict woman and her toddler daughter. She drives off in the cold night until her car runs out of gas. Then, she gets out and walks with her daughter out into the snow. Her daughter, being significantly smarter, walks away when her mom sets her down and she walks into Michael McCann's (Martin's miserly character) cabin. Michael finds her there, finds her mom dead in the snow and contacts the local constabulary, played by . . . Gabriel Byrne.

Okay, here's the big disclaimer about this film; No one, absolutely no one I know, expects the film to be as good as it is. And it's an excellent film.

Michael gets custody of the toddler, names her, of all things, Mathilda and what follows is the next ten years of their life together. Michael is largely successful as a parent, being involved and actually inspiring his daughter. It is in this period that the film defies our low expectations for it. Martin here acts, and he does it well, and the various aged girls playing Mathilda, they act. Martin seems to be paired up with the Dream Child Actresses as each one is a gem, distinctively creating Mathilda at her various ages.

All the while, seeds are planted with Gabriel Byrne's political character and the latter half of the film is spent as a legal debate over who ought to have custody of Mathilda.

The film is surprisingly engaging, surprisingly intelligent and well plotted, if a bit predictable. The characters are well fleshed out and the relationships that develop are quite extraordinary.

It seems like there ought to be more analysis than that, but the truth is, there doesn't. What the film is truly about is the nature of parenthood. In the first half of the film, we see that defined through the actions of Michael and Mathilda. In the second half of the movie, we see that challenged and going into the court case would ruin the end of the film for you.

The simple, yet thorough, analysis of the movie is that A Simple Twist Of Fate is a nice bit of filmmaking which takes the time to define parenting, then spends the remainder defending that view. How refreshing!

I, personally, am loathe to do ruin the end of a film; especially for a film that so pleasantly surprised me. Give it a chance; it will do the same for anyone who likes a good family story.

For other family-oriented films, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Spitfire Grill
Babies
Baby Mama

8/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the films I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2002 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Another Awkward Family Falling Apart: The Squid And The Whale Is Troubling And Real.

The Good: Great dialogue, Good acting, Good direction.
The Bad: Predictable plot points.
The Basics: Very difficult and true, The Squid And The Whale is less esoteric and more of an increasingly common experience as a family moves toward divorce.


The modern family, with its complexities has been the source of fodder for movies . . . pretty much forever. I think the angsty family reached its critical peak with Kramer Vs. Kramer (reviewed here!). Lately, it seems the movies about families I enjoy most are the ones that focus on eccentric families, like The Royal Tenenbaums (reviewed here!). After accidentally subjecting my wife to The Other Woman (reviewed here!), we were out and she saw the DVD for The Squid And The Whale and thought that we might enjoy that film more.

The Squid And The Whale is a surprisingly stark film about people and the awkwardness of relationships. There is a surprising number of references to semen and the sexual elements alternate between the utterly creepy (the youngest child wiping ejaculate on the locker of a girl he likes), the stiflingly realistic (the teenage child cumming remarkably quickly when his girlfriend first tries to touch him) and the completely predictable (a student coming on to the father). Despite the moments of predictability and awkwardness, The Squid And The Whale is enjoyable and captures a sense of reality that those who have gone through an awkward divorce are destined to recognize as true.

Starting with a tennis match wherein Bernard and Walt take on Joan and Frank, the Berkman family is in the process of torquing apart. In 1986 Brooklyn, Bernard and Joan are having a difficult time raising Walt and Frank. When Joan is published in a literary journal, Bernard's jealousy begins to rear up. It is not long before Bernard and Joan separate and are moving toward divorce very rapidly. Joan begins dividing the family by hiding books she claims are hers and Bernard has Walt steal books back for him.

The family is pretty much doomed the moment Bernard tells Walt that the marriage was dead when Joan had an affair with a shrink named Richard and some other men. Frank begins to assert himself by claiming he wants to be a tennis pro and Bernard continues to find it difficult to get his next work published. While Joan uses the separation to grow and experiment, Bernard becomes more mired in his patterns and the family seems to get further from the potential of staying together.

The Squid And The Whale very realistically captures the angst of a family in the process of a divorce. Many of the characters are awkward and troubled. Frank, the youngest of the family, swears the most and he is the one most curious about what explicit sexual acts his mom might have done with the men she had affairs with. The film is abrupt and troubling in many portions, especially when Frank masturbates in the library and calls his mother ugly. He begins to drink and discovers his budding sexuality on his own, which causes more problems at school.

Walt, like Frank, is awkward, though his relationship issues are much more common. He feels pressure based on how he tries to live up to his father's intellectual pretenses. Walt is trying to live up to his father's expectations, but in the process he skates by without actually developing. One of the most interesting aspects of the writing of The Squid And The Whale is how writer and director Noah Baumbach takes time to develop the ideas without making them painfully explicit. So, for example, Walt listens to his father's opinions on the great books and movies and as a result, he seldom actually reads the masters. This is heavily implied when his girlfriend, Sophie, asks him a specific question about Kafka's The Metamorphosis, which he glosses over. The writing for The Squid And The Whale is excellent.

In addition to being an interesting character, the angst-filled Walt is masterfully played by a young Jesse Eisenberg. Sure, he's still young now, but even in The Squid And The Whale he illustrates a strong talent and the ability to deliver complex lines. He has wonderfully expressive facial expressions and he delivers with an understated way that helps maintain the reality of the character. It is easy to see how Jess Eisenberg had a meteoric rise following this film and he plays off Anna Paquin well in her few scenes with him as Lily.

The surprise for me was how good Jeff Bridges was in The Squid And The Whale. Usually, I would champion Laura Linney, but as Joan she is woefully underused. Bridges, on the other hand, is stunningly good as the pretentious Bernard. With his overgrown beard and mustache, Bridges immediately sets himself apart from every other role he has taken. Instead, Bridges plays Bernard as both erudite and pretentious. Bernard is a complex character who is both metaconscious and annoyingly unethical, which Bridges is able to play that with his body language. In one key scene, he makes his eyes look more lazy and tired and that sells the sense of emotional fatigue his character has.

The Squid And The Whale is not for everyone. As my wife noted at the end, "I hate independent films!" there is little sense of resolution to the film. Instead, Baumbach opts for a slice of life wherein the characters are put into problematic situations, the situations are brought to the attention of the others and then nothing happens as a consequence. That can be irksome for those who want a real strong story, but for those looking for a movie with both odd characters and the problematic realism that independent films often embody, The Squid And The Whale delivers.

For other works with Anna Paquin, be sure to check out my reviews of:
True Blood - Season Three
True Blood - Season Two
True Blood - Season One
X-Men: The Last Stand
X-2: X-Men United
X-Men
The Piano

7/10

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

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

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Playing Corporate God: The Truman Show Succeeds!

The Good: Ed Harris' acting, Strong moments in the middle to end, Character
The Bad: Pacing, Very beginning, Very end, Psychological believability
The Basics: A surprisingly competent work, despite some major pitfalls, The Truman Show is very watchable.


The sky has fallen; I'm recommending a film with Jim Carrey. It was a close one. What tipped me over was the question "Would I watch it again?" and despite serious problems with how the film is paced, I had to admit I would.

The Truman Show follows a rather impressive idea, especially for our current era of so-called "reality" television. The Truman Show (in the film) is a reality show focusing on Truman Burbank, a square if ever there was one. He unwittingly lives his life, oblivious to the fact that he lives in a giant soundstage. The show revolves around Truman 24 hours a day. His life IS the show and he doesn't know it.

After establishing that through a rather ordinary day, his world begins to be questioned when his dead father reappears. This inspires Truman to challenge his beliefs in his existence.

Unfortunately, it's not until over halfway through the film that The Truman Show focuses on Cristof, the producer/director of The Truman Show. It is here we learn the sweeping scale of the show, that Truman was born on television and for thirty years has been the subject of the documentary and the startling corporate scope of the project.

It's unfortunate that the film takes so very long to focus on Cristof, because he has the far more interesting character. His relationship to Truman is far more compelling than the simple "Truman realizes he's in a t.v. show" plot.

One of the major setbacks to the film is that while it adequately explores Truman's epiphanies, it does not reflect that emotively with Cristof. Here's a man whose last thirty years have been entirely devoted to Truman and on the eve of the project's collapse, he doesn't seem at all emotionally conflicted.

The psychological believability of the situation fails with Cristof and it stretches far too thin with Truman. That is, the end is vastly too hopeful, Burbank is way too exuberant for a man who has literally just lost his entire world. It's an ambitious premise presented unambitiously. I would have vastly preferred the film to begin about forty minutes in and then take an additional two hours or more focusing on what happened next.

Ed Harris, however, saves the film. His portrayal of Cristof is excellent. He is calculating, intriguing and desperate. I bought him, for the most part. I cared about Cristof; it was a shame that his creation (Truman) was such a poser. That is, Truman Burbank reads like a fifties oversimplified cheerful mask. He isn't terribly real.

Jim Carrey. I suppose I can't escape the review without actually mentioning him. He acted, but it was inconsistent. The film opens with Carrey being very much Jim Carrey and it was hard to take him seriously. The last line of the film disappointed me because of the way Carrey screwed his face up and delivered it as Jim Carrey as opposed to Truman Burbank. The middle? Pure acting, excellent work. Sadly, Carrey has never been finer than in the middle of The Truman Show where he's actually grappling with existential questions.

There are obvious flaws in the film. The largest would have to be: on a soundstage, even a massive one, how would it ever be possible to get past the security on such a project. That is, assuming the actors leave the stage occasionally, how would it ever be possible for the actor who played Truman's father to ever get back inside?! Too hard to suspend disbelief for that.

What isn't hard to believe is the premise. The idea of a life being so thoroughly deconstructed, ominous as it may be, is fairly practical. They pulled that off well.

Outside Ed Harris, what saves the film is the actual exploration of character. While much may be spent on the gimmick of the plot, the film does a very good job at keeping everything focused on the aspects of character: Truman's longing to understand his existence. Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the film is where it does intersect reality: Truman gets to confront his god, his creator. What a bummer that most everyone else doesn't get that privilege.

My last word: I recommend this film, but I more strongly recommend the Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode "Whispers" as it deals with the existential questions The Truman Show fails to answer far better. After all, The Truman Show isn't the only film to deal with people feeling like everyone in their world has turned on them!

For other realisty-bending films with strong psychological elements, please check out my reviews of:
Sucker Punch
Inception
Passengers

7/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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While Few People Were Looking, Frasier The Final Season Ends Superbly!

The Good: Funny, Great character development, Wonderful performances
The Bad: Light on DVD bonus features, Issue with recurring characters
The Basics: With Frasier The Final Season, Frasier comes to a remarkable close on DVD with minimal extras.


As the year comes to an end, my wife and I are feeling a lot of sense of loss over what we watch together. As ridiculous as it may seem, when we get attached to characters on shows, we truly do get attached. Earlier this year, we watched all of Friends and I was unsurprised by how big a deal it was when we finished the series on DVD (I got it for her as a wedding gift, so this was an added component to her recollections of where she was in life when the series itself ended). While I had my hopes that she would enjoy Frasier (the whole series is reviewed here!), I had no idea how MUCH she would come to love the situational comedy that I had long enjoyed. So, when we slowed down our DVD viewing, it was with a cozy sense of melancholy that on Christmas night together we finished Frasier The Final Season. That’s Season 11 for those who actually follow such things, though the DVD packaging refers to it as the final season.

My love for Frasier came at a weird time and when the episodes were airing, there were a surprising number of episodes I had not seen until I managed to get the DVD set. In fact, it is only on DVD that one comes to realize just how tight the final season is. Unlike other seasons of Frasier (or of other television shows, for that matter), the writers and producers had a clear idea of where they wanted to go with the show and as a result, they plant the seeds for it rather early. I had seen the series finale, for example, but it wasn’t until I was watching the episodes that preceded it that I came to realize just how well the show had prepared viewers for the ultimate leap the series takes as it went off the air. It’s wonderful when a show is that well-constructed.

Unfortunately for the writers and producers of Frasier, where they had left the series at the climax of season ten meant they had to clean some things up. Do not read on if you want the surprise (it’s not honestly much of a surprise) of how the tenth season ended! Fans of the series had a feeling that elements from the tenth season that were left dangling would be resolved, but the speed at which they get tied up is somewhere between alarming and ridiculous to many fans, myself included. As a result, the final season actually starts off feeling like many of the other seasons of the show.

Having chosen Julia as a lover over Roz as a friend, Frasier finds himself scrambling to replace his producer. But after her first day at the rival radio station in Seattle, Roz finds herself absolutely miserable. Acting upon a sarcastic quip from Niles, Roz returns to KACL as if nothing had happened and soon “The Frasier Crane Show” is up and running well again. Frasier’s personal life, however, takes an abrupt turn when Julia meets the family and the dinner goes so poorly that he breaks up with her on the spot. In the process, Niles – who was worried about his low motility – discovers Daphne is pregnant with his baby and the family prepares for a new life. Frasier returns to the dating scene, but discovers that his former babysitter who has come back into his life is more interested in Martin than she is Frasier. This leads Roz to set Frasier up with an odious insurance adjustor who robs Frasier of a night with Ms. Right (literally, her name is Ms. Right!).

It is around this time that Maris resurfaces . . . as a murderer! On trial for killing her lover, Niles becomes a local celebrity, which makes Frasier jealous. Lilith returns, as does Frederick (who is anything but interested in spending Christmas with the good doctor) and in an act of rebellion, Niles accidentally gets Martin high with a pot brownie! Frasier’s first ex-wife shows up as well and in a practical joke, Frasier give Martin a heart attack. This leads Martin and Ronnie down an unexpected path. But as he becomes more unsatisfied with his work at KACL, Frasier succumbs to the services of a matchmaker, but finds himself falling for her instead! When Frasier falls in love with Charlotte, his matchmaker who is involved with an environmentalist, it truly changes his life.

Right off the bat, I have a real gripe with the eleventh season of Frasier for the recurring character of Ann. Ann is the insurance adjuster Roz sets Frasier up with who turns out to be exceptionally litigious. Ann is, arguably, the first realistically-proportioned character to pop up on Frasier. The problem I have with this is that she is also in the running (with Julia) for the character with the absolute worst personality the show ever created. She is noisy, mean and just obnoxious. Every frame she is on screen is unpleasant and it stinks that Frasier succumbs to the rather base stereotype of equating inner and outer beauty by illustrating that the “worst looking” (i.e. not Hollywood thin or classically beautiful) character (to show up in eleven years!) also possesses one of the worst personalities. By similar extension, Julia – who was played by Felicity Huffman, who landed her role on Desperate Housewives and had to be written out – goes from being a deeply sarcastic and irritable character to outright classless in her final appearance on the show. The writers did not continue the character well and as a result, fans were quite pleased to see her depart.

Conversely, Frasier The Final Season makes excellent use of the time it had remaining in the forms of Ronnie, Charlotte and her boyfriend Frank. The use of great guest stars Wendie Malick, Laura Linney and Aaron Eckhart, respectively, helps, but the roles are exceptionally well-written. Malick as Ronnie, especially, is able to pull off the part of a character so vital that she fits into the cast as if she had been there forever. Ronnie is a great addition to the character mix as she is a middle-aged woman who falls for Martin and has a real sense of humor about her place in Frasier and Niles’s lives. As well, she becomes a great source for character revelations: a joke she once played on Niles is arguably what led him to his compulsive cleaning!

What works as well is the show’s fearless nature about doing concept shows. The penultimate episode of the series, for example, takes the cast back through several different eras in the series. My partner initially groaned as “Crock Tales” began and it appeared to be a flashback episode, until she realized the “flashbacks” were actually new material! Similarly, in “Detours,” Frasier presents its final farcical episode when Frasier tries to drive Charlotte to a conference and his car dies, stranding them in a house with a dead body, hillbillies and the creepiest adult child to be shown on television in years! As well, the series is unafraid to present episodes that illustrate a deeper understanding of the psychology of the characters on the show. So in “Freudian Sleep,” each of the main characters has a dream or nightmare which reveals where they are in life and their insecurities about that. It’s a very smart episode (though a bit derivative of the M*A*S*H episode “Dreams”) and the characters are well-presented in it.

As usual, it helps to know who the characters are in a series and what their struggles are. In the final season of Frasier, the principles are:

Dr. Frasier Crane – Alone again after Julia insults everyone in his life, he finds himself tied to Ann when she hurts herself in his apartment. When he manages to rid himself of her, he struggles with boredom at his job. He and Lilith say a very real “good-bye” and he tries to relate to Frederick when his son visits for Christmas and has gone Goth! He and Niles compete less as Frasier prepares to be an uncle and Frasier starts to envy what Niles has with Daphne. He inadvertently dates a prominent – but very gay – theater director who offers him all the trappings of a life he wants . . . with an obvious catch. His chance at real love comes when he works with a matchmaker who is struggling through her own divorce and he finds himself more than smitten, but truly in love,

Roz Doyle – Unsatisfied with her new job, she immediately returns to KACL as Frasier’s producer, but starts to suffer ennui when the show begins to slow down. She gets a boyfriend who seems like he might be gay and ultimately finds herself still looking for the right man. As well, Frasier’s advice to Kenny to return to what makes him passionate (in this case, being a d.j.) leads Roz to a career opportunity that suits her,

Dr. Niles Crane – Now expecting a child with the love of his life, he is shocked when Maris’s new lover turns up dead . . . with a murder weapon Niles gave to her! He becomes less secure when he realizes what fatherhood might do to him, but after a brief (annoying) sympathetic pregnancy, he finds himself prepared and happy. This season, he becomes supportive of Frasier when Frasier makes a real effort to find love after Julia departs,

Daphne Crane – Thrilled that her mother is no longer living with her and Niles, they set about to get pregnant and soon discover she already is! Jealous when Niles starts giving Maris attention, she is part of Maris’s plan to flee the country, though she does not know it at the time. She gets moody as she gets further along and she begins to be afraid that Niles will leave her after the baby comes,

And Martin Crane – Competing with Frasier for Ronnie’s affections leaves him the victor and he does his best to impress Ronnie and her very conservative mother. He plays a practical joke on Frasier, which backfires when Frasier plays it back on him and scares him into a heart attack. This brings him and Ronnie closer and provides Frasier with an example of real love to follow to his next stage in life.

The acting on the show by this point is exceptionally honed and none of the performers do anything we have not seen from them before in terms of acting. That said, it is hard for fans to not tear up in the final scene Kelsey Grammar and Bebe Neuwirth share in “Guns ‘N Neuroses.” By that point, of course, both performers knew they were saying good-bye to their characters (arguably for the last time) and the scene is sad and sweet, just as the finale is.

Even so, the show is very funny, as well as a series of protracted “good-byes.” On DVD, “The Final Season” comes with two featurettes on the ending of the series and the final episode. This is underwhelming, but continues predictably the Paramount “F-U” to the fans by not giving them much value for their DVD buying dollar. This is, arguably, because they know fans who bought the other ten seasons are going to want to buy this boxed set, if for no other reason than to see how the show ends.

In this, at least, Paramount is right.

For the final seasons to other television series’, please check out my reviews of:
The West Wing – Season 7
Heroes – Season 4
Lost – Season 6

7.5/10

For other television reviews, please visit my index page!

© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Actually Better Than The Average Romantic Comedy: Love Actually Is A Great, Enduring Christmas Movie!

The Good: Excellent casting, Charming, Funny, Great theme, Interesting characters, Not entirely predictable
The Bad: What isn't unpredictable, is terribly predictable
The Basics: With its massive ensemble cast, Love Actually illustrates that love is all around by taking multiple storylines and weaving them together beautifully.


I am a bit of a fan of complex movies. If a film is done right, it can have several threads going simultaneously and I'll love it. Magnolia is a perfect example of a film that takes several different storylines and expertly weaves them together. It is with a similar appreciation - but on the love, not despair, end of the spectrum - that I watched and rewatched Love Actually. There is no film I reviewed originally that I have looked forward to going back and re-rating like Love Actually; time has certainly smoothed out the edges on this one and it is a near-perfect film in my pantheon! With Batman Returns, it is an annual Christmas tradition in my home, as far as movies go!

You might have seen previews for Love Actually and resisted it because you are not a Hugh Grant or Winona Ryder fan. For the former, Grant is not in much of the movie and where he is, he is actually interesting, charming, and genuinely funny. For the latter, Ryder is not in the movie at all; the lookalike in the previews is actually Keira Knightley, who is made up to look pretty much identical to Winona Ryder. Go figure.

Regardless, Love Actually is a surprisingly good film, especially for a romantic comedy, which is usually such an overdone, obvious genre. Instead, Love Actually begins with a simple premise; love is all around us. And it then seeks to prove it.

This is achieved through the telling of various tales of love, love lost, or near-love that loosely intersect in England in the weeks before Christmas. The stories include: David, the new Prime Minister, taking a fancy to his intern, Daniel, a widower, counseling his son on how to win the girl of his dreams, Colin going on an insane quest to the United States to find women, Sarah trying desperately to express her love to her coworker, while being plagued by a love for a mentally ill brother, and Harry and Karen's marriage coming to a crossroads when Harry finds himself more and more open to the advances of Mia. There is something for everyone here, including a reclusive writer with a broken heart finding love with the woman who is simply the nearest person to him.

These are cool stories set against a backdrop of an aging musical artist's attempt to get the number one song in the Christmas season even though he knows it is terrible. What makes it work is the writing and the characters. Whenever any one plot seems to be going on too long or going nowhere, the focus of the movie changes entirely. And when it returns to the story one might have though dull, it feels new again. The movie works out quite well in that regard, because as the film progresses, we come to wonder what is happening to other characters that we may not have seen in some time.

In short, though, the characters are interesting and it is quite cool to see how the different characters resolve their problems. David, for example, uses his feelings of love for Natalie to restore national pride to England by standing up to a bullying U.S. President (I cheered when that happened). Jamie - the writer - uses love to overcome love lost by realizing that sometimes, the most simple act of love is simply communicating with the person one loves. Daniel, the widower, experiences a profound sense of love for his son and his aid to his son allows him to overcome his own grief. And the relationship that is growing between Mia and Harry keeps the viewer guessing. Mia is the perfect example of a character that works quite extraordinarily in the movie; her character is presented as perceptive and playful, which creates a character that is quite different from the homewrecker or outright slut one might wish to brand her as.

The characters are challenging as well. There is no firm resolution between Harry and Karen when Karen realizes she is losing Harry and that makes the conflicts and ideas they share much more interesting. The Peter, Juliet, and Mark relationship is in some ways more infuriating because of the implications of the last scene where the three of them are together. And the movie works because it is not all happy. It is, in fact, agonizing to watch Sarah as she and Karl get closer and then love - her love for her brother - tears them apart. Love is complicated and Love Actually does an excellent job of not trivializing that, but actually accepting and exploring it. Love comes with different priorities for different people and Love Actually does an excellent job of illustrating that as well.

The other thing that aids the movie spectacularly is the acting. The actors are perfectly cast to represent a decent cross-section of the population, resulting in a very diverse look and feel to the movie. The actors and actresses, furthermore, are playing at some of their best.

Alan Rickman is wonderful as Harry, playing someone both cranky and open to love in a way very different from his character in, say, Galaxy Quest. Opposite Rickman is Heike Makatsch, who is a refreshing sight without being Hollywood beautiful, and a strong Emma Thompson. Thompson carries an amazing ability to go from strong and funny to crying and vulnerable with remarkable fluidity. Hugh Grant is surprisingly good as the Prime Minister and his boyishness is accented by the dignity portrayed in the body language of Martine McCutcheon, who plays Natalie.

The couple to watch, though, has to be Collin Firth as Jamie and Lucia Moniz as Aurelia. Moniz is amazing and has an incredible ability to transform from her initially homely appearance with poor posture and a demure attitude to a strong, proud woman that is quite beautiful. She is funny and charismatic, no mean feat to pull off when the character is speaking a different language throughout the movie! Firth is great opposite her, taking his usual bland British demeanor and opening up into someone who is actually quite charming as Jamie.

At the end of the day, though, it is a romantic comedy. That means there are few surprises awaiting us in how the film resolves itself, but the truth is, it works in this context. Why? Because love truly is all around us and it is something that may fill us and be quite wonderful, no matter its context.

And writer and director Richard Curtis does a smashing job of taking what is all around us and making it genuinely entertaining.

For other Christmas movies, please check out my reviews of:
Dr. Seuss's How The Grinch Stole Christmas
The Muppet Christmas Carol
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

9.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2005 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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