mightyfastpig Reviews

Casino Royale (2006)

A new Bond for a new age

[8/10 · 13 May 2007]

After the derivative mess that was "Die Another Day", whoever runs the Bond movie franchise decided to start over from scratch. For the most part they succeed.

Although you can't go too deeply into Bond's character by the nature of this story, "Casino Royale" gives an idea of who Bond is and why he acts the way he does. They turn his character inside out. Instead of a aesthete who's learned to be an ass-kicker, he's now an ass-kicker who's learned to be an aesthete. This adds an element of class-conflict to his character: Bond wasn't born to the elegant world he inhabits, and he resents it when people notice.

This dichotomy is reflected in the film itself. The beautiful locations where tuxedo-clad men playing poker for millions of dollars is just the surface. There's always potential violence lurking just beneath. Bond barely survives being poisoned and a battle with African guerrillas, then pulls himself together and goes back for another round of cards like nothing happened. To survive in that kind of world, you have to disconnect from yourself.

This was directed by the guy who also directed "Goldeneye", the best of the Brosnan-era films. There's some nice innovations to the Bond formula. Instead of the Q-gives-Bond-his-gadgets scene, there's now a whole team of wonks and techies back at HQ supporting him. Instead of sailing off into the sunset with the Bond girl, the film ends with Bond capturing the guy who's at the top of the terror-money food chain. It adds an exciting degree of unpredictability.

If they can keep this up, this franchise has life in it yet.

The Mind of the Married Man (2001–2002)

Feels behind the times

[15 December 2005]

Even given that this series is aimed at married men in their 40s, there's a curiously dated feel to it, both in the home and in the workplace.

For instance, in the real world newspapers are full of women reporters, columnists and editors, but the newspaper Mickey works at seems a throwback to the days when the only women around are secretaries and personal assistants. It's also implausible that all of those 20-something women seem eager to get into Freudian-transference father-daughter relationships with their bosses, whom they know are married. Sure it happens, but it was an old story when Nora Ephron wrote about it more than 20 years ago.

Also, was there ever a time when people were secure enough in their employment to screw around at work as much as these people did? Is this some parallel reality with no sexual harassment policy? When was this project conceived? It also portrays married life as a never-ending sublimated power struggle between husband and wife. I don't think I've ever seen a bleaker portrayal of gender relations outside a Neil Labute movie.

The Boondocks (2005–2014)

Misses the mark

[30 November 2005]

I caught the pilot off BitTorrent.

The lead of "Boondocks" is supposed to be Huey, but his character takes a backseat to Grampa, who gets more screen time. This is a curious parallel to the gradual eclipsing of Bart Simpson by Homer over the years.

Huey comes off the worst. His complex character - fearless, passionate and dedicated, yet paranoid, self-righteous and generally a pain to be around - is barely noticeable. It mixes up his fringe conspiracy ideas ("Ronald Reagan was the devil. His names each have six letters.") with his genuine concerns about government secrecy. His voice is wrong too. I always imagined him talking with a deeper voice.

Instead of comparing Huey with the assimilated, bourgeois Tom Dubois and his family, the Freemans are compared to a one-dimensional caricature of upper-class WASPs.

The jokes that worked best were actually the subtler, deadpan ones. E.g. in a flashback, Grampa (always the pragmatist) explains to a bunch of angry, soaked civil rights protesters that he was off getting his raincoat because he expected to be hit by firehoses.

Deux femmes en or (1970)

After the Pill and before the Plague

[6/10 · 3 September 2005]

I first watched this piece of "maple-syrup porn" ages ago, when my parents got Superchannel on Canadian cable. It was one of the first sexually explicit movies I ever saw, and was quite an eye opener when I was 13 or 14 and snuck downstairs to watch it. Now, watching it on Bravo, it seems rather quaint and mild. You can see stronger stuff on Showcase after 10 most nights.

A couple of desperate housewives, stuck at home in a Montreal suburb over winter while their husbands screw around, start sleeping with the telephone repairman, carpet cleaner, milk man and whoever else drops by. Remember, it's 1970, after the Pill and before the Plague (and Mr. Goodbar), and doing such things wasn't a ludicrous fantasy. Everything goes fine until an elderly fellow dies after a tryst with one of the women, though he had the proverbial smile on his face.

This movie is a visual nightmare, with the worst fashion, interior design and especially hair the era had to offer. One woman wears what I assume is a blonde wig, but looks more like a helmet.

Vintage porn has its charms, of course. There's something to be said for seeing women who aren't gym-sculpted and saline-enhanced, and the direction and music have a kitschy appeal. Most of the men, however, are lumpy, pasty, unappetizing specimens. "Two Women in Gold" is mainly for historical interest as an example of Canadian porno-chic.

By the way, I studied the faces in the crowd at the football scene, and I didn't see anybody who resembled Pierre Trudeau. I think this belongs with the "Howard Dean was in Ninja III: the Domination" rumor.

Slings and Arrows (2003–2006)

Smart, funny and charming

[2 June 2005]

"Slings and Arrows" is a Canadian comedy in the vein of those great six or eight episode miniseries that British TV does so well. Take all the good bits of a thirteen or twenty-two episode season and condense them into six or eight hours, perfect for a couple of DVDs.

Maverick theatre director Geoffrey Tennant learns that his alienated mentor has died, and he returns to his stomping grounds, the moribund New Burbage Shakespeare Festival. There he reluctantly takes over directing the latest in a line of bloated, limp productions of Shakespeare plays that nobody watches.

The corporate sponsors want to turn the festival into a venue for musicals, his Hamlet's previous experience is action movies, his Ophelia thinks being insane is the same as being stoned, his Gertrude is his ex-lover who hates him, and he has no money for sets or costumes. As if that wasn't enough, there's a chameleon prowling around the theatre and Geoffrey's mentor his haunting him.

The plot is loosely based on Hamlet, of course: a man returns home and finds it overrun with corruption, hypocrisy and indifference, setting off an existential crisis. This time the crisis is about the point of doing live theatre, when both the actors and the audience are going through the motions. As Geoffrey's rival observes, "More people listen to the radio than go to the theatre, and nobody listens to the radio." The biggest problem is that Jeffrey's production isn't the revelation it's supposed to be. The non-sets, the lack of special effects and anachronistic costumes, doing it the way the Bard did it at the Globe, isn't terribly original. When the action star does Hamlet's soliloquy, it's just a handsome guy saying the words.

At any rate, the backstage rivalries, romances and reconciliations are what we're really here to see. Even the secondary players get to shine in fine parts: a corporate bitch bent on turning the festival into ShakespeareLand, an egomaniacal theatre director with a fake injury, a passive-aggressive theatre journalist, a pizza delivery guy/motorcycle racer who courts Jeffrey's ex, a wise backstage manager, a Greek chorus of two old theatre queens, a pair of owlish undertakers, and more.

It's both funny and compelling, and I look forward to the rumored second season.

Jawbreaker (1999)

Disappointing

[24 July 2004]

I was told to see this on the basis of Rose McGowan's performance. She is easily the best thing in "Jawbreaker", a ruthless teen queen bee who manipulates everyone around her.

The problem is the movie around her. The setup is promising: three teen princesses joke-kidnap their friend on her birthday, but accidentally kill her. The girls plan to cover it up, but a wallflower who admires the dead girl discovers what happened. Courtney (McGowan) bribes the wallflower into silence by promising to make her popular.

So far, so good. However, what comes after suffers from a lack of focus. The protagonist could have been the wallflower, the shunned former princess, or Courtney as an anti-hero. If the writers had made Courtney the protagonist, letting the audience vicariously delight in her bitchiness, that would have made a sharp little character study. As it is, we don't know who to follow.

Spoilers ahead: The other big problem is that the ending goes limp. The logical question raised by Courtney's character is: how far will she go? Would she kill to get what she wants? A second killing (even if only threatened) would have made the stakes matter. Instead, the film tries to equate literal death with high school social death, and being pelted with corsages is just not enough after accidentally killing somebody.

This movie (under eighty minutes) actually could have been longer: going into the other characters more, giving Pam Grier more to do as a detective, and cranking up the tension at the ending.

The Invisible Man (2000–2002)

Smarter and funnier than it has any right to be

[29 November 2003]

Somebody finally perfected the "guy with superpowers working for the government" premise. This is a near perfect blend of humor and action, with well-realized characters, sharp dialogue and intelligent plots. This is the show "Jake 2.0" and a bunch of others try to be, and it might have developed a bigger audience on a network.

A thief with a conscience tries to get out of life in prison by volunteering for an experiment. He winds up with the power to turn invisible and a dependency on a drug that keeps him from going psychotic. A low-rent government agency partners him with a guy who keeps a copy of "Lithium and You" in his van.

This show had me when the agents got their briefings through "tri dimensional data viewers", which turn out to be ViewMasters. There's even a reasonably plausible explanation for invisibility that also creates a cool visual effect. (Think about it: how do you make a guy turning invisible look interesting?)