fine whine

I didn't really enjoy Bang the drum slowly. It's a forgotten baseball movie starring Michael Moriarty* and an almost unrecognizable (in appearance and demeanor) Robert De Niro.

It's supposed to be a story about friendship, about sticking up for the underdog and integrity (except when conning easy marks at cards), and selling life insurance. It is, in fact, a story about friendship and sticking up for the underdog and all the rest, but it's not a great one.

Maybe I'm just not a baseball movie fan.

I enjoyed the original Longest yard far more when I watched that last month than this. Even though they are less than two years apart, the difference between the films extends far beyond the difference between baseball and football. But that latter distinction does matter: baseball is the sport of intellectuals, and football, the lunkheads.

Odd, then, which one is our supposed national pastime, isn't it?

But back to the movies. Drum is apparently rather faithfully adapted from a 1956 novel of the same name.

I don't know the statistic off hand, nor do I care to check it, but if I were to guess I'd say the baseball novels outnumber the football ones by, oh, a hundred to one.

Of course I'm making all of this up; these are the conclusions of a fan of neither sport. To my knowledge I've never read either sport's fiction.

So anyway, Drum is more cerebral. It's about friendship, and bonding, and so on. Several sequences feel drawn out and tedious, as though they'd be hilarious on paper but are barely carried by the strong acting on screen. When the coach grills our protagonist about what he may or may not have been doing in Minnesota, repeatedly, the stories he concocts get more convoluted and complicated (but more or less corroborated) but in a fashion much better suited to a medium in which one is able to flip back to re-check the story from before.

As an aside, I don't believe that Abbott & Costello ever approached the subject of football. The Monty Python guys eschewed both football and baseball, sticking to their own 'football'.

I'm rambling. The baseball movie rambles. So much so that it needs a narrator to keep things moving.

The closest football movies get to having voiceover narration is the announcers during the games. But I'm talking about baseball, and Bang the drum slowly. To be sure, it's better than Bull Durham (about which I have written before), but that's like choosing between two of those reality shows where they follow schlubs on embarrassing dates.

* It wasn't until well after finishing watching this that I realized why Michael looked so familiar. He was the prosecutor for early seasons of L.A. Law, but his character was so different (from ballplayer to lawyer) that without help I would likely never had made the connection.

What is odd about this, of course, is that De Niro's never really played anything similar to a ballplayer either (except perhaps his boxer in Raging bull) and doesn't seem to know how to do it, distractingly so. He's just not a convincing ballplayer.

War is hell. That's really all I can say, having finally seen all of HBO's Band of brothers. It's quite a powerful series, following the U.S. Army's Easy company from their training before Normandy up to V-E day, done in a very visceral style. You know, like the beginning quarter of Saving Private Ryan, but much, much longer.

As a series, though, Band falters more than once. Having been spread over parts, each with a different director and other inconsistencies (a couple had a DVD chapter stop right after the opening credits; most didn't) with the styles of visuals and narration, it was more distracting than it should have been. Switching the focus from soldier to soldier is one thing, and not so bad at that, but constantly changing the look and feel of the show meant I needed to get used to each episode's style all over again, every time. In this regard it very much reminded me of From the Earth to the Moon, another HBO (mini-) series*. That show, of course, was much less violent.

Band may be violent, but it never seems inauthentic. The battlefield scenes are almost too vivid (complete with the currently-in-vogue shaky camera motion) and realistic. I've never been in a war and now, more than ever, do I know that I'd never want to be in one either. War is hell. I don't know what more to say about it. I'm not so dedicated to my country, nor so dead-set against some evil to take up arms and fight and potentially lose my life. I suppose I owe my respect to those who do (and for that matter, my freedom and livelihood). So thank you all, but can't we all just get along?

* Also produced by Tom Hanks, oddly enough. His son Colin didn't ever appear in that, to my recollection, and fortunately so. That kid just doesn't have his dad's acting ability, yet.

Another day, another mistaken All Movie Guide synopsis.

This time it's for the little-known 1954 Charlton Heston love story/distaster movie The naked jungle.

The movie's an interesting combination of a watered-down love story and a watered-down disaster movie; ironically it ends with everything being flooded*. Charlton Heston stars as an iron-willed cocoa bean plantation owner deep in the jungle of South America, and Eleanor Parker as the mail order bride who turns out to be much more than he can handle, being a thirtysomething virgin.

Anyway, to the AMG mistake du jour. In their synopsis, 'written' by Hal Erickson, it mentions this:

Charlton Heston plays South American plantation owner Christopher Leiningen, who spends most of the film preparing for the hellish onslaught of deadly soldier ants.

I was watching the time display. It wasn't until forty eight minutes (perhaps forty eight and a half, even) had passed that the whole Marabunta issue is broached. The birds that pique the Commissioner's (and his government's) interest are seen at the beginning and mentioned once, but for the subsequent 45 minutes there follows nothing but the love story plot. How this can be taken then for 'most' is rather a stretch of the word, in my opinion, when taken into consideration that the movie clocks in at ninety five minutes. You might be able to call forty seven of ninety five half, except that even once he is warned of the approaching hordes, he still goes about antagonizing his wife and so forth. Had I paid closer attention I probably would have only found maybe twenty minutes of 'preparing', and maybe another ten of truly 'hellish onslaught'. But hey, at the end of the day Hal Erickson probably gets paid, and I'm left to watch movies and wonder if protracted speeches in them about the relentlessness and organization of soldier ants as a fearsome enemy in a movie from the fifties is meant to be some sort of jab at communism or not.

In fact it reminded me of a MacGyver episode I watched once, but only until the special effects really kicked in and the real ants (and the animated ones) showed up. You see, in that episode, the producers couldn't procure actual ants, 'soldier' or otherwise, and were forced to reveal the attacking hordes solely in scenes of stock footage. One time Jungle was too obviously showing stock footage, unless Charlton's binoculars were somehow able to filter color to black and white. For all I know the MacGyver footage was taken from this film. It wouldn't surprise me.

I don't think I'll inform AMG of their mistake this time. I have yet to see acknowledgement of my other attemps to correct them, so for now, I'll just rest on my, well, whatever it is that people who point out trivial mistakes and poor semantics rest on.

* i.e. watered down.

So I've been thinking. I may have been overly critical of Herbie rides again before when I wrote that it was "so ridiculous it’s not even funny". Bearing in mind that it was created to appeal to children (and grownups with a sense of whimsy and fondness for VW bugs), I managed to find a couple noteworthy points here and there.

It does, in fact, have some subtle touches that can go unnoticed unless you're paying attention. Early on, when we first meet Willoughby Whitfield (Ken Berry), we see clues to his zen-like aloofness whereby he is not flummoxed at all by Herbie rolling onto his foot. His utter nonchalance at his foot pinned under the car's tire betrays a total inner calm, an otherworldliness that allows him to be neither concerned about his toes being squashed or anything like that; nor does he think too long to determine that somebody must've left the parking brake on, leaving the little car to roll just far enough to stop him in his tracks. For him to take something like a car rolling itself around, over a foot, on what looks to be level ground, without questioning too much, must be a sign of his true enlightenment.

But Herbie rides again isn't just about enlightenment. It's about redemption, too. When sort-of-sentient streetcar #22, laden with Mrs. Steinmetz's (Helen Hayes) possessions, hurtles down San Francisco's famous hilled streets, a drunken rancher, in a ten-gallon hat, who looks to be passed out from a couple gallons of booze, hops on for a ride. Sobering slowly but amiably, Mr. Judson (John McIntire) strikes up a conversation with the knitting widow, and before long they are fast friends. They are also fast heading into the bay, which provides more of the tension than anything between them, sparks-wise. It isn't until he appears later at her firehouse, heroically wielding a firehose in her defense and otherwise protecting her and her ersatz fortress, that he truly shines. He's actually a rough and tumble guy, ready to fight for his woman and his rights, no longer the washed-up drunk we saw when first we met him. Willoughby goes through a similar arc, from being pushed around (he calls himself a rabbit) to pushing back, and in like fashion Nicole (Stefanie Powers) transforms from judgmental hothead to sentimental sweetie, but neither in so quick a timeframe as their cowboy pal, and more predictably so.

Also, I think that cinema in general needs more scenes of groups of suited lawyers being chased, whether by Beetles or otherwise.

So it has more than I had, at first, thought going for it, but when I weigh everything I like about it against everything I don't, the latter wins out. The bad stuff is just too bad to outweigh the good. Take the DVD cover, for example. Disney must've thought that the car, with Ken Berry perched in a silly pose atop it and Stefanie smug inside, flying in front of the Golden Gate must not have conveyed well enough the sense of whimsey, so an artist added big blue doe eyes to Herbie. Girly looking doe eyes, I might add. This is entirely unnecessary! A VW Bug is already rather anthropomorphic, Herbie doubly so, and for this sequel to apparently need to stress that is a sign of desperation or something worse. It's another extraneous addition that only compounds the rest of the extra (bigger, better, more) junk that outweighs what really made the first film so fun: its heart. Not gags. Not more sentient machines, just heart.

And footage of fast cars*.

* This may be the reason they found fit to include, as a dream sequence for Herbie, several minutes lifted directly from the first film.

This dream sequence was much better executed than Alonzo Hawk's (Keenan Wynn), wherein he is first chased by (obviously model) Bugs with chomping toothed hoods and then encircled by feathered-headdress-wearing, tomahawk-chopping mini Herbies apparently readying to burn him. Other cheesy model sequences in the film proved less silly but just as distracting, as though they couldn't afford a convincing enough scale model and instead opted for what looks like a dime store toy. Even as a kid I think I knew it was faked.

In the past month I've watched several DVDs from decades past, including The Love bug and Point blank. Those two films aren't necessarily unconnected as they may seem. While Love bug is a jaunty comedy about racing an intelligent Volkswagen and Point blank is about a single-minded thug out for revenge against the organization that took his money (and his wife), they have one sort-of link: Keenan Wynn.

I call it a 'sort-of' connection as he only appears in one of those aforementioned films. He is, however, the villain of the Love bug sequel Herbie rides again*.

Too bad the movie isn't up to par with his abilities, honed though they may be playing the bad guy in other Disney outings. It's a typical sequel, in that everything that was successful or amusing about the first was kicked up several notches and other variations thrown in to really show up the predecessor.

The problem with such an approach (does anybody remember, oh, The Matrix reloaded? Poor souls) is that it often isn't necessary. If the first movie is so good, why then the need for more, bigger, better? I can understand the desire to correct mistakes and improve missteps, but nothing in The Love bug necessitated the jump from one intelligent vehicle to many, from a cable-car to a veritable flock of Beetles.

It is that ragtag bunch of VWs that set the stage for the film's final act that are the tipping point for me. While it is an impressive technical feat to have all of those driverless Bugs, it cheapens the magic of Herbie being this almost-human car. It is one thing for one car to be able to drive itself; it is wholly another for said car to be able to recruit its seemingly ordinary brethren. It's so ridiculous it's not even funny.

Jessica made an interesting point about Stephen King movies with their sentient cars, and it made me recall last week when I watched Maximum overdrive for the nth time. There's a movie that does the self-driving vehicles thing right: any driverless car or truck is fair game (as well as pinball machines, an electric knife, a lawn mower, and vending machines). There's no whimsy, of course, but frankly I'd've rather watched that DVD again than seeing this. Watching Herbie rides again did a disservice to my childhood, as I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it back then. I can but wonder if the subsequent two installments in the Herbie canon were as bad; I hope not.

I'm not in any hurry to rent them, though.

* Once again I submitted a correction to the AMG synopsis. Isn't it a bit odd to find two mistakes in under a week, without trying at all?

In your synopsis you state, "this, of course, is after Powers angrily pushes Berry off the balcony of a seaside restaurant and into the drink". This, of course, is incorrect. Powers is angry with Berry, yes, but it is not a shove that puts him into the drink but a slap across the face with a boiled lobster. That 'boiled' part is important, or must be, since the characters mention it three times.

Moreover, Nicole is not in fact Mrs. Steinmetz's (Helen Hayes) niece. She calls Steinmetz 'Grandma' but tells Berry she just lived across the street from her. For that matter Berry calls her 'Grandma' later on in the film. Never 'Aunt'.

Also, you never refer to the characters by name, just the actors. In other synopses you do the opposite. Why the inconsistency?

Once again, only time will tell if they are interested in being accurate, or, as I am beginning to suspect, more interested in minimal coverage of every movie in their database, whether it be by rewording the back of the DVD cover or trying hard to remember.

Doubtless science fiction fans have both eagerly awaited and dreaded an adaptation* of Isaac Asimov's robot stories. From what little looking I did into this film, more hoopla surrounded the trailers than the final product, er, film.

'Product' does a good job of describing this 'film' as so much of its creation seems to be assembled from off the shelf parts more than organically and artfully combined. Most of this centers around our protagonist, Will Smith playing every action movie character he's done before. His street-smart cop is the only guy who doesn't trust the seemingly harmless androids, and naturally sets him at odds with everybody else. In the world of easy filmmaking, that means he's due to have a protracted foot chase with a seemingly purse-snatching robot (which is obviously a misunderstanding, made annoyingly so by the length of the chase), to get chewed out by the weary chief of police, and so on and so forth. It's as predictable as a Meg Ryan movie, I tell you.

It's as though the filmmakers were faced with but one question: what excuse do we have to make Will Smith run? Not, how do we shoehorn action into a thinking person's movie; nor, how do we make the robots and other effect look convincingly real and not distractingly CGI-slick?

Overtly CGI films as a technique are still in their infancy, and this will not be heralded as one of the early triumphs. Everything looks too fake, too slick, and the robots in particular don't quite seem to be inhabiting the space the actors who were motion-captured actually did. It all looked, well, too fake, even before we got to the sideways semi/robot onslaught at high speed scene, which was far too long.

Oh, and while we're talking about the vehicles, I'd like to add one thing: Spherical wheels are not a neat, futuristic idea. Think about why the lucky ones of us have upgraded to optical mice instead of their ball-laden forebears. Nice try on the futurism bent, but don't think that the car will be that much reinvented in a mere three decades, let alone so impractically.

But back to the sheer obviousness of it all. When first we meet Bridget Moynihan (the obligatory initially reluctant partner/eventual soul mate) she's wearing smart, shiny synthetic clothes with her hair up and speaks with a clipped, precise manner that comes off as too intellectual and stilted. By the end of the ordeal she's clad in natural fibers and leather (not head to ankle like our Converse wearing protagonist, but close) with her hair down and tousled, and she speaks like an average action hero's girlfriend. This may be some sort of character arc, I suppose. Either I'm a genius at spotting things or we're getting beaten across the head with a theme stick.

The lack of subtlety and depth sink this movie far more than anything else. All in all, it's too, well, robotic.

* 'Adaptation' is not exactly the correct word. The titles noted that this was "Suggested by" Asimov's works, so the writers could pick and choose as little or as much as they needed to plunder and pillage. Their philosophical conceit, at the very core of the movie, is more or less sound, at least as far as I have found in the whole Asimov-discussion-circle demographic. Isaac himself addressed much of the same idea in 1985 by creating the lesser known 'zeroth law' of robotics, dealing with the injury of humanity as a whole, not piecemeal. This addition would have seriously compromised the film's plot, far more than the usual burdens of credibility and the laws of physics.