Review: Star Trek (1966-1969) [01-10]

[Blogger Kernunrex started a Star Trek marathon a long time ago. I don't know if he ever had time to finish it, but I'll dedicate this to his ongoing efforts to review things every Halloween; plus the whole "screencap of title card" is his idea.]


"The Cage" (5/10)
Captain Pike and his crew of intrepids run afoul of superbraniacs bent on collecting races around the universe in search of a cure. Y'know, like Dark City.
--In this "pilot" we are given an oddly (even brilliantly) specific glimpse into the design and vision of a show set in outer space. There are things in this episode I wish had carried over into the actual show, like the way the crew works together in a tight and efficient manner (Number One is a badass). I even like Captain Pike's direct and cold methods of command. It drags in places, the plot is a bit lacking, but overall it's not bad.


"Where No Man Has Gone Before" (4/10)
Captain Kirk and his crew run afoul of an edgespace that embues only two crew members with superpowers. Human psychics are common? ... Midichlorians?
--The "real pilot" with an adventure involving really painful contact lenses and my least favorite plot device ever: psychic abilities. Psionic abilities, whatever. Not as tight of a vision as "The Cage," and there are some weird attempts to make the characters relatable. In between there is much world-building that I really appreciate, and roles are clearly defined. Even the matte paintings are kinda incredible. It's a shame the story ends up where it does: a stupid fight scene, and two characters with great recurrence potential (Gary Mitchell and Elizabeth Dehner) are killed.


"The Corbomite Manuever" (4/10)
A spinning thing that emits danger music whenever it is onscreen won't leave the Enterprise alone. A mutually assured destruction bluff ensues, spoiler alert. God hates a c(lint)(h)oward, spoiler alert.
--If they had moved some money into making the enemy less dumb looking, this would have served as a better pilot episode than "Where No Man Has Gone Before." I prefer an intense space battle over exploring a strange planet and getting infected with a germ or meeting a psychic or getting infected by a psychic germ that you meet... but what do I know? A little... a little is the answer...


"Mudd's Women" (3/10)
The most annoying fatman in the Universe does some sneaky things and isn't stopped for an excruciating amount of time. And- dammit, does this episode not have a title card?
--An attempt to build the larger world and drive a harder Western-in-space comparison falls flat on its... space... horse. I guess it's about old school wife traffiking to deep territory settlers. The hell it focuses on that, though. The music would have you believe that this is a "funny" episode -- hence why the Enterprise crew is acting so stupidly around so-so women, but especially the guards tasked with watching Mudd, I mean, shouldn't they report half of the things he is loudly proclaiming?! I don't like it and you can't make me.


"The Enemy Within" (5/10)
Kirk is split into good and evil parts, inspiring countless books, movies, videogame shadow bosses, and at least five episodes of Family Matters.
--Transporter accident! "How often do these things happen?" I also wonder. If Bones is ever in an administrative position, you can bet your ass he'll outlaw these goddamned things. Does the ship not have a shuttle craft at this point? This ticking clock element gets awfully close to the wire. Situations like these double-troubles highlight a need for some sort of backup plan. A keyphrase you can repeat to loved ones, so that they know it is you. If it's a case where the evil version already knows it, you have to constantly mutiliate yourself for identification. Or print out some colored bracelets, like at the local fair. What a hassle.


"The Man Trap" (3/10)
A salt vampire grows impatient and kills unimportant people without an apparent strategy. Why not beeline for the salt storage? And Bones didn't learn his lesson from Mudd's Women.
--A big time WHATTHEFUCK episode grown from, I suspect, drugs or childish optimism. Like a horror film, minor people die, a main character acts foolishly, a bunch of things happen and then it's over. Not so much a reflection of a real fear, unless the shapeshifter represents Communism? Uhhhhhh... they'll have to BUY my salt? No, that doesn't work.


"The Naked Time" (5/10)
A highly contagious supergerm infects the crew after someone is stupid enough to remove their glove in a room clearly housing something infectious and weird. Moderately dangerous wackiness ensues.
--A lot of fuss is made over getting drunk. Yeah, I know it's like a hyperdrunkedness but jesus. Well, I'll give it a pass because it results in some surprisingly heavy character material. And... time travel? Sure, time travel. In terms of the show reaching its potential quality, we aren't quite there yet, but it's a good sign of what territory it is capable of traversing.


"Charlie X" (4/10)
A punk-ass uses mental powers for everything except learning how to interact with other people. The close-ups and the extreme facial expressions don't help the crew realize that he's evil early on.
--So, another psychic thing. Psionic thing, fuck you. Can't say I blame this little bastard for hitting on Yeoman Rand so hard... there's something about her... something HOT but anyhow, the actors are really beginning to like each other, character interactions are getting much more fluid... for better or worse. A mostly disposable episode given the weak theme of fatherhood (?) and a resolution outside of the Enterprise's control. No tragic lamentation here. Good riddance.


"Balance of Terror" (6/10)
An uncrossable neutral zone. A cloaked ship off the port bow. A mysterious unseen race of people. And then shit really takes off. HOOOOOOOOO YES.
--A history buff wrote this episode. You know how I know? There is very little moral posturing. Sure, there's a heavy-handed racism subplot, but the main plot is all turn-based battle badassery between two captains and their ships, with only slightly mismatched skills in intuition. I hope it's not the case, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is the best episode of the Original Series.

"What Are Little Girls Made Of?" (3/10)
A madman makes robots way too advanced for the setting of the show. Kirk demonstrates a time-tested robot killing ability rivaled only by Megaman. The nurse gets to do something.
--Another episode written by someone on a weird drug trip. And another instance where a keyphrase would have helped differentiate between the real Kirk and the one who is acting suspicious. It could be something as simple as "This sentence is false," the ultimate self-destruct command. Starfleet should really keep these geniuses under surveillance, they succumb to madness so easily.

Review: Schizopolis (1996)

Find me another film that makes you say the words ‘Ker-fuck?’ every ten minutes. Yeah, there’s probably plenty… but shut up.

Called an “artistic awakening” in interviews, Schizopolis is a celebration of half-baked ideas and sight, sound, and editing gags, most of which are related directly to film as a storytelling medium. Built around it is the tiniest semblance of a plot tying together the few characters with actual names. Explaining what that is makes brain hurty so I won’t try. I’ll just say that the actual “story” part of the film begins to drag and fall apart on the asphalt as the third act rolls around.

Wielding the power of editing trickery and Python-like non-sequitors, Soderbergh constructs a film that says… something. Maybe about the uselessness of dialogue? Or the power of editing over a practically nonexistent story (he learned that in the last two films!). Or that film in general is dumb, real dumb, and can mean anything at any given time for any given person. Does he hate film? Possibly in a Terrence Malick sort of way. He does keep trying to retire.

For you meta-whores out there, attempting to interpret this scattershot film is exactly “the joke,” and might excuse its own failure to be coherent. It would delight Soderbergh to know that, in addition to enjoying the gags in the film, you attempt to navigate the quagmire and string together a structure that holds. Which would on one hand be a fool’s errand, the other giving him the power to state that you DO NOT GET IT.

Without the strength of its jokes, I could possibly hate this movie. I am frequently frustrated by “the setup is the whole joke, dummy, no, no, fuck you, I don’t need a punch line!” thing… sometimes it strikes me as laziness. Here, I have little doubt that the filmmaker at least knew what he was making, i.e. not inventing scenes on the fly the day-of-shoot, or sitting on his ass and filming the actors at a flat angle as they act “real,” like certain Sofia Coppolas out there. There’s drive and vision behind it, with about 40% of Soderbergh’s subconscious yapping at us. And there’s something satisfying about a narrative that doesn’t feel the need [FINAL THOUGHTS MISSING]

6.9/10

Review: Gray's Anatomy (1996)

Keep your mind away from that awful show for a moment and try to remember that guy from The Paper, the one who tried to hire Michael Keaton away from his small time news rag. Yeah, he wasn’t too great in that… Okay, he’s Fran’s psychiatrist in The Nanny. That’s him. Him.

Spaulding Gray commits one of his stage monologues to film; a commentary on his search for a cure for his eye condition. He recounts advice from various sources and methods from various countries. Most end in some sort of full-circle punch line that is either amusing or sad, depending on the context. While Gray yacks at the camera, some set and compositional tricks move behind and around him, portraying the story in shadow or putting Gray in facsimiles of real settings.

Creativity credit goes to either Gray or Soderbergh for the staging; in Swimming to Cambodia, Gray sat in the same chair the entire time, which I’m more inclined to blame Jonathan Demme for doing because I hate that arrogant hackjob. Here, Anatomy’s crew gets all kinds of creative with set movements, shadow-play, projected backdrops, and changes in lighting. Also, Soderbergh breaks up Gray’s continuous monologue with interviews with people mentioned in Gray’s story and anecdotes from real people recounting unrelated eye injuries that frightened the shit out of them and by proxy, me, because eye injuries are fucked up.

Ultimately, enjoyment from this is inverse to how annoying Gray comes across. Anatomy works within a low maximum and high minimum, being One Thing for 80 minutes. But it’s a good Thing.

6.0/10

Review: Underneath (1995)

This is much closer to what one would consider Modern Soderbergh -- color saturation, non-linear storytelling inspired heavily by Point Blank, time-saving jump-cuts. Instead of a gradual ascent we can clearly see a watermark for techniques that Soderbergh will use throughout the rest of his career. It makes it all the more tragic that the movie isn’t very good.

Through two different timelines, we learn of Michael Chambers’ (Peter Gallagher) past as a compulsive gambler and his burgeoning future as a co-conspirator in a bank robbery. Think about every heist film’s inside man and this is his story. Cornered by a desperate set of circumstances, Michael decides his only recourse is to help his ex-girlfriend’s crime lord boyfriend rob the bank Michael and his father-in-law go to sometimes so that he can take the money and save his ex-girlfriend from the crime lord’s clutches. Surprising revelations intersect with the plans too late in the game to avoid, causing predictably tragic outcomes.

Tarantino’s meteoric rise with Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs opened the flood gates to this type of modern gangster film, or Modern Noir with New Wave sensibilities. It’s why Danny Boyle got to make Shallow Grave, Paul Thomas Anderson got to make Hard Eight, why Suicide Kings exists and why Soderbergh got to do this (and later Out of Sight and the Limey). Basically, diverting strengths away from directors with other schemes in mind.

Soderbergh hides a weak story better in other cases. There is fun to be had in piecing together a linear narrative and seeing parallels in Michael’s psychology past and present; otherwise, there are no compelling reasons to like him or to empathize with the tragedy of his life because the story is funneled towards a foregone conclusion. There always seems to be a more sensible way out, or at the very least quicker way to get to his goal. As such, we are watching a man who cannot escape failure by “sheer velocity of mischief,” like in other movies. We get an impulsive, impotent coward who lives off of the charity of others until the urge to gamble his life away comes along. A man who right up to the end refuses to learn from his mistakes. A man who “should have never come back.”

There could be a good film in there somewhere; a lot of core ideas that drive a given scene are still visible, so without being emotionally involved, one can appreciate the creative decisions from afar. Using the Sex, Lies and Videotape method of characterization (documenting tiny nuances) ultimately doesn’t suit Underneath, and late-in-the-game suspense sequences that go nowhere aren’t helpful either. Oh and also the final scene of the film is stupid.

5.6/10

Review: King of the Hill (1993)

Keep your mind away from Mike Judge for a moment and think Depression-era drama, starring a kid. Think Soderbergh’s first foray into eye-blasting color saturation, and return to really sweaty photography. Think the closest thing to American neo-realism a few steps back from 10 Items or Less. Think heavy character interaction without much of a plot to give them a structure to dance about in a jangly fashion. You’re here.

We watch a series of months in this kid Aaron’s life. He’s a good older brother, he stands up to bullies and excels in school, makes friends easily, rows with the Irish street cop… all in all he seems like a goodun in spite of fucking up in seldom-yet-major ways, some latent anarchism there, perhaps a type that will grow into one of them annoying artests. You know the kind, they write a book about their life years later and deny that they're proud of the crimes they got away with. Still, I can’t help but like him a little, thanks to Jesse Bradford’s performance… he’s the guy from Clockstoppers…

So, these series of events that happen alter his life like sudden jerks on a wheel but don’t have too lasting an impression on his life, (meaning “the movie,” I’m sure the character will remember that they happened). Aaron finds a dead body, almost crashes a car into a bunch of kids playing stickball, is trapped in all of his white lies at once, sees his mother off to a sanitarium, sees his brother off on a bus to granmama’s, watches a friend get arrested, almost starves to death, almost gets kicked out of his home, etc. etc. Until the film ends with the main players still alive, having learned… something…

Alternate title: Things That Happen Without Cohesion. Soderbergh might not have known what he was making, but it’s more likely that he relates to the material more than any of us ever will. This happens to filmmakers sometimes, and worst case scenario is a film that feels like a waste of time. Muddling it further is Cliff Martinez, a far cry from the Alice he will be in Traffic; he needs to ease up on the score a little.

For all intents and purposes, it’s the same film as Kafka: an individual as a tragic casualty in a world lorded by sinister figures in positions of authority, but played for whimsy from the eyes of a child. Then stuffed with nostalgia. Like all this shit already happened. You heard me, the eyes, damn you.

And like Kafka, this thing doesn’t have a region 1 DVD release. I have to settle for this VHS screener’s copy I stumbled across years ago. In an attempt to market it to these people and ease them into what they are about to experience, there are some blurbs on the back (in place of a plot description). One reads, “A thinking man’s Home Alone.” … I don’t think that’s what it is…

5.4/10

Review: Kafka (1991)

This type of project has failed before. Hammett, also about a famous writer embroiled in a real mystery that somehow mirrors his fictional work, was an incredible misfire in all respects. Seriously, watch that fucking thing some time, try to comprehend its plot underneath all that inept directing and editing. Jesus. And that had two acclaimed directors working on it! How do you fuck that up?!

Oh, but not this, though. Sorry. This movie is awesome.

Lem Dobbs’s script reads like a test run for his later work, Dark City. It’s all about the ill-equipped Individual against a sinister, enslaving System perpetrating a bafflingly large experiment against The People. Unlike John Murdoch, Franz Kafka spends most of the movie ambivalent to the plot, skirting authoritarian and revolutionary alike and wanting nothing more than to be left alone. Much of the film’s action is Kafka suddenly involved in a chase, or an investigation he wants no part of, or as subject to an expository meeting. It is perhaps twenty minutes before the end of the film when he decides to man up and affect something.

Stylistically, the gulf between Kafka and Sex, Lies and Videotape is vast. Filmed in black & white (mostly) in Prague, Soderbergh creates an oppressive mood with dark alleyways that mirror the corridors of bureaucratic offices, and I suspect more than once directly referencing Orson Welles’s The Trial. Where Sex, Lies had a gritty, voyeuristic feel, this is like being trapped in an expressionist painting, shadows so sharp they'll cut ya.

If you didn’t love Jeremy Irons before (what’s wrong with you?), at least love him here. His standing performance alone carries the film beautifully, but his narration cracks with a strain that indicates a body supporting a monsterous, infinitely ancient world kept at bay from the mind. Plus I would totally be gay for that deep-ass voice of his.

It’s an incredibly smart story with incredibly smart casting and directing, the absolute ideal Second Project. Of Soderbergh’s, it’s the only one that vilifies a strong government rather than a strong corporation, and champions an individual for his own benefit and not one for the promise of social gain. It's also one of his best films.

7.5/10

Review: Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989)

I can't imagine someone making a debut this way nowadays. It would either be a schlocky horror film with lots of tits or an abrasive, hard-to-see Dogme 95 film. Not many left would throw all of their budget into making a low-budget drama looking as understated as possible, the mantra "cast over equipment, cast over equipment!"

Peter Gallagher (John) is cheating on his wife Andy McDowell (Anne) with her sister Laura San Giacomo (Cynthia, and mmmm… mmhmmhmm…), when James Spader (Graham) comes along and disrupts their lives with his unusual method of masturbating. He is to marriage what Visitor Q is to family without that goddamn brick.

And that's pretty much it for the duration. It’s a thin premise that by appearance, only offers up future opportunities for sex-fucking. How else would you explain it to an investor? A man who films women merely talking about sex, not engaging in it, and this has the power to wake people out of an unhappy relationship. No sooner does Graham arrive than the affair falls apart and Anne finds out the truth without direct involvement on his part.

I suppose this isn’t entirely inaccurate in terms of how people actually operate within these situations. Sometimes the simple act of verbally confronting a habit is enough to spin people out of it. And Graham demonstrates an ease about sexuality that makes the other characters envious; even Cynthia, who is the movie’s slut. It’s only at the climax when Anne hijacks the moral high ground against Graham, just in case anyone thinks the film is saying that women should allow men to film them.

The climax, speaking of, is cumbersome. It sort of debases the truth manifest in the camera lens. Graham is made an actual person again. With a literal interpretation, it all seems too easy. The variant complexities of the characters fit into one another like a jigsaw. Cynthia goes and does art shit, John is left without a hole to fuck/cheat on and possibly declining status at work, which leaves Graham and Anne with each other.

It’s not an entirely satisfactory ending, but… it’s adequate, we’ll say. In spite of it, the story works. It doesn’t betray its internal logic and the filmmaking style doesn’t overtly attempt pretense with over-stylized bullshit, which one could argue permeates Soderbergh’s later work to a distracting degree.

6.5/10