Five Nights in Maine (2015, Maris Curran)

So, it turns out sometimes you do actually need a story. No matter the locations, no matter the photography, the music, the actors, the editing, even the directing, sometimes you can’t get away with eighty minutes without some kind of narrative.

Five Nights in Maine is the story of newly widowed David Oyelowo. He becomes severely melancholic after his wife, Hani Furstenberg, dies in a car accident. Unfortunately, writer and director Curran putting Furstenberg in at the beginning ends up being utterly pointless, especially given the later flashbacks and reveals. The first sign the script’s not there.

Her estranged and dying mother, Dianne Wiest, calls and leaves an ominous voice mail telling Oyelowo to come to visit her in Maine; no need to call ahead. He lives in Atlanta. It’s a twenty-one-hour drive, and there’s no driving montage footage at night, so presumably, he stops somewhere at least once; we don’t see it because, despite being an ostensible character study of Oyelowo, Curran’s got no idea what’s going on with the guy.

The film sets up a bunch of pieces—Oyelowo’s been pressuring Furstenberg to get pregnant, Wiest didn’t like Oyelowo because he’s Black, her lily-white neighbors are at the least weird to him, something happened on Furstenberg’s last visit to Wiest, Oyelowo’s driving around with Furstenberg’s ashes. Now, if Curran set up that chess board and then inspected it, Five Nights wouldn’t have an epical arc, but it would have a purpose. Instead, Curran just sets things up and moves past them. Only two of the aforementioned items matter, and only during the end-of-second-act blow-out. It’s a shockingly thin film.

Curran’s able to imply a lot more depth thanks to Oyelowo. However, he works his ass for nothing. The camera spends most of the film inspecting him, and he’s always doing something relevant, but it adds up to nothing. Not even for his performance—when Oyelowo’s at the big payoff, Curran goes to long shot. It’s a not surprising miss. Because Curran wastes Wiest, there’s nothing she can do to disappoint.

Oyelowo spends, presumably, Five Nights staying with Wiest. The first four nights, she’s barely around. They probably have dinner together, but the only first and last times are important. We don’t even find out home healthcare worker Rosie Perez doesn’t spend the night until the third night. Maybe fourth night. The film doesn’t count them; it’s not worth the effort for the audience either.

Wiest goes from rude to mean to rude to meaner. She has a couple moments of levity, which the film doesn’t know what to do with; like, they seem accidentally okay, with Wiest getting to do some character development. There’s minimal character or character development in the film. Curran can’t be bothered.

Curran does appreciate her actors, however. She holds her shots forever, letting Oyelowo and Wiest act, react, emote, pout, all sorts of things. Sweat—Oyelowo has a very dangerous jog. Smoke. He starts smoking a lot the last night to gin up conflict. As the film winds down, Curran does what she can to jumpstart the act change, and it’s all desperate and all weird. The last night is entirely different from the other nights, but it’s supposedly all routine.

Though Wiest does have cancer, and she’s not getting better, and she’s maybe having mental health things going on. She doesn’t have a doctor in the movie, and Perez’s medical duties are opaque. Perez is there to talk to Oyelowo and make Wiest dinner.

However, since she doesn’t have a genuine part, Perez’s performance can’t come up short. She’s fine. It’s an extended cameo. Fine. Bill Raymond’s good in a scene, and Teyonah Parris’s good in a couple scenes. It’s unclear if Furstenberg’s any good—Curran’s unreliable when presenting her.

Good photography from Sofian El Fani, great editing from Ron Dulin. The Maine locations are lovely. The music appears not to be original; it’s solid. Manipulative but well-selected; Chris Robertson supervised. Unfortunately, the original song at the end, which uses lines of dialogue from the film as lyrics, is not good.

Five Nights in Paris seemed like an easy proposition, and Curran’s a fine technical director, but she did not have the story. At all. It’s a waste of everyone’s time: Oyelowo’s, Wiest’s, the audience’s, Curran’s.

Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022, Simon Curtis)

Downton Abbey, the film franchise, has some singular traits (they’re not all problems); most of them related to it being an immediate sequel to a television show, but also the television show’s viewer demographics. Thanks to those demographics, A New Era can get away with a slightly disingenuous subtitle—it’s more of a “sure, maybe, come next to see if anything’s changed”—and lazy title design. When the end credits come up, they’ve got a title card any capable intern wouldn’t have shipped, but it doesn’t matter. Another of the franchise’s traits is the low bar they have to clear. The film’s got a cast of thirty capable actors; so long as Julian Fellowes’s script keeps their material interesting and the plotting straightforward, New Era can never be particularly bad.

Obviously, relying on competent writing and acting will limit its potential as well, which doesn’t even get into whether or not A New Era’s going to be comprehensible to viewers who haven’t seen the previous sixty hours of content. Spoiler, it’s not. Thanks to the acting, some of Fellowes’s callbacks would probably work without context, but New Era’s not interested in being a jumping-on point.

New Era takes place a year after the last film and has a profoundly requisite morbid plot line. The previous film set up Maggie Smith’s character, the family matriarch, not returning for the next film (this film). Because Smith was eighty-five and they didn’t want to recast if she passed away before the next movie. So, already unpleasant. Well, she didn’t pass away, so they’ve got an entire subplot about her waiting around to die. It “works,” with Smith getting in some great scenes, but it’s… a lot. They handle it well, probably franchise trailblazing; it’s just inherently somber, the character and the actor’s fate so entwined.

Of course, Smith’s not the only actor they’ve got to worry about aging. There are a couple dozen others the film’s tracking. The opening titles, listing actor after actor (in alphabetical order), play over a montage—Allen Leech is marrying Tuppence Middleton, following up on their romance from the previous movie. The montage skips around the cast, establishing who’s got a baby now, who doesn’t, who’s married, and who still isn’t. A New Era feels like two episodes of the show smooshed together, with a very special conclusion tacked on to the end; the opening, however, feels like the end of another episode, one we haven’t seen.

The film’s going to take a while to get going, too, checking in and establishing the various subplots—principally, assistant cook Sophie McShera’s complicated home life, which involves her and her husband Michael Fox living with her dead first husband’s father, Paul Copley. Their subplot is the only one entirely disengaged from the rest of the film’s goings-on. Penelope Wilton’s got a tiny subplot where she’s going through Smith’s estate to get it ready for her passing, but nothing of her own; Elizabeth McGovern’s subplot (the only ill-advised one in the film) starts tacked on to Wilton’s before branching out in the late second act. Everything’s wrapped up together, which Fellowes’s script handles with startling ease.

Everything else has to do with or spins out of one of the main plots. First, there’s Smith inheriting a French villa; she can’t make the trip to meet with the angry soon-to-be-former owners, Jonathan Zaccaï and Nathalie Baye, so a large contingent on the regular cast will go on that mission in her stead. Then, at the Abbey itself, persistent money problems have led Michelle Dockery to rent the property to a film production crew led by director Hugh Dancy. New Era dabbles with the two layers of filmmaking, the film within a film and New Era itself, but it’s like Fellowes knew director Curtis wouldn’t be able to pull it off. But there are a couple excellent moments where one informs the other.

The French away team is Hugh Bonneville, McGovern, Leech, Middleton, Laura Carmichael, Harry Hadden-Paton, Jim Carter, Brendan Coyle, Raquel Cassidy, and Imelda Staunton. So ten regular cast, plus Zaccaï and Baye. Zaccaï’s the son of the recently deceased, who’s convinced there’s some story behind why his dad left the villa to Smith, who knew his father for a week decades before. Baye’s the justifiably unhappy about it widow. Their arc will be the film’s most complex because they’re not main cast, so they can’t get too much time, but Fellowes isn’t going to half-ass it either.

There are some excellent comedic scenes for Carter, the proper English butler literally drafted for the mission (by wife Phyllis Logan to get him out of the estate for the film crew), with some lovely character moments for everyone else. The trip provides the opportunity for the downstairs characters—Carter, Coyle, Cassidy—to interact outside the norms, in addition to some mixing with the upstairs cast. It’s okay but dramatically inert; it’s all set up for Bonneville’s understated aristocrat fretting arc and McGovern’s subplot.

The filming at Downton plot is the clear A plot, particularly since it gets the special guest stars—Dancy, Dominic West, and Laura Haddock. Again, Dancy’s the director, West and Haddock are his stars; they’re making a silent movie just when sound is taking the cinema by storm. Dockery and Dancy quickly become partners, first logistically, then more conceptually, as Dockery gets involved in filmmaking. She won’t be the only one—lovable Kevin Doyle will have a significant part in the production as well. Meanwhile, West shows what appears to be a sincere interest in Robert James-Collier, whose boyfriend from the last movie married a woman for cover in between films.

The moviemaking subplot also has starstruck McShera and Joanne Froggatt learning screen idol Haddock’s a lot more complicated in real life—though West’s nice to everyone; it’s a fantastic performance and just what the film needs to offset Haddock’s additional drama (she’s got a Cockney accent, which doesn’t match her glamorous screen persona) and Dancy mooning over Dockery.

Dockery’s got offscreen husband troubles; another problem with doing a movie sequel to your TV show… what if you can’t get all the actors you need back?

The film production plot works out well, resolving just in time for the film’s big swing finale.

At various points throughout the film, one has to wonder how New Era would play if director Curtis were concerned with anything but aggrandizing a TV show for the big screen. The film takes every advantage of its wide, Panavision aspect ratio, which would be more groundbreaking if TV shows (including “Downton Abbey”) weren’t already widescreen. Still, Curtis and cinematographer Andrew Dunn make sure every frame’s chockfull. Doesn’t quite make up for Curtis not having any personality, but he’s got a pragmatic job here.

The two plots even out—partially due to that iffy McGovern subplot—with the finale as the film’s make-or-break. They succeed with it, bringing New Era about as closer to standalone than previously imaginable. It’s a particular accomplishment for the actors, who bring the gravitas.

I do hope they figure out a better subtitle for the next entry.

But, otherwise, Downton—thanks to Fellowes and the cast—remains in fine shape.

Doctor X (1932, Michael Curtiz)

Doctor X has pretty much the wrong prescription for everything. After a genuinely creepy first act, which has police autopsy consultant Lionel Atwill telling the cops the only place a monthly serial killer could get a particular scalpel is at Atwill’s school and then giving them a tour and everyone there being in some way familiar with cannibalism, the movie becomes an old dark house picture before going off the rails with its finale reveals. But it’s also a lousy gag comedy, with reporter Lee Tracy bumbling around—a lot of bumbling—and then a weird romance with Tracy unintentionally wooing Atwill’s daughter, Fay Wray. Sometimes it seems like the wooing is intentional, but then it’s the opposite during other scenes.

Robert Warwick plays the police commissioner who’s investigating the case. Atwill takes back to his medical school to introduce all the suspects, but then Warwick disappears from the main plot. It’s a real bummer because, without Warwick, there’s room for so much bad acting. Bad acting and weird decisions from the screenwriters and director Curtiz.

The most annoying weird bit is George Rosener as Atwill’s creepy butler. Roesner spends the first quarter of the movie just looking suspicious—according to a witness, the murderer’s really ugly, and Roesner’s creepy dude fits the bill. For the audience, anyway. See, when Atwill takes all the suspects out to his Long Island house to hook them up to blood pressure monitors and try to get them worked up watching murder reenactments, it’s pretty clear Atwill’s not good at his job and isn’t going to be able to catch the killer. Especially not since, based on the nonsensical resolution (which turns movie-long clues into plot holes), none of his ideas about catching the killer would’ve worked. There’s a lengthy fight scene at the end, and as it drags on, one has time to reflect on how little the bad science makes sense given the reveal.

So it would help if Doctor X had a bunch of good acting to make up for the script.

It does not.

Best is Warwick, then Atwill (after a lackluster first half, he recovers well in the second), then Wray. And Wray’s not particularly good; she’s got a terrible, silly part and no chemistry with Tracy because he’s a pest. But she’s not bad. And there’s a lot of bad. The worst is Preston Foster. He’s atrocious.

Oh, wait, I got sidetracked talking about Roesner. Who’s also got a terrible part because he’s not actually a creepy butler; he’s just a regular dude who no one in the movie knows is a creep. There’s a whole scene where he teases maid Leila Bennett (who’s good, but barely in it), and you think he’s intentionally being mean, but then he’s weirded to Wray later, and she’s okay with it, taking it as concern. Who knows how it’d play if director Curtiz weren’t entirely checked out regarding his cast’s performances.

The color photography from Ray Rennahan is just okay but charming. He’s trying harder than almost everyone else, who’s not trying at all. And why would you with the script? But, still, someone had to realize Tracy shouldn’t be just bumbling for long scenes, all by himself.

It’s not the worst, but it’s still a reasonably comprehensive fail.

Young Man with a Horn (1950, Michael Curtiz)

Young Man with a Horn has a third act problem. It’s got too many of them as it tries to find a way not to end on a down note. As a result, each third act gets more depressing, more dire, and correspondingly adjusts the expected bounce-back. But Horn’s got a bookending device with co-star Hoagy Carmichael; he’s narrating the film, telling everyone about this great jazz trumpet player he knows… played by Kirk Douglas.

At its worst, Horn’s aggressively misogynistic. At its second-worst, it’s passively misogynistic. At its third, it’s just Oscar bait for Douglas; it’s basically fine at that level. Douglas eats through the performance, bringing just as much intensity to his trumpet solos as when he’s listening to love interest Lauren Bacall talk all book smart around him. It’s an intense, measured performance. There’s just too much of it because there’s too much movie.

The film takes fifteen minutes for Douglas to show up, instead opening with Orley Lindgren playing the character as a kid. He’s an orphan, living with a disinterested (but seemingly okay) older sister, Mary Beth Hughes (who’s got maybe a scene and a half); one day, walking around L.A., he happens into a mission where he hears the good word but more importantly… a pianist is accompanying the hymns. Once the needy are sufficiently contrite, they get to eat, leaving the piano open, and Lindgren just starts playing. It turns into the trumpet because the trumpet’s cheapest in the pawnshop, then Lindgren soon happens upon Black jazz trumpeter Juano Hernandez and his band. Hernandez will take Lindgren under his wing and teach him to play, becoming a surrogate father, but the film can’t say it.

Once Lindgren ages up into Douglas, it’s conveniently time for Hernandez to amscray so Douglas can make some white friends. The closest Horn ever comes to talking about race is when big-time band leader Jerome Cowan gives Douglas crap for playing music with “those…” but then Douglas interrupts him, and it’s over. Not doing more with it means Hernandez has got a whole lot less to do once he and Douglas reunite when Douglas ditches him in a time of need for awful lady friend Bacall.

Before then, however, Horn introduces its love interest, Doris Day. She’s the singer in his first real band, where he also meets Hoagy Carmichael (who’ll pretty much be white Hernandez, which means he gets to be around a lot more and, you know, narrate the movie). Day thinks Douglas’s brash, talented, and captivating. He likes having a girl share the excitement about music. That section of the film is where director Curtiz and cinematographer Ted D. McCord establish the style and quality it’ll hold for the rest of it. Horn’s gorgeously directed, gorgeously shot. Once Douglas is onscreen, there’s a single tepid-looking sequence—Day and Douglas’s first date on a pier, which is way too obviously soundstage. Otherwise, the film’s phenomenal looking. There are eventually these great location New York City exteriors. Other than the passersby getting too interested in the film cameras, they’re superb. Luckily, the studio stuff is well done; even though it’s unfortunate they didn’t make it all on location, it satisfactorily syncs up. Alan Crosland Jr.’s editing is vital in that department too.

The plot has Douglas meeting, losing, then reuniting with most supporting cast members. Day will go from Los Angeles dance halls to New York theaters, for example. The film uses the career progression to perturb Douglas’s arc—at one point, Carmichael mentions all you need is friends in high places to give you jobs at the right time—and he’ll eventually meet bored rich girl Bacall.

And once they met, he’s smitten and on the road to ruin.

Though the film’s never particularly good about the timeline of their relationship. Given how little the film does with Bacall, most of the time spent on their courtship is a waste. Her arc’s where the film’s aggressively misogynistic. Also, Bacall’s supposed to be playing a lesbian (which she didn’t realize at the time, apparently), which would just make it homophobic too. It’s a really lousy arc, and Bacall seems checked out fairly early.

The passive misogyny is Day, who’s literally just around to talk about Douglas and dote on him. Day does as much as she can with it, but some of her best scenes are the singing numbers, including the one where Curtiz has to force himself to direct a boring singing number. Day gets a thankless part, even if she’s the most interesting character for much of the film.

Carmichael’s fine. He’s really likable, but his part’s pointless. He’s just there because Hernandez can’t be.

Similarly, Hernandez is fine but doesn’t have enough.

Cowan, Nestor Paiva, and Walter Reed are okay as Douglas’s various bosses. Reed’s got the most to work with (Douglas’s stealing Day away from him), but all three are basically cameos.

The film rallies a little bit between the second and third third acts, where they lay into the New City location shooting, and for a minute, it seems like they might bring it all around with the end. They don’t—studio-enforced finale—but they sustain the uptick for a good while.

Young Man with a Horn’s got a great lead performance in search of a great lead role, a solid and underused supporting cast, and some fantastic filmmaking. It’s also got a troubled script and finish.

This post is part of the Sixth Annual Doris Day Blogathon hosted by Michaela of Love Letters to Old Hollywood.

Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958, Richard E. Cunha)

Frankenstein’s Daughter ought to be good camp. If the rest of the movie could keep up with Donald Murphy (as Doctor “Frank”), it’d be something to behold. Because Murphy gives it his all opening to close, seemingly more aware of the picture than the picture’s aware of itself. Though he’s never quite good—he’s better than anyone else, except maybe Wolfe Barzell as his assistant—but he’s captivating.

Unfortunately, he’s captivating in the wrong movie.

Because while this movie does a pretty good riff on modernizing old Frankenstein movies—modernizing to the late fifties—it’s also a late fifties teen movie, so literal rapist Murphy comes off less creepy than regular gaslighting fifties boyfriend John Ashley. Ashley gives the film’s worst performance, which is saying something because there are lots of terrible performances. Even the better performances have some terrible stretches, like damsel-in-distress Sandra Knight and slutty-girl-who-deserves-it-for-dressing-that-way Sally Todd. If H.E. Barrie’s script were better, it’d all be about Ashley having forced Todd while they were dating, then dumped her for good girl Knight, because even though that story’s not in the script… it’s unintentionally in the performances when you try to imagine the character relationships.

Sadly Ashley figures into the third act a bunch and drags it down a bit. The movie misses the one way it could do the right thing as far as comeuppance, and it completely fails.

Though it’s hard to imagine director Cunha ever having a good idea. He’s never got any ideas. The camera stays in medium long shot outside a couple reveal close-ups. Cunha can’t even direct over-the-shoulder shots. Then again, editor Everett Dodd wouldn’t be able to cut them, but still. Oddly, Meredith M. Nicholson’s photography is fine. Frankenstein’s Daughter looks like a movie shot in and around someone’s suburban Los Angeles house and whatever sets were still up at the rental studio, but the lighting’s always solid.

The story has Murphy posing as a lab assistant to lovable old scientist Felix Locher (who’s not unlikeable but gives a lousy performance). Locher has a fetching young niece, Knight, and a lab in his house. Apparently, Murphy gets him to hire Barzell to be the live-in gardener but really to help Murphy with his monster-making. Murphy keeps trying to force himself on Knight, which is expected in the fifties, so she never really complains—besides, he’s a bookworm and not a my-daddy’s-a-lawyer regular guy like Ashley. Daughter unintentionally says a whole lot about its cultural norms.

The movie kicks off after Murphy starts knocking Knight out when Locher goes out. Not for anything rapey, but rather to inject her with experimental serum to turn her into a monster. Albeit a bulletproof one. Knight’s ostensible friend Todd sees her and tries to tell people, but she’s one of those girls who’ll say anything for attention, so why listen to her says ex-boyfriend Ashley and his bro, her current beau, Harold Lloyd Jr. Junior’s terrible but much better than Ashley.

Though Ashley at least wants Knight to wed and obey him, it turns out Lloyd Jr. could give a shit about Todd.

Todd starts flirting with Murphy to get back at Knight for stealing Ashley away. Things go atrociously for all involved. John Zaremba and Robert Dix are the credulous but still unhelpful cops. Who shoot first and ask questions later, even with white kids, so… they could be worse? Dix seems like he’d be better with direction, something Cunha doesn’t provide.

Competent music from Nicholas Carras. Indescribable shoehorned music numbers from The Page Cavanaugh Trio—if you’ve only ever heard good white kid music from the fifties, they’re an experience.

Frankenstein’s Daughter probably plays better with people talking over it, so you can’t be so horrified at its actual content. It seems like it was made with the express purpose of being mocked on “Mystery Science Theatre.” Concerningly, of course, it was not.

so you can’t be so horrified at its actual content. It seems like it was made with the express purpose of being mocked on “Mystery Science Theatre.” Concerningly, of course, it was not.

Star Trek: Picard (2020) s01e03 – The End is the Beginning

This episode ends where the second episode should’ve ended, with the Jerry Goldsmith Star Trek: The Motion Picture theme (i.e. “The Next Generation” theme) and a starship going into a very boring warp. It took Picard (Patrick Stewart) and his band of sidekicks all episode to get into space; apparently you can teleport everywhere in the future but not get a starship into gear for an entire episode.

It opens with a flashback. Picard and introduced last episode sidekick Michelle Hurd in some questionable Starfleet uniforms arguing after Picard’s meeting at Starfleet after they tell him they’re letting billions of aliens die because, well, the Federation’s racist, so what. Kind of sucks not getting to see Stewart yell at Starfleet. Shatner always got to yell at Starfleet. Instead, he just gets to recap to Hurd, who can’t stop calling him “J.L.,” because it’s unthinkable she’d call him Jean-Luc, Admiral, or whatever. If they turn out to have been sleeping together, moany “J.L.”s are going to haunt the imagination. It’s a silly move, like they’re trying to make Hurd seem like the cool Black sidekick to the old white man in a 1990s movie. She’s basically in the 1991 LL Cool J role. There’s optics to Stewart selling her out, but they’re never addressed. He just happens to push the Black woman on her sword.

In the present we find out Hurd’s a genius who can wave her hand meaningfully at the future computers and figure things out. But she’s also a pothead. They call it something else—like snake-leaf—but she’s a pothead. Again, there are optics. “Star Trek: Picard” manages to be less woke in 2020 than First Contact in 1996, though—even though she’s okay—Hurd is no Alfre Woodard. Not even Woodard doing a Star Trek.

She and Stewart bicker a bit, but she immediately agrees to help him, setting up eye-candy, roguish pilot Santiago Cabrera. Cabrera’s supposed to be Han Solo but he’s actually got a big ol’ man-crush on the Starfleet principles in general and, we find out, Stewart specifically. It’s an eye-roll at the forced earnestness but fine; Cabrera’s amusing enough.

Hugh the Borg (Jonathan Del Arco) shows up in the Isa Briones Borg subplot, which still manages to be a lot more interesting than the Picard getting a crew together one—even if Briones is starting to grate. Neither she or Harry Treadaway are particularly good, acting-wise, and it seems like her subplot’s going to be some kind of future-present thing because the show creators have seen Arrival but also the new “Battlestar Galactica” but… Borg anthropology—Borgopology—is engaging enough.

Really not here for the Alison Pill and Michelle Hurd bickering for no reason other than being the only two women thing though. Also Tamlyn Tomita’s quite bad as it turns out. Oh, and Picard knew about the secret Romulan android hating secret society going back to when the Romulan mission failed, which you think he’d have mentioned last episode.

But whatever. It’s a short episode (less than forty-five) and passes well enough. Though the constant fades to commercial in a streaming series are annoying.

Star Trek: Picard (2020) s01e02 – Maps and Legends

I was expecting a lot of fan service this episode and it definitely did not provide. But instead of doing fan service—outside confirming Riker, Work, and LaForge are all still alive—this episode just kills forty-five minutes or so until the next one. “Picard” has a ten episode season and Maps and Legends is utterly disposable. Unless it really matters seeing a sadly underutilized Ann Magnuson as a Starfleet admiral telling Patrick Stewart she’s sick of his liberal mansplaining and no one has to listen to him anymore, which doesn’t work because Stewart’s right. He might be mansplaining but he’s not wrong. The whole “Starfleet decides to let billions of Romulans die because they’re basically space racists” thing? They’re the bad guys now. They had to decide whether or not they were going to step up and they did not.

Because the post-Roddenberry “Star Trek” humanity is humanity, not the aspirational stuff. “Picard”’s future humanity never would’ve made it through the twentieth-first century… just like we won’t. Anyway, I wish Magnuson was better in it. There’s no real stunt-casting but some familiar guest stars—David Paymer plays Stewart’s Bones McCoy from the Stargazer, which was Picard’s first command and a big recurring thing on “Next Generation.”

Paymer’s not great. He’s not even good Paymer annoying. He’s just there to give Picard his Search for Spock arc. At one point, Stewart’s even talking about how even if there’s a chance of Data’s soul existing, he’s got to go find the daughter (Isa Briones, who has a somewhat interesting arc fooling around with Romulan emo stud Harry Treadaway as they excavate an old Borg cube) as surely if she were his very own.

Yeah, so… this episode is like if they did a Star Trek III homage but forgot to be intentional and fun about it.

But then there’s also the cross-species conspiracy against… hang on… got to drag this reveal out because they really drag it out in the show, with Orla Brady acting like anyone is going to care the Romulan secret secret police hates androids. And, guess what, they’re not the only ones. There’s a secret society in the Federation who helps the Romulan secret secret police’s quest to destroy androids.

Somebody’s seen Star Trek VI too!

And why do they hate androids? Who knows. But they’ve hated them for hundreds of years, probably because the Romulan equivalent of a Roomba hit some ruler’s toe and he went ape-shit. Actually, no, because that idea is too fun and “Picard”’s unnecessarily morose. Especially since second-billed but in the episode for a scene Alison Pill has fun, even when she’s in high drama. Ditto Stewart. He’s trying to bring some charm to the project, even as the project resists.

Tamlyn Tomita plays the evil Starfleet mole. Peyton List is her sidekick. Fourth-billed Michelle Hurd shows up for a scene at the end. Not the cliffhanger scene because Stewart doesn’t get the cliffhangers (yet, hopefully), because he’s not important this episode. He’s not going to get important until he gets out into space and engages and whatnot. This stuff is just episode commitment time killing.

Though the Borg excavation stuff is at least interesting. Co-writers Akiva (Batman & Robin) Goldsman and Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon are a lot better with the Borg fanfic than the actual writing for Patrick Stewart stuff.

Star Trek: Picard (2020) s01e01 – Remembrance

The most peculiar thing about “Picard” is how much it plays like a sequel to Star Trek: Nemesis. Not because Tom Hardy guests as Patrick Stewart’s unlikely Romulan clone or… wait, what else happened in that movie? Oh, yeah, Troi got mind raped… again. No Troi (Marina Sirtis) in this episode, thank goodness. Not thank goodness because Sirtis wouldn’t be a welcome guest star but more because… can they manage to have her guest star and not mind-rape her. It was basically her only subplot on the show. Anyway, Data (Brent Spiner) also died in Nemesis and “Picard” is all about Data. See, it turns out Data might have successfully made a daughter—Isa Briones—or something. Even though Spiner shows up in Stewart’s dream sequences, it’s not like a ghost Data, just a memory, so dream Data can’t exactly tell Stewart about the daughter.

But also the Romulan thing; “Picard” is set after the Romulan homeworld blew up in Star Trek (2009) and Eric Bana went to the past to kill Kirk’s dad and so we got the (now failed?) reboot series. “Picard”’s all about how Stewart tried to help the Romulans but then a bunch of androids blew up Mars and the Federation decided they were too busy with that to help the Romulans and let a bunch of them die. By bunch, we’re talking hundreds of millions or billions. In order not to feel the immeasurable guilt, the Federation apparently now demonizes Romulans, even though Stewart’s got Romulan… servants. I mean, they’re staff, but it’s staff like… servants. They cook for him. Jamie McShane and Orla Brady. They’re good. Okay Romulan makeup… but it does look a lot like Nemesis. Points for continuity?

The episode also refers to the Borg in a big way—the reference is the cliffhanger—and there’s trouble in store for an unsuspecting Briones, so good thing Stewart’s got his mojo back and is going to save her. See, he’s spent the last twenty years moping because the Federation decided to let the Romulans die. Stewart thought it was shitty. So he went back to Earth and ran his family vineyard (though the robots do all the work) and moped. Wrote history books but Federation civilians don’t care about history. They don’t even know what Dunkirk means (guess Christopher Nolan doesn’t survive 300 years).

The first episode’s poorly plotted in that streaming series way—no idea what the series is going to be like based on this episode, it doesn’t even introduce all the regular cast and (apparent) costar Alison Pill only shows up for the last few minutes. Pill’s good though. She’s got enough energy to play off Stewart.

As for Stewart… “Picard” is an okay part for him. No great heavy lifting so far because he’s done all this moping stuff before, in various times through both the TV series and the movies. It’s kind of cool to see “based upon ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ by Gene Roddenberry” in the opening titles though. Like, it’s something different. Even if the show’s not really anything different or new.

In fact, “Picard” is probably about ten years late. “Star Trek,” as a franchise, is all about extended delay sequelizing.

Okay, maybe not ten years… eight years. Nemesis was 2002. “Next Generation” was due for its revisit in 2012. Eight years late.

Will it be good? Eh. Maybe. It’ll at least be… engaging, if they can keep it going with all the references to catch.

Savage (2018, Cui Siwei)

Savage is not savage. It’s got some violence, some of it rough, and it’s got some mean bad guys, but it’s never savage. I mean, unless it’s supposed to be referring to hero—more than protagonist or lead—Chang Chen. He beats up some suspects pretty bad at the beginning because he’s mad about partner Li Guangjie getting killed in the third or fourth scene, after its established Li and Chang both want the same girl, doctor Ni Ni. Li dies in what should be a routine traffic stop and Chang can’t forgive himself, leading to a bad year between him and Ni (see, she actually wanted him anyway), which catches us up to the present action. Some of the year before stuff is important, most of it not. In fact, they could easily get away with none of it because the dead partner bit plays more to the melodrama, less to the tight, tough action noir. Savage takes too long getting started and ends badly but between the two is a well-executed, continuous (though not real time), very simple, and very physical action movie.

One year after robbing a gold shipment—which opens the movie, it seems somewhat savage but still not enough—robbers Liao Fan, Huang Jue, and Zhang Yicong return to the scene of the crime, where they also killed Li. Savage gives Chang every opportunity to avenge himself upon his foes but he never gives in, much to the film’s detriment as well as the lives of people around Chang. He hasn’t learned much since Li got killed apparently, other than beat up people and get away with it because you’re a cop. Though the guys in the restaurant harassing Ni had it comes and it’s nice to see her not getting smacked around when threatened, which happens a lot in the second half of the movie.

So Chang’s never Savage with the main villains. It’s weird.

The big boss is Liao Fan. He doesn’t talk much, just watches, thinks, acts. Liao’s great. Probably the film’s best performance. He’s fairly savage, but also not. For instance, he’s not as ruthless as Huang Jue, who’s gold-crazed. And excellent. Huang’s also great. Last guy is Zhang Yicong, playing Liao’s dipshit punk little brother. Liao makes Huang babysit Zhang. Zhang’s fine. He doesn’t any heavy lifting but also doesn’t seem to be capable of handling it if he did. Liao and Huang, who both mainly stay reflective versus proactive, seem like they’re in a different and better film in their scenes with Zhang. He doesn’t get it, which is meta, since his character doesn’t get it either.

The problem might just be director Cui and his interest in the actors. Cui and cinematographer Du Jie do a phenomenal job with the snow-pocalypse mountain where Chang chases the bad guys, but Cui couldn’t give a toss about the performances. The melodrama’s better at interior dialogue sequences (i.e. when the characters aren’t worried about getting buried in an avalanche but instead wondering why they can’t find any Swiss Miss in the lodge. The action’s either outside or in the lodge. Once it becomes clear everyone’s going to end up at the lodge, the strong action’s timer starts ticking down. It’s just obvious from early on Cui isn’t going to do as well inside a snowed-in lodge as he does in a snow-drowned wilderness. Cui likes taking time with the action; he needs lots of space.

Ni’s good even if she’s got a crap part and then is a punching bag to emphasis how the bad men are bad. Liu Hua’s good as the partial comic relief, the lodge manager who’s also infamous for poaching.

Even without dialogue, just being present, Liao kind of becomes the lead. Not the protagonist; Ni’s kind of the protagonist. So cop Chang’s the hero, damsel Ni’s the protagonist, and villain Liao’s the lead. It’s a very confused narrative. Cui’s script isn’t quite there.

Awesome music. I’ll be damned if I can find the name of the composer anywhere.

Savage is pretty good for most of its too long runtime. The melodrama doesn’t work, doesn’t inform the plot or the characters… the film’s lean, just not in the right way. And the parts could be a lot better. Cui really fails his actors, in script and direction. Worse, it’s just through indifference. Cui’s not even passionate about not being passionate about them.

Adam’s Rib (1949, George Cukor)

Adam’s Rib has a great script (by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin), but outside director Cukor not being as energetic as he could be—he might’ve been able to compensate—the script is the biggest problem with the film. There are the really obvious problems, like when Spencer Tracy gets reduced to a supporting role in the third act but instead of giving that extra time to Katharine Hepburn, which would make sense because she’s the other star, it spreads the time out way into the weeds. Not the courtroom resolve, of course, but every other scene is just contrived to not get too close in on the lead characters. And there are some communication issues—like were we supposed to get Tracy’s bigger philosophical objection to Hepburn taking her case, which is his case too.

Let me back up.

The movie opens with this great exterior sequence in New York City, following Judy Holliday as she stalks some guy (Tom Ewell). Turns out he’s her husband and he’s cheating on her so she’s got a gun and she’s going to do something about it. He doesn’t die; she’s arrested and charged with attempted murder. Hepburn wants to defend her—the jilted husband gets a pass on shooting at cheating wives and their lovers, why not women too. Tracy’s the assistant district attorney. He doesn’t agree with Hepburn’s opinion, then really doesn’t agree with her becoming Holliday’s defense attorney.

Most of the movie is them fighting it out in the courtroom, then catching up with them in the evenings, seeing how the professional competition is taking a toll on their marriage. But a comedy.

A comedy with what turn out to be a lot of big ideas, which it would’ve been nice if they’d talked about during the movie instead of doing a big subplot around Tracy and Hepburn’s neighbor, David Wayne, who’s a popular musician; he’s also got the hots for Hepburn and sees his chance as the case starts to destabilize the usually wonderful marriage.

That usually wonderful marriage is what makes Adam’s Rib so much fun. Tracy and Hepburn are phenomenal together. Their married banter, thanks both to the actors and their script, is peerless. And they’ve got a great relationship. The script does a great job in the first act establishing their wedded bliss separate from their careers, which then collide and spill over, but not in a way the first act’s handling would predict. The script’s much tighter in the first act as far as establishing the ground situation but it doesn’t do anything to set up the character development. Again, great script, but a big problem one too.

Also in the first act the film seems like it might take Holliday’s murder trial seriously. Like as a procedural. Because the film tries not to utilize screwball humor. It can’t resist, which is a problem as the film’s set up to not be screwball so the screwball scenes don’t play. That lower energy Cukor direction; he respects and enables the actors but nothing else. He doesn’t even showcase them as much as their ability to execute the routine. Good, but not as good as it should be.

Anyway, Holliday—who’s sort of the protagonist of the whole thing, or ought to be—disappears into background. She’s great, but she gets almost nothing to do. There’s potential for some kind of relationship, though not friendship, between Holliday and Hepburn—even a client and attorney one—but the film doesn’t do anything with it. And Tracy never gets shown presenting his case. Or working on his case. So not a good procedural, which is a bummer since—once the finale reveals Tracy’s motivations—it could’ve been a great courtroom drama.

Instead, it’s a wonderfully charming and almost always entertaining Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn picture. The production values are strong, Cukor’s more than adequate, the script’s great, Holliday’s excellent, Wayne doesn’t get too tiresome even though it seems like he might, George J. Folsey’s photography is nice, George Boemler’s editing not so much, but… it works. It all works. It just doesn’t try hard enough. Maybe some of it is Production Code related. But the way the script compensates really doesn’t work, leaving Tracy and Hepburn with good roles in a fun comedy instead of great parts in a better film.

This post is part of the Second Spencer Tracy & Katharine Hepburn Blogathon hosted by Crystal of In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood and Micheala of Love Letters to Old Hollywood.