"Accomplishments"
In theaters: There are some wild departures from the novel in Kenneth Branagh's Death on the Nile, but they mostly serve two worthy purposes. One is getting at a singular theme - love - so relationships are rewritten to encode that in their DNA. Which includes Poirot, whose backstory includes a lost love. The other is, as was the case with his Orient Express, to create a complex psychology for the great Belgian detective. The attention to detail, the arrogance and vanity, these are further explored by showing us events from his youth (though I think the secret origin of the mustache is an ultimately silly component) and introducing him into the events of this particular story sooner, and with a more personal involvement. Of the guest cast, Dawn French is my personal MVP - I only knew her from chat shows, but she's very funny here - though I should say I was pleasantly surprised by Gal Godot who, despite the weird line reading everyone likes to mock, actually puts in one of her best performances. In terms of the mystery, I've never thought this was a very difficult whodunit, but an interesting HOWdunit. The movie's got problems (red herrings are too obvious, showing animals eating each other is kind of hack at this point, and I wish it were a bit more procedural than it is), but I'm still well invested in this version of the character and would be in for more. (From a purely conceptual point of view - train-boat-plane - my vote is for Death in the Clouds.)
At home: 1978's Death on the Nile has a fun buoyancy I quite like, a romp that knows where to find opportunities for humor despite the bloody murders. Angela Lansbury as a drunk writer of erotica is pretty wild, but she's not carrying the comedy alone, with good moments of levity for Maggie Smith, Betty Davis, Jack Warden and David Niven, the latter acting as Poirot's second banana in this one. Poirot himself is played by Peter Ustinov who has the advantage of speaking perfect French (call me a linguistic patriot, but that's important to me and too often lacking), but it's not the only reason I like him in the role. He has fewer tics than either Albert Finney or Kenneth Branagh, and (therefore?) an easy-going levity that goes well with the tone of the film. Naturally more old-fashioned than the most recent effort, I nevertheless like it better as an entertainment. It's one mistake is forgetting all about who pushed the stone on the Egyptian ruins. Oops!
The Suchet version of Death on the Nile, having been made for television, is extremely efficient, getting us in and out of the mystery in about 100 minutes, while not cutting any more characters than the big movies did (albeit, different ones). Somehow, it nevertheless sticks closer to the novel and caters to many more subplots than its silver screen brothers. It does mean there's a briskness to the story, and it perhaps introduces its cast a bit too quickly to get a good handle on who's who before the first murder occurs. Linette, played by pre-stardom Emily Blunt, is a much more terrible person, as is Rosalie (Zoe Telford). No Bowers, but cousin Cornelia (Daisy Donavan) brings a similar levity and sparkly spirit. Frances de la Tour is fun too as Salome, not as over-the-top as either Lansbury or Okonedo in the theatricals. And then there's Suchet, the iconic Poirot, protecting what has become HIS character by keeping the eccentricities to a minimum, but also revealing quiet emotional turmoil. This version glosses over fewer cues, as if it wanted to give us a chance to figure it out, but it shows its hand much too early and often by lingering on meaningful looks between characters. That, not its smaller budget, is its real weakness.
At only seven episodes, the second season of Space Force feels abbreviated, and there's a sense that the show is mostly reorganizing the chairs before hopefully getting a third season to sit in them. The family stuff which I found to be surplus to requirements before is better integrated and less obtrusive. Ben Schwartz is given an expanded role and makes Tony a lot more human and sympathetic. Tawny Newsome's astronaut gets a psychologically sound story (and I'm always impressed at her vocal range because she never sounds like Lower Decks' Ensign Mariner). And no one can say the F-word like John Malkovich. But budget cuts is less engaging a storyline than setting up the potentially bogus service, and it means there's a lot less SPACE stuff, which is what made this show different from other workplace comedies. Replace the Biden administration with Netflix and we might have an inkling of what's happening behind the scenes. The show didn't do too well, was asked to operate on a reduced budget, and prove itself in relatively short a time. Meanwhile, all the stars are looking at other projects and threatening to leave. Well? Is that what inspired the writers? By this point, I like the characters enough to see Space Force continue, but wish its second season didn't feel so much like an unearned farewell tour.
In Abel Ferrara's world, cops are the bad guys and gangsters might be the good guys, and I see King of New York as the mirror reflection of his later Bad Lieutenant. The movie asks whether the only response to a crooked system isn't lawlessness, but a more altruistic, community-driven lawlessness. Ferrara doesn't evoke Robin Hood himself, but many reviews do, and they're quite right (though few versions of Sherwood Forest would dare be this bloody). The result is a gorgeous neo-noir with sumptuous night photography and a great performance from Christopher Walken. And at 103 minutes, it's an efficient package that outperforms Scorsese and Tarantino through brevity. King of New York makes its point and gets out, but still feels as rich and full as any higher-profile crime picture. Perhaps by 1990, we all knew the tropes and didn't need for everything to be spelled out in a 2½+ hour epic, but whatever the case may be, Ferrara leaves us wanting more, which is not a bad effect to have.
The value of a true story is that it can go in directions you don't expect it to, but movies being movies, writers and directors try to shape those stories to fit a mold. I feel that from The Courier, a true spy tale that ties into the Cuban Missile Crisis (which is interesting in its own right), involving a friendship between a high level asset in the USSR and a simple businessman roped into ferrying information on his behalf. I guess at some point all of this was declassified, ergo, a movie. It doesn't quite go like pure fiction would, but the friendship angle does feel like something out of a film, and that's the shape it's been given. Benedict Cumberbatch is quite good and seems to have made personal sacrifices to bring the story to life, though one can't help but think Bridge of Spies kind of stole The Courier's thunder several ways. So it's fine, it's well told, and it even has a couple of good images, but theatrically released or not, it has an air of direct-to-streaming, like some lavish BBC production. Take that as a recommendation or don't.
/1973: Based on Indian folklore, Duvidha (The Dilemma) shows what happens when you choose your business over your new bride. You're liable to get replaced by a shape-shifting tree ghost for the five years you're gone, and then where will you be when you come back? Keeping it from being too anthropological are two things. One is Mani Kaul's experimentalism, creating immediacy with extreme close-ups, reflection with still images, and a fairy tale quality with the bleached cinematography. The other is putting us in its three characters' heads with different voices, the net, modernizing effect being that the tale's theme can be understood to be the lack of choice and agency women have in the culture. Husbands, whether actual or ghostly impostors, must be accepted. Prospective husbands may well be taught a lesson about neglecting their wives, but for the wives, the teachable moment is less useful, and more depressing.
Also from that year: The Spirit of the Beehive, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
1974: I am astonished at how fun the 1974 Wonder Woman TV movie/failed pilot is. I said "fun", not "good", mind you. Wonder Woman as a super secret agent isn't TOO weird, given the early 70s had her in just such a role, the so-called "white pantsuit Wonder Woman". One of her outfits seems to reference it. It's actually crazier to make Princess Diana blond in her first live action appearance, though I think Cathy Lee Crosby and her writers get the character. There's a kindness and a generosity that even extends to her opponents, but also a twinkle, like she's enjoying herself and is comfortable in her role and body. And she speaks perfect French (I imagine Diana as someone who learns as many languages as she can, she's a communicator). Yeah everything involving other Amazons, especially the mercenary Angela, is marred by wooden acting, and questions abound as to why Steve Trevor and the villains know Diana is Wonder Woman, but other agents where she works thinks she's Miss Moneypenny. The red costume comes out of nowhere, in the story AND in terms of design, and though they mention the invisible jet, Wonder Woman's usual gear is absent. But there are a lot of fun action gags, plenty of death traps, and the villains have the movie's MVP on tap, Ricardo Montalban at his Khaniest. No one's gonna think of this as an iconic take in anyway close to Lynda Carter or Gal Godot, but it IS a fun television artifact.
Actual best from that year: Arabian Nights
Back in 2011, I called the failed Wonder Woman pilot the "Ally McBeal Wonder Woman", sight unseen, on account of David E. Kelley creating the show. I don't know if I thought she was a lawyer (but Steve Trevor is) or what, but the truth is much worse. This is a show that, had it been picked up, would have had CW vibes (which is fine), but that doesn't understand what the character us about. At all. It's really not clear what Diana's relationship to the Amazons is - she speaks in a modern American idiom and called Diana Themyscira, heading a tech company that merchandises Wonder Woman dolls to finance her war on crime. A strange departure, but fine. What's NOT fine is that this Wonder Woman uses crass language (like "tits") and is a violent vigilante that routinely tortures, maims and kills bad guys (and some of those bad guys are probably just working Joes guarding what she deems an "evil" pharmaceutical company). And then jokes about it. The show really doesn't understand how the world works either, because she commits these crimes without the benefit of a secret identity. Everyone knows she's the head of this company. It's a real waste of an all-star cast, all-star especially in hindsight. We've got Adrianne Palicki, Cary Elwes, Pedro Pascal, Elizabeth Hurley, and Tracie Thoms who all deserve better. And y'know, when Wonder Woman unleashes her power on a group of henchmen, it's pretty badass, prefiguring what was done with Godot. At least until she indiscriminately kills someone. People like to mock the costume, but there are far worse problems.
1975: In Black Moon, a disagreeable young woman escapes a war-torn landscape by side-stepping into a kind of lo-fi fairy land of pastoral children, talking animals, and dream logic. The problem with such a surreal piece is that either the imagery speaks to you, or it doesn't and you spend its run time trying to decode it. In this case, though the Freudian stuff is pretty obvious (phallic unicorns, yearnings of motherhood, silent boy toys who sister-zone you), I don't think Louis Malle knows what all of it means and so it's opaque for us to. I felt singularly disengaged from it. For a film with so little dialog, it's awfully loud and screaming, and the character of the bedridden old woman is particularly irritating. I guess it's one of those things where you have an international cast so everything is looped in, but the dub is so bad, I wondered if it was done on purpose to add to the "dream" atmosphere. There's a moment early on when several alarm clocks go off as if to wake the protagonist up. I wish it had...
Actual best from that year: The Magic Flute, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
1976: It's 1976 and Disney is still making goofy comedies like it's the 60s. Case in point, the original Freaky Friday, which avoids any lore to explain the body switcheroo (I think that's next level and it's great, we lost that over time) and comes across as part kids' storybook and madcap cartoon. How does this story of mother-daughter strife'n'understanding fill its third act with water AND car stunts?! I'm don't think it really passes my litmus test for this type of story however. Do the actors - in this case, young Jodie Foster and Barbara "Who do you get when Madelne Kahn?" Harris - actually manage the other person's performance? Harris has some moments that play to Foster's tomboy persona, but mostly plays the teenager in an adult's body as if she were consistently drunk. Foster hinges closer, but her character, though rebellious, is already a young adult and leader among her peers, so I don't find it that different. So over the day, they're supposed to find out that the other's life isn't as easy as it seems, etc., but this would hit harder if the movie understood what things were really like. What kind of bougie school does Foster go to, and why does the mother have to be an idiot who doesn't understand the simplest things (like you don't score on your own goal) to create that conflict. I think teens have plenty to struggle with without inventing them. Things do get more amusing as we go, but in the end, the movie misses the most important lesson and doesn't end with Harris serving husband John Astin divorce papers. Disney: "We've had our fun, now let's keep the traditional family unit together and make mommy a slave again." Dated much? I won't even get into the dad getting accidentally turned on by his daughter...
Also from that year: At the Earth's Core, The Shaggy D.A.
1977: Terry Gilliam's follow-up to Monty Python and the Holy Grail - and very loose adaptation of the Lewis Carroll poem - Jabberwocky isn't really up to either comparison. Imagine the "Bring out your dead" scene extended to feature length, with a big monster at the end, and you have a fairly good idea of what to expect. I can see how it's supposed to be amusing to watch Michael Palin fall into the situations afforded by a Dark Ages comedy, but I find it tonally dissonant. The slapstick gags are like something out of Tati, if Tati reveled in gore. It's just too violent to be funny in the way it hopes to be, and frequently ghoulish. What saves it is the cinematography. Yes, it's 100% commits to Gilliam's notion of a past smeared with grime, but I like how the jousting is shot, and that final battle is great. But overall, screamy and screechy, and more than a little bit disjointed. Much better films lay ahead.
Also from that year: Eraserhead, Wizards, Rankin & Bass' The Hobbit
Book: As TwoMorrow's American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1940s (1940-1944) attests, the 1940s were a real boom time for comic books, putting them on the map as new media, but selling out every title of every publisher. These were days that would never be replicated, not even in the speculative 90s. With no plans to do a book on the 1930s (I don't think), this volume starts with an involved context that covers the industry in the years following the actual five years it means to cover. I will admit that there are so many publishers, creators, titles and characters (good, evil and indifferent) - remember that back then, every comic was a thick anthology of strips - that the book frequently reads like a grocery list. And yet, I regretted not writing down all the wonderful ideas for articles that came to mind on almost every page. Though it's perhaps unnecessarily completist in its approach, it still takes the time to tell the larger behind-the-scenes stories like DC's lawsuit against Fawcett, how the war impacted the world of comics (both on and off the page), criminal tales to circumvent paper rationing, and the uproar caused by Wonder Woman.
Role-playing: I realize I am a huge pain in the ass when it comes to giving my players the tools they need to accomplish their goals. Case in point, our GURPS Space campaign. The boys learn that GASP their old pal Twelve (a former member of the party) was archenemy Jeremiah Dark's son (not that he knew it) and that their own parents worked at a reality-exploring lab with the villain. The lab is still intact somewhere and with their hands on the coordinates, they fly to its location. I had promised them some space dogfighting action and there was a light scuffle with the space lab's automated gunships. The station is booby-trapped though and the damn thing jumps into hyperspace before the battle is over. How are they gonna get their answers now? Well, how about doing a "favor" to comedy aliens (who also strap them to a comedy robot chef) in exchange for the new coordinates? Just a normal salvage job in a Holy Junkyard kept by the comedy aliens' equally comic adversaries. So what, if they have to humiliate themselves by cooking for the creepos? It's not worse than our boy Ace having to tell his lady love he's leaving for a dangerous mission while she's sure he's gonna propose! A comedy episode, but the tone was set before I took the reigns...
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