Kat’s Film and Book Reviews

Independence Day

1996

Rated PG-13

Directed by Roland Emmerich

In the world of film snobs…er, I mean, scholars…Independence Day has become a sort of by-word, the standard for shallow movies that cater to the unwashed masses (read: people who aren’t film scholars).  It represents films that substitute sentimentality for substance and special effects for true plot and character development.

Whatever. 

I think the true problem for these critics is that in this film, the USA shows world leadership—moral, technological and political—and the President of the United States is portrayed as a brave, self-sacrificing, and wise leader…and it’s not even done ironically.  It’s played straight…as though this were some kind of Frank Capra film or something.

But that’s what’s so great about it.  What’s wrong with a film in which good guys defeat bad guys, armed not only with technology but with ingenuity and purity of heart?  Sure, it has its flaws, as any film does, but it’s fun and inspiring and really gets viewers involved… what more could we ask of a film?

The film begins on July 2 in the mysterious present.  A huge alien ship, 500 kilometers across, appears in space just above Earth, overcomes Earth’s satellites, and releases several other smaller ships—and by smaller, I mean 15 miles in diameter.  Each of these ships hovers over a major Earth city—in the US it’s New York, Washington and Los Angeles, at first.  They begin to blast and destroy everything.  The ships have shields that keep them from being harmed, even by nuclear missiles. 

The movie roughly follows four men, though those storylines sometimes split into six or more when we start following the women connected with the men.  Will Smith is a fighter pilot, Jeff Goldblum is a brilliant scientist turned cable repairman (his lack of ambition is a character issue), Randy Quaid is a washed up alcoholic Vietnam vet who claims to have been abducted by aliens a decade ago, and Bill Pullman plays the President.  Through a series of slightly-too-coincidental circumstances, the three are brought together at the officially-non-existent Area 51 (and the president is irritated that the Secretary of Defense didn’t think he needed to know this particular secret).

The president tries to establish some kind of diplomatic relations with the aliens, but they refuse flat out.  He learns that they are there only to destroy and pillage, stripping the Earth of its resources before moving on.  They are true bad guys.  The ironic thing (in a movie with no ironic commentary) is that the concentrated attacks on the world’s major cities and landmarks is a larger-scale version of later large-scale coordinated attacks in 2001 in the United States and 2008 in Mumbai, India.  They couldn’t have known it in 1996, when this movie was made, but post-9/11 these aliens look a lot like a higher-tech al-Qaida.

There are some flaws in the film, as I mentioned.  The multiple storylines can get confusing, but at least they all come together in the end, unlike other multi-narrative films (Crash and Love Actually come to mind).  And sure, it’s a heck of a coincidence that the four guys who can save the world all happen to end up in the same place at the same time (and that place isn’t even supposed to exist—a running joke in the film).  Then, when Jeff Goldblum’s character gets totally smashed on what must be a gallon of whiskey, he has an inspiration that completely and instantly sobers him up, rendering him articulate and competent in the blink of an eye.  The president’s young daughter is more of a plot device to show us how human the president is and how much he has at stake, but she’s not a real kid.  She never gets hungry, thirsty or bored, and she never whines. 

Nevertheless, the leads play their parts straight and seriously, which is the only way to make this work.  Bill Pullman delivers his speech about Independence Day for the whole world (the final battle goes down on July 4) with perfect sincerity and commitment.  Randy Quaid’s character is a bit cartoonish, but that’s how he’s supposed to be; he’s an embarrassment to his children until the end, when he turns it around, and we catch a glimpse of the depths that had been hidden all along.  Will Smith plays a cocky but competent fighter pilot, and while we know better now the heights Smith can reach as an actor, back in ‘96 we just wanted him to be cocky and gorgeous and to live the adventure for us (one of the best lines in the film is when Smith pilots a superior alien aircraft and shouts out, “I have got to get me one of these!”).  And Jeff Goldblum is his usual understated self (possibly the exact same character he played in Jurassic Park, now that I think of it).  But that’s the character the movie needed, so it worked out just fine (though I can never watch Goldblum in anything without hearing my father’s voice calling him “that idiot Jeff Goldblum.”).

The movie benefits from a strong supporting cast, as well, including Vivica Fox, Mary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch as Goldblum’s father (why didn’t anyone ever think of doing that before?), always dependable character actors Robert Loggia and James Rebhorn, Harry Connnick, Jr, as Smith’s destined-to-die best friend, and Harvey Fierstein as a typical but amusing neurotic character. 

There’s lots of death, fire, and a few creepy aliens slinking around, but the good guys get to blow stuff up, too, and they get to keep the moral high ground while they do it.  So, to heck with the stuffed shirts who can’t loosen up enough to enjoy a movie just for the sheer entertainment value.  It’s their loss. 

Even though Angels and Demons was almost completely panned by critics, it still took the box office, edging out last week’s big winner,  Star Trek.  I had no intention of seeing A&D, but then I learned that Ewan McGregor is in it.  Since I’d pay to watch Ewan McGregor read the phone book, I might have to pay to watch him in this schlock.  What’s a girl to do? 

Anyway, here are the weekend’s estimated results, according to Variety.

Title	Engagements		Estimated Weekend Box Office
1.	Angels and Demons (Sony)	3,527	$48,000,000
2.	Star Trek (Paramount)	3,860	$43,000,000
3.	X-Men Origins: Wolverine (20th Century Fox)	3,892	$14,800,000
4.	Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (Warner Bros.)	3,150	$6,860,000
5.	Obsessed (Universal)	2,634	$4,550,000
6.	17 Again (Warner Bros./New Line)	2,450	$3,400,000
7.	Monsters vs. Aliens (Paramount)	1,951	$3,000,000
8.	The Soloist (Paramount)	2,022	$2,425,000
9.	Next Day Air (Summit Entertainment)	1,139	$2,281,000
10.	Earth (Disney)	1,584	$1,680,000

Image courtesy of cinecon

Image courtesy of www.impawards.com

I guess this story, based on the hit 1981 Broadway nostalgia musical, is supposed to be a loose re-telling of the story of The Supremes. A Black girl group from Detroit gets a few breaks, makes a few changes, ditches the fat chick, and becomes a worldwide sensation. The girl with the prettier face but the lesser voice gets to sing lead, and the girl with the larger figure but the better voice is relegated to backup and eventually quits the group leaving anger and destruction in her wake.

My favorite part of Dreamgirls was seeing Eddie Murphy play a complex character straight, and therefore deeply. I absolutely love it when artists break out of the mold that has been cast for them and show that they have chops that nobody really suspected.

Murphy isn’t the only good thing about this movie, though. That’s the weird thing about it; though there are so many good performances, so many good musical numbers, I never really felt like it came together. And, well…the Motown sound isn’t really my thing, so that kind of detracts from the experience, too.

Let’s start with the girls of Dreams. The most talked-about cast member is Jennifer Hudson, fresh from her American Idol second place finish, as Effie White, the big girl with the big voice. She won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this role—not a bad start to a career—and I think she deserved it as much as anyone. One touch she brings to this role is the way she looks electrified when she gets to sing lead, but bored to tears when she has to sing backup. She brings the house down in the first-act show stopper, “And I Told You I Am Not Leaving,” which showcases her vocal talent, but goes on about four minutes too long.

Beyonce Knowles does an impressive job as Deena Jones, the group’s new lead. She takes her from the timid follower content to stay in the background, to an assertive leader willing to become to focus of attention for the sake of the group. She is a subtler and more refined actress and singer than Hudson, though without Hudson’s power and range. Hudson may have deserved the Oscar nom for this film, but Beyonce’s performance certainly equaled hers.

The male cast includes Jamie Foxx as Curtis T. Jones, the manager whose success is irrevocably bound up with that of the Dreams. Keith Patrick gives a solid performance as Effie’s brother, the group’s songwriter, CC. These men are great actors, and decent singers…but I can’t decide whether this film should have great male singers to match the women, or if having decent male singers simply emphasizes how exceptional the women are. Anyway, we grow from loving to hating Foxx’s character, and though we see how rotten a human he has become, we also understand that as far as the Dreams are concerned, he usually makes the right choices. It’s too bad they’re the choices that make everyone miserable.

As I said, I don’t care much for the Motown sound or 60’s music in general, but there were a couple of show tune sounding ones that I really did enjoy, both of them vocalized by Eddie Murphy. These were “Cadillac Car,” (and the white-boy rendition of this is hysterical) and “Walking on the Bad Side.” They had a different sound, and an intensity that propelled the plot forward as well as showcasing the stars’ musical talents. I wouldn’t buy the soundtrack, but I’d download those two songs.

I know many people loved this movie, and I can see why, but it didn’t really do it for me. Pieces of it were likable, some songs were enjoyable and individual performances were good, but director/screenwriter Bill Condon just didn’t seem to hold it all together very well. It should have been about 45 minutes shorter, though if you like the music, that probably won’t be a problem for you. I guess that says it all…in the end, it’s all about the music. Whether that’s a good thing is up to you.

I will freely admit that there’s nothing Nora Roberts can’t do.  She started out by writing Silhouette Romances– some straightforward, some series, and some with her trademark magical elements.  She got picked up to do stand-alone single-title books, most of which become immediate best-sellers, and many of which fall into the genre of Romantic Suspense.

In my opinion, Roberts is at her absolute best when she focuses on families and relationships, as in her trilogies (the best of which is the 4-book Chesapeake series, which focuses on one family and includes no magical elements at all).  Many people live for her single-title Romantic Suspense books, such as Blue Smoke, and I myself have read all of them.  But for me, romance will always trump suspense, and that’s my chief criticism of books like Blue Smoke.  The mystery takes center stage, and the romance is tangential.  I prefer it the other way around. 

Blue Smoke follows Catarina Hale, or Reena, from the night when, at age 11, she woke in the middle of the night and discovered that her family’s restaurant was on fire.  From that point on, she develops a fascination with fire, and puts herself on a path to become an arson investigator.  We follow Reena from age 11 to her early 30’s, through relationships and intensive police and fire training, and become aware that someone from her past is also following her.

Reena and her quiet stalker are linked by their fascination with fire and by an experience they shared as children, going back all the way to the arson she reported when she was 11.  Of course, even while people around her are dying one by one, she doesn’t see the pattern until the one man who truly matters comes into her life.  Then the stakes are raised, and so is the danger.

The romance is nice, and love interest Bowen Goodnight is fittingly masculine and sexy (as several scenes with low-slung tool belts will attest).  He is not a sexist and does not resent Reena’s dangerous work, though he does worry about her safety.  She even considers marrying him, providing, of course that she can keep him alive.

Nora Roberts excels at several things that certainly make themselves known in this book.  One is research.  The details in every book, this one included, are part of why they’re hard to put down.  It’s interesting to learn the difference between the fire department and the police department when it comes to arson investigations.  It’s interesting to read about what a woman has to do to fit in and be respected in either place.  In many ways, that’s the primary romance in this novel. 

Another of Roberts’ strengths is her refusal to let her characters become 2-dimensional in any way.  Reena can be tough as nails and fierce, but also love her family, cuddle her nieces and nephews, and be very afraid when the situation calls for it.  Bo can be strong, self-determined and independent, yet have a romantic streak that takes people by surprise.  That’s how real people are.  That’s the ultimate draw of Roberts’ books. 

My personal preference is less suspense, more romance.  But I still read everything Nora Roberts writes.  If you like well-researched, compelling suspense and three dimensional, complex relationships, you’ll find Blue Smoke an extremely satisfying read.

Casablanca

1942

Directed by Michael Curtiz

It’s one of the greatest love stories of the 20^th century…but he never tells her he loves her.

He says, famously, “Here’s looking at you, kid,” and a few other lines that are so much a part of the culture, but Rick Blaine never tells Ilsa Lund that he loves her. And yet, we don’t doubt it for a second. The first thing we see is not his love, but his pain. When Ilsa appears in Rick’s Cafe Americaine in the French Moroccan city of Casablanca, we see him lash out in anger and hurt. He remembers everything about her and about their time together in Paris, including how devastated he was when she left him standing in the rain with nothing but a goodbye note. After she leaves he sits down in the darkness, mutters his famous line, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns, she had to walk into mine,” and proceeds to down a bottle of bourbon.

Rick’s love for Ilsa is one of the great, tragic loves of Western cultural history, and the cornerstone of the 1942 film Casablanca. Rick himself is a character of depth and conflict, as compelling today as he was when the film was made in 1942. He tries to be cynical, and his exterior does fool some people, but the truly observant know that he is caring and trustworthy. He turned his back on those things in the wake of the pain of Ilsa’s betrayal, so the Rick we are first introduced to has as his motto, “I stick my neck out for nobody,” and then goes about proving it.

But once Ilsa returns to his life, his facade starts to crack, and it cracks fast. At first, all we see is pain. Ilsa renews her acquaintance with Sam (Dooley Wilson), Rick’s friend and piano player, and asks him to play the song that had had special meaning to her and Rick when they knew each other in Paris. This leads to one of the most famous, if misquoted, lines in the film, “Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.’”

Rick comes rushing out of his office and snaps at Sam, “I thought I told you never to play–” And then he sees Ilsa. He doesn’t move, his expression doesn’t change, but we see it hit him like a wrecking ball. The next several scenes show Rick at important places in his character development. Unable to handle the pain of seeing Ilsa, he gets drunk, then treats her rudely when she comes to see him. We see a flashback of Rick and Ilsa’s love affair in Paris, when she thought her husband was dead, and the contrast between Rick-then and Rick-now is extraordinary. He was happy and openly in love, unlike his current situation where he hides behind self-interest and cynicism.

After the flashback, Rick sobers up and apologizes to Ilsa, and he seems to think that he has himself under control, when he learns that Ilsa was married to the man she is traveling with, Victor Laszlo, a Hungarian freedom fighter and resistance leader, while they were in love in Paris. He is wounded again, and again retreats into anger and cynicism, but the pieces of his shell can’t all be put back together, and we soon see him fixing the roulette tables in order to help a young Bulgarian couple win enough cash to purchase black-market traveling papers to escape to the US.

The conflict in this Rick-Ilsa-Victor love triangle is rich and complex, because we are sympathetic to all of them. Each man loves Ilsa, and Ilsa loves each of them. Each is a good man; neither of them is abusive or selfish. Both men respect each other, and know full well how the other feels about Ilsa. The only question is whether idealistic Rick or opportunistic Rick will call the shots for the film’s resolution. And the resolution is so perfect, in terms of both love and honor, that it has become one of the most famous, most iconic film scenes of all time.

Through all of that, Rick never tells Ilsa he loves her, but it’s vividly apparent in every look, every wince, every change in posture or vocal tone, and every choice his character makes.

The three leads–Humphrey Bogart as Rick, Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa, and Paul Henreid as Victor—give us an exquisite and complex set of relationships, but they are also supported by excellent performances in slightly smaller roles. Chief among these is Claude Rains as Louis, the French police captain who claims to be completely opportunistic, and even jokes about his own proclivities toward self-preservation. Indeed, he’s not wrong about that; he’s hardly a saint. He manipulates and extorts and blackmails and accommodates as well as any Nazi sympathizer ever has, with gracious good humor that masks some real insight into the people around him.

One of the film’s most amusing scenes happens when the visiting Nazi commander orders Louis to shut down Rick’s Cafe, and tells him to make up a reason to do so. Louis immediately blows his whistle and declares the establishment closed until further notice. An angry Rick demands to know what charge is being leveled at him, and Louis responds, “I am shocked—shocked!—to discover that gambling has been going on here!” At that exact moment, a dealer comes up to him and says, “Here are your winnings, Captain.” He says, “Oh thank you,” and pockets his money. But Louis, too, is deeper than he looks, and much of the story hinges on the push and pull between Louis and his better instincts. Louis is there at the climax of the film, making his own choices between self-interest and idealism. Claude Rains earned a much-deserved Oscar nomination for best supporting actor for this role.

And of course, the film would not have been what it was without Peter Lorre as Ugarte, a small-time black market dealer of travel papers, and Sam, who is not just Rick’s musician but his dear friend. It’s Ugarte who gives the travel papers, upon which the whole plot hinges, into Rick’s keeping. Ugarte also gives Rick the chance to demonstrate his motto, “I stick my neck out for nobody,” when he gets into more trouble than he can get himself out of. And Dooley Wilson as Sam provides the connection between Rick’s past and present, both as a catalyst for memory, and as the player of the soundtrack of Rick’s and Ilsa’s hearts. Sam’s panic when Ilsa first walks into Rick’s gives us our first clue that her presence there is going to be a problem for Rick.

An analysis of this film could go on for many chapters; indeed better film scholars than I have written about Casablanca extensively. There’s enough material here—cinematic, artistic, historic, sociological, psychological, symbolic, and more– to occupy a critic for a long time. I may take a stab at some of it in future articles, but I’ll let it go for now. I would like to point out, though that a preponderance of the 20^th century’s best films seem to have been directed by Michael Curtiz. Casablanca is his most famous, and arguably his best, but he also did Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), We’re No Angels (1955), White Christmas (1954), Life With Father (1947), Night and Day (1946), Mildred Pierce (1945), Santa Fe Trail (1940), Captains of the Clouds (1942), and one of the best pro-America war films (and one of the best films in general), Yankee Doodle Dandy, made in 1942, the same year as Casablanca. Curtiz deserves to go down, along with Frank Capra, as one of the great American directors of all time.