In search of Planet Earth: Battlestar Galactica

"Battlestar Galactica" first season apparently opened as a miniseries, with two 90-minute segments; at conclusion of 2nd segment we're very well set up for what obviously became a long and successful series. The characters aren't deep by any means - each one is just a comic-book sketch, a type, and moreover their personalities seem to shift as needed by the plot - but they do serve the purpose of establishing the broad oulines of the plot and the people who will drive it: the dedicated captain of the Gallactica, the gruff Colonel at his side, the brilliant but troubled and guilty scientist, the macho fighter pilots,, the new president judiciously using her authority, and so forth. There's a great twist at the end of the 2nd episode (spoiler, kinda, but if you've seen any later episodes you know this already): the "humans," now fleeing their destroyed 12 colonies, are in search of the legendary 13th colony, Earth, circling an unknown star - that can be their refuge. There is debate about whether Earth is just a legend or if it's real. Well, that's a great twist! I will make here a prediction as to what happens at the end of the series: they discover Earth and do a "jump" through time, backwards, and land on Earth as great apes - the beginning of our civilization, these are our ancestors. We also get some key info at end of 2nd episode about the enemy Cylons: there are 12 "models" lactica is a Cylon. How will this play out.

The end of the world and what happens afterwards : Battlestar Gallactica

"Battlestar Galactica" is often called a space-opera, and, judging from the pilot episode, that's a great description - for better or worse, that's what you get, a soaper aboard a soaring spaceship, with half the characters in ridiculous military uniforms that look to be a cross between Nehru jackets and costumes from Rent. The plot setup is terrific: a "race" of robots, the Cylons, have turned against humanity, leading to an intergalactic war; following 40 years of peace, the Cylons have infiltrated the human galaxy (now twelve planets, the main one called Caprica) and destroyed all or most of human life; one set of survivors is the Battlestar Galactica, a vast war machine in space, about to be decommissioned and turned into a tourist site, like Mystic Seaport or Battleship Cove; Education Secretary is visiting for the decommission, and it appears she is highest ranking surviving cabinet member and becomes president. Battlestar put back into commission, but it's aging, as is her commander. We get bits of back story on the commander and his deputy, some of the fighter pilots, the flight crews, as well as some of the survivors from Caprica - a lot of story lines spun out there in the first episode, so it's no surprise this series lasted for several seasons. All in all, a lot of fun, if you have a taste for basically comic-book plot and lots of video-game laser battles among model spacecraft. Not the kind of thing I usually go for, but clearly this seems a high-water mark for this often-cheesy genre, and I'll give it a few more episodes at least.

An over-the-top performance in an over-the-top movie: Black Swan

That poor Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) in "Black Swan" doesn't stand a chance: horrific stage mother (Barbara Hershey), predatory director, extreme jealousy from all the other girl dancers in her ballet company - is it any wonder that over the course of the movie she goes insane? Yes, it is a wonder - most movies would show her valiantly fighting, proving that she deserves to dance the lead in Swan Lake, triumphant. Black Swan isn't about ballet as much as it's about insanity: Portman doesn't triumph over the pressure but succumbs to it. I've read some on-line criticism of Black Swan, angry at its implication that a successful woman artist/dancer has to either prostitute herself or go mad in order to succeed. I don't think the implication is that all have to do so - but it's a pretty powerful look at one dancer in a horrible situation who succumbs to enormous pressure. Whether it's something you'd want to see or ought to see, I don't know - it's very painful to watch, brutal even, and I had to close my eyes several times during horror-film like, loathesome episodes of gore. It also strains belief that a ballet dancer at her level (the lead in a Lincoln Center production) would be so naive about life and insecure about her abilities, or that a director at that level would cast an obviously unsuited and unprepared dancer in the lead. It's also ludicrous to hear the director speak to the company as if they're a high-school troupe (more visceral! more passion!) - puh-leeze. All that said, great over-the-top performance by Portman in a totally over-the-top film that probably ought to be an opera.

A great film in some ways - but it's slow, slow, slow...

The recent Japanese movie "Still Walking" is the latest in a long and wonderful Japanese tradition of family drama, very much a direct descendant of the work of the great Ozu. Like Ozu's films, still walking is narrow and tight, almost claustrophobic, in its scope: almost all of it takes place during one day, in a small setting (seacoast town), in fact most of it in a small house in traditional Japanese style, tatami mats, floor-level dining table, sliding doors. The family gathers annual to mourn the death of the oldest son, died (in his 20s or so) in a drowning accident while rescuing a young boy - and film is about how this tragic death has affected everyone in the family, especially the younger son who can never live up to the image and expectations of his brother. Family members range from obsessively and meticulously nice and polite to gruff and cold beyond the point of rudeness - but even the "nice" ones (the mother in particular) show a flash of meanness and cruelty - especially during the great scene when the rescued boy comes to pay his annual respects. This is a totally honest film, unflinching, seems absolutely credible and understated - the famous Ozu "tatami" perspective, film shot almost in stills from floor level (not quite but almost) - and yet despite all these words of praise I have to add that Still Walking is soporific in its pace and seems by the end to slow to a crawl or even a dead stop. God know I don't need action or melodrama, but this is a film that, despite its strengths, is more to admire than to love.

Ben Stiller proves he can act - but can he save this film?

Noah Baumbach's "Greenberg" is, once you get past the unlikelihood of the premise (family goes on "vacation" for apparently 6 weeks! and leave their Hollywood Hills mansion in the care of the brother just out of a mental hospital) an incredibly realistic and astute portrait of two troubled, needy characters - 40ish exmusician and mental patient Ben Stiller and 25ish personal assistant played by the little-known (to me) Greta Gerwig (?). I've not been a huge Stiller fan, but in this straight-drama role he's excellent, and Gerwig is if anything even better, vulnerable, needy, insecure without being cloying or annoying or supercute. I could believe every second of their interaction, as they fall in and out of each other's lives, and every word of their dialog, which is quirky and quick but feels as if spoken by real people not by screenwriters in a seminar. All that said: I also felt that 90 minutes with these needy people was about 80 minutes too much. Baumbach is a really talented director and writer, but it's no wonder that his movies since Squid & Whale have been commercial disasters - there's nothing about these people or their world that we like or even want to like. They're people whom we might know and recognize - but would probably avoid or ignore. Greenberg is far better than the earlier Margot at the Wedding, perhaps in part because Jack Black proved he can't play straight drama and Stiller proves he can, but it's not a movie in which any character grows, matures, changes, or surprises. We may feel sorry for the characters, but the sorrow doesn't rise to the level of pity or of empathy. We're glad to see them go.

Director, don't direct thyself : Ben Affleck and The Town

"The Town" gets off the a great start with a very exciting bank-vault robbery well-paced and almost choreographed. Thought the rest of Ben Affleck's movie doesn't live up to the opening scene, it's a pretty entertaining film on the very familiar ground of the heist movie. The gang of four guys from Charlestown (Boston neighborhood of course - Affleck remains committed to doing interesting movies in Boston, and I admire him for that) pulls off three heists during the film, the last being the most imaginative, a robbery of the day's cash till at Fenway Park. Every fan has yearned to see the park from the inside, behind the scoreboard, etc., and Affleck got full access apparently - I'm amazed that John Henry agreed, but have to believe their security isn't as antiquated as the film would lead us to think. The strength of the film is a strong performance from rising star Rebecca Hall, who is great but is in danger of settling into a narrow range of type (intelligent young woman with weak self-image, q.v. Please Give) and a clever plot setup: Affleck is monitoring Hall as she is a robbery witness (actually they held her hostage then let her go, totally improbably), and he falls for her. She doesn't know he's in the gang that held up her bank. If you can believe this for two seconds, good for you, but you're better off completely suspending disbelief and letting the story unfold. Would have been stronger had Hall actually made the discovery on her own instead of being told by FBI agent John (Mad Man) Hamm. Affleck is wildly unsuited for the part of Charlestown thug and should never have agreed to direct himself - probably nobody should do that except in a comedy - as he allows himself to indulge in extensive monologues that cry out to be cut. Did the gang of four remind anyone else of the foursome in Entourage? If so, which group was more fearsome? Overall, The Town is a movie that breaks no new ground but is pretty entertaining for 2 hours.

Another movie about boxing? But The Fighter adds something to the fray

Honestly, how many movies do we need about boxing? It seems we get one every year. Maybe it's an absurd question, like asking how many movies we need about war, or about love, but it does seem that boxing is over-exposed - that there's some kind of innate synergy between film and the ring: immediate and dramatic conflict, easy to film and capture in a tight space, the obvious dramatic arc of a rising (and falling) champion, the alluring overtones of big-money glitz and back-alley street toughness, mob and business pressures, family dynamics, sometimes also racism - you can go through all the movies, from Requiem, to Waterfront, to Rocky, to Million-Dollar, maybe throw in The Wrestler, and dozens in between - so with all that I wondered what "The Fighter" could possibly add to the fray - and found the movie surprisingly good and original. Of course it touches on every one of the tropes I listed above: story of a tough kid from Lowell (Micky Ward, played well by Mark Wahlberg - who would have guessed when he was a Backstreet Markie-Mark that he'd develop into such a talented actor?), coached by his half-crazy half brother into a long-shot march toward the welterweight crown. The movie adds some great elements: first of all, it's based on a true life story (we see the actual family members in a credits clip); second, it's mostly about the difficult and complex relation between Ward and his brother, Dick (played very well by Christian Bale); third, Ward's tough mother who's like the worst of a stage mom, plays a key role. Movie seems to be filmed on the streets of Lowell with a real documentary style, and very much captures what feels like the daily life of the struggling fighter. It's not the most original movie ever made about boxing but it's one of the most credible.