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 There are precious few space movies for hardcore fans of the real thing to enjoy; let us therefore never discuss Armageddon. Outside of the terrific Apollo 13, there’s little worth viewing set in the Moon era.
Figures that it took a movie production company other than an American one to get it right.
The Dish comes to us from Australia. It concerns the role of a remote Aussie satellite dish in beaming the first TV images of Apollo 11’s Moonwalk around the planet. While the characters in the film are fictional and certain events have been rearranged, the events on which The Dish is based are quite real.
Baked in dry, relaxed Australian humor, The Dish borrowed an American actor for its sole American role: Patrick Warbruton, better known to most as Puddy, the on-again, off-again boyfriend of Elaine in Sienfeld. Warburton has the time and the role to show his range here; although mostly and justifiably known as comedic actor, he handles several dramatic moments with style.
Even more than the acting and gentle humor, the movie acquits itself brilliantly as a family film. Oh, there are a few no-no words, but everybody’s clothes stay on, violence is non-existent, and the subtleties of the script make it fascinating for adults as well as safe for middle-schoolers. It’s truly funny, but it won’t make Grandma cringe.
Bear in mind that at the time, this was considered the beginning and the end of modern technology; while the computing power of the entire Saturn V is now outstripped by your average wristwatch, the magnificence of the feat is properly held within historical perspective. That makes The Dish a powerful film for any viewer: It's nostalgic for those who were there, and instructive for those who weren’t.
It’s rare to find a film—made by HBO (DISH Network 300), nonetheless—which is hailed by both sides of the aisle, but Taking Chance is one of them.
Starring Kevin Bacon (sigh… all right, just do your “Six Degrees” reference here and get it over with), the film follows a desk- bound Marine as he escorts the body of an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran from Dover Air Force Base to his family’s home in Wyoming.
And yes, that’s it. That’s the entire plot. It’s perhaps the very first war movie to not show any actual war. But that’s the strength of Taking Chance—it personalizes the cost of any military action with one fallen man, one family, one community.
If you’re wondering where the conflict is in this story, it doesn’t show up until the final third (apart from a highly satisfying stare-down between Bacon and a TSA agent with a wand in an airport.) As Bacon’s character becomes more and more discomforted by the kindness shown to him by total strangers and airport personnel, he struggles to square his desk job with the body in the back of the plane.
The title character, Lance Corporal Chance Phelps, was a real Marine who died a real death, devastating his real family. He was 19. While the movie studiously avoids showing his face even as Bacon’s character checks his uniform, the end credits are graced with photos of Phelps. We’re able to see the drive of the film at last—and it’s one every American should see.
Here’s one to watch for on one of DISH’s many movie channels: Fanboys. It’s quite possibly cinema’s longest inside joke.
Yes, even more so than Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which is of the same universe. Fanboys has been held up by script squabbles for over two years, but since it’s set in 1998… no matter. (A lesson here for all aspiring film makers: Whenever you create something “cutting edge,” at some point, it’s all going to look like Saturday Night Fever.)
The premise involves a group of friends breaking into Skywalker Ranch to catch a sneak peek at Episode One. It’s at this point (behold, the premise point!) that the screenplay becomes nostalgic for those of us in the actual fanboy and-girl community; there was a time, you see, when the jury was out on JarJar Binks.
At the safe distance of 2009, we’re aware of the big punchline awaiting this group—that while perhaps no film could match the anticipation which built for The Phantom Menace, it had two things going against it. It was, in many ways, a very bad movie. But even if it were a palatable film, it entered the world without the protective sheen of childhood awe which protect the original trilogy—a sort of laminate coating built of chipped action figures, daydreams, and attempted Jedi mind tricks.
You can get away with this when you’re seven. When you’re thirty-seven? Not so much. That’s what the prequels were up against; even if they were outstanding films, we were going to miss the stop-motion photography and the puppets nodding in the distance.
Although panned by critics not in on the joke, Fanboys is likely to become a cult classic. At my showing, just as I was reconciling the fact that I was able to answer the "are you really who you say you are" questions lobbied at the protagonists, the crowd in attendance recognized William Shatner before he copped to it, but a few murmurs went around the theater when Carrie Fisher popped up as a doctor. Other than that, the filmakers pretty much assume you know who you're looking at, whether it's Kevin Smith or Ray Park (better known as Darth Maul.)
It's a sweet movie that reminds us all of the delicious glory of waiting, and, for the right people, will feel like an evening spent with old friends.
Let me first stipulate that as a writing teacher, I grade upwards of sixty essays a week. Sometimes I need company while this is going on. Sometimes I need alcohol. Sometimes I need both, and sometimes I find myself... watching a movie on the ABC Family Channel.
And sometimes that movie is Another Cinderella Story (ABC Family, DISH 180). It was, in some cases, exactly as ABC Family-ish as I was expecting... and yet, I did not turn it off. Amidst the comma splices and the refusals to say hello to the shift key, I did not turn it off.
This bit of fluff shows an actual sense of humor; the character in the wicked stepmother role is a washed-up pop diva who appears in acne cream commercials in a hilarious send up of a certain Ms. Simpson's turn on a certain infomercial. The parents of the prince character encourage him to further his teen idol career so as to buy themselves another house.
With an mp3 player standing in for the glass slipper and non-ironic references to the 2006 VMA Awards, this thing has a shelf life of about five seconds; in a decade, it'll be fodder for Mike Nelson and his fellow RiffTrax geniuses. Imagine sitting down for a movie right here in 2008 and finding it rife with references to Victrolas and President Taft.
Another Cinderella Story is at its best when it doesn't take it self so seriously-- which, unfortunately, happens a great deal towards the end. A dance-off and a boy band blunderful ending sends it right downhill, but there's an unusual edge not typically found in tween fare. The really, really sad thing is that had I seen this twenty years ago, I'd have embraced it as my own.
But then, just when I start thinking I might have liked it, I just imagine the movie's website, which asks the following: "(Lead actress) Selena Gomez rules because: A. She can sing, dance AND act B. Wizards of Waverly Place rocks C. I love her, isn't that enough? D. Just because"
Right then.
“Look, Moses– here in the marble. Moses down from Sinai, God’s anger in his eyes.”
So spake Charlton Heston as Michelangelo in The Agony and the Ecstasy, (various channels and times) which was the most awesomely self-referential movie moment since the last episode of HBO's John Adams, in which Abigail snapped, “Oh, for God’s sake, John, sit down.”
There is no comparable moment from Rex Harrison as Pope Julius II, although I would have paid good money to hear him toss a papal “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.” in Chuck’s direction. It's an odd sight to see Harrison in Papal array when most of us are mostly used to beholding him in tweed.
It’s a worthy movie, if entirely Heston-free for the first 22 minutes, complete with Al Gore slide show at the top and a round of yelling and swords immediately after. Everybody else is properly and splendidly arrayed, if a bit beehived. But the best part is that all of Michelangelo’s divaing makes the likes of me look downright sweet and mild.
Watching Heston and Harrison sink into their the roles as the two characters negotiate one another's expectations, strengths, and flaws. The film isn't so much an exploration of art as a relationship study. It's a refreshing turn from the usual tired romcom or string of random explosions, especially since the two main characters are both males who aren't lovers, aren't friends, and certainly don't see eye to eye.
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