Author: Michael W Jackson

Race to Mars (2007+)

IMDb meta-data is four episodes of 46 minutes each, rated 6..8 by 287 cinematizens.

Genre: Sy Fy fact

Verdict:  Only for Mars junkies.  

An international team (code for American, though all the actors are Canadian only one wears that flag patch in this Montréal production) embarks on a two year mission to Mars in 2030.  The trip is long, the arrival short.  Along the way the main obstacles are boredom and the shortcuts taken by the McKinsey-managed low-bid contractor.  Yes, it is all very realistic.  Produced by Discovery Canada, great pains were taken to get the science right.  It is shot in HD and looks great.  

Computer faults arise en route and have to be worked around, not once but twice.  ‘That should work’ fixes don’t (fix it) and more fundamental efforts are needed.  That is an IOS update while in flight.  I did warn them against Catalina, but as usual shouting at the screen has no effect.  

When the crew members were selected for compatibility they must have had some surgery because there is not a spark of sexual tension in the nine month close quarters voyage among the four men and two women.  Definitely rated G on that dimension.  There are a few expletives by way of compensation.  

The master narrative in the title is that the Chinese have sent a robot ship to Mars to drill for water (as the source of life).  Though launched shortly after the International Mission, the Chinese craft will get to Mars first.  Why?  Because it is robotic and without a human crew it can travel faster.  It does not need to provide artificial gravity.  It does not need to liftoff slowly so as not to crush the crew   It does not need a long and slow deceleration to allow the crew to adjust. It does not need to dock and change crafts for ascent and descent. The one bus will make all stops.  But will it get to water first, that remains to be seen. 

Much time and effort is expended in landing, assembling equipment, withstanding the first dust storm, and setting up the drill.  They do not do any exploring and there is never any discussion of that. No one wants to look around. Instead we have occasional views of travelling matte expanses.  (This was not filmed in either Jordan or Morocco and it shows. These countries are favourites for big-budget Mars scenery.) They were sent to drill, and drill they do.

One of the Red Shirts breaks his arm in arraying equipment, and that increases everyone else’s workload.  This is an industrial accident, not a Martian curse, and at this point the fraternity brothers passed out.  Later another low-bid contractor puts in an appearance when the drill breaks.  

Meanwhile the Chinese robot ship (very much like the cute little June bug spacecraft in Mission Stardust [1968], see comments on this film elsewhere on this blog) has struck….salt water.  There is so much salt that no life could exist in it.  Think Dead Sea and there it is.  Think of the Great Salt Lake.  No, wait, don’t.  Anyway the smarty-pants Chinese have come up with nada.  

Then off-camera, with the consent of ground control, suitably lagged for communication, our heroes get permission to cannibalise the Chinese rig for its drill, and they spend the best part of one forty-minute episode fitting it to their equipment, measured in inches, while the Chinese used abaci.  (Joke.)  

Not soon enough they hit water because their drill site is far away from the area the Chinese used and they have a geyser.  In fact, it is too much and it blows the rig apart and shrapnel kills the Red Shirt.  Much guilt follows, but no Christian ritual. 

Now they have water and it seems anti-climatic since the samples are sealed and will only be analysed later on the ground after this series has long ended.  Oh.  It is all race and no finish.  

Though there is much docking and rendezvousing which is passed in silence, and they start back when more computer failures threaten everything and no sooner is that fixed, then a damaged panel requires the Sy Fy mandatory EVA in which another member of the crew is injured.  Was their equipment built by Trabant?  Then they return to Earth orbit.  The End.  

No meteor showers, no flesh-eating plants, no exploding heads, no monsters of the deep, no creepy caves, no crappy special effects, just hard work and difficult decisions, industrial accidents, personal tensions, though the captain seems to wear his decisions lightly.  That seems far fetched in such small group.  The more so considering there is no military discipline in sight.  I would expect more blowback. The extra shifts, first to compensate for the injured crewman, then to adapt the Chinese drill, then to make the deadline for the departure window, exhausts everyone.  Tempers get shorter.  Personal hygiene is absent.  

I rather liked that low key approach, but the direction is leaden. The camera goes face-to-face for reaction shots every time a line is spoken.  One speaks and we get five reaction shots. It lingers while the actor remembers the next line, and then on to the next actors.  The result is that even the simplest scene is attenuated beyond its dramatic weight.  While the asinine comments in user reviews about it are just that, it is also true that the film invites this reaction with its lethargic pace.  It is one of slowest movies one is ever likely to see with the word ‘race’ in the title.  Every actor gets plenty of close-ups for the demo disc without advancing the story or deepening the character   

It was filmed in Montréal and I did not recognise any of the players but they all have extensive credits in Canadian television.  It won several Gemini Awards for being Canadian.  That the voice of ground control with an egregious Texas accent traces back to an Anglo actor from Montréal.  

It is so low key that only one external reviewer was linked to the IMDb page when I looked.  Moreover, or lessover there is not a single still photograph associated with the IMDb entry. This is the first time I have encountered that.

Murder in the Clouds (1934)

IMDb meta-data is 1 hour and 1 minute, rated 6.0 by 186 cinematizens.

Genre:  Mystery

Verdict:  Go girl!

Clichés have to start somewhere.  Nebraska’s own Lyle Talbot before he descended to the ranks of character actors is Three Star, a hotshot flyboy who boasts, brags, and shows-off, reminds me of that midget.  We never do know if Three Star’s flying days began in the Great War, nor why he is called Three Star, apart from the three stars tattooed (it seemed) on his narrow, pasty chest. Why not four star? No room.  Or just Star?  Still I rather like it that there is no tedious backstory.  

Before LAX ate Westchester a number of small airports served Los Angeles, and one, now long gone, was at Glendale.  This drama takes place in the wide open spaces there.  

Three Star, after character-establishing antics, is assigned a top secret mission, while unnamed enemy agents listen in, and then Three Star promptly goes to a bar and gets into a fist fight set up by the nefarious villains, which he loses, three to one.  The next morning when he is a no-show for the top secret mission, there just happens to be another pilot right there to volunteer for it.  Guess!  Yes, this one is another plant by the unnamed enemy.  

The co-pilot for this flight is the callow younger brother of Ann Dvorak, the airline’s only cabin crew.  On board is an egghead with his invention, which is something to make boom, as if we are ever short of that.  Whoops!  The plane blows up in mid-air.  Was it a Boeing Max? Well maybe, but skulduggery is afoot.

To keep it simple, the plant pilot (after eating Mexican beans) gassed the crew and passengers, took the secret device, and parachuted out after setting a time bomb.  Kablooie!  Four dead ducks. Some design fault. 

Three Star with a nary a word of regret or apology sets out to recover the device, once it is not found in the wreckage.  So far, so standard.  

Here’s where it gets more interesting.  Dvorak, seeking information about her now missing brother, the co-pilot, gets taken in by the villains, led by the redoubtable Russell Hicks, tall, distinguished, thoughtful, cultured, impressive, avuncular, and evil.  Hicks and company trick her into helping them abscond with the device.  So they think.  

In fact, she soon realises their murderous larceny by accident and in a great scene thinks through in silence what she has heard and seen, and arrives at the conclusion to out trick them, and she does with a little help from the McGyver Manual. Marvellous!  

She had overheard the news that her brother was dead, but stifled the stereotypical consequent female hysteria in the screenwriters paucity of imagination and turned the tables on the villains.  Go girl!  

Three Stars then flies around for ten minutes at a time.  Remembers those underwater sequences in Thunderball (1965) that go on and on without advancing plot or character.  Ditto here.  It no doubt had novelty value at the time of release, 15 December 1934, and it is nicely done, but too much is too much (except for Dolly Parton and Arnold Schwarzenegger). 

Ann Dvorak had a reputation in Hollywood for being difficult, according to the Harvey Weinsteins of the day.  She was not compliant with his sort, whatever that may be, and, in addition, she resiled at the fluff she was forced to play and complained about it a lot.  One suspects that her attitude influenced the portrayal of this disciplined, resourceful, and determined heroine.  No doubt her personality was the result of reading too much, because her IMDb biography terms her a bibliophile who collected first editions.  

When she realised she was being paid the same as the juvenile actors in one film, she bought herself out of the Warner contract. Gutsy, indeed, in that fraternity.  The material was bad enough, but to be paid peanuts for it was the last straw.  Later she married a Brit and moved to Old Blighty where she drove ambulances during World War II in the Blitz.  No bone spurs were detected.  

The Shadow (1933)

IMDb meta-data is 1 hour and 3 minutes, rated 6.1 by 99 cinematizens.

Genre: Old Dark House (Honourary). 

Verdict: It seemed longer.

N. B.  This is not  T-H-E  Shadow of Mutual Radio though the time coincides with the eponymous Shadow.  Confusing? This is a very British production quite independent of that radio program. Got it?  Repeat after me:  this is a shadow but not T H E Shadow.  

The Set-Up:  A masked figure has been blackmailing wealthy personages (see, it is a British film and they are personages, not just people), driving several to suicide.  Wow! What did he have on them! I’d like to know.  Where did he get it?  Wikileaks? Pox News? Is there more there?  These are all excellent questions that are never addressed by the stiffening lips. Instead the forces of order gather to protect these child molesting aristos.  Nothing ever changes.

Clues and leads are few, but one Scotland Yard stalwart lays a cunning trap for this murderous Shadow.  It is so cunning that One forgets to load his gat and the Shadow makes short work of him.  Dick One is a dead dick in the first five minutes.  Maybe not so cunning after all.  

A Second Dick is assigned the case and sets about annoying dialogue with the Head of the Criminal Investigation Branch, Sir Forgotten Name.  In the midst of the most terrible crime wave of the century (since if concerns wealthy personages being blackmailed for the heinous crimes they had committed) Name sets out for his country estate for the weekend to play golf.  Hmmm.  What does that remind me of? 

Ah, at last, an Old Dark House, hoped the fraternity brothers.  

For reasons unknown to the scriptwriter the Shadow is there, too, and for reasons unknown to the scriptwriter Second Dick knows that the Shadow is there, and rushes — ever so slowly — to warn Sir Name, when….!  Second Dick is shot to death on the winding five-mile driveway of the country estate.  Maybe a poacher shot him by accident, but is that likely? Well, yes in Midsomer, but the end result is: Two dead dicks!  

Well, never mind, there are more dicks where those two came from and another middle aged, overweight, dolt is called to the country estate who confirms that Dick Two is dead.  Enter the  Third Dick.  

In the Old Dark House are gathered the usual suspects: a butler, a scrumptious daughter, her unsuitable suitor, a toff of no apparent value who blunders about looking for the other two stooges, a maiden aunt who still hopes for the best, along with a sneak thief who passes himself off as a gentleman with an Eton tie, his girlfriend, and someone else whom I have overlooked.  They do not add up to ten and soon subtraction begins.  

There is also a ringer who passes briefly through the halls before being killed. This latter is the butler’s son escaped from a conveniently located nearby looney bin. (See any version of Hound of the Baskervilles for the prototype of this plot device.)   Ringer makes the mistake of getting in the way of the Shadow and clonk he goes back to central casting.

The Third Dick with a body guard assistant muddies the waters.  Much this and much that follows on the Dali watch.  Frail swoons. Toff toffs.  Plod plods.  Name names.  Butler butlers.  Got it?  Care?  

Spoiler ahead!

Then Third Dick reveals all by means of reading the script off camera.  In standard operating procedure screenwriting the least likely did it.  No, wait, not the maiden aunt, but rather….[pause] the garrulous Toff.  He transform from tiresome bore to tiresome villain.  Now Richard Dix could have made this transformation worth watching but in this case one Henry Kendall could not and did not.  We were all just glad to see The End. 

There is one scene with some acting in it when Name comforts the Butler about the death of his psycho son, but that two minutes is not worth the rest.  It has nothing to do with the plot.  

There is also an oddity on the IMDb entry, where there are 184 photographs linked to this title.  That is an extraordinary number for any film, let along one of this era, and from Great Britain.  The Shadow Laughs (1933) has two photographs and that is a typical number, and this is the real Shadow, too!

The Casketeers (2018+)

IMDb meta-data is 14 episodes of twenty-five minutes rated 7.0 by 270 cinematizens.

Genre:  Documentary (according to the IMDb) 

Verdict:   Amusing, touching, informative, uplifting

The day-to-day activities of a funeral business in Auckland, specialising in Maori rites and rituals, might not be to everyone’s taste, but this is done very well, combining the human comedy of everyday life – will Francis ever find a way to sneak that fabulously  expensive leaf blower past his accountant wife Kaiora? – with the solemn, sad, and serious business of death, loss, grieving, denial, injustice, and anger.  

Francis is the micro-manager par excellence in his drive to offer clients a perfect service, right down to scrapping gum from the sidewalk in front of the business.  He also likes boy-toys like that NZ $1,300 ultra, high-powered leaf blower, and then there was that white van. What was he thinking when he bought that bucket of bolts?  Not even he knows. His conversation with the mechanic who tells him it is not worth repairing is classic when he says it is worth to him [to avoid hearing those four words he fears most from Mrs, viz. ‘I told you so’].  

On the other hand Francis seldom asks for or gets the list price on the funerals he sells.  More often than not at the sight of grieving relatives he offers discounts, adds extras at no cost, and volunteers more labour for nothing.  The accountant grinds her teeth but draws the line at the leaf-blower.

It put me in mind of a marvellous Japanese film Departures (2008), discussed elsewhere on this blog.  Click away.  

By the way it offers a small window on Maori life and culture that is informative, compelling, and thoughtful.  My faith in the enduring idiocracy was confirmed by reading the 1.0 ratings on the IMDb.  

The Republic of Doyle (2010 +)

IMDb meta-data is 78 episodes of 55 minutes each, rated 7.2 by 2888 cinematizens.

Genre: PI 

Verdict: Location, location, location!

It has all the clichés of the genre cosmetically refreshed by the location among the goofie Newfies in St John’s Newfoundland.  Anne of Green Gables, Joey Smallwood, and Annie Proulx are nowhere to be seen. 

A wannabe Jim Rockford approaching forty and living at home with father, much to the annoyance of stepmother, is PI together with Dad. It is all by the numbers thereafter without the laconic charm of Rocky, but at least there is no annoying Angel on the scene. Out hero is unkempt, unshaved, and childish, a clear case of arrested development that appeals to its like. His private life is a mess and dominates his professional life as a PI.  He drives an old banger. All boxes checked.  It is easy to imagine the checklist in the screenwriters manual consulted for this project. 

Still the setting in and around St John’s Newfoundland is distinctive and the cinematography makes the place look attractive.  It’s not, but it looks that way on film.  The soundtrack, for once, also adds something to the ambience.  

Despite my quibbles it is one thing many Canadian film productions are not.  It is Canadian.  It looks and sounds it. Many Canadian productions are so deracinated for the international market that they are anonymous, e.g. Street Legal, Da Vinci’s Inquest, Traders,…. [so anonymous that they are forgotten].