Frequency

I love you too dad. I missed you so much.

Whenever I start writing a review and do not have a final score set in my mind, I tend to put it at the end. I like my usual format: Score, quote, photo, review. But it can be fun to write a review without knowing the final score too. Going into this movie, I had no idea what it was about. All I knew was that in 2000 I had no interest in seeing a Dennis Quaid movie. When summarizing a movie it is often helpful to start with the genre. In this case, that would be a bit of a challenge because the movie cannot decide what it wants to be. Technically, as my cousin Ira pointed out at our family’s movie club, this is from a subgenre of science fiction called speculative fiction. The premise of the movie is that a solar flare causes aurora borealis in Queens 30 years apart. Because of this a ham radio can send messages through time. Dennis Quaid plays the dad and Jim Caviezel plays the son, who lost his dad the day after they first talk. If that is not clear enough, it does not matter. The filmmakers just use the setup, the characters, the rules, etc…for two goals: hitting emotional notes and telling a thriller-murder mystery.

Both of those elements are successful. The surprisingly riveting team of Caviezel and Quaid tap into something simple that many people care about — a lack of time with family. Their across time murder mystery was exciting too. Normally delivering on those elements sounds like a good movie, but some shortcuts deserve to be noted. Here are some examples. Rescuing an abandoned puppy will make most people cry and want to love its savior. Using theme music for a beloved character can tap into existing emotions, like in the Hobbit movies, or Star Wars. Also, on a related note, for a lot of people movies need to make sense in order to earn the suspension of disbelief.

The movie starts off with a Contact-esque zoom from the sun to Earth. Then it shows a trucker who is listening to a radio that was hammering home that there would be a serial killer aspect to the family time travel movie. Next came a couple of impressive scenes that were not done with shortcuts. The out-of-control truck must have been a very challenging stunt to do. I think it looks pretty convincing, but also looks like an excellent stunt from an MGM or Universal stunt spectacular. It appears to have been done practically and I like when movies try to do that. Then there was tons of water in the second stunt, so that must have been a nightmare for everyone involved. On the other hand, later in the film a kid falls off his bike and it looks amateurish by even TV standards. That inconsistency pervades this sci-fi/family drama/thriller/sports nostalgia/murder mystery/period piece. One actor plays his own father in this, but most of the actors do not, so that fits into the inconsistency. Regarding the realism of someone in 2000 essentially remembering the 1969 World Series from his childhood is less unrealistic than is sounds. My Dad could probably spend two hours recounting what happened in that series even today, 20 years after this film came out.

My memory for sports is not nearly as encyclopedic, but I do have the ability to recognize bottles of alcohol. The alcohol visibly consumed in this film exemplifies the dichotomy between two critical viewpoints on this film: Molson and Bushmills. Molson is not a good beer. Bushmills is a good Irish whiskey. Some people love Molson, and this movie might be for them. They are not looking for intricate flavor; they are looking for something easy to drink that they can have a few of. Others might take the Bushmills approach and judge the film for having its protagonist (Caviezel) drink it straight from the bottle in the bleachers of a public baseball field in the middle of the night. In the end this film will be whatever the viewer wants it to be. That is certainly not a failure, but it is not the success this film could have been if its story had been pared down and focused on making it be a good thing or two, and not six things.

***

Olympus Has Fallen

**½

I underestimated you. It will not happen again.

What a movie. This is the kind of movie you watch with friends. Some people might tell you to suspend your disbelief and just enjoy the ride. I disagree. For maximum enjoyment, I recommend pulling every loose thread and enjoying the absurdity of it all.

Exasperation is the mood of this film. This is Die Hard, except John McClane, Jr. (Mike Banning) is trying to break into the White House Bunker to save the hostages, not get them out. Mike Banning is played by Gerard Butler. Butler is a talented actor and singer who realized that “good movies” do not pay as well as crappy ones. I am not saying the 300 was crap, because it wasn’t. But once he had that Hollywood fame, it has been all crap. Financially successful crap, which is why his movies don’t look like the Chuck Norris ones you can find on spinner racks at gas stations off the highway.

Antoine Fuqua directed this, which makes perfect sense since he has made Gerard Butler style choices. He made Training Day and since then has just made action movies. Including Butler, the cast for this movie is great, even if the casting is a bit on the nose. Aaron Eckhart plays Harvey Dent in a world with no Two-Face. Dylan McDermott plays the weasley third most handsome guy who betrays everyone because LOOK AT HIS FACE he clearly is going to. Rick Yune is much less of a household name, but someone clearly saw Die Another Day and how much money it made, and did not care how bad it was. So they cast the Korean villain from that to be the Korean villain in this. Morgan Freeman uses his Morgan Freeman voice to show poise under pressure.

The only actor who is not recognizable is Melissa Leo as the Secretary of Defense. She is an excellent actress and gives a better performance than this film deserves, but having her say the Pledge of Allegiance as she seemingly walks out to her death was over the top. But everything else in this movie is, so I guess it fits.

The movie is not very good, but it is very enjoyable at parts. I love that this pro-American patriotic fantasy has, as its star, a Scot. I look forward to watching the sequels to this and hope they get the same high quality special effects and low quality writing that this movie enjoys.

Tootsie

***

Ron? I have a name it’s Dorothy. It’s not Tootsie or Toots or Sweetie or Honey or Doll.

This is a film of its time. That is a phrase I use a lot when I talk about Bond movies. It’s worth noting that Ian Fleming never intended James Bond to be a hero, however he is the protagonist of those books. Of all of the Bond films none get “of its time” so often as Goldfinger does. When people hear Goldfinger they either think that it’s a classic and the pinnacle of the genre, or that it’s inexcusable sexist tripe. Maybe it’s both. I have no intention of stopping my rewatching of Bond movies, but I think that it is important to acknowledge their flaws before each viewing. Otherwise viewers will be more strongly influenced by the pull of an exciting story with a charismatic protagonist, and may empathize with his behavior, including the inexcusable parts.

Watching Tootsie in 2020 I expected to be offended by the insensitive premise—a male actor (Dustin Hoffman) disguises himself as a woman in order to get a role on a soap opera. Watching it I was not offended. Clearly the filmmakers wanted to make a non-offensive film and probably succeeded by 1982 standards. There are a few funny scenes and characters, but if you are going to watch this for the first time I recommend reading a modern review to understand how insensitive this film is.

If you do choose to watch it, I would draw your attention to the start of the film where you will be shown auditions from Dustin Hoffman and Teri Garr. Their representations of mediocre acting were very impressive. Mediocre acting is hard. It is easy to be terrible, for obvious reasons. Further I think it is easier for a great actor to be great, than to turn down their abilities from 100% to 80%, rather than going down to 40%. Maybe that is the real reason Hoffman got the Best Actor nomination for this film, but probably not.

Enola Holmes

***½

We have two problems, as I see it. One, finding a boarding school that is willing to take Enola on so she won’t be a complete failure in this world. That, I am in the process of solving with the help of an old friend. And two… finding Mother.

Photo is (mostly) unrelated.

I was totally unfamiliar with the character of Enola Holmes, the protagonist of a Sherlock Holmes spinoff by Nancy Springer. It seems odd to add a sister to Sherlock Holmes, but Springer did so years before the wonderful “Sherlock” television series did it. I was only familiar with Millie Bobby Brown from her work with New Edition in the 1980s. But seriously, I have not watched “Stranger Things”, so this really was my first exposure to the young actress. She held her own with dreamy action stars like Henry Cavill and Sam Clafin, just as she did with the bevy of Harry Potter alumni in this film. My biggest shock was seeing that Frances de la Tour was short, since she was taller than Hagrid as Madame Maxine! Other than that, she is best known as Mrs. Lintott from The History Boys, which starred Richard Griffiths, who played Vernon Dursley in the Harry Potter films, and whose on screen wife, Petunia Dursley, was played by Fiona Shaw, who plays the important role of the prim and proper headmistress who wants Enola to conform to Victorian ways.

But enough with the Harry Potter references. Instead I want to focus on the interesting casting of Burn Gorman as the Man in the Bowler Hat, “Linthorn”. He attempts to murder a teenage nobleman, “Tewkesbury”, and for interfering he tries to murder Enola. Gorman has a face that is instantly recognizable, even in 19th century garb. He was a bad guy in The Dark Knight Rises and then the Gotham mob turned on him. He was 55 when this was filmed, so he was an interesting choice to be the physical threat to a couple of teens, particularly when Superman is playing Sherlock Holmes. I am glad they cast him in this role, but I still found it surprising.

The movie is fun and moves quickly, for the most part. Enola addresses the audience directly, in a way that screams THIS IS ADAPTED FROM A BOOK! and I found that hokey, but Brown did a fine job of it. Then it passes “the Bechdel Test”, by showing her mother, Helena Bonham Carter, teaching Enola a wide variety of skills. The mother disappears and the mystery begins. I hope that this is the start of a series. At 16 Brown really was age appropriate for this role and could keep doing it for a decade without worrying about looking like Roger Moore in A View to a Kill.

Hubie Halloween

*½

Can’t believe I don’t have a compass on my thermos.

When you put on an Adam Sandler movie you know what you’re getting into. And this was what I expected, but with more of his famous friends than I had expected. It’s nice to see him sharing some of Netflix’s wealth with more Saturday Night Live cast members, both past and present.

If you like the face that Sandler is making in the above photo, then you might love this movie, because that is the primary form of acting that Sandler does. Perhaps he played the character too internally and too minimally and there was more going on underneath, but mostly he just seemed awkward. Is he meant to be the butt of the jokes? Is he meant to have autism? Sandler clearly did not set out to make fun of autism, but since he seems to be living in the 1990s comedy world, he may have accidentally made a family-friendly Halloween movie that does just that.

The mustache carries a lot of the dramatic weight and I believe that this is supposed to be important based on other follicular choices being made. Kevin James has a giant beard and a mullet. Meanwhile Tim Meadows wears a toupée. Wearing a wig in movies is pretty common, even Sean Connery wore wigs as James Bond, but clearly James Bond was not wearing a wig. Here Meadows’ character is wearing a wig.

The best part about this movie was probably June Squibb’s endless supply of inappropriately sexual t-shirts and sweatshirts. They were dumb, but I laughed at a couple of them. They help her seem oblivious to the world around her and that was actually a bit of good writing, in this otherwise poorly written movie.