It’s been six years since Andrew Niccol seated himself in a director’s chair; after the powerful Gattaca (1997), misfire S1m0ne (2002), and sleeper Lord of War (2005), the inventive writer is headed back to the big screen with another original sci-fi concept, In Time. A couple trailers have already dropped; this sizzle reel does a good job introducing the heady premise without giving away exactly where the story will go (I hope).

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The biggest reason I’m pulling for the film is Andrew Niccol’s name. In a market full of adaptations, remakes, reboots, prequels, sequels, and any combination of those categories, Niccol remains committed to telling original stories through the medium of film. Both Gattaca and The Truman Show had all the qualities of great literature, yet video was an absolutely integral element of their storytelling. Barring Sucker Punch (haven’t seen it), the last time Hollywood offered a completely original blockbuster like this was Inception, and I welcome any attempts to make it the rule and no longer the exception.

The Brave New World-esque universe he’s created here is intriguing, and the concept of a world where every action you take temporarily staves off death shows he’s exploring weighty themes through speculative fiction, not just “ooh shiny future stuff!” sci-fi. It appears Niccol’s taken a far more action-oriented approach than his earlier films, so it’ll be interesting to see how well he does. He’s recruited cinematographer and longtime Coen brothers collaborator Roger Deakins, and most of the action shots appear wide and/or steady, so I’m not worried about the kind of shaky-cam anarchy common to untested action directors (I’m looking at you, Marc Forster). (more…)

Cowboys & Aliens is the highest of high concepts. Its entire premise is contained in its title, which, in the classic manner, could be scribbled on the back of a postcard. Unfortunately, the filmmakers have mailed that postcard off to nowhere.

Remarkably, it required six writers (and 16 producers, among them Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard) to turn a slim 2006 graphic novel into a movie. The book, by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, Fred Van Lente, and Andrew Foley, takes an interesting narrative stance, setting up an alien invasion of the Old West in 1873 as a mirror of the earlier invasion of North America by European settlers. For some reason—presumably time constraint—the movie has ditched this element of the story. Which leaves us with, well, cowboys and aliens.

The picture begins with a man named Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) waking up bruised and wounded in some parched canyon lands. An intricate metal cuff is affixed to his left wrist, and he’s also carrying a photograph of a woman he doesn’t know. But then he doesn’t know his own name, either. When three surly lowlifes approach on horseback, Jake, being Daniel Craig, overwhelms them in a spasm of furious butt-kicking. He makes his way to a shabby mining town that has fallen on hard times (the gold ran out). After a violent encounter with a gun-waving punk named Percy (Paul Dano), Jake draws the attention of both a mysterious young woman named Ella (Olivia Wilde) and the town sheriff (Keith Carradine), who recognizes Jake from a wanted poster and tosses him in jail. Then Percy’s angry father, Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), the local cattle baron, arrives in search of the man who whupped his no-good son…among other things I’ll not go into.

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Liberal film critic, Roger Ebert, called Battle: Los Angeles “noisy, violent, ugly and stupid”.  BigHollywood.com Editor-In-Chief, John Nolte, called it “wildly entertaining and subversive”.  That was all I needed to read to know this was a “must see” movie.  And it most definitely is…in fact, movie goers overseas agree as this epic sci-fi film garnered a first place finish in its second weekend overseas bringing in $27.1 million…with Rango, the animated film about the chameloen sheriff (Johhny Depp) earning $17.5 million in its third weekend.  Now that’s American exceptionalism…on the big screen!

As a retired Air Force veteran, I viewed this movie from a slightly different vantage point than one who has never served in our armed forces. And I loved every minute of this fast-paced, heart-stopping, riveting movie…silently cheering on the small platoon of courageous Marines, led by 2nd Lieutenant William Martinez (Ramon Rodriguez), sent out on what seemed like a suicide mission to rescue a few stranded civilians in Santa Monica before the Air Force was to completely level the entire city that had fallen to a devastating alien invasion.

What was originally reported to be meteors falling into the ocean along the Los Angeles coastline (as well as the coastlines of 20 other major cities around the world) was quickly determined to be a well-orchestrated invasion of a massive force of seemingly impossible-to-kill aliens… and they were everywhere… annhilating everything and everyone in their path.  As I watched the fast-paced, chaotic, and gripping action unfold, I often found myself holding my breath and sitting on the edge of my seat — myheart racing wildly, pulling for our heroes.  It has been a long time since I’ve been to a movie that left me exhausted like that, in a good way.

I appreciated how they introduced each member of the platoon and gave us a little insight into their frame of mind just prior to their embarking on this terrifying mission, setting the stage for some of the heart-wrenching actions and decisions that occurred throughout the movie.  It made them more real to me, as real as the stories and situations faced every day by our men and women deploying overseas into hostile combat zones.

The main hero of the movie, Staff Sergeant Nantz (Aaron Eckhart), was very convincing as a tough, no-nonsense, war-weary Marine.  In spite of having just gotten his retirement papers signed — a man who was struggling with some demons from his past (something not uncommon to our brothers and sisters who have served in a war zone) — SSgt Nantz displayed the kind of leadership, ingenuity, courage, selflessness, and compassion commonly found in the members of our military, most especially in our Marines, who are always on the front lines … and go where few dare to go.

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It must be the pro-military slant. There’s not a lot of other reasons I can think of why critics have been so eager to trash “Battle: Los Angeles,” a hybrid of “Black Hawk Down,” “District 9,” and “Independence Day” that incredibly manages to crib mostly the best parts of the three. It’s not as thematically sophisticated as the former two, true, though it’s easy to marvel at the ability of critics to selectively decide that one piece of slam-bang entertainment is worthy of our attention, then turn and denounce another as worthless for its lack of “useful” subtext.  

In a role that will have many an important casting director take note, Aaron Eckhart stars as SSgt. Nantz, a battle-hardened Marine who finds himself at the epicenter of the Los Angeles front during an alien invasion. His squad, which consists of a number of character types standard to war pic fare (the inexperienced officer, the engaged guy, etc.), in most cases successfully engender sympathy, providing they survive long enough. Many don’t, and die faceless to us, though the sight of Marines being butchered by extra-terrestrial intruders is affecting. The aliens, who never speak a word and clearly have no interest in diplomacy, are a stock sci-fi design of flesh and metal hybrid, but are rendered convincingly, and present serious danger as their lethality is unveiled over the course of the film’s many encounters.

For the sake of foreign grosses (and perhaps the good sensibilities of the average left-wing film critic), pic avoids any outright pro-America patriotism, though its admiration of one of the USA’s most revered institutions is none-too-subtle. Truthfully, this might actually be the most respectful and reverent portrayal of American servicemen since “Black Hawk Down,” certainly light-years away from the extreme pessimism of, well, any military pic about our dual wars. It’s telling of the direction our culture has been steered that scenes depicting Marines engaged in unvarnished heroism are often simply dismissed as shameless and simplistic, though an attentive news reader will find evidence of such bravery occurring daily on the front. When Nantz and squad opts out of an exit late in the film to launch a suicidal attack on the alien fortress, it’s in fact one of many moving, unironic moments that draw attention to the risks taken by those in uniform. Detractors may sneer at this as fiction, though consider a scene in the aforementioned “Black Hawk Down” that sees two Delta Force operators volunteer their lives to cover a downed chopper crew; that was genuinely real, so, in comparison, how one accuse can the fictional Marines of “Battle: Los Angeles” of bravery manufactured purely as propaganda? 

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Before Season 6, my wife was a die-hard “Lost” fan.  For five years, during the appointed hour, I wasn’t allowed to so much as breathe.  And heaven help me if I had to walk past the TV screen.  Suddenly, my normally mild-mannered wife could hurl the remote with notable precision and ferocity.

Five years of secret hatches.  Ancient four-toed statues.  Teleporting cabins.  A string of lottery numbers popping up everywhere.  Weird pseudo-science. Steampunk technology.  The Dharma Initiative.  (Remember that?)  And what the heck was a polar bear doing on a tropical island?

“Lost” was a major brain tease, too.  Naming so many of the characters after philosophers (Locke, Rousseau, Hume, etc.) was a stroke of genius – paper-thin genius, I later learned, as few of the characters had much to do with their namesakes.  (My favorite character name was Charlotte Staples Lewis, i.e., C. S. Lewis – incidentally, his middle name really was Staples.)

As the show’s intellectual promise faded, my interest flagged, but it really took a tumble during Season 5, when time travel, the last refuge of a desperate sci-fi writer, reared its inevitable head. (more…)

I missed the series premiere of “V,” but not the ongoing flap afterwards. The remake of the 1984 sci-fi classic seems to have hit a lot of nerves on the left and found an audience on the right. Left-wing media types are outraged that the series “degrades” the Obama administration, and some on the right are wondering if a Hollywood talent has been dismissed from his job for political reasons. As I write this, I’m watching O’Reilly go on about “the writers taking shots at President Obama.” 

As it happens, I’m acquainted with Scott Peters who developed and wrote the remake of “V” for ABC.  Mr. Peters was also the creator and executive producer of “The 4400” and a writer for “The Outer Limits.” As far as I know Mr. Peters has only made one mistake in his career and that was directing me in the low-budget film “Don: Plain and Tall” back in 2003. It was the story of my friend comedian Don McMillan’s life as a comic. I played myself in the film and the part was horribly miscast. 

When I started reading some of the rumors and theories about Mr. Peters’ latest show and the behind-the-scenes politics, I laughed out loud.  Let me try to shed some light on the “V” controversy. (more…)