The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2022: Star Trek: First Contact (1996), directed by Jonathan Frakes

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: 'Magic Carpet Ride' by Steppenwolf
 

While there are now more Trek shows in production than there has ever been, for better or worse, the prime time to be a Star Trek fan was the mid-90’s. Star Trek: The Next Generation had not faded in the public consciousness quite yet, Deep Space Nine was hitting its stride, and Voyager was still the hot new thing. Then there was the comic books, the novels, the video games, the themed restaurants, it was a glorious time for nerds who had nothing better to do with their time. As a nerd with a movie blog I’m allowed to say that, to be clear.

As long as you stayed out of the theaters that is, because the waters were a lot more murky there. The TOS films that dominated the 80s were a mixed bag but as a coda to the original show they were ultimately successful, but when the time came to pass the torch the franchise fumbled the ball. The TNG crew, the people who had done most of the legwork in revitalizing the franchise, in their debut film coming out of their final season are relegated to background characters in favor of more Kirk (apparently 6 films and a directing credit weren’t already enough), as Malcolm McDowell tries desperately to be a main antagonist with the scant few minutes of screen time he’s awarded, all wrapped up in a premise that feels woefully underutilized. Not a good first outing is what I’m trying to say, but what about their second time at bat? Purged of the last vestiges of TOS, how does The Next Generation fare at the cinema? Guess we’ll find out.

Released in 1996, Star Trek: First Contact was directed by Jonathan Frakes, written by Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore, and produced by Peter Lauritson, Rick Berman and Marty Hornstein. The Borg have finally decided that they want to invade Earth again, and rather than doing the smart thing and sending a fleet of ships to overwhelm Starfleet’s defenses they choose to send a single Cube. This Cube is ultimately dispatched thanks to the timely intervention of the Enterprise-E, lead by Captain Jean-Luc Picard and her crew, but not before it spawns an Orb ship, which just so happens to be a time machine. It’s destination? The terrifyingly close year of 2063. It’s mission? To sabotage the mission of Dr. Zephram Cochrane (James Cromwell), the man who in the next 24 hours will conduct the first successful warp speed jump, the catalyst for humanity’s first contact with alien life and the genesis of the Federation. The Enterprise follows the Orb and manages to destroy it, but not before they manage to damage Cochrane’s ship and somehow sneak onboard the Enterprise. Thus the mission is two-fold: repair Cochrane’s ship in time for him to make his flight tomorrow, and purge the Borg from the Enterprise before they take it over and use it to assimilate mankind’s past. Neither of which is all that easy, as it turns out.

Theoretically, First Contact stands on much firmer ground than Generations. It’s only natural that the first proper TNG film would utilize the Borg, arguably the show’s biggest contribution to the franchise, and the ‘time travel to ensure First Contact’ is one that falls firmly within Star Trek’s wheelhouse both in premise and in its optimistic tone. Braga, Berman and Moore now have a better idea of how to write for film rather than for TV, and while Jonathan Frakes’ directing experience wasn’t all that different from Dave Carson he obviously had spent enough time with this cast to now how to work with them. That plus the special effects boost that all Star Trek films get on the silver screen and you’ve got yourself a decent picture.  

In practice it’s a bit shakier than that, so let’s start with our main antagonists, the Borg. First Contact is rather infamous amongst Trekkers for introducing the concept/character of the Borg Queen, played here by Alice Krige. Krige plays the role well enough, and on a visual level the Queen looks great, but I'm one of those people who thinks that the idea of a Borg Queen was unnecessary. The big conceit of the Borg was that they were man’s technology taken to its most extreme, so antithetical to our own views of life that they were easily the most ‘alien’ of all of Trek’s alien antagonists. It’s what made Picard’s capture and transformation into Locutus in the series so chilling-- that the beacon of Federation values could be so thoroughly transformed into the face of rapacious, unyielding conquest. That the Borg is not a collective consciousness but subordinate to an individual, and that this was always the case even before Picard’s abduction not only kills the power of that scene but also the mystique of the Borg in general. They go from this near-Lovecraftian vision of artificial intelligence to space bees.

Then we have the First Contact plot, which ironically is treated as almost an afterthought compared to the Borg plot. The arc is fairly obvious, Zephram Cochrane struggling against the weight of his legacy before he finally accepts it and starts to become the man history remembers him as. Most of the scenes involving Cochrane are of him listening to other characters tell him how great he is and him having the same reaction over and over. You’d think there’d be a scene where Troi prompts Cochrane to speak on his imposter syndrome, or Riker setting him straight with a speech about he’s under estimating himself, but that doesn’t happen. Of course the parts with the Borg are going to be the most action-oriented and audiences like action, but they couldn’t do anything more with this near-future post-apocalyptic Earth than using it as a convenient excuse to split up the crew? Star Trek 4 took advantage of its time travel plot better than First Contact does, and that movie was 70 fish out of water jokes and 30 percent whales. 

       The decision to make Patrick Stewart into an action star was another weird one by Berman, Braga and Moore. Putting aside the question of whether Picard’s genocidal Captain Ahab-esque rage would make sense as motivation at this point in canon, after the episode with Hugh I have my doubts, the whole thing seems to be set up in order to make Picard more like Kirk. Except that Picard is not Kirk; His personality, his style of command, his relationship to his crew, the first line under his name in the show bible might as well be ‘NOT KIRK’, so seeing him mowing down drones with a holographic machine gun is a less subtle version of Kirk’s relationship with Klingons. If they were setting up a bit of subversion, where Picard does the action and Riker makes the inspirational speeches they could get away with it, except Riker is barely in the damn movie and he barely does anything in it. There are some other rocky bits of characterization, like Troi’s one scene in the film being drunk and useless and Data stuck in this see-sawing development hell like usual, but action hero Picard is definitely the most tonally dissonant.

       That being said, First Contact is definitely a more entertaining film than Generations. The pitched firefight in the cramped hallways of the Enterprise, Picard and company facing off against the Borg on the hull of the ship, sneaking missions down Borg infested hallways, never knowing if and when they’ll deem the characters a threat and fall upon them. The crew are locked in mortal combat with unkillable zombies, trapped on their own ship, where failure means the complete eradication of everything they’ve ever known. Not quite Cameron’s Aliens mind you, but I think Frakes manages to build an atmosphere of tension really well, and those special effects make the action much more dynamic than Patrick Stewart crawling around a rock 3 or 4 times. Also the Borg are looking really cool, very slimy and corpse-like.

I’m going to give First Contact the recommendation. Maybe my bad memories of Generations are affecting my judgment, but it’s got some neat action set pieces, a classic Picard speech, and it gives everyone on the cast at least some amount of screen time (as well as a cameo from popular side characters like Barclay). There’s too many nits I can pick to call it a must-see classic, which as a franchise film was never going to be the case anyway, but in terms of Star Trek films I’d put it in the upper half of the bell curve. Not quite on the level of 6 or 2, but definitely better than 5, but then a post-Chipotle dump is better than Star Trek 5, so check it if you’re interested. Dare I say it’s made me actually look forward to the next film, to see if they can maintain this momentum. We’ll have to wait until next year to find out though.

On to the Apes!

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2014: Cannibal! The Musical (1996), directed by Trey Parker

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "The Trapper Song", by Matt Stone and Trey Parker

     Although it’s been off my radar for quite a while now, I can remember the days when I used to love watching South Park. Back in those halcyon days of middle school, South Park was the perfect combination of raunchy humor, ultraviolence and poop to set my developing imagination running wild. Over the years South Park has become more focused on making fun of whatever new thing has passed by the pop culture shitpipe lately, and my interest has waned as I’ve found other programs, but who knows what I’d be like if not for the influence of Mr. Matt Stone and Trey Parker? I’d probably be some kind of fine, upstanding member of society rather than the socially maladjusted misanthrope that I am today, and where would be the fun in that?

     Before Matt and Trey took the world by storm with South Park however, they were punk kids who wanted to try their hands at being filmmakers, and the first film they made was a little project known as Cannibal! The Musical. Released in 1996 by the schlock-meisters over at Troma, CTM is a parody of the bevy of films detailing the westward expansion of Americans in the mid 1800’s, and more specifically of Oklahoma!, the genesis of the field. Matt Stone plays Packer, the only man ever convicted of cannibalism in the United States, who supposedly killed and consumed his traveling party on the wintery slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Through flashbacks and the power of song, Packer weaves the sad story that lead to his imprisonment to a plucky female reporter. A story that involves Mormons, trappers, the promise of gold, an ill-fated journey to Breckinridge, and a mysterious figure known only as Leeann. As you might expect, the story that got Packer into prison isn’t the full story, but as is often the case in movies and in real life, the truth is stranger than fiction. And if you’re wondering how strange it could possibly get, please remember that these are the guys who created a talking turd who gives presents to children on Christmas.

     It stands to reason that if you’re not a fan of South Park, or other Parker/Stone projects like Team America: World Police, then you’re not going to like this movie. For people who do enjoy that kind of humour, this movie is a prototype for what is to come. It’s a bit shaky in places, and as a musical it barely hints at the success Matt & Trey would achieve with the Book of Mormon, but the songs are catchy and the movie is blatantly ridiculous, so it adds up to a decent movie. If you looking for a movie inappropriate for kids by good for Halloween, you might consider picking this one up.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2014: The Frighteners (1996), directed by Peter Jackson

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "GHOST!", by Kid Cudi

     To most people, nerds and otherwise, the name Peter Jackson brings to mind four words: Lord of the Rings. The New Zealander’s epic, and standing at 4+ hours in total does qualify it as such, film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's seminal medieval fantasy series ingrained the adventure of Frodo and the Fellowship into a generation of moviegoers, for better or worse depending on your opinion of medieval fantasy. Before he single-handedly causing the mass orgasm of every D&D fan in the world however, Peter Jackson made...slightly different types of movies. Movies like Dead Alive and Meet the Feebles, which are filled with so much blood and pus that you would think you're watching a Looney Tunes cartoon written by a meth head and a bad creepypasta writer (so any creepypasta writer). It seems like such a leap from B-movie splatter fests to one of the most popular film trilogies of all time, but it’s not as unheard of as you might think. Sam Raimi started off with Evil Dead and went on to direct the Spider-Man trilogy after all, and Scorsese started off with Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and later cranked out Shutter Island and Hugo, so deviations from the norm aren’t all that uncommon. Rather than wading my way through the Feebles, for the purposes of this marathon I decided to try out the last film Peter Jackson directed before Fellowship of the Ring in 2001, which conveniently was a horror movie. Ladies and gentleman, it’s The Frighteners.

     Here’s a fun little bit of trivia for you guys that you could’ve easily found on wikipedia: Aside from being the last film Peter Jackson directed before Lord of the Rings, this film was produced by Robert Zemeckis and starred Michael J. Fox, who of course were the director and star of the Back to the Future trilogy. This was also Fox’s last starring role in a live action film, according to wikipedia, before his early retirement due to Parkinson’s disease. A few years later he would star in a voice-acting capacity in Stuart Little and Atlantis: The Lost Empire, a perhaps unfairly overlooked film in the Disney animation legacy. Supposedly the original designs for Atlantis were done by Mike Mignola of Hellboy fame, which would have been awesome if it made it untouched all the way to the final product. Freakiest damn movie Disney ever would have made.

     Anyway, Fox plays Frankie Bannister, a ‘psychic investigator’ living in a half-finished house on the outskirts of the peaceful town of Fairwater. The general opinion is that Bannister is a con man playing psychic so as to benefit on the grief of others, and in one regard they’re right: Bannister is indeed a con man on the grief of others for money, but he’s not playing psychic. He really can communicate with the dead, in fact he uses those spirits in his con jobs, using some legitimate poltergeist activity to goad people to pay for phony exorcisms. Pretty sleazy way to make a living to be sure, but when a series of strange murders start occurring across Fairwater, committed by what appears to be Death itself, Frankie is going to have to buckle down and try to not only save the day, but uncover the mysteries surrounding the town for years. Also there’s some romance and Jeffrey Combs (of Re-Animator fame) is awesome as always.

     Although there are some genuinely creepy moments sprinkled throughout the movie, The Frighteners is primarily a comedy, falling within the lighter side of black comedy. The violence (which is largely relegated to the ghosts and crappy 90s cgi) is excessive to the point of camp, and as this a movie about death, the humour is often cartoonishly morbid. A more commercially friendly model of the comedic style seen in Dead Alive I’d imagine, which might have been the influence of Robert Zemeckis. I wouldn’t say The Frighteners is the best comedy on this list, but it is a pretty fun watch, and it might be for you too this Halloween.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2017 - Crash (1996), directed by David Cronenberg

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Crash Into Me", by The Dave Matthews Band

     Last time we saw ol’ Davie boy here on the Marathon, I was covering one of his earlier films, Scanners. A film of psychic cabals and head explosions that hinted at the body horror he would experiment with in later films, hampered by some painfully wooden acting and kind of a dumb plot. Before that was the...whatever it was that Videodrome supposed to be, where James Woods gets a gun arm and Debbie Harry stars in a snuff film. It’s the kind of thing that makes you wonder how Cronenberg actually convinced people to give him money to film this stuff, but at the same time makes you wonder just what this guy is going to try next. Maybe a movie where a scientist experimenting with transportation technology accidentally combines his DNA with that of a fly? Well, not this year folks!. Although it is based on a book by a science-fiction writer.

     James Ballard (James Spader) is a man that’s good at two things: Making movies and having sex, and technically he’s only a producer. He has sex with his wife Catherine (Holly Hunter), he has sex with the film staff, he has sex in public places, he has sex on his veranda, the dude is neck deep in the stuff. When he ends up hospitalized after a car accident it appears at first to be a sobering moment, but it’s there he’s introduced to a subculture that he had never heard of before. Car crash fetishists, people who derive sexual pleasure from the act and the aftermath of colliding vehicles, seeing beauty in the mangled, bloody forms of its victims. ‘Reshaping the human body through modern technology’, as Vaughn (Elias Koteas) puts it, the mastermind behind a series of very real reenactments of famous car crashes, James Dean, Jayne Mansfield and so on. A bizarre idea, maybe even reprehensible to some, but to Ballard it’s the biggest turn on he’s ever experienced, and he’s eager to dive into the deep end. Ballard is on the fast track to the depths of lust and perversion and he’s got no intention of slowing down.

      As a filmmaker Cronenberg deals in violence and sex like Grecian traders deal in olive oil and feta cheese, and of all his films, Crash seems to be the culmination of that obsession. If you’re not seeing cars actually crashing, you’re seeing the wreckage and the bloody, twisted victims. Men are having sex with women, women having sex with women, men having sex with men, licking each others scars and what not, and they’re usually doing it in a car. The scenes of violence are explosively visceral, as car crashes often are, and the way it gives context to these sexual removes any sense of eroticism from those acts and replaces it with this cold, uncomfortable feeling of disgust that lingers on your soul. Cronenberg is not a merciful man either, he hangs on every scene like a vulture, making the audience squirm before moving onto the next stop through Dante’s Inferno. I dunno, there’s something about how realistic this movie is, at least in Cronenberg’s terms, that makes it far more unsettling and dehumanizing than his other films in my opinion. I guess because rich weirdos killing people so they can have orgasm sounds like shit that actually happens in this world, depressingly enough.

     Unfortunately, although Crash is a great idea on paper (it was a book after all), the translation to the silver screen ends up kinda dull. That atmosphere of creepiness is there, especially at the beginning and end, but to get there you have to sit through seemingly endless scenes of people talking about car accidents, looking at car accidents and banging each other (and sometimes they drive somewhere). None of the characters are especially engaging, in fact most of them barely talk at all except Vaughn, who sticks to rambling about dying in a car gives you the biggest boner ever. It’s as if Cronenberg saw Eraserhead for the first time and took the exact wrong advice from it, so you’re stuck with characters who emote once per hour and make vague airy statements to one another. If I actually liked James Ballard, if I thought he was an interesting character, then his downward spiral towards debauchery would have a much greater impact. As it is, the only thing I gathered about him was ‘Guy who has sex’. Not exactly revelatory.

     That fucking music, too! I don’t know how money Howard Shore got paid to play the same three notes on a guitar every five minutes or so, but it was far too much. Now sure, movie scores are about enhancing the atmosphere of a film, and what that entails can range from orchestral compositions to straight-up ambient tracks, but it’s the exact same thing every. single. time. It’s not a groundbreaking bit of sound, it doesn’t really enhance the scenes it’s repeatedly thrown into, it just ends becoming a nuisance. Why not change things up? Why not play 4 notes sometimes, or maybe just one really long one? Why does a movie made in 1996 feel like someone just discovered copy-and-pasting?

     Ultimately Crash is a film daring in its subject matter but bogged down in matters of execution, and whether you can overlook those issues will determine your enjoyment. When it comes to recommendations however, I’m on the fence. I like Cronenberg as a filmmaker, Crash is a dark & weird movie, and Halloween is a time for the dark & weird, but at the same it’s not really a fun dark & weird. It’s not a film you break out for your friends, unless your friends are a bunch of movie nerds that are comfortable with their own sexuality, it’s one to put on when you’ve run out of Smiths records but you still want to feel miserable towards the world. As always, the power is in your hands. Just remember to keep them to yourselves when you’re driving to work tomorrow.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2017 - Brain Candy (1996), directed by Kelly Makin

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Having An Average Weekend", by Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet

     Since the advent of television way back in dinosaur times, we’ve had sketch comedy shows. From the Colgate Comedy Hour to Key & Peele, these shows have not only entertained generations of people across the world, they’ve also been the jumping off point for some pop culture’s most beloved figures. Bill Murray, John Candy, at least three of the Wayans, the list goes on and on. However, even though there have been plenty of sketch comedies I have seen, and plenty I haven’t (why the hell can I never find The State anywhere), for my money the greatest of them all, the one that had me glued to the screen for every episode, was The Kids In The Hall. 

     Founded in 1984, The Kids In The Hall comedy troupe, composed of Dave Foley, Mark Mckinney, Bruce McCulloch, Scott Thompson and Kevin Macdonald, made its way onto the TV screens of the world (or at least those who had HBO) in 1989, thanks to the helping hand of Saturday Night Live mastermind Lorne Michaels. To say that The KITH was anything like SNL would have been a mistake however. Rather they were far more closely related to the work of Monty Python, taking the then-modern day Canada of the 80s and 90s and injecting it with a healthy dose of absurdity, and artfully combining relatable crass humor with high-concept ideas. Unlike Python however, whose greatest material centered around poking fun at the stuffy old remains of the British Empire, The Kids In The Hall were far more universal, riffing on yuppie business culture, angsty teens and everything in between. Not only that, but a lot of the appeal of The Kids In The Hall, at least in my opinion was The Kids themselves. Not only did they exude this combination of youth, wit and intellectualism (the alt-rock to The Young Ones’ punk, you might say), every member of the cast had several characters that they would continuously return to, like Scott Thompson’s Buddy Cole character or the secretaries, as well as frequent appearances on the show as themselves. It’s hard not to know the men of Monty Python, sure, but the focus of the FLying Circus is entirely on the atmosphere and the sketchcraft, not on the performers. When you watched Kids In The Hall on the other hand, you had a very clear idea of who Dave Foley was, what he was like as a person, what his characters tended to be like, and so on, along with the rest of the cast. You can’t help but become attached, I guess.

     Like Monty Python, The Kids In the Hall eventually graduated from television to film with Brain Candy, directed by Kelly Makin, who directed several episodes of the show as well as the shows Flashpoint and Queer as Folk. Kevin Mcdonald stars as Chris Cooper (and only one other role, in contrast to the rest of the fellows), a chemist working for a major pharmaceutical company who has developed a drug that chemically fixates a person’s mind on their happiest memory. With the antidote for depression in their hands Chris’ superiors are eager to push it out to the masses and the depressed masses are eager for a cure to their ills, as Chris gets swept away in the wave of success. Of course it’s hard to tell what a pill like Gleemonex could do to our society in the moment, the changes it would have on human nature, especially if it were, say, rushed out the door without being completely tested. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how things play out. I’m guessing comedically.

     Coming a year after the series had ended, Brain Candy collects some of The Kids’ favorite subjects into one convenient package. Corporations, rebellious youths, suburbia, gay culture, and a whole bunch of guys dressing up like ladies. Aside from a bit of colorful language and some ass shots, better special effects, and a kickass soundtrack, this is exactly what you got from the TV series stretched out to 140 minutes. Which is just about enough for me, considering I’m a huge fan of the show and these guys in general, and to see them together in something (relatively) new is a treat.

     Ironically, the largest criticism I have about Brain Candy is that The Kids In The Hall don’t go far enough. To return the Monty Python comparison, Monty Python’s Flying Circus was a fantastic series, but when Monty Python made the transition to film they didn’t stick to familiar territory (aside from that first one I guess). They explored! Transforming the Arthurian legend into a utter farce, Retelling the life and crucifixion of Christ with a guy who’s not Christ (complete with space battles), a musical comedy about EXISTENCE ITSELF, Monty Python took advantage of the medium of film few other comedians have, and it was a complete success on all fronts. What The Kids In The Hall have here is familiar, good for the fans who just want to see one last rodeo, but what I loved about the show is seeing how bizarre they’d go and confidence with which they did it. Brain Candy sees them playing it a bit too safe, a bit too close to the vest for the guys who devoted several sketches to Dave Foley pretending he had really heavy feet, and ultimately you’re left thinking to yourself ‘was that it?’. Also the lack of appearances from those iconic characters I mentioned before, while understandable from a narrative perspective, is still disappointing. If you’re going to go in new directions then go, if you’re going to play it safe then play, but don’t tease us with a few faces and then just leave us hanging. I didn’t even really like The Chicken Lady man, but I’ll take what I can get.

     If you didn’t like The Kids In The Hall when they were on TV, then Brain Candy isn’t likely to change your mind. If however you’ve never seen the show before, this might actually be a good way to test the waters. Gives you a taste of their style of comedy, their range of characters, with enough time to decide whether to make the commitment. Opinions of current fans will, as has been shown, vary. And if you’re asking yourself why this movie is on a Halloween list, try looking under the bed tonight. You just might find a Canadian staring back at you.

Doctor Who (1996), directed by Geoffrey Sax

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "Doctorin' the Tardis", by The KLF

     Considering that Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction series in television history (starting with “An Unearthly Child” way back in 1963) and has since then spawned enough spin-offs, comics, hit singles, video games, books and films to become a full fledged multi-media franchise, you’d think that would entitle it to some sort of time-based pun for the opening line of this article. Perhaps even an intentionally bad pun, so I can pretend to be awkward and we can all revel in mocking a currently unpopular form of humor. Well I’m sorry to say that we won’t be traveling down that particular path of cliches in this particular article, mostly because I couldn’t think of a pun at the time. Rather we will be revisiting my particular path of cliches, which involves a little opening bit tangentially related to the film, perhaps dipping into some autobiographical territory, before summarizing the film and failing at cogent analysis. Much like sex with the spouse that you’ve long since lost all affection towards, it’s ultimately unfulfilling but consistent.

     I first became aware of Doctor Who after watching the Ninth era episode “The Unquiet Dead” on the Syfy Channel (the channel which hates science fiction so much it calls itself Syfy), but it wasn’t until the Tenth era with David Tennant taking over the role as the Doctor that I started watching the show in earnest and truly became a fan of the character. Once Tennant gave way to Matt Smith (who gave way to Peter Capaldi) and the Stephen Moffat reign began in full however I lost interest, choosing instead to move the large backlog of episodes prior to the modern series. At least in those olden-times episodes I could forgive the ridiculous things that occurred as it being a product of its time, shoestring budgets and all. Even at it’s most campy the old Who never insulted my intelligence the way the way it does in the modern series, which repeatedly attempts to be grandiose and compelling and manages to fail on most of those occasions. In my opinion of course, since I haven’t bothered watching any of Capaldi’s episodes after the first and so have no idea as to the quality of the most recent Doctor Who series. I did hear they made the Master a woman though, and a ‘I’m crazy so I must be kooky’ one at that, which might’ve been interesting if it also didn’t seem on the surface like a poor attempt at shifting the status quo. The series already has a female villain, the Rani, that they could have brought back and built up instead, thereby leaving the Master open for another potential story arc, but instead they decide to genderswap an existing male character and call it progress. Of course it doesn’t really matter if it’s done well, but considering Moffat is the type of artist who sculpts with a jackhammer rather than a chisel, I have my doubts that he could ever write a female character that didn’t lose to a puddle in terms of depth, even if said female character used to have a penis (and was also a cat person).

     But I digress.

     If we want to to get technical, and I know you nerds love technology, Doctor Who has had three films in its 51 year history. The first two, Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks -- Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (1966), are adaptations of two stories from the original William Hartnell series of Who (The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth respectively) and featured Peter Cushing as an absent-minded human scientist named Doctor Who battling the xenocidal alien squids across time and space. While Cushing would have made for an excellent Doctor, the two 60’s films are their own property and hold no connection to the canon and continuity of the television show. The third film however, a made-for-TV movie simply titled Doctor Who, does in fact fit within the canon of the show. According to wikipedia, it was originally intended to serve as the pilot to an American Doctor Who series and was actually co-produced by Universal Studios, 20th Century Fox and the Fox TV channel, although no such series was ever made. It was also the only appearance of Paul McGann as the 8th iteration of the Doctor until recently, although he is consistently featured in the Doctor Who audio dramas by Big Finish. We may get into the Cushing Who films at some point in the future, but this time we’ll be checking to see if Who ‘96 is up to snuff. Does it serve as a worthy addition to the franchise, or did Geoffrey Sax take a demon dump in the T.A.R.D.I.S.? Only time will tell.

     About 7 years after the conclusion of the show’s ‘Classic’ run, Doctor Who begins with a voiceover by Paul McGann, the 8th Doctor, telling us the backstory to this particular adventure. Some time after the events of “Survival”, the last episode of the Classic series, the Doctor (in his 7th incarnation, played by Sylvester McCoy) transports the Master (the Doctor’s archenemy as well as a fellow Time Lord) to Skaro (the original home of the Daleks) to stand trial for his numerous and horrible crimes. The verdict is death, and since the Master had already exhausted the 13 regenerations afforded him by vague unexplained rules, he gets liquidated with seemingly no issue. The Doctor, in accordance with the decision of the council of Skaro is then tasked with transporting the Master’s remains to the planet Gallifrey, homeworld of the Time Lords, presumably so the rest of the species can piss on his grave. This, as McGann explains, turns out to be a bad idea. #Spoilers

     Sure enough, during the trip to Gallifrey, the Master (who is now a puddle of bad CGI goo, like an off brand T-1000) escapes from his hi-tech urn and sabotages the T.A.R.D.I.S., forcing the Doctor to make an emergency landing in San Francisco circa 1999, on the eve of the Willenium. The Doctor steps out of the T.A.R.D.I.S. and is promptly shot by Chinese thugs in pursuit of thief Chang Lee (who ends up being a somewhat important character but never a likable one), while the Master sets off to enact whatever evil plan he’s come up with this time around. Thanks to the barest minimal efforts of Chang Lee, the Doctor is taken to the hospital, where he comes under the care of Dr. Grace Holloway (Daphne Ashbrook), who is called away from the opera and her apparently pissy boyfriend to attend to him. Despite her great surgical skill (which is told to us but never actually shown) and the pleas of the weakened alien, Dr. Holloway doesn’t take into account the Doctor’s two hearts (Time Lord physiology) and promptly fucks up the surgery. The Doctor, shining beacon of hope to a million worlds across the universe throughout all of time, dies on the operating table, with nary a friend to remember his life or his grand achievements.

     Or so it would have been if the Doctor was some sort of pansy-ass human, as he eventually transforms from his old, mostly dead Sylvester McCoy body into the suave, debonair form of Paul McGann. The Master, in a similar-but-not-quite fashion, becomes a bad CGI goo snake and possesses the body of an EMT by the name of Bruce (Eric Roberts), thereby granting him new life of a sort. This feeble human body is not enough for The Master though: he wants the Doctor’s life, or his future lives to be specific, and if that means opening the magical plot device known as The Eye of Harmony (conveniently located within the T.A.R.D.I.S.) and destroying the Universe as we know it, so be it. It’s up to the new Doctor, along with Grace Holloway, to find the MacGuffin (in this case some sort of microchip in an atomic clock) so that they can fix the T.A.R.D.I.S., close The Eye of Harmony and stop the Master once and for all. A walk in the park for the guy who saves the Earth every week.

     Now I’ve watched a decent amount of movies in my day, and from the movies I choose to write about you folks know I have a certain fondness for movies of an underground, cult, and low-budget nature, because I’m of the mind that a good movie is good regardless of the money thrown at it. So I hope my meaning comes through when I say that Doctor Who looks and feels cheap. The production values of today might be spoiling me as to what to expect from television, but I think that even if I were watching this back in the day I would have found it chintzy as well. The bad CGI snake has already been mentioned, and could probably be forgiven considering the state of computer graphics at the time, but the special effects in general barely seem like an upgrade from the original series, despite coming a decade and with a presumably larger budget than the show ended up with at that time as well. Combined with the cheezy flirtations with melodrama, the grossly out-of-place cartoonish sound effects placed during attempts at ‘comedy’, plus the issues with plot (nothing too outlandish for Doctor Who, but the surrounding elements are pretty bad) and characterization, it’s all mixes together to make a shit stew. It’s a made-for-TV movie that no one could mistake for anything other than a made-for-TV movie, and that’s not a compliment. When you’re dipping into Hallmark Channel territory, you’ve lost all hope.

     One of the main parts of the Doctor Who formula is the addition of a companion who travels with the Doctor and acts as the audience surrogate/damsel in distress, usually a white female in her early 20s (#diversity). Occasionally these usually female companions work well opposite the Doctor and become interesting characters in their own right, like Sarah Jane Smith (who was popular enough to get a spin-off show, The Sarah Jane Adventures) or the Time Lady Romana, and sometimes they’re just a character for the Doctor to bounce dialog off of. Grace Holloway is of the latter, a character that isn’t absolutely horrible but sort of builds up enough bad karma to become unlikable. I’ll give Daphne Ashbrook the benefit of the doubt and say that it was the director and the script that allowed Grace Holloway to come of as such a vapid, wooden character that seemingly exists for the Doctor to get his proto-50 Shades freak on with. Grace Holloway is a character that has no problem making out with a guy that accosted her in a parking lot, a she repeatedly states is mentally ill mind you, less than 24 hours (hell, less than 5 hours) after breaking up with her boyfriend, whom she is never shown to have any feelings for whatsoever. Is this supposed to be a character the audience is supposed to identify with? Is it supposed to be one that we like, that we’re supposed to like interacting with the Doctor? Because she fulfills none of those criteria. In fact, for a franchise that’s lasted long enough to see the bad balance evenly with the good, I’m failing to recall a single secondary character in this film that I actually liked or cared about one way or another. Just morons and chucklefucks the whole way down.

     Then, of course, there are the issues affecting Who canon itself. Making the Master into a bad CGI goo snake is pretty bad, and claiming that the Doctor is half-human seems like a pointless addition for the purposes of plot, but my personal biggest grievance with Doctor Who is the reason they give for the transition from the 7th and 8th Doctors. While I like every incarnation of the Doctor’s character in one way or another, I’ve always had a fondness for Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor, and the fact that his whole death scene is “walk out of T.A.R.D.I.S., get shot by thugs which only appear in that one scene’ is both stupid and unfortunate at the same time. Not that all the Doctors have had grand exits (Sixth Doctor Colin Baker got it even worse) but both Colin and McCoy came in at a time when everything was against them in regards to production, bad administrators, budgetary issues, all in a period where the BBC was trying to phase out the show altogether. Despite all the crap they had to deal with, there are still moments in their respective series when the brilliance that makes Doctor Who great could shine through. They needed some way to get McCoy out and McGann in obviously, but he didn’t get to save the Earth one last time, or stop the Daleks/Cybermen/Zygons/whoever from committing evil space crimes on some innocent planet, he was shot by some extras and died a victim of malpractice. What a goddamn waste.

     As for what I actually liked about the movie...there’s not much, to be honest. As I said before, I like every incarnation of the Doctor in some way, and when McGann isn’t bogged down by the movie’s shit he’s the quirky and enigmatic Time Lord that we’ve come to know and love. Eric Roberts as the Master isn’t all that bad either, even though he dresses like the Terminator and has stupid green eyes, he’s as ridiculously sinister as ever. I think I might prefer the T.A.R.D.I.S., which has gone from the white circled walls of yesteryear into a full-on Victorian mansion motif, complete with stained glass windows and wood-and-stone foundation. It’s a bit excessive but I’m a sucker for late 19th century decor, and it gives a far larger sense of space than the singular room shown in the classic and modern runs of Doctor Who. It makes the T.A.R.D.I.S. feel like the Doctor’s home, rather than just the vehicle he travels in, which is often implied to be the case but rarely shown. Dude’s been traveling the Universe for hundreds of years but I think this might be the only time he’s shown to have actual furniture.

     Doctor Who is not for everyone, but 1996’s Doctor Who is not for anyone. I suppose I might recommend it to DW fans interested in seeing the first and only appearance of the 8th Doctor, but from what I’ve heard the audio dramas from Big Finish do a much better job of fleshing out McGann’s character and adventures, so honestly I’d say go with those instead. To everyone else I’d say that if you’re actually interested in getting into DW, this road leads to nothing but hate and confusion. You’re better off just trying out the modern series, or maybe a Tom Baker serial and seeing how you feel about it then, put this shit off until the last minute. Don’t worry, when it comes to Doctor Who, you’ll always have time to spare.

     Always leave them wishing you had left sooner.

RESULT: NOT RECOMMENDED

Fargo, (1996), directed by Joel & Ethan Coen

     A flash of creativity inspired this new little post. I can't say that this is the start of a whole new era of film blogging, but at least it exists.

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "The Happiest Girl In The Whole U.S.A.", by Donna Fargo

     I believe I mentioned the subject of ‘favorite directors’ once before in this oft-neglected, oft-ignored series of poorly written film reviews. It was in the write-up for Jabberwocky if memory serves, directed by former Pythonite Terry Gilliam, the man behind several Thunderbird-approved films: The Orwellian black comedy known as Brazil, the insane adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, and time-traveling action flick 12 Monkeys (the first Bruce Willis time-travel action flick, by the way, back in the day when you had Die Hard and Pulp Fiction to counteract the Hudson Hawk and Bruno). On the whole yeah, I’d say that Gilliam is one of my favorite directors. I haven’t seen his entire filmography (blame laziness or depression or whatever), but everything I have seen of his so far I have enjoyed, and I’m optimistic about his as-of-yet unreleased Zero Theorem, if only for the spin on science-fiction that no one else is tackling in Hollywood.

     The same can be said for the folks behind this particular entry, Joel and Ethan Coen, sibling writers/directors/producers extraordinaire. Once again, while I haven’t seen all of the films that the Coens have been involved with, I can’t say I’ve seen one yet that I’ve haven’t loved. In fact, 1998’s The Big Lebowski has occupied a spot on my Top 10 Movies list for years, ever since watching the horribly butchered version on Comedy Central (this is also where I saw Ghostbusters 2 before Ghostbusters, because somebody doesn’t know how to run a TV station). While Gilliam might be considered a cult or a niche director, as far as millionare filmmakers go, the Coen Bros. have too many awards and accolades to be anything other than Hollywood mainstays at this point. The Ladykillers might be their only recent fumble that I can think of, and even that was 7 years ago. Other than that though, it’s a track record not many in their generation can compete with. So instead of making an effort to be topical by checking out the currently recent Inside Llewellyn Davis, I’ve decided to go back and look at a film oft-regarded as one of their best. We’re heading to the frozen North ladies and gents, to a little town named Fargo.

     Supposedly based on real life events, the story of Fargo is a typical Coen Bros. plot. Things start off simply enough, then quickly snowball into mystery, intrigue and deception. It all begins with Jerry Lundegard (William H. Macy) walking into a Minnesota bar in the winter of 1987 (or maybe it was summer, you never can tell with those states). Jerry, by all appearances a nice guy, is there to meet with two rather seedy looking gentlemen, venomous shit-talker Carl (Steve Buscemi at his most weasley) and the silent Scandinavian Gaere (Peter Stormare) for a clandestine meeting. Mr. Lundegard is a man looking for wealth and respect you see, chiefly that of his wealthy father-in-law Wade, who is not that impressed by Jerry’s fatherly lifestyle and car salesman career. Eager to grab a piece of the money pie for himself and stick it to Big Poppa, Jerry has hatched upon a plan to hire Carl & Gaere to kidnap his own wife and hold her for ransom, with the intention of splitting the hefty ransom between the three of them and impress Wade with his Colt 45 handling of the whole situation. It’d be a fool proof plan, if only everyone involved weren’t vain, greedy and ultimately doomed by their own ineptitude.

     Lo and behold, the plan goes spectacularly awry. The wife is kidnapped, but the problems that occur in the process push Carl to demand the entire ransom for him and Gaere. Wade, completely uninterested in having Jerry handling his money and daughter, decides to take matters into his own hands and totally fucks up that formerly foolproof plan. As everything starts to unravel, it’s actually Margie (Francis McDormand), the homespun, very pregnant police officer that starts to piece everything together that threatens to destroy Jerry’s scheme once and for all. And so on as movies are wont to do.

     The Coens are undoubtedly fantastic characterization, it just might be their strongest points as filmmakers, and Fargo is no exception. Every character feels unique, the world they inhabit feels vibrant and alive, yet they are also very real if that makes sense. Of course I’ve never been to that part of the country, and the ‘folky Midwesterner’ stereotype might not be all that appreciated over there, but it’s an easy way to give the setting a familiar-but-alien flavour. The endlessly flat snow white plains might also have something to do with it.

     Whether or not Fargo is actually based on true events might be a matter of debate, but the fact that it’s just weird enough to be believable really helps establish the reality of the world. Sure, a car salesman hiring guys to kidnap his wife while a pregnant cop investigates may seem bizarre, but it isn’t any less implausible than whatever happens in Florida on any given week. In fact it may be even more believable than today’s news, which is a horrifying thought.

     Fargo is a great crime thriller in the body of a particularly black comedy. Not an unfamiliar topic for the Coen Bros., but when they do it so well you can’t help but be impressed. If you’re interested at all in their filmography, this is as good a starting point as you’re likely to get. Chalk up another (past) success for Joel & Ethan, and if you’re visiting North Dakota, make sure you’re packing heat. You never know what kinda psychos are out there.

Result: Recommended