Movie Review--Edge of Tomorrow

I suppose it is evolution, but science fiction films have only two ways to go; rehash old plots and premises, or develop new, even more implausible plots.  The Tom Cruise movie Edge of Tomorrow, redubbed Live Die Repeat, has it both ways; it creates an implausible plot that feels oddly familiar.

This is yet another film, following The Last Samurai and Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, where the film makers seem to be saying that it doesn’t matters if every other character in the film dies, as long as Tom Cruise is alive at the end then the film has a happy ending.  How much this can be attributed to the ego of the actor and how much is happy coincidence I do not know.

The film (I am unsure by what name to call it) begins five years after aliens called “mimics” (the name is never explained; they don’t really mimic anything) have landed and basically conquered Europe.  The humans are preparing for an all-out assault because they think they have developed a weapon that can defeat the mimics, a full-body armor suit with built in weaponry.  For reasons that are not adequately explained, the general in charge of the assault decides to take the opportunity to pull a prank on an American captain in the PR department (Cruise) and put him in the front lines, where he is certain to be killed.  To be fair, Cruise plays his character as such a self-centered jerk that it seems plausible that he ticked off a high ranking officer and deserves the prank, although killing someone for being a jerk seems a bit harsh.

Anyway, during the assault, Cruise manages to do something that causes him to die and then wake up the previous morning.  The film then becomes a cross between Groundhog Day and the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan, with Cruise bumbling around the battlefield until he is inevitably killed, restarting the sequence again.  Fortunately for the audience, he eventually finds someone who knows what is happening (Emily Blunt) and she neatly exposits the plot.  The only hope for the human race is if during one of his rebirths Cruise can get to the Head Alien (called Omega) and kill it before he dies and goes back to the equivalent of Go.

The scenes where Cruise wakes up over and over are handled well, although one is reminded of the genius of Groundhog Day where it never felt repetitive.  The constant restarts do begin to drag a bit, although seeing Emily Blunt shoot Tom Cruise in the head over and over and over does have a certain cathartic capacity.  How much you buy into the plot is entirely based on your level of credulity; I found it slightly more implausible than the average Doctor Who plot.

I am loathe to give career advice to Tom Cruise, who has had one of the most storied, long-lasting careers in Hollywood, but Tom, you have to accept that it is 2014.  You are in great shape, but you are also old enough to be Emily Blunt’s father’s older brother and at some point that fact is going to bubble up in the audience’s subconscious.  After a string of hit after hit (despite the occasional Far and Away or Days of Thunder) he has hit a dry patch.  Oblivion failed to reach audiences, and Jack Reacher was a major flop.  Now Edge of Tomorrow performed so poorly in theaters despite a notable supporting cast and A-list writers and a director, it had to be re-named for DVD release.  Tom Cruise needs to look for more age-appropriate material; start playing fathers, scientists, that sort of thing.

I can’t recommend Edge of Tomorrow, or whatever it is called, unless you are one of those science fiction fans with limited discretion.  It isn't nearly as bad as its reputation has become, but it also isn't nearly as good as some of those year-end top ten or twenty lists that include it say it is.  It’s worth watching on DVD; heck the scene of Emily Blunt doing push-ups is worth the DVD rental.

Goodbye Stephen Colbert and Craig Ferguson

I am going to talk about a couple of things I know almost nothing about, but that’s never stopped me before.

This week two shows ended their nearly ten year runs, one garnering more attention than the other.  I didn't watch these shows regularly, but I did watch their finales.  My reaction was maybe I should have watched both of them more.

The more high-profile departure was the ending of the Colbert Report.  It received a lot of attention because a) it is on in prime time; b) it won two Emmys as best variety show and would have won more if its mother ship The Daily Show hadn't (deservedly) won ten in a row; and c) its host is moving over to fill David Letterman’s huge shoes at the CBS’ The Late Show.

The high point of the finale was Colbert bringing back nearly every guest he ever had, including luminaries like Henry Kissenger (I honestly thought he died years ago), George Lucas, Big Bird, Mark Cuban, Willie Nelson, Randy Newman and Keith Olbermann (unfortunately wearing the bubble gum pick sport coat he wore on his show that week).  They all sang “We’ll Meet Again” as the band played on and on and on, repeating the same verse over and over.

The other show that the bell tolled for was Craig Ferguson’s The Late Late Show, and if anything he topped Colbert.  First off, he didn't end his show with a star-studded sing a long, he opened with it.  While not including any former secretary of states (although I’d have to check, they went by pretty fast) it was an impressive array of talent, including a very pregnant Kristen Bell (she looks adorable, then I remember it’s the spawn of Dak Sherpard and I get squicked out), Henry Winkler, Mila Kunis, Samuel L. Jackson, William Shatner, Quentin Tarantino, Jon Hamm, and many more (including Bishop Desmund Tutu).  They sang “Bang Your Drum” by the Scottish band Dead Man Falls, all the while beating on a variety of percussion instruments (including, disturbingly, Bell’s prominent belly).

I have to say the total effect was one of the most joyous moments in television viewing I can remember.  Unlike Colbert’s choice of “We’ll Meet Again,” (which is a song about false optimism that gets mistaken for real optimism just because we won World War II; remember it’s what played over the nuclear devastation at the end of Doctor Strangelove), the song Bang Your Drum played as an anthem for Ferguson, a former punk band drummer, with the repeated riff “Keep Bangin’ On” sounding like a personal motto (“Keep bangin’ on/and your day will come . . . No one lives forever/there’s business here you've got to finish.” 

Also, while the celebrity line up maybe wasn't as impressive as Colbert’s, the fact is that Colbert will be taking over for Letterman and if I were cynical I might suggest a lot of celebrities would want to remain on his good side.  Ferguson, toiling away in the wee hours of the AM, had a fraction of the following of Colbert and has an uncertain future, so I’d like to think that the celebrities that showed up either really liked him, or were obligated by their contract with CBS (although I can’t imagine that CBS can make cast members of The Big Bang Theory do anything they don’t want to do).  The group on the Colbert Report mingled around while singing; everyone on Ferguson’s show looked like they were having a blast.

Ferguson followed with an interesting interview with Jay Leno, who amazingly admitted that he didn't always pay attention to guests that bored him on The Tonight Show, and then concluded with a surreal ending that referred to the famous endings of Newhart, St. Elsewhere and The Sopranos. 

I had watched The Late Late Show only a couple of times, being of an age when I am unlikely to be awake at that hour of the morning.  I did VCR it a few times just because I heard it was odd, and it was.  Ferguson danced to his own drummer, and the producer of the show, David Letterman, let him.  Letterman once was the guy who refused to follow the conventions of late night talk show, until he BECAME the conventions of late night talk shows.  As with anything improvisational the results were hit and miss, but (unlike Jay Leno, apparently) he was always trying to entertain. 

So adios to Stephen Colbert and Craig Ferguson.  We’ll meet again; just keep bangin’ on.

Did they learn nothing from Zoolander?

Did they learn nothing from Zoolander?

The website Five Thirty Eight estimates that Sony stands to lose $100 million from scrapping release of The Interview over terrorist threats (the site also points out that the studio could recoup some of this if they released the film on Video On demand, but Sony said they wouldn't do that either). Of course that’s just money, and doesn't include the prestige Sony would have gotten when The Interview was festooned with dozens of Oscar nomination and Golden Globe award nominations.

Okay, maybe that last part is fantasy, as the closest Seth Rogan will get to an Oscar is when James Franco lets him see his notice that he got an Oscar nomination (I could be wrong; I still have trouble believing Jonah Hill’s obituary will start with, “The two-time Oscar nominee died from . . .”).  But still it is a big hit to a studios bottom line when they finance and promote a film for holiday release and they have to pull the plug at the last minute.

The sad thing is, this all could have been avoided.  In his review of the film Zoolander, Roger Ebert noted he felt some discomfort at the movie’s plot about an assassination attempt on the prime minister of Malaysia over child labor laws. Ebert had a simple solution—it’s a comedy, so make up some funny-sounding country name (something ending in –istan would work now) and run with it.  No one would get upset if you threatened to kill the fictional leader of a fictional country.

Heaven knows there is enough material out there.  Make the fictional leader look like a composite of world dictators; give him Kim Jong-un’s diminutive stature, Saddam Hussein’s mustache, Idi Amin’s girth, and hilarity ensues.  Make a film about North Korea and lose $100 million in profits.

Obviously, the current leader of North Korea lacks his father’s sense of humor.  Kim Jong-il didn't raise any issues with the negative (but still somewhat sympathetic) portrayal of him in Team America: World Police.  There was nary a complaint about the portrayal, or the fact that the Academy snubbed the movie for an Oscar nomination for his character’s song, “I’m Rone-ry.” 

So, memo to Sony executives: in the future, don’t make films about anyone who could be mistaken for a real person.  Ever.  No character in a Judd Apatow film could ever be mistaken for a real person, and his films not only make money, but they aren't threatened by terrorists (unless you count the reviews for Funny People).

I don't understand the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

I don’t understand the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I wanted to do a thorough lambasting of the institution, but frankly I am so flummoxed by the seemingly random approach of who gets in and who doesn't that I can’t form a cogent argument.  Surprisingly, research on the Internet brought me no clarity.

Where to begin?  Let’s start with the idea that, to some extent, there seems to be a bias against commercial success.  It’s like if you actually made decent money as a musician, you sold out and aren’t “cool” enough to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Of course acts in the Hall like Bruce Springsteen and James Brown sold a lot of records; presumably if you never got a recording contract you won’t be getting a call from the Hall.

But commercially successful rock acts like The Doobie Brothers and Chicago have never even been nominated, despite being eligible for decades. The Doobies aren't in the Rock Hall of Fame?  With that name?  Long Train Runnin’?  China Grove?  Black Water?  Not even a nomination?

I had to laugh at one list of Hall snubs I came across that discussed the injustice of a certain singer not being in, despite the fact that he had released three albums that had been met with low sales upon release. Wow, three whole albums!  That is a lifetime production worthy of enshrinement, especially since no one heard the albums when they were released.  And no one bought them! What better evidence could you have that he was an artist before his time?

Then there is the genre issue.  I know you can’t define “rock and roll” with any precision, and people will disagree on whether ABBA can be classified as a rock band.  But I think I can safely say that I own every rock and roll album produced by Run DMC, which is zero.  In checking several lists of snubbed non-entrants, I find an odd assortment of country artists (Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton), disco artists (Chic, nominated and rebuffed 9 times) and rap artists (LL Cool J).  While I acknowledge that a handful of artists deserve enshrinement in multiple Halls (Johnny Cash definitely belongs in both the Rock and the Country Halls of Fame) why don’t they focus on getting all the deserving rock acts in and then look around for artists from other genres?

Then there is the “Really?  Him? Or Her?” argument.  For example, Cat Stevens was inducted in 2014.  I've got nothing against Cat Stevens, I like his work, but seriously is he really Hall of Fame material?  He’s the musical equivalent of a middle infielder who hit .270 lifetime going to Cooperstown.  I love, love, love Randy Newman (his Faust concept album is amazing), but he had a couple of minor pop hits in the 80’s and wrote a few hits for others, most notably Mama Told Me Not to Come.  He should be in the songwriter’s Hall of Fame, but he’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a performer, not a songwriter.

I want to complain about Green Day going in, but that’s just me feeling old.

Unlike the Baseball Hall of Fame, I have no idea what the standards are for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  You have to be popular, but not too popular.  It helps to be a rock act, but that’s not a deal breaker (James Taylor isn't exactly in the same rock and roll league as Little Richard).  Some well-known rock acts get right in, others aren't nominated after decades.

I guess rock and roll immortality is like pornography; you know it when you see it.  Except I don’t.

Mad Men has only itself to blame for Golden Globe shut out

We all think we’re so clever.  Especially if you are a successful television executive who has developed a hit show that “breaks the rules,” you think you are going to think outside the box and pull something over everyone else.  But the inevitable fallout often is that you will only be fooling yourself.

The creators and producers of Mad Men had a great idea; instead of producing a final 13 episode season, they’d copy Breaking Bad and split the final season into two 7 episode arcs.  This would mean that instead of racking up awards for one year, they’d win twice as many awards over two years!  Brilliant!

Except the Golden Globe nominations were announced and Mad Men got zippo.  None.  Nada. Zamboni.

Breaking Mad Men into two 7-episode “seasons” diluted the brand to the point where nothing stood out when nomination time rolled around.  Mad Men’s seasons have tended to be erratic, but built to a strong conclusion. Featuring only seven episodes for nomination purposes meant that the performances couldn't be judged in the context of the full season.  Don Draper may do something inexplicable in episode 5 that pays off in episode 12, but if episode 12 is broadcast in 13 months, it remains inexplicable.

And when it comes to television awards, momentum is everything.  It’s almost as if shows earn “slots” in certain categories, and the default is the show will get a nomination in that slot unless something changes.  The West Wing went from great to mediocre when Aaron Sorkin was pushed out as showrunner, but it kept getting Best Drama Emmy nominations because it owned a slot.  And of course Golden Globe slots translate to Emmy slots many months later.

Mad Men had a best drama slot, a best actor slot for Jon Hamm, a best actress slot for Elizabeth Moss, a best supporting actor slot for John Slattery, and (for Emmys) slots for direction and writing.  Now when its final “season” rolls around next year, nothing is certain.  In the vast, ever-expanding television landscape, it is easy to discard an old reliable if something newer and shinier comes around. 

The most criminal Emmy snub of all time was Hugh Laurie never winning Best Actor for House, but the fact is he wasn't even nominated for House’s last season. The same fate might befall Jon Hamm, who was a sensation when Mad Men first debuted (and won a Golden Globe in 2008) but who gets little press these days (and his film career hasn’t exactly taken off).  I've never been sold on Hamm as a great actor; I've often thought he was a minimalist actor that allowed people to project what they felt about Don Draper onto him.  But anyone who could nail the final monologue in The Wheel has to have some acting chops.

The bottom line is Mad Men got greedy.  They thought they could get two bites at the award apple by stretching their “final season” over two seasons.  And now they've been shut out at the Golden Globes. Time will tell if this has any repercussions on the Emmy nominations when they come out in several months.

What do you get for $12 million a year?

Phil Jackson, the Zen Master, the most successful coach in NBA history, accepted a job last spring with the New York Knicks as General Manager.  The price tag was $12 million for five years, or $60 million.  $60 million isn’t Kobe Bryant money, but you could pick up a couple of good power forwards and a point guard for that kind of cash.

The good news for the Knicks is that their investment is already paying dividends.  Under Jackson’s leadership, his hand-picked coach, and the vaunted “triangle offense” the Knicks are well on their way to having a good shot at the number one draft pick next year in the 2016 draft.

At 5 wins and 21 losses, the Knicks are one of two NBA teams with a sub-.200 record (the other is the hapless Sixers, who at least have the excuse of trying to stink).  On a pace to win 16 games, 8 less than last year, the Phil Jackson magic has yet to take hold in the Big Apple.

Of course the whole thing was doomed from the beginning.  There are a lot of things team owner James Dolan could have done to improve the team, but bringing in a designated guru wasn't one of them.  The question is how soon will he realize that and stop the bleeding by firing Jackson.

Phil Jackson has always been the most overrated coach in basketball history.  He won six rings in Chicago, not because of his “triangle offense” but because he told everyone, “Okay guys, get the ball to Michael.”  He won three rings in Los Angeles with two Hall of Famers, Shaq and Kobe, in his starting line-up. He picked up two more rings with the Lakers, but he never won a title without having the most talent on the floor (Pat Riley coached the Heat to a championship with Dwayne Wade and a bunch of guys named Fred).

The Knicks have been playing with the “triangle offense” this season, and it obviously isn't the magic formula it has been purported to be.  Jackson and his acolytes have always made the “triangle offense” out to be something only Stephen Hawking could understand, so Jackson had to hire a head coach with no coaching resume but who had played in that system.  Fine, except that apparently Carmelo Anthony is having trouble learning the finer points of the triangle.

Phil Jackson has always risen and fallen with the quality of his team.  When his team consisted of Jordan and Pippen, or Shaq and Kobe, he won.  We his top two players were Kobe and Lamar Odom, or Kobe and Smush Parker, not so much.  That’s the way it is with all coaches or managers; few rarely make THAT much of a difference. Maybe Joe Torre managing all those ego deserves some credit; coach K keeping Duke a perennial powerhouse as well.

But James Dolan thinking that paying Phil Jackson $60 million would turn the Knicks into title contenders was just another sign of how dysfunctional that organization is.  My only question is, how can I persuade Dolan to give me some of that money?

Sleepy Hollow's Sophomore Slump

The biggest breakout hit television show of 2013 was probably Sleepy Hollow. The show, which combined US Revolutionary War history, New England folklore and the Book of Revelations, was innovative, chaotic, and deftly combined humor and horror.  Then Fox broke the news that it was going to be renewed, but they weren’t picking up the back nine episodes leaving viewers with a first season of only thirteen episodes.

There was some speculation at the time that Fox had decided to utilize an “HBO” strategy of only doing thirteen episodes per season, which improves the quality by reducing the quantity of episodes produced.  How can network dramas compete with cable dramas when the latter spreads its creative juices over 13 shows per year while the former have to spread themselves thinner over 22 episodes?

It now appears that Fox’s decision was well considered.  A show as crazy, insane, and delirious as Sleepy Hollow needs lots of time to develop its story lines.  One can argue that some of Lost’s course corrections in seasons four and five might have been avoided if they had only had to produce 13 episodes per season, even as fans were clamoring for more than 22.

Sleepy Hollow has suffered from a major sophomore clump.  The show still has the chemistry between stars Tom Mison (as Ichabod Crane) and Nicole Beharie (as “Leftenant” Abbie Mills), which is almost enough.  But almost everything else that made the show special has evaporated away.

One thing the show did was build an impressive ensemble, supplementing Mison and Beharie with Orlando Jones, an excellent comedic actor (who rose to prominence as the spokesman for 7-Up who coined the phrase “Make 7 Up Yours!”) who did good work in the somber role of Beharie’s boss.  They also added Lyndie Greenwood as Beharie’s sister Jennie, a bad ass ex-mental patient who was as comfortable operating outside the law as Beharie’s Lieutenant Mills was operating within it. And then there was the best addition to the cast, Fringe’s John Noble as Henry Parrish, a “sin eater” who turned out to have sinister motives.

In their second season they've unwoven the fabric they stitched together last season.  Jones’ Frank Irving has been confined to a psychiatric institution for most of the season, rendering him mostly harmless (except for implausibly losing his soul because he signed a contract with a pen that cut his finger). Jennie has mostly gone on errands.  Parrish took a central role in the second season’s plot, but he’s mostly been relegated to hatching far-fetched plans that fail, leaving him taunting the main duo over nothing.

And then there is Hawley.  Hawley is Sleepy Hollow’s Nikki and Paolo.  For those of you unfamiliar with Lost, that show attempted to expand the cast by integrating two previously unseen characters named Nikki and Paolo into the Island population.  Fans hated them as superfluous and they were ultimately killed off.  Hawley was added to Sleepy Hollow to . . . I’m not sure, provide sexual tension for Abbie and Jennie (because Ichabod, a married man, would never consider anything improper)?  Anyway, he’s come across as some hipster doofus who is merely a convenience when the heroes need some mystical weapon.

And then there is Katrina (played by Katia Winter), Crane’s wife.  The show did her no favors in season 1, trapping her in purgatory where her interactions with the other characters were extremely limited.  In season two she’s escaped purgatory but is still useless, volunteering to be held hostage by the Headless Horseman so she might learn of his plans; except that he doesn't have any plans, and if she ever did learn anything she’d probably do more harm than good communicating them to Crane and Mills. Her ever-lasting love with Ichabod was supposed to be one of the bedrocks of the story, but now they've agreed that if they stop the Apocalypse they should go on a break (which may give Ichabod and Abbie a window of opportunity, although one would hope Ichabod could avoid Ross Geller's perpetual "We were on a break!" whining).

The show has had to go further and further afield to maintain the crazy plot lines that made season one such fun.  In one episode, Ichabod and Abbie search for the Biblical Sword of Methuselah, which is not only hidden in upstate New York but is guarded by a Gorgon.  You know you are stretching when you combine Biblical prophecy, Masonic mythology, and Greek legends.  So much of the plot seems contrived and made up as they went along that it is hard to take the show seriously, which is a necessary element of a horror show.

There is still much to recommend Sleepy Hollow.  Unlike most network TV shows, it is trying to be imaginative and unpredictable.  Crane’s “fish out of water” situation is still mined for humor (after riding a motorcycle for the first time Crane dismounts and declares, “I . . . WANT one of those!”). And the acting is first rate when the actors are given something to do.  But for how long can two people defeat the forces of Evil until Evil starts to look sort of incompetent?   It’s like Buffy the Vampire’s Season Seven, when Buffy fought the First Evil and First Evil just kept swinging and missing.

Maybe with shows like Sleepy Hollow, networks should consider shorter runs.  The pressure to keep a standard procedural or rom-com is hard enough, but a show known for crazy plots and unexpected developments?  The creators may need more time to work out the details.  Or maybe the answer was discovered by the creator of Fargo, who did one crazy season and will re-tool next year.

Maybe shows should try to live forever.  Twinkies have a long shelf life, but that doesn't make them good.