Ask JKM a Question #30: Screening and Writing Rituals?

A reader and aspiring movie journalist named Chris asks me if I have a “movie watching ritual” or “writing ritual” and if so, what those rituals entail.

Thanks for asking the question, Chris. 

I understand that ritual can be an important part of the creative and writing process because it’s like priming the pump, or stretching a muscle.  In other words, you undergo a series of familiar actions as you ready yourself to begin writing.  Ritual is, essentially, exercise, or the preparation to exercise.

In terms of movie watching, my only ritual is that that every time I screen a film I have a college-lined notebook and pen with me for extensive note-taking.  I generally write two-to-three pages of notes per movie I watch, and often write the time stamp of memorable or important images.  If I’m screening the film at home, I make certain I have at least one light on in the room, so I can see what I’m writing.  I prefer watching movies at home, because in movie theaters, writing notes is much more difficult.  On the left side of my note pages, I write comments on the plot line.  On the right side, I write impressions, make connections, and pose questions (to answer as I compose my review.)

In terms of how I gear up to start writing, I begin every day by blogging, and save my book-writing for the afternoon.

I do this because I find that the blogging experience gets my creative juices flowing, and gets my mind working at a faster and more efficient pace.  Some days, I’ve learned, I just don’t feel like working on a specific book assignment right off the bat, and if I start out forcing myself to work on a project I don’t feel ready to write for, the day generally goes…badly. 

Writers are not machines, and in my case, the more I force myself to do “one thing” at the outset of the day, the less likely I am to actually get that thing accomplished.   Instead, I just kind of idle for a few hours, wallow in self-loathing, and admit to my wife that I have to work for a few hours at night to catch-up for a wasted day.      

If, however, I start out blogging -- and the blog offers me so many possibilities, from horror to toys, to sci-fi TV to movies, to creating galleries -- then I can invariably figure out a way to get started and “activate” my writing muscles in time for a productive afternoon. 

Effective time management is a critical aspect of the writing life, and so I generally have enough time built-in to my schedule to blog in the morning and devote afternoon to paying assignments.  Also, I try to be ahead on my blog by about a dozen or more posts, with some gaps, obviously, so I can leap off blogging and go to work on something else if I should fall behind.

I should hasten to add, you have to do what works best for you.  If I’m not writing and writing steady by 9:00 am, for instance, it becomes harder and harder for me to “get into” writing.  I know that other writers prefer working at night.  I’m most productive if I start writing early…and don’t stop until late afternoon.

If in terms of rituals you’re thinking about something like Misery (1990), wherein the author Paul Sheldon always has a chilled bottle of champagne handy when he completes a deadline and finishes a manuscript, I think that’s mostly bullshit, or the kind of things that only very, very wealthy authors can afford to do, especially in this day and age.  I’m generally suspicious of writers who feel the need to reward themselves or pat themselves on the back after finishing each and every task. 

Besides, the one time I did do something like that -- drinking a glass of white wine after I met a book deadline in 2006 -- I spilled the drink on my laptop and destroyed it.

Don’t forget, ask me your questions at Muirbusiness@yahoo.com

Cult Movie Review: The Hunger Games (2012)

I’m a long-time admirer of Dystopian Cinema -- movies about morally, culturally, and economically bankrupt “future worlds” -- and thus I was very much looking forward to The Hunger Games.  

Directed by Gary Ross from Suzanne Collin’s best-selling novel of the same name, the epic film involves a teenage girl who becomes a contestant in a life-or-death (televised) spectacle in a decadent future society

That brief description conjures memories of many other dystopian films. There’s a strong under-current in the genre involving blood-sports as “bread and circuses” attractions for beleaguered, oppressed citizens of “future states.”  

We saw similar gladiatorial games in Death Race 2000 (1975), Rollerball (1975), and The Running Man (1987) to name only a few. 

Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and The Blood of Heroes (1989) also feature material of a similar nature, showcasing worlds where life-and-death “games” are the law, and, not coincidentally, the only avenue by which to achieve independence from the corrupt state.

The Hunger Games develops its tale of the futuristic blood sport by comparing the games not to the world of professional TV sports (like Rollerball) or TV game shows (like The Running Man), but to a more timely topic: reality television show competitions. 

Not unlike American Idol (2001 - ) or Dancing with the Stars (2005 - ), the story’s  violent annual “Hunger Games” make a celebrity of a resourceful  contestant, while other, perhaps-equally resourceful youngsters also vie for the crown and fleeting fame.  And not unlike Survivor (2000 - ) alliances are forged during game play, presumably to be broken as contestant attrition sets in.   Meanwhile, producers and other behind-the-scenes players keep changing the rules to make the show a bigger “hit,” and one more appealing to the audience at home.

The Hunger Games combines its apropos commentary on reality TV contests with some very vague political commentary.  I’ve seen the film described in print as a both a metaphor for the Occupy Wall Street Movement, and as a right-wing anti-government screed. 

The phrase I just used -- “very vague” -- in fact, captures much of what’s amiss with The Hunger Games.  Although the film is undeniably buttressed by a forceful lead performance from Jennifer Lawrence and a welcome lack, overall, of sensationalism, the film’s future world never quite seems believable or genuine.  Instead, it comes off as half-baked.

Too many factors here -- too many ideas – are left purposefully vague, and therefore the film is neither the searing satire of our modern culture that it could be, nor the heroic poem that some critics view it as.  

In other words, the filmmakers often back away from the "core" of the material, and don't play it for all it is worth.  This movie should be about America in 2012, about the qualities we ask of our our "stars," and the ways we broach fame.  Instead, The Hunger Games is about none of those things, at least not in a fashion that is cerebral or intriguing.

“This is the time to show them everything.”

In the oppressive future state of Panem, the insurrectionists living in twelve poverty-stricken districts are required every year to give up two “tributes” -- a male and female each between the ages of twelve and eighteen -- to participate in a life or death contest called The Hunger Games.

In District 12, resourceful Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) volunteers to be a tribute for the 74^th Annual Games after her innocent young sister, Primrose (Willow Shields) is selected on the day of the Reaping.  She takes her sister’s place, and steels herself for battle.

Katniss joins Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), a boy in District 12 who harbors a crush on her, for the journey to the Capitol City.  Soon they meet their mentor for the games, one-time winner Hayitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson), as well as image advisors Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) and Cinna (Lenny Kravitz).

Before the games commence, Katniss and Peeta train with their fellow contestants, learning their strengths and weaknesses in the process.  They are also introduced on TV by the Hunger Games host Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci).  Katniss makes a splash with viewers, and Peeta admits on-air that he is in love with her.

When the bloody games start, Katniss must determine how to stay alive, and how to treat Peeta, who is sometimes a friend and sometimes a foe, apparently.  Meanwhile, President Snow (Donald Sutherland) grows suspicious of Katniss and fears she could upset the Capitol’s grip on the districts…

“They just want a good show.  That’s all they want.”

I have not read Suzanne Collins’ young adult novel, The Hunger Games (2008), or any of its follow-ups so I cannot, alas, comment meaningfully on whether or not this 2012 film represents an adequate or faithful adaptation of the literary material. 

I can only study the film as a movie-going experience and as a complete visual and thematic work of art.  Therefore, my observations in this review will focus on those aspects rather than judge fidelity to the literary source material.

In brief, I found the film’s two primary strengths to be its sense of earnestness and the central performance by Jennifer Lawrence.  

The Hunger Games never feels gimmicky, slick, or sensational, and Lawrence projects fortitude, sincerity, and intelligence as the film’s protagonist.  When the movie succeeds, it’s because Lawrence is riveting and even magnetic as Katniss Everdeen, and because the filmmakers generally take the subject matter seriously.  On the surface, it all seems very impressive, if overly straight-forward.

When The Hunger Games fails, I assess, it’s largely because the dynamics of the dystopian world seem unnecessarily vague or inconsistent.

We see this sort of “muddle” throughout the film, and therefore it is difficult for The Hunger Games to speak meaningfully or even directly to its audience regarding theme or meaning.  

For instance: politics. The film is either an Occupy Wall Street film, about the rich 1% lording it over the poor 99 percent, or it is a film about the fear of over-reaching, outwardly benevolent but really malevolent government.   

The Hunger Games attempts to straddle the line between those red state/blue state viewpoints, but only ends up with a wide stance, if you get the reference.  

In other words, the audiences can’t judge the film’s perspective or viewpoint on the world.  Is it the rich elite who made the world a hell?  Or overreaching government?    In the end, it all just comes across as kind of, well, simple-minded.  What we are left with is that evil government is evil, decadent people are decadent, and good citizens are good.  That's as deep as it gets.  The film is smart enough to tap the Zeitgeist, but it can't commit to a specific aspect of that Zeitgeist.

We see the same problem recur with Katniss and Peeta.  Do they actually love each other, or is it all a show for the cameras, just like on The Bachelor or Joe Millionaire?   

In the end, both Peeta and Katniss play up the star-crossed lovers angle to survive the games, but is the show of affection ever heartfelt or authentic?  Well, The Hunger Games will get back to you on that, coming soon in a theater near you! 

In other words, the film reserves the exploration of that important idea for the sequel.  Yet it is necessary to have some answer here, or the movie offers a woefully incomplete emotional experience.   As it stands, we just don’t know why Peeta and Katniss behave as they do here, now.  Peeta doesn’t bring up his love of Katniss until he is on live TV, for example, which suggests to me it’s a gimmick to help him stay alive.  Katniss realizes that the love affair is, similarly, a way to get ahead. 

Yet, by the same token, Peeta hunts down Katniss during the games with a group of others, which is hardly the act of a soul mate.  And then, if he does authentically love her, why doesn't he murder in cold blood the other contestants (staking out the tree where she is hiding), while they sleep?

But the point is that the movie just...doesn’t...commit.  

It doesn’t commit, I submit, because if it did we, as viewers, would be forced to reckon with how we feel about Peeta and Katniss based on the fact that they agree to a mutually beneficial lie.  If they aren't pretending, and really do have feelings for each other, then they aren't so bad, so shallow.  The movie tries to  play it both ways but just seems, again, muddled.

The Hunger Games could have commented meaningfully (and perhaps mercilessly) here on how reality stars will do and say anything on camera to achieve their fifteen minutes of fame -- Bristol Palin, j'accuse -- but this point is barely touched upon in the film.  

Why set up a satire of reality TV and then drop it without comment?

There’s a similar problem with the violence in the film. Katniss lands in an immensely competitive, immensely violent game, and yet she survives almost entirely by being in the right place at the right time, and by unexpectedly getting help at the very last instant.  She actually kills, by my count, only three of her twenty-three opponents.  And of those, she only kills one directly.  

One blonde villain dies when Katniss cuts a beehive from a tree branch, and the competitor is stung to death.    Katniss wasn't attempting to kill, however.  She was crafting a distraction so she could escape.  

The second kill is sort of a mercy killing, sparing a villain from painful death by huge, slobbering wild-dog monsters. 

Katniss actually only murders one person in cold blood. She shoots Rue’s (Amandla Stenberg’s) killer in a fit of rage and adrenaline.   

Laughably, even the masters of the game keep changing the rules so Katniss doesn't have to kill Peeta to survive the game.  Convenient, no?

Because Katniss never must make the choice to kill someone like Rue -- an innocent little kid -- the movie never addresses the central question of violence and its morality.

Again, I see this development as a failure on the part of the film (and I would assume the book too…) to really commit to its central idea . If Katniss wants to survive the games, she has essentially two options: team-build with the other players and commence an insurrection against the games, or kill her opponents outright.  She does neither, at least not in any organized or deep sense.  Instead, Katniss hides for the first part of the games, teams-up with Rue for a while, and then manages to endure alone while the others fight.

Once more, the hard questions are totally avoided.  

Is it right to kill another human being for your own survival?  

For the survival of your family?

The Hunger Games features children killing children on screen -- something I’ve rarely if ever seen in a horror movie, for example -- but makes absolutely no commentary on the morality underlying these killings.  This way, we can continue to gaze at Katniss as a hero, I suppose.  She's more of an innocent bystander than an active participant in the violence.

How do I feel about this?  

In two words: cop out.

For all of Jennifer Lawrence’s skill in bringing the character of Katniss to the screen, I find that she succeeds without much help from the non-commital script.  Katniss is given no meaningful character arc whatsoever in The Hunger Games. She starts our resilient, independent and capable, is judged an "11" by the games keepers (meaning resilient, independent and capable, in other words), and then emerges the winner of the Hunger Games (with Peeta) by being -- wait for it -- resilient, independent and capable.  The character has no learning curve in the film.  Katniss is in the end as she was in the beginning.

Other aspects of the plot are also deliberately vague. The Capitol apparently possesses miracle medicine and -- unbelievably -- Star Trek-type technology which can seems to  turn energy into matter and “beam” hostile dog-things into the fighting  arena.  

Where did this high-technology come from in a post-war dystopian universe where resources are limited?  

Why does the Capitol need supplies from the districts if it can create matter out of energy, or even just teleport real matter?  

Such amazing technological capabilities are never directly addressed in the film, and thus the universe of  The Hunger Games doesn’t quite feel real.  It certainly isn't very believable.   I submit it would have been much better to see dog-handlers releasing the slavering beasts from cages at the rim of the arena rather than featuring this unexplained and inconsistent technological achievement. 

For instance, if the gamesters of the Capitol can create animals, generate fires and so forth from energy, they can certainly create a CGI Katniss and get her to do what they want her do.  They could have killed the real one, and then had the CGI one act badly, reflecting poorly on her reputation and mitigating her capacity to be a martyr.   Problem solved!

Indeed, this one technological touch ruins a lot of the legitimacy of the action in The Hunger Games.  Katniss might lay low enough for a while to last for much of the game, but there' s no way she could beat a state apparatus armed with Starfleet-era medicine, genetic engineering capabilities, and the equivalent of replicators.  That's a bridge too far.

Also, and I'm certain this has been said before, there is not a single contestant in the games -- not one -- who looks remotely hungry, or starving.  The whole idea underlying this culture is that the Districts live in abject poverty, scrambling for resources and food.  And yet everyone looks well-fed, not emaciated.  Some of the contestants, in fact, look like body-builders.  In the real world, we've all seen, alas, how hunger twists young, developing bodies.  It doesn't look anything like what is presented in The Hunger Games, or more aptly, The Well-Fed Games.

It's a fact, isn't it, that muscle-mass comes from eating right and vigorous exercise? How are these poor District-ers eating so well, getting so much protein, and working out so frequently under the yoke of The Evil Government?

Either the movie should have cast more appropriately, or the actors and actresses should have fasted a bit before principal photography began.  But if those changes had occurred, The Hunger Games wouldn't be able to show off hot young nubile bodies, and that, finally, is what gets the Twilight crowd into the theater, isn't it?

Does she look hungry?

Does he?

How about him?

Does he look like he's starving to you?

What about these folks?  Skinny, undernourished kids living off the land?

Dystopia can't be built in a day.  For audiences to believe in a corrupt future world, they must understand why it works or why it doesn't.  It needs to be internally-consistent and well-thought out.

We also must understand how the filmmaker's feel about that world, and where that world went wrong.  What was the human quality that transformed paradise into hell? 

The Hunger Games doesn't provide much by way of answers to any of these questions. It eschews social commentary and satire in the very era when we see fame whores on every network station in prime time every night of the week.  And furthermore it suggests -- in an abundantly bogus fashion -- that a person can survive a tournament to the death without committing almost any violence at all. 

In terms of dystopian films, this one wouldn't likely survive the first round with Rollerball or Death Race 2000.   The Hunger Games looks terrific and is fronted by the very appealing Lawrence, but the film doesn't hold up under the slightest intellectual scrutiny.

Movie Trailer: The Hunger Games (2012)

Late Night Blogging: Not Exactly King Kong

Memory Bank: The Bigfoot Craze of the 1970s

Growing up in the 1970s was an amazing experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything. 

It was especially amazing in terms of the blatant weirdness of some of the pop culture trends.  After all, the disco decade was the era of killer bees, the Bermuda Triangle, and perhaps most memorably, The Bigfoot Craze.

Bigfoot, of course, is a giant ape-like creature believed to inhabit the Pacific-Northwest, and known by the name “Sasquatch” in Native-American lore.  

Today, we are no closer to proving Bigfoot’s existence than we were forty years ago, but the myth of the peaceful, giant creature widely persists.

The Bigfoot Craze spanned the decade of the 1970s, and ultimately infiltrated every aspect of the popular culture from film to television, to children’s television, even to toys.

The 1970s may have been the heyday of the Big Foot Craze in part because of the famous -- or perhaps notorious -- Patterson-Gilmin film of 1967, which purported to capture real raw footage of the hairy beast.

By the early seventies, filmmakers had taken full advantage of speculation about the rarely-spotted “creature” in films such as the popular The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972), which is actually one of the few drive-in movie experiences I remember from my childhood.  I vividly recall sitting up in the back-seat of our family’s green, 1969 Plymouth Barracuda when I was supposed to be asleep, and watching the “monster” attack a person who was seated on a toilet.

That film featured not Big Foot, per se, but the Fouke Monster (or rather “Southern Sasquatch") of Arkansas.  Directed by Charles B. Pierce, The Legend of Boggy Creek was an early pseudo-documentary that “re-staged” the reported monster attacks, and became a smash sensation at the box office, grossing over twenty million dollars on a budget of less than two-hundred thousand dollars. It was followed up over the years by several sequels, including Return to Boggy Creek (1977), and Boggy Creek 2 (1985).

After that, the Bigfoot floodgates were open. 

The years 1976 and 1977 brought to cinemas such similarly-named films such as Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot (1977) directed by Ed Ragozzino, and The Legend of Big Foot (1976) directed by Harry Winer. 

Both efforts featured a kind of grainy, semi-documentary vibe, much like their Boggy Creek predecessors. I have vivid memories of seeing previews on television for Sasquatch in 1978 and being absolutely scared out of my wits. It's not in the trailer I've post below, but I remember a sequence where Bigfoot bursts into a log cabin in the woods, swinging open the door...

The year 1976 also brought one of the decade’s most popular iterations of the Bigfoot story.  The seventeenth episode of The Six Million Dollar Man (1974 – 1978) was titled “The Secret of Bigfoot” and it featured bionic Steve Austin (Lee Majors) battling a robotic Sasquatch (Ted Cassidy) from outer space.  The Bigfoot character proved so popular that he re-appeared on several follow-up episodes of both The Six-Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. 

Before long, the Bionic Sasquatch was also a hot toy from Kenner.

In 1976, Sid and Marty Krofft included a segment called Bigfoot and Wildboy in their ABC Saturday morning TV series The Krofft Supershow.  It graduated to its own time slot in 1979, and starred Ray Young as Bigfoot and Joseph Butcher as Wildboy.  The episodes pitted the shaggy Bigfoot against vampires, aliens, and even a sinister duplicate of himself

In April of 1977 In Search of (1976 – 1982) devoted its fifth episode to the hunt for Bigfoot, with host Leonard Nimoy recounting astounding and frightening tales of “real life” creature sightings.

Finally, I’ve always wondered if the friendly bear/ape/giant Chewbacca in Star Wars (1977) was, in some small sense, George Lucas’s acknowledgment of the Bigfoot craze that had swept the nation.

So, what was the appeal of Bigfoot, and why did this creature of folklore prove so immensely popular in the 1970s? 

I suspect the beast’s popularity in the disco decade had something to do with the desire to discover something new and different.   Although I love the 1970s, it was a weird and disturbing decade in many ways.  The Hippie movement had turned sour, thanks to the Manson “Family,” America was still embroiled in Vietnam, and trust in government fell to an all-time low thanks to President Nixon and the Watergate Scandal. 

At the same time, we had an Energy Crisis and looming fears about nuclear meltdowns (like Three Mile Island in 1978).  In short, the world just seemed a terrible mess in those days, and so to imagine something new and different roaming the wild forests was, in short, an appealing fantasy.  Bigfoot was a creature untouched by man and therefore corruption.  If he existed, then, indeed, magic and innocence could still exist too.

Below, I offer a number of videos (including the entire In Search Of segment) which document the Great Bigfoot Craze of the 1970s, a strange but entirely awesome spell in American pop culture.

Collectible of the Week: Biotron (Mego; 1976)

When I turned seven, one of the toys I wanted most for my birthday was "Biotron" a huge interchangeable robot from the Mego Micronauts collection.

My granny -- Tippie from Texas -- came through, and I was thrilled.  And incidentally, she came through for me again for Christmas that year with the glorious Micronauts Battle Cruiser.  But that's another story.

Biotron is a "motorized robot" who "holds up to three Micronauts" and "adapts to other Micronaut accessories," according to the box legend.  The same legend instructs kids to "use him four ways."

Fully assembled, Biotron is a huge robot, standing approximately a foot tall.  He runs on two "C" batteries, and when activated can kind of shuffle around on his jet-like, blue-plastic feet.  He's the perfect companion to another Micronauts robot, Microtron, and in the Marvel Comics, indeed, they were matched up together often.

One of the Micronauts (Space Glider, Galactic Warrior or Time Traveler) can ride inside Biotron's transparent chest panel, and I always loved Biotron's gripping, snapping hands, which could catch the enemy, the Acroyear.  

I don't know if I'm remembering it exactly right, but I think that Biotron was my first big Micronauts toy.  I had a few action figures (Galactic Warrior and Time Traveler) at that point, but none of the "big" items.  That soon changed, but I always had a love for this chrome-faced, goliath of a robot.

Today, Biotron has a good home in my office, though his box is showing a great deal of wear, and so are his hands.  The chrome has worn off his grippers in some spots, revealing a kind yucky green under-color.  (I hope it's not mold...).

Below, two great video advertisements for Biotron:

Lunch Box of the Week

Ask JKM a Question #29: My Favorite James Bond films?

A reader who wishes to remain anonymous (but who is one of my offline friends) asks me: “who is your favorite James Bond,” and “which movie is your favorite Bond outing?”

I hate to cop-out on this one, but I don’t know that I can actually name one James Bond film that I enjoy the most, or even a single actor whom I prefer because the film series is so long-lived at this point, and I enjoy and admire so many of the performances and films.

I grew up with Roger Moore as James Bond, so I have real affection for that actor and his films, even if they aren't, objectively "the best" of the series.  I know the purists don't like Roger Moore very much -- and I understand why -- but I still think his movies are a hell of a lot of fun.

Furthermore, I encountered the Timothy Dalton Bond just as I was reading all the Ian Fleming novels in high school.   Thus I enjoyed his very faithful interpretation of the character because it came at the right time for me, personally. 

Specifically, I remember reading all the Fleming novels and short stories, as well as the Gardner books, and being truly thrilled by the prospect of a new Bond in 1987.   It felt like the start of an exciting new era.  

Not coincidentally, that was also the year I got my driver's license, and I remember tooling around my hometown in my 1973 American Motors Hornet listening to The Living Daylights soundtrack (featuring A-Ha...) while I did so.  So...good memories there.

But then, of course, Sean Connery was the first cinematic Bond, and I've always loved his interpretation.  He is definitely the most iconic Bond.

And I should add, Daniel Craig is doing a terrific job as a twenty-first century 007.  

So I’ll modify the question this way. Which film represents my favorite for each era?  That seems a little easier to vet.  

My favorite in the Sean Connery era is From Russia with Love (1963).

My favorite in the Roger Moore era is For Your Eyes Only (1981).

My favorite of the Timothy Dalton era is The Living Daylights (1987)

My favorite of the Pierce Brosnan era is GoldenEye (1995).

My favorite of the Daniel Craig era, so far, is Casino Royale (2006).

And if I had to name my top five Bonds overall -- as of this moment -- they would be:

1. From Russia with Love (1963)

2. Goldfinger (1964)

3. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

4. The Living Daylights (1987)

5. Casino Royale (2006)

My least favorite James Bond film is Die Another Day (2002), which, honestly, I find virtually un-watchable.  

I realize some folks would select Diamonds Are Forever (1970), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Moonraker (1979), or A View to a Kill (1985) for the dubious honor of "worst Bond film," but those movies do boast some entertainment value.  For instance, Walken's performance as Zorin in A View to A Kill.  I love the insane chuckle he utters as he slips off the Golden Gate Bridge.

By contrast, Die Another Day is visually incoherent, ridiculous in terms of story-line, and therefore almost impossible for me to endure.  It's a terrible way to end the Brosnan era, though honestly, The World is Not Enough (1999) isn't so terrific, either.

My dirty little Bond secret, I suppose, is that I actually prefer George Lazenby to Pierce Brosnan.  Brosnan is just so arch and...blow dried.

Additionally, I often wished Timothy Dalton had made two or three more Bond films, because I really enjoyed his take on the role, and feel that, in some ways, it pointed to the future (and, specifically, Daniel Craig's take on 007).

Now, one of these days, someone should ask me about my favorite Bond Women...

Don't forget to send me your questions at Muirbusiness@yahoo.com.  After Thursday, I'm all caught up!

Cult Movie Review: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

The Empire Strikes Back (1980) has grown steadily in critical esteem since its theatrical debut in 1980. This increase in approval is so dramatic, in fact, that The Empire Strikes Back has actually eclipsed its blockbuster progenitor from 1977, at least according to some fans and critics.

Yet, if you go back and read the reviews from mainstream newspaper critics in 1980, The Empire Strikes Back received only middling reviews, at least for the most part.  The Irvin Kershner film was appreciated for its rousing special effects…and not much else. 

Writing for The New York Times, Vincent Canby, for instance, termed the sequel a “big expensive, time-consuming, essentially mechanical operation.”

He also noted The Empire Strikes Back’s incomplete narrative, commenting specifically on the fact that the film features no real beginning, and no genuine end or closure.

In terms of outlining the film’s artistic strengths and weaknesses, The Empire Strikes Back is indeed a more difficult film than Star Wars to get a handle on.  Star Wars can readily be dissected as pastiche, and a critic can studiously catalog all of the film’s antecedents and inspirations in terms of Akira Kurosawa's cinema, war movies, and the like. 

By contrast, The Empire Strikes Back largely eschews this dedicated “homage” approach and delves deeply, instead, into the lives and decisions of its dramatis personae.  In other words, the characters take on a new, more in-depth quality here, and so the film need not rely on a shared cinematic shorthand to forge its mythic tale. 

The Empire Strikes Back excavates a far more complex set of psychologies than, perhaps, we might have expected from the swashbuckling Star Wars. Still, Lucas and Kershner prove highly adept at harnessing potent visual symbols to add layers of meaning to this more intricate epic.  Accordingly, The Empire Strikes Back is rife with earthbound points of reference that help us identify with and understand the characters and their travails.

Mr. Canby was absolutely correct in his assertion that The Empire Strikes Back’s narrative is incomplete, since this sequel’s narrative commences with the action of Star Wars and resolves in the finale of Return of the Jedi (1983).  

Yet the plain fact of the matter is that this very quality is actually one of the film’s primary and enduring strengths. 

Freed from the necessity of laboriously introducing the characters, and, similarly, resolving their crises, The Empire Strikes Back is instead able to plumb new aspects of character psychologies, and furthermore introduce new, visually-exciting worlds to the Star Wars universe.  The sights of The Empire Strikes Back -- from whirling asteroids to AT-AT juggernauts trudging through the snow, to a city in the clouds -- are truly wondrous.

Without carrying the baggage of introduction and closure in broad terms, The Empire Strikes Back can instead function superbly as a racing locomotive, one that sweeps audiences up in romance, action, and a powerful feeling of impending dread. 

It’s a bit paradoxical of an equation, actually. We get more of the characters’ humanity -- even Darth Vader’s -- in The Empire Strikes Back than we did in Star Wars while, simultaneously, the action never lets up.  There’s this dramatic pull of inevitability to the film, a veritable tractor beam tugging us irrevocably to an unknown destination as fates are forged, and crucial decisions are made.  The feeling of unstoppable momentum at The Empire Strikes Back’s cliffhanger conclusion is considerable, and one leaves the film aching to see more of the story.  You sit there with a lump in the throat, wanting more, and wondering how on Earth you can wait three years for the next chapter.  I can still feel resonances of this yearning for more today, more than thirty years after I first watched the film.

Yet The Empire Strikes Back could not have achieved this considerable sense of immersion if it had instead sought to include the “complete” narrative that some critics sought and missed.

I find it very difficult to compare Star Wars to The Empire Strikes Back in terms of relative quality. Star Wars accomplishes precisely what it needs to in order to introduce audiences to the world of a “long time ago, in a galaxy, far, far away.”  

Similarly, The Empire Strikes Back deepens audience interest in that world, and makes one long to see the next film, Return of the Jedi, where -- finally -- narrative closure occurs.

So it’s probably fair to state that Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back both fulfill the roles they should as successive chapters in a cohesive trilogy.  However, those specific roles are significantly different, and even, in some senses, at odds with one another.

Intellectually, I appreciate the homage-rich pastiche qualities and “complete” aspects of Star Wars, which paved the way for a movie revival of spiritualism in the movie era of Dirty Harry and Paul Kersey

Yet emotionally-speaking, I admire immensely the involving, almost soap-opera, love-triangle, father-son /tragedy aspects of The Empire Strikes Back.  I especially appreciate how the galactic settings of the film, in a very important sense mirror the character conflicts and strife.  

Most of all, you get the sense in The Empire Strikes Back of utter confidence.  

The film never worries about establishing itself or validating its universe and story line.  Instead, it just probes deeper and deeper into the psychologies of the characters -- particularly Luke Skywalker -- at what turns out to be a dangerous turning point in the saga.

“Decide you must, how to serve them best. If you leave now, help them you could; but you would destroy all for which they have fought, and suffered.”

Following the destruction of the Death Star at Luke Skywalker’s (Mark Hamill) hands, Darth Vader hunts the universe for the would-be Jedi.  

Meanwhile, Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance have made a base on the remote and inhospitable ice planet called Hoth. 

There, mercenary Han Solo (Harrison Ford) contemplates abandoning the cause because of the price that Jabba the Hutt has placed on his head.  Although Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) pretends not to care, it’s clear that she and Solo have developed romantic feelings for one another.

Soon, Imperial probes find signs of the rebel base on Hoth, and Darth Vader orders a sustained surface attack on the Rebels.  After the Empire’s victory in a ground assault, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C3PO and Princess Leia flee the planet in the Millennium Falcon, and Luke and R2D2 head to swampy Dagobah to find Yoda (Frank Oz), the Jedi master who trained Obi Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness).

When Solo and Leia find themselves ensnared in a trap on Bespin’s Cloud City, courtesy of Darth Vader, the bounty hunter Boba Fett (Jeremy Bulloch) and the scoundrel Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), Luke must decide whether to continue his training with Yoda or attempt to rescue his imperiled friends.

Upon his landing at Cloud City, Luke learns that Fett has taken Solo (encased in carbonite…) to Tattooine and Jabba.
  

And finally, Darth Vader divulges to Luke a devastating family secret...

No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try. 

A series of four visual symbols dominate The Empire Strikes Back, and each one is encoded into a specific setting or location, and intimately linked with the characters and the development of their relationships and feelings.

The inaugural symbol is “ice,” embodied by the snowy, desolate planet of Hoth.  

As viewers, we automatically associate ice with freezing, stagnation, and cold. In terms of  the film's characters, we recognize this coldness as relating very much to Princess Leia (whose personal quarters, we are told in the dialogue, are “freezing.”)  

Simply put, she cannot admit her romantic feelings for Han Solo.  Over the course of the adventure, the icy relationship between Leia and Han “thaws.”  I don't want to be accused of being sexist here, but the idea in terms of Leia at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back is, literally, that she is "frigid" (emotionally, I mean.)  She covers her feelings in a mask or composure of apparent ice.

Similarly, Luke Skywalker as we find him on Hoth has become stagnant and "frozen," unable to take the next step in his training to become a Jedi Knight.  Until the specter of Obi Wan appears to him on the freezing plains of Hoth to reveal the existence of Yoda, a Jedi Master, Luke is merely walking in place.

On Dagobah, the film’s second significant symbol is revealed, and it relates to Luke Skywalker primarily. During his training with Yoda, young Luke unexpectedly encounters a tree that is powerful with “The Dark Side” of The Force.  He explores its impenetrable recesses, and it responds reflexively to his psychological weaknesses.  

Once inside the gnarled, ancient tree, Luke experiences a vision of  Darth Vader and then, in fact, a vision in which he becomes Darth Vader himself.   Under the hideous helmet, Luke's visage stares back at him.

In literature and psychology, the tree embodies several vital concepts.  Prime among these is the idea that a tree represents knowledge.  In The Empire Strikes Back, the tree on Dagobah reveals, specifically self-knowledge, a clue regarding Luke’s biological origin or identity (at this point, unknown to him).  

But it reveals more than that.  It reveals the nature of Luke's future struggle: whether or not he will turn to the dark side.

Additionally, in Native American lore, the tree symbolizes ancestry (your roots, to employ a pun), and so the Dark Side Tree is indeed our first, oblique indicator about from where Luke originated….Darth Vader.   If genetics is destiny, then the tree also reveals one path Luke may take: the self-same path that Anakin Skywalker undertook.

A third crucial symbol in The Empire Strikes Back -- a whale-like space monster -- appears during the action-packed asteroid belt sequence. This section of the film is chaotic and anarchic (as exemplified by the random trajectory of the asteroids…).  

Likewise, the characters of Han and Leia here are depicted as conflicted and uncertain about their developing relationship.  They settle down in a place (the belly of a space beast), where these issues begin to crystallize for them. Out of chaos, some clarity emerges...

In Christian myth, Jonah spent three days inside the stomach of the whale.  When he emerged from this second “womb,” his story proceeded with a sense of re-birth and rejuvenation.  Many Japanese folk stories repeat the same idea.  

On purely literal terms, then, when the Falcon escapes the belly of the space beast, its crew receives a second chance at life with Han’s scheme to hide the ship among the Imperial garbage.  

In character-based terms, there is a also kind of re-birth of the Han/Leia relationship following their kiss.  Their love has emerged from the icy, “frozen” quality it boasted on Hoth, and even the chaotic/combative nature of it as witnessed in the asteroid belt.  Their time in the belly of the beast is, after a fashion, what allowed them to find some clarity about their feelings and relationship.

Finally, the last passage of the film set on Bespin offers The Empire Strikes Back’s  final, and perhaps most powerful symbol: clouds. 

In terms of symbolic representations, clouds are often equated to a realm of “ethereal heights” but also a domain of “higher truth.”  

Here, Leia and Han admit their love for one another; a higher truth they avoided and quarreled over on icy Hoth.  

Similarly, Luke discovers the higher truth about Ben’s story (regarding the death of his father,) as well as Vader’s role in his life.  The self-knowledge hinted at in the Dark Tree on Dagobah become clear in the ethereal clouds, a place, explicitly, for truth telling.  

Indeed, truth becomes the paramount issue of this final section of The Empire Strikes Back.  

Is Vader telling the truth about his parentage of Luke? Is Lando a truth-teller or treacherous?  Is R2-D2 sharing the truth (but not believed) when he notes that the hyper-drive on the Millennium Falcon hasn't been repaired?  Even the discovery of the "truth" about Leia (that she possesses Jedi-ish abilities) comes about in the location of Cloud City.

I very much appreciate how The Empire Strikes Back's visuals -- ice, trees, the belly of the beast, and clouds -- all reflect in an important manner the psychology of the film’s three primary protagonists.  The symbols, essentially, track their progress from stagnation and frigidity to a higher understanding of the truth.  

From Hoth to Bespin isn't just a journey between star systems, in other words, but one of self-discovery and character evolution.

Hoth: A place where relationships and tensions are "frozen" in place.

Dagobah: Luke explores the Tree of (Self) Knowledge.

The Belly of the Beast: A (brief) re-birth follows chaos.

Bespin: A place in the clouds where a "higher" truth is discerned.

Of all the characters highlighted in The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker is deepened in the most significant terms. He harnessed the power of the Force to help him destroy the Death Star in Star Wars, but that was only the beginning of his journey, a fact we clearly register here. In this sequel, Luke is unexpectedly dealt reverse after reverse, defeat after defeat, and forced to look inside himself and consider his readiness and even suitability to become a Jedi Knight.

In the span of one film, Luke is badly injured by a Wampa, and nearly freezes to death.  He loses Leia's affections to Han, finds out that his trusted and beloved mentor, Ben, lied to him, and discovers that his father is one of the Most Evil Men Who Has Ever Lived.  Finally, for good measure, Luke sees one of his hands cut off during a light saber duel.  Now, he is already on the path of his father, becoming part machine as well as flesh-and-blood man.

Perhaps more troubling than all these reverses, however, Luke actually finds his very status as a hero questioned in The Empire Strikes Back.  

Yoda informs him he is impatient and intemperate, and may not even qualify to train as a Jedi.  Luke is too old, too distracted, and too set in his ways.    

The film thus makes Luke reckon with the fact that he may have destroyed the Death Star, but being a full-bore Jedi Knight involves much more than that.  The film gives Luke something powerful to confront, and that “thing” is an awareness of himself and his own character flaws.  He holds the seeds of the Dark Side within him.  He could be just like his father; like Darth Vader.  He has learned too many bad habits and must now unlearn them.

Han’s journey, overall, is a bit more upbeat, despite how the movie ends for him.  He successfully wins Leia’s affection and goes nobly to his fate, thus proving he is concerned about more than money and rewards (per Star Wars).  He also learns that yes, it's possible for a Princess and a guy like him to fall in love.

As for Princess Leia, she comes to understand in The Empire Strikes Back that she can follow her emotions and yet not be made weak by them, as she initially feared.   She can love a "scoundrel" and still be strong and respected.  Leia need no longer be afraid of her feelings.

All these characters are tested in dramatic fashion in The Empire Strikes Back, and so the film significantly deepens our understanding of all these heroes.  Luke’s destiny now features a darker, more dangerous edge, and Han Solo may have no future at all…

These are the worrisome, valedictory thoughts we ponder as we conclude a viewing of the film, and in this sense, the Star Wars "saga" truly becomes a story -- for a time -- about specific characters, not about special effects, or abstract heroic or mythic journeys.  

With The Empire Strikes Back, this is now the tale of three very individual, very human individuals.  The Empire may be striking back, but we care less here about a rebel victory over the Imperials than about how each main character faces or makes his or her fate.  This film brilliantly introduces us to memorable characters such as Yoda, The Emperor, Lando and Boba Fett, but it is the triumvirate of Luke-Leia-and-Han that rivets and consumes the attention.

It’s a crying shame that Return of the Jedi loses track this dynamic thread, and glosses over many of the critical character struggles we countenance here.  Luke’s anger and intemperance, Leia’s romantic choice about her future, Ben’s honesty, and Han’s grim fate are all treated in strictly two-dimensional, almost rote fashion in Return of the Jedi, a fact which leaves The Empire Strikes Back, arguably, as the emotional zenith of the Original Trilogy.