1980s Archives - Page 11 of 18 - FILM FREAK CENTRAL

The Monster Squad (1987) [Two-Disc 20th Anniversary Edition] – DVD

October 18, 20071980s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, DVD, Horror, Teen, Vampire, Werewolf

**/**** Image B- Sound B+ Extras A
starring André Gower, Duncan Regehr, Stephen Macht, Tom Noonan
screenplay by Shane Black & Fred Dekker
directed by Fred Dekker

by Bill Chambers Since I caught myself mouthing a portion of the dialogue while revisiting it for the first time in almost two decades, I think it's fair to say I internalized The Monster Squad through multiple viewings in my misspent youth. Still, as that TriStar horse sprouted wings, I realized I had no tactile memory of the film, no real recollection of what it felt like–and the answer is: it feels like 80 minutes, give or take. It's pabulum, albeit pabulum with a pedigree. The latest nostalgia trap to get a nerd baptism (an AICN-sponsored reunion screening at Austin's Alamo Drafthouse is more or less single-handedly responsible for the picture's splashy DVD release), it's at least better than the movie to which it's most often compared, the Steven Spielberg-produced The Goonies, if only because it's a good half-hour shorter and, by extension, comparatively unpretentious. Beneath its own Spielbergian façade, The Monster Squad works like those old horror hosts used to by sanctioning the classic monsters for a younger generation, whereas The Goonies aims only to erect a shrine to itself.

Under the Cherry Moon (1986); Graffiti Bridge (1990); Purple Rain (1984) [Two-Disc Special Edition] – DVDs|Purple Rain – Blu-ray Disc

September 27, 20071980s, 1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Music, Romance

UNDER THE CHERRY MOON
***/**** Image B+ Sound B+
starring Prince, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jerome Benton, Steven Berkoff
screenplay by Becky Johnston
directed by Prince

GRAFFITI BRIDGE
*/**** Image A- Sound B+
starring Prince, Morris Day, Jerome Benton & The Time, Jill Jones
written and directed by Prince

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover There's something cinematic about the artist known as Prince, and it's not just his effeminate charisma (though there's that) or his flair for theatre (though there's that, too): The whole sensual package that is his deliciously weird sensibility–a blend of satin-laced fetishism and self-loving exhibitionism–all but cries out to be photographed. The question is, was The Artist himself filmmaker enough to bring that to the screen? Making for a split decision are the two films that bear his directorial stamp, both of which have finally hit DVD. In one corner stands Under the Cherry Moon, a savagely-underrated romance that suggests that with someone else's script, he's got the right stuff; in the other corner sits Graffiti Bridge, a grotesque white elephant that suggests Prince left to his own devices turns from funk idol into sadly inebriated schoolgirl.

Summer School (1987) [Life’s a Beach Edition] – DVD

August 7, 20071980s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, DVD, Romance, Teen

*½/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B-
starring Mark Harmon, Kirstie Alley, Robin Thomas, Patrick Labyorteaux
screenplay by Jeff Franklin
directed by Carl Reiner

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover We at FFC ride ourselves on sussing out the subtleties in what is widely condemned as popular junk, and more power to us. But if you're expecting a review of Summer School that illuminates the film's hidden complexities, you've sadly come to the wrong place. Although there are certain thematic features that identify it as an atypical entry in the '80s teen-comedy genre, not the least of which a sort-of social conscience that suggests National Lampoon's Degrassi High, these anomalous credentials are largely wiped out by a thudding lack of wit and a functional ugliness of craft that makes the film barely tolerable at the best of times. While the actors generally convey personality beyond the limited means of the production, they're fighting an uphill battle against a pervasive laziness behind the camera.

Major League (1989) [Wild Thing Edition] – DVD

May 9, 20071980s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, DVD, Sports

**/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras C
starring Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Corbin Bernsen, Bob Uecker
written and directed by David S. Ward

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Major League doesn't have clichés, it is clichés. The film is a collection of sports- and slob-comedy riffs designed for maximum familiarity and a minimum of creative fat. What you see is what you get–and if you don't like what you see, there are legions of sports fans behind you who will, and have, to the extent of justifying a "Wild Thing Edition" DVD covered in Astroturf. Of course, sometimes we don't want anything beyond obvious underdogs obviously set up to obvious victory, and if you're in the mood for such faits accomplis then you could do a lot worse than to suckle at this comforting cinematic teat. But for the most part, lovers of cinema are warned to not get their hopes too high, while fans of crackling dialogue are advised to seek their kicks elsewhere.

Ginger & Fred (1986) – DVD

February 12, 20071980s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Drama, DVD, France, Italy, West Germany

Ginger and Fred
Ginger e Fred
***/**** Image A Sound A
starring Marcello Mastroianni, Giulietta Masina, Franco Fabrizi, Friedrich von Ledebur
screenplay by Federico Fellini, Tonino Guerra and Tullio Pinelli
directed by Federico Fellini

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover The idea of Fellini criticizing television for its vulgarity–as he does in Ginger and Fred–is indeed a bit rich: Federico Fellini complaining of vulgarity is rather like Roberto Rossellini complaining of neo-realism. But beneath the surface of this admittedly shallow lament lies the movie's real theme, which is the displacement of artists once their chosen form is rendered obsolete. It's not too hard to see Fellini himself, high-modernist art director that he was, in his music-hall dancer protagonists, who by 1985 have been completely snowed under by seismic shifts in technology and, by extension, entertainment. Slight as the film may be, you can't help feeling a twinge of regret for not only its leads, but also the increasingly-forgotten filmmaker who pulls their strings.

The Up Series [Five Disk Collector’s Edition] – DVD

February 11, 2007****/****, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Documentary, DVD, FFC Must-Own, UK

by Ian Pugh "Give me the child until he is seven, and I will give you the man."

So goes the Jesuit maxim, and, as it happens, so begins almost every review you'll find of Michael Apted's "Up" documentary series. Of course, you can't really fault someone for falling back on that warhorse (or this would be a very ironic paragraph indeed), because it's the concept that brought the original television production Seven Up! to life, intended as it was as "a glimpse into Britain's future." That is to say, into the lives of fourteen seven-year-olds, chosen from all walks of life (though mostly from polar opposites of the class divide) and asked about the world, their ambitions, and just generally how they're doing; they've been revisited for the same purpose every seven years hence.

Looker (1981) – DVD

January 29, 20071980s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Drama, DVD, Sci-Fi, Thriller

**½/**** Image B Sound C+ Extras B-
starring Albert Finney, James Coburn, Susan Dey, Leigh Taylor-Young
written and directed by Michael Crichton

by Bill Chambers Michael Crichton's Looker is a kinky paranoia thriller in which an unlikely sleuth teams up with the nearest bimbo to solve a murder mystery. It is, in other words, vintage De Palma, and if he'd actually helmed it, legions of cinephiles would've flameproofed it by now. At the risk of further estranging myself from De Palma geeks, I must admit I rather enjoyed watching a Body Double without Armond White guilt-tripping my subconscious–which is not to say that Looker circumvents an auteurist reading altogether, but the idiosyncrasies that betray it as 'Crichtonian' (like a novelistic conceit that starts off each new act with a placard indicating the day of the week^*) are less than venerable and thus hardly lend themselves to an apologia.

Porky’s Collection 1 2 3 [Special Collector’s Edition] – DVD

December 11, 20061980s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Canada, Comedy, DVD, Teen

PORKY'S (1982)
**½/**** Image D Sound C-
starring Kim Cattrall, Scott Colomby, Kaki Hunter, Nancy Parsons
written and directed by Bob Clark

PORKY'S II: THE NEXT DAY (1983)
**½/**** Image D+ Sound C
starring Dan Monahan, Wyatt Knight, Mark Herrier, Roger Wilson
screenplay by Roger E. Swaybill & Alan Ormsby & Bob Clark
directed by Bob Clark

PORKY'S REVENGE (1985)
**/**** Image D- Sound D+
starring Dan Monahan, Wyatt Knight, Tony Ganios, Mark Herrier
screenplay by Ziggy Steinberg
directed by James Komack

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover There's nothing more obnoxious than someone being pointlessly revisionist and declaring some bit of cultural detritus a lost masterpiece. Still, I can't help but be guardedly pleased to discover several inches of depth charted in the legendarily foul waters of the Porky's franchise. By far the most notorious of the big-name '80s teen comedies, it was widely attacked for its misogyny–a charge I can't exactly support yet can't entirely dispel, either. But as a critic friend pointed out, they're the only movies that retroactively take place in the Eisenhower era to suggest that all was not well in the American Republic. In fact, the first two films insist on a pervasive racism in their small-town Florida setting, Porky's finding a character casting off his anti-Semite father and Porky's II: The Next Day baiting the Klan upon stupidly wading into a censorship fight. Coupled with Bob Clark's blunt-witted realism, it makes for intriguing viewing–which is not to say there wasn't room for improvement.

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (1981/2006) – DVD

November 27, 20061980s, 2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, DVD, Romance, Sci-Fi, Superhero, UK

***/**** Image A Sound A Extras A-
starring Gene Hackman, Christopher Reeve, Ned Beatty, Jackie Cooper
screenplay by Mario Puzo, David Newman and Leslie Newman
directed by Richard Lester

by Bill Chambers SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. A would-be victim of its own London After Midnight-esque mystique, the "Richard Donner Cut" of Superman II is marginally superior to Richard Lester's mutilation, but mitigating circumstances prevent it from being a totally viable alternative. Reconstructed from suppressed outtakes with due diligence (if a journeyman sensibility) according to pre-Lester drafts of the screenplay, the film follows the same basic storyline, though it's a little more efficiently plotted. (While a few Lester bits remain, there is almost certainly less Lester-generated footage here than there is Donner-generated footage in the theatrical version.) Gone is the Eiffel Tower set-piece, replaced by a charming sequence better allied–aesthetically speaking–with the previous Superman in which Lois tries to call Clark's bluff by jumping out a window of THE DAILY PLANET's headquarters; now the weapon of mass destruction responsible for freeing the three supervillains from the Phantom Zone is an errant missile from the climax of the original, which is clever but probably made more sense before they transposed the dopey turning-back-time conceit from the second film onto the first. (More on that later.)

Platoon (1986) [20th Anniversary Edition] – DVD

November 6, 20061980s, Action, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Best Picture (Academy Awards), Drama, DVD, UK, War

***/**** Image A Sound A- (DD)/A (DTS) Extras B
starring Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Charlie Sheen, Forest Whitaker
written and directed by Oliver Stone

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover A watershed in American cultural history, Platoon parsed the Vietnam subject in ways that broke from the defensive trend, trading Sylvester Stallone's hard, unyielding Rambo physique for the infinitely penetrable bodies of various poor sods on their way to destruction. This was the moment when Americans let go of the past and resigned themselves to the war's negative impact–so much so that the quality of the movie proper now seems irrelevant. Let it be known that Platoon is far from perfect: it's often schmaltzy, sometimes schematic, and burdened by a director's innocence that would later curdle at the altar of a "dying king" in JFK. But its accumulation of details distinguishes it from the efforts of message-mongering artists like Coppola, Cimino, and Kubrick. It's not a statement so much as a list of indignities on the road to nothing at all–a life in Hell rather than a glorious campaign that as we know led to pointless ruin.

Shogun Assassin (1980) – DVD

October 16, 20061980s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, DVD, Japan

**½/**** Image A- Sound A Extras B
starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, Masahiro Tomikawa, Kayo Matsuo, Minoru Ohki
screenplay by Kazuo Koike, Robert Houston & David Weisman
directed by Robert Houston and Kenji Misumi

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Timing is everything when it comes to certain movies. Had I been one of the many who paid to see Shogun Assassin in 1980 or thrilled to it on video for years afterward, I might, too, have a cult attachment to its slick camerawork and delightfully bloodthirsty nature. But as it turns out, I saw the films from which it was culled–the Lone Wolf and Cub epics Sword of Vengeance and Baby Cart at the River Styx–first: no matter how expertly distilled is Robert Houston's scratch remix version, it was never going to match the elegance of construction of those Kenji Misumi classics. If you find yourself in a hurry and can only squeeze in one film with a pudgy ronin and his small, indestructible son, then Shogun Assassin is the one you want; and it immediately gains half a star if you aren't familiar with the originals. But for those with time, patience, and a love of arterial spray, the main event is probably the better bet. Which is not to say that Shogun Assassin is without its virtues.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) + Shock Treatment (1981) [Bodice-Ripping Fabulous 3-Disc Set] – DVD

October 11, 20061970s, 1980s, Authors: Alex Jackson, Comedy, DVD, Esoterica, Musical

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW
***½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A-
starring Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Richard O’Brien
screenplay by Jim Sharman and Richard O’Brien
directed by Jim Sharman

SHOCK TREATMENT
**½/**** Image A- Sound B+ Extras B+
starring Jessica Harper, Cliff De Young, Patricia Quinn, Richard O’Brien
screenplay by Richard O’Brien and Jim Sharman
directed by Jim Sharman

by Alex Jackson SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. I have never attended an actual theatrical showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and for the longest time, I doubted that I was completely receptive to every significant nuance and intricacy of the film, what with its name-dropping of Michael Rennie and the presence of a performer called “Little Nell” who wears Mickey Mouse ears during the “Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me” number. The picture’s esoteric quotient has always eluded my radar, preventing me from fully identifying with it, much less condescending to it. This idea of familiarity with extra-textual elements or training in a specific method of watching as essential in the evaluation process is a perennial issue in film criticism for me. My default position is that the two things don’t have that much to do with each other: Learning more about a film can deepen an appreciation that was already there, but the initial call of yea or nay is one that every king, scholar, and prole is equally qualified to make. Beautiful idea, I think–it helps me sleep at night and keeps me from being too scared to see and write about films outside my realm of experience. So why is it that I am so intimidated by this movie?

Blade Runner – The Director’s Cut (1982/1992) – DVD

October 9, 20061980s, Action, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Directors: Ridley Scott, Drama, DVD, Sci-Fi, Thriller, UK

***½/**** Image A Sound A-
starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos
screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
directed by Ridley Scott

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Ridley Scott is quite obviously no auteur. Not notable for returning to a series of themes and tropes, he's more for gazing at a pretty set and ladling on the chiaroscuro. The man is less Orson Welles than Michael Curtiz, presiding stylishly over writers and actors and, crucially, designers, bringing them together in harmony instead of imposing some personal meaning on the whole shooting match. But just as Curtiz will be rescued from obscurity by the fluke triumph of Casablanca, Scott's Euro-trash imagery will always seem like more because of his resonant cult fave Blade Runner. This is a film that unites all manner of disparate elements to produce something greater than the sum of its parts, one that speaks to the displacement we feel in a technocratic world far more succinctly than if the filmmakers were conscious of what they were doing.

Alien Nation: The Complete Series (1989-1990) + Doctor Who: The Complete First Series (2005) – DVDs

October 3, 20061980s, 1990s, 2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Drama, DVD, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Television, UK

ALIEN NATION: THE COMPLETE SERIES
Image C Sound C Extras C
"Alien Nation: The TV Movie (Pilot)," "Fountain of Youth," "Little Lost Lamb," "Fifteen with Wanda," "The Takeover," "The First Cigar," "Night of the Screams," "Contact," "Three to Tango," "The Game," "Chains of Love," "The Red Room," "The Spirit of '95," "Generation to Generation," "Eyewitness News," "Partners," "Real Men," "Crossing the Line," "Rebirth," "Gimme, Gimme," "The Touch," "Green Eyes"

DOCTOR WHO: THE COMPLETE FIRST SERIES
Image A Sound B Extras B
"Rose," "The End of the World," "The Unquiet Dead," "Aliens of London," "World War Three," "Dalek," "The Long Game," "Father's Day," "The Empty Child," "The Doctor Dances," "Boom Town," "Bad Wolf," "The Parting of the Ways"

by Walter Chaw I'm a fan of Graham Baker's dreadful Alien Nation from 1988. Run the words of the title together and you get a not-terribly-clever yet not-entirely-awful summary of what the film is getting at when it's not busy being a ludicrous high-concept buddy cop flick pairing your typical crusty old vet with an earnest rookie who happens to be an alien with a spotted pate instead of a hilarious racial minority. (Shades of Dead Heat, where Joe Piscopo played a bug-eyed zombie.) It's a schlocky B-concept, granted, but the parallax view suggests that lurking in Alien Nation is a neat parable about the Chinese-American experience in San Francisco around the turn of the century and on through to the modern day.

Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll (1987) [The Ultimate Collector’s Edition] – DVD

July 13, 20061980s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Concert Doc, Documentary, DVD, Music

***/**** Image B+ Sound A (DD)/A- (DTS) Extras A+
directed by Taylor Hackford

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover One thing is clear from Taylor Hackford’s Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll: not even the most dedicated hagiographer could ignore the more irascible aspects of Chuck Berry’s personality. Leaving aside his arrests (something Berry forces Hackford to do) and sexual peccadilloes (no prompting required), there’s no denying a general self-possession and pig-headedness that would awe General Patton himself. That Berry can inspire loyalty in the many famous admirers he’s abused is testament to both his personal charm and his shattering influence in the field of rock-and-roll. Although one gets the feeling that people let their starry eyes get in the way of popping him one, he’s one hell of a camera subject and manages to grab your attention for the full two-hour running time.

The Short Films of David Lynch + Dumbland (2002) – DVDs

June 29, 20061960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Directors: David Lynch, DVD, Esoterica, Short Films

THE SHORT FILMS OF DAVID LYNCH
Image A Sound A Extras B-

DUMBLAND
Image B Sound A-

by Bill Chambers One is tempted to appropriate Jean-Luc Godard's oft-misquoted "The cinema is Nicholas Ray" in discussing the origins of David Lynch, whose blossoming sophistication unwittingly paralleled that of film itself. From the magic lantern-style innovation of his sculpture installation Six Men Getting Sick to the fixed camera placements of The Alphabet to the rudimentary narrative of The Grandmother (whose heavy's freakishly accentuated jawline transforms his countenance into that of a snarling villain in the "Perils of Pauline" mode) to, finally, the total aesthetic compromise of the shot-on-video The Amputee, the first few entries contained on "The Short Films of David Lynch" imply that there is only one destiny for the medium, whether its evolution is spread out over a century or concentrated in the time it takes for an artist to develop a conscience. If most film students go through a similar rite of passage, there's often an attendant, ineffable impatience with primitive techniques in undergrad films that's absent in Lynch's early work.

Cheech & Chong’s Nice Dreams (1981) – DVD

June 13, 20061980s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Crime, DVD

Nice Dreams
**½/**** Image A- Sound A-
starring Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, Stacy Keach, Evelyn Guerrero
screenplay by Thomas Chong & Richard "Cheech" Marin
directed by Thomas Chong

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover To say that Cheech & Chong's Nice Dreams is not a critic's picture would be putting it mildly. Its thick, aimless cloud of pot smoke clearly targets a demographic that is determined (or chemically primed) to laugh at the most formless of gags and sketchily-designed comic situations. Still, I found myself admiring Cheech and Chong's balls in crafting a film that would cause Syd Field and his devotees some serious hemorrhaging. A wafer-thin plot is contrived as the means of our pair indulging in what used to be disparagingly called "drug humour": nothing is about the completion of the narrative task except in the crudest sense of the term. Instead, the film is dogged in its recreation of nonsense talk on a night spent passing around a joint or two, where nobody reaches a conclusion and everybody laughs themselves silly.

Mommie Dearest (1981) [Hollywood Royalty Edition] – DVD

May 29, 20061980s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Biopic, Drama, DVD

**/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras B
starring Faye Dunaway, Steve Forrest, Diana Scarwid, Mara Hobel
screenplay by Frank Yablans & Frank Perry and Tracy Hotchner and Robert Getchell, based on the book by Christina Crawford
directed by Frank Perry

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover How sad to think the only popular remnant of Christina Crawford's debunking of her abusive mother is a bad movie famous for its overacting. Many have thrilled to the awesome camp spectacle of Faye Dunaway chewing scenery as Joan Crawford in all her alcoholic clean-freak glory, yet I somehow can't join the party: as ridiculous as the "Biggest Mother of Them All" may be, there was a victim of her unknowing self-parody–and seeing that sufferer get a thorough shellacking is just a little hard to take. It's like watching some halfwit drunk try to pick up an unwilling woman at a bar: his feeble come-ons might amuse if only they didn't result in the horrible discomfort of the second party. In any other context, Dunaway's fare-thee-well performance would guarantee instant hilarity, but the horrible things the titular Mommie Dearest does to her helpless prey kind of squelch the drag-queen pleasures to be had.

Late Spring (1949) [The Criterion Collection] – DVD

May 14, 20061940s, 1980s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Documentary, Drama, DVD, Japan, The Criterion Collection, West Germany

Banshun
晩春
***/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras A-
starring Chishu Ryu, Setsuko Hara, Yumeji Tsukioka, Haruko Sugimura
screenplay by Kôgo Noda & Yasujiro Ozu
directed by Yasujiro Ozu

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Like Robert Bresson or Andrei Tarkovsky, Yasujiro Ozu is one of those great directors with bullyboy supporters for whom the title "great" doesn't begin to scratch the surface. It's not enough for their man to be a pillar of the cinema: he has to be a moral axiom, if not part of the space-time fabric itself, and God help you if you merely like one of his crystalline masterpieces. (We've reached the point where even academics will intimidate you if you take a mildly contradictory position.) But we at FFC are a defiant bunch, so with trepidation I must announce that while Late Spring is a good movie, a solid flick–let's not get carried away. To be sure, there are plenty of thematic strands to suss out of its narrative, making it a film that rewards repeat viewings. Nevertheless, I can't say that it's a destroyer like Tokyo Story or any of the other legitimately great works in Ozu's canon. Don't hit me, I bruise easily.

Chariots of Fire (1981) [Two-Disc Special Edition] – DVD

April 3, 20061980s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Best Picture (Academy Awards), Biopic, Drama, DVD, Sports, UK

**/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Ben Cross, Ian Charleson, Nigel Havers, Cheryl Campbell
screenplay by Colin Welland
directed by Hugh Hudson

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Crushed by the upset win at this year's Oscars, a critic friend of mine bemoaned the fact that "until the Earth crashes into the sun, Crash will have won Best Picture." I couldn't help thinking of that while watching Chariots of Fire, a film that would have been forgotten long ago had it not copped its own surprise Oscar in 1981. I still can't wrap my head around its slipping through the cracks: though there's an awesome professionalism at work, it's remote and inhuman enough to push you far outside the action, making it seem as if its rather primitive story is being viewed by astronauts looking in the opposite direction. The film is so obsessed with the dead surfaces of period detail that it winds up stifling its simple underdog narrative. Watching the virtuous come out on top isn't much fun when the filmmakers appear to be thinking of anything other than that triumph over whatever.