MY MOVIE SHELF: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 86 Days to go: 58

Movie #354:  The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Well, I’ve survived it. Again. We’ve come to the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I couldn’t be more grateful. The subtitles really do help a lot in the understanding (and even enjoyment) of the films, but 1) that shouldn’t be a requirement for a film in (mostly) my native language, and 2) they’re still pretty ridiculous, as far as films go.

The enormity of the task Peter Jackson and company took on and accomplished is not to be swept aside, for it was gigantic and ambitious. That he managed to film three such huge, world-spanning, epic films all at the same time is a feat that will likely never be matched. The special effects throughout the films were impressive and innovative to a stunning degree, and creatures that existed only digitally blended seamlessly into the landscape with human actors. I don’t mean to undercut it at all. That’s why The Return of the King won all the Oscars. I personally wouldn’t have given it all the Oscars, but I can understand why it got them. I don’t really begrudge it that.

What I do begrudge it, however, is the story. Maybe this is largely the fault of author J.R.R. Tolkien, or maybe it falls to the filmmakers, but there are enormous holes in this mess. Like why isn’t the giant, climactic battle of Gondor the actual climax of the film? There’s another hour or more after all is said and done with this battle they’ve been building to for two films. The evilest of evil dudes, who can’t be killed by man, is dead (we’ll get to that in a bit), and the land of Men is saved, and Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) has returned to be rightful king, and still there’s a ton left to do. In fact, right around the time this battle to end all battles winds down, Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) are escaping the tower of Mordor together, only to still be about a hundred miles away from the damn mountain as the crows (or shall we say eagles? EAGLES!) fly.

Speaking of that tower of Mordor, why did the Orcs take Frodo up there? Why didn’t they leave him cocooned in spiderweb to be eaten by whatsherface? Just one more pointless obstacle for these hobbits to face? I mean, entire countries have been won and lost in at least three battles since those two split off from the rest of their fellowship, with everyone and their brother traipsing back and forth across the entirety of Middle Earth a dozen times or more, yet they’re still making their way. Slowly, but surely, with a half-dead Frodo, who’s now been stabbed nearly to death three times, will lose a finger before all is said and done, and still can’t just die in the lava of Mount Doom like he most definitely should. (Oh yeah, and how is it that Gollum, voiced by Andy Serkis, can fall down a bottomless gulch and still beat the fucking hobbits to the mountain?? What the fuck?!?) So why is it, exactly, that these magical eagles — the eagles from Deus ex Machina-land who show up  over Mordor to lend assistance to the final army in the final (no really this time) battle — couldn’t have taken the ring, or Frodo, or the entire fucking fellowship into Morder to drop the ring into Mount Doom? Oh, no reason. Are you kidding me??

And as far as that final battle goes — the real, actual final battle, not the one they build up to like it’s the climax of anything — why are the ghost fighters not there? Why did Aragorn release them early? Why didn’t he just employ them from the start? I mean, ghost fighting probably would’ve been pretty impressive, but in actuality all you see is a green wave of death going over the opponents and then it’s over. So why didn’t they just start there? Send the eagles to drop the ring, send the ghost army to take out all the orcs, and be done? Why have we sat through three neverending movies when it could’ve been over in a moderately-lengthed one?

I have to say, the murder of that unkillable witch-king was pretty impressive with Eowyn (Miranda Otto) all, “I am no man!” (Or it would’ve been, if it had come at the end like a normal climax.) But even that was telegraphed from about a thousand miles away. I didn’t even know her name the first time I watched these things, but when Gandalf (Ian McKellen) makes a huge point about the fact that “no living man can kill him,” it wasn’t hard to figure out the rest. I mean, gee, is there a woman of substance in this whole thing who isn’t an elf? Oh yeah, that one, who already foreshadowed how good she is with a sword two movies and, like, seven and a half hours ago. It must be her. Because in Middle Earth, when it comes to any single woman actually doing anything, THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE. (Wait, that’s Highlander. Whatever.)

Then, finally, to compensate for neither of the two previous movies having an ending at all, this one has approximately five. There’s the fade to black after Sam and Frodo collapse on the rock in the sea of lava, but then it fades back in to show the eagles (!!!) picking them up, like no big deal. Then there’s Frodo waking up in Rivendell, and having all the members of the fellowship share a good chuckle over their rousing good time of many months worth of hardship and death, and fade to black again. Then, wait, Aragorn has to be crowned and say something kingly, followed by Legolas (Orlando Bloom) giving him an arched eyebrow at the mysterious figure hiding behind an Elvish banner, like WHO COULD IT BE?? Oh, it’s Arwen (Liv Tyler), miraculously not dead, and her and Aragorn start making out something fierce. Luckily, Eowyn has started eyeballing Faramir (David Wenham) now. And everyone bows down to the hobbits. Fade out AGAIN. Except, no, now Frodo takes up the end of the tale, and the hobbits head back to the shire thirteen months after leaving and share a drink while Sam goes to talk up some chick he likes. Fade out AGAIN. No, wait, now Frodo is talking about how misplaced he still feels, and he finishes up the writing of the tale a full four goddamn years after the whole thing started. Apparently Bilbo (Ian Holm) is still alive, so he accompanies him to Rivendell to go to the Undying Lands, only Frodo goes to, and gives the book to Sam. Then SAM winds up the telling of the tale and goes home to his wife, despite desperately needing to make out with Frodo, like, the entire movie, and takes his happy little family into his hobbit hole door. At long, long last, the end.

And it’s the end for me too. At least as far as The Lord of the Rings is concerned. I will never have to watch it again as long as I live. But I still have scores of movies left on my shelf, and I will continue on with them in the morning. Hopefully, I haven’t lost faith with all of you yet.

 

MY MOVIE SHELF: Chariots of Fire

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 97 Days to go: 65

Movie #343:  Chariots of Fire

My ex-husband once told me Chariots of Fire was the most boring movie he’d ever seen. He’s wrong; it’s not boring. It is, however, completely different than I expected it to be. Having neither seen nor heard anything about the film beyond its iconic running on the beach scene, set to its infamous theme music, I thought it was about marathoners or something. I wasn’t sure. It’s actually about sprinters, which isn’t too far off, but imagine my surprise when I discovered its most famous scene (and music) doesn’t actually appear in the film proper — only over the opening and closing credits. It’s like the rest of the film hardly exists at all. Am I the only one who’s watched it?

Chariots of Fire is a tale of faith, of drive and of competition among British athletes in the 1920s. And as they come together in the 1924 Paris Olympics, it becomes about British patriotism as well, and about competing against the reputedly superior Americans. Ben Cross plays Harold Abrahams and Ian Charleson plays Eric Liddell, the two central athletes of the film. Abrahams is Jewish and despite his family’s high standing and his status as a renowned Cambridge student, he still comes up against prejudice for his heritage. He’s a fierce competitor, driven and compelled to run, in part to prove himself as good or better than those who would put him down. Liddell, on the other hand, is a devout Christian of a missionary family who intends to join a mission himself. He runs because he feels his speed is a gift from God, and to ignore it would be akin to forsaking Him. He believes in his running, and he fights for the ability to pursue it, but when one of the Olympic heats is to be held on a Sunday, it tests his faith. In the end, he refuses to run — even up against pressure from the Prince of Wales — because to him God comes first. But in the true spirit of patriotism and sportsmanship, Eric’s teammate Andrew Lindsay (Nigel Havers) gives up his spot in the 400 to give it to Eric, despite Eric being an outsider to the Cambridge chaps and a former competitor of Harold’s.

The movie is as much about being true to yourself and sticking to your beliefs as it is about competing for God and country. Harold has to defend his passion for winning to the men of Cambridge as much as Eric has to defend his unwillingness to break the Sabbath. And both succeed not because one is competitive enough to hire a professional trainer (Ian Holm) or because one is faithful to his religion, but rather because both stay true to who they are, and do what is right for them.

The movie is somewhat flawed, though, employing a couple of framing techniques that both fall somewhat flat, neither entirely enclosing the action they’re framing. In truth, the structure as a whole is not as tight or strong as it could be, as it flits somewhat haphazardly between Cambridge and Scotland without clear intention or transition. Worst of all, the bulk of the action occurs via flashback within a flashback, which is awkward to say the least. It’s doubtful that I would classify Chariots of Fire as the best picture of its year.

But it’s not boring.

 

 

MY MOVIE SHELF: Garden State

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 257 Days to go: 256

Movie #120: Garden State

Zach Braff is an artist.

Having been familiar with him only from Scrubs, where he played the whimsical and dreamy John Dorian, I wasn’t sure what to expect the first time I saw Garden State, which he wrote, directed and starred in. Maybe it was because I was in the particular age demographic the movie was speaking to, but I loved it and related to it. Braff’s film managed to tap into the directionless ennui of those past high school and college age but not yet successful and established in adulthood. It dealt with the encroaching issues of anxiety and depression in America’s young adults, and the numbness of being overmedicated and unimportant. It’s a feeling I recognize, and one I’m loathe to visit again, but I appreciate the meticulousness and authenticity with which Braff recreates it.

As Andrew Largeman, Braff comes home to New Jersey for his mother’s funeral — an event he greets with mixed emotions due to this complicated past relationship with her and his father (Ian Holm). He meets up with lots of old school acquaintances (most notably Peter Sarsgaard as Mark), goes to some of those twentysomething parties that still reek of high school and college even though the participants should’ve long outgrown those tendencies, and meets a girl named Sam (Natalie Portman) in the waiting room of a neurologist’s office. He and Sam are instantly fascinated with one another, and they become quick friends, hanging out for almost the entirety of the short time Andrew is in town.

Back in 2007, Nathan Rabin of the A.V. Club wrote about the atrocious movie Elizabethtown, coined the term “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” to describe Kirsten Dunst’s ridiculously odd and thinly drawn character, and assigned Portman’s Sam that same status after the fact (two and a half years after Garden State came out, in fact), calling her a “prime example.” He’s since (recently, in fact) requested the term be permanently retired, but it will probably always follow Sam around, especially because Garden State was a modest hit whereas almost nobody (thankfully) remembers Elizabethtown.

The thing is, though, I don’t really agree that Sam is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Yes, she’s eccentric, and she does goofy things to “be original,” but it’s not like she doesn’t have her reasons. The entire idea of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is that she exists solely as a sexist fantasy to cheer up the male protagonist, but while Sam is an outlet for Andrew to express himself and vocalize some thoughts and feelings he’s had for some time, she’s not the catalyst of them. Like I said, he’s had them for some time, and he actually stops taking his medication before he even leaves Los Angeles — at least two or three days before he meets Sam. And she really doesn’t do anything but support him on the journey he’s already taking. Not only that, but Sam has issues of her own. She’s epileptic and sensitive about it, so she lies as a defense mechanism. She’s just as broken as Andrew is, but in different ways. In fact, it’s Andrew’s easy acceptance of her that allows her to come clean about her epilepsy at all, so he’s just as much as a savior for her as she is for him. Not only that, but she has her own agency, her own ideas. She’s not going to kiss Andrew until she’s ready, she has no problem whatsoever expressing her discomfort with certain situations, and she deflects Andrew’s tendency to downplay serious situations with jokes, not because she’s there to cheer him up, but because she wants him to be more sincere in his life.

As for whether Sam exists solely to interact with Andrew, I mean, that can be said for any other character as well. Why is Andrew’s father there? Why is Mark there? Why is any character in any story there except to enhance and build the story the author is telling? Superfluous characters are Jean Smart and Jim Parsons as Mark’s mom and former classmate, respectively, who are now romantically involved. They add a lot less to the depth and arc of the story than Sam does. But without them, we wouldn’t get Parson’s hilarious delivery of “By the way, it says ‘balls’ on your face.” or this perfect exchange between Mark and Andrew:

Mark: “I’m going to kill that motherfucker.”

Andrew: “Pun intended?”

The ending, after Andrew leaves Sam at the airport, feels a bit tacked on, as if whoever the studio focus grouped the movie for couldn’t deal with an ambiguous ending, but that’s a small quibble in a film that really shows a lot of heart and promise — both as an individual achievement and as a picture of Braff’s potential as a filmmaker. I didn’t get to see Wish I Was Here when it was in theaters (babysitters are hard to come by), but I’m looking forward to it on DVD. I’ve heard mixed reviews, but I have faith in Braff and in what he can do. I think he’s earned it.

So take care, and “Good luck exploring the infinite abyss.”