I can't bring myself to give this film anymore space than I already have!

The only thumbs up I can give (and the only reason it was bearable) is for Carter Burwell's score!

I love Hawks more than any other American director. And while there are neat things in BC, it's not one of Hawks' better films.

It does have a great cast and neat performances. It was one of the first films Walter Brennan made (he's the surly guy in the rowboat who price gouges the passengers) and he was winning Oscars by next year (for another Hawks film Come and Get It). David Niven shows up near the beginning as a drunk walking up on the porch of a saloon.

The relationship between Robinson and Hopkins is amazing--the one scene where he wants to be loved and she tells him to take what he's getting is strong. But, the bit with the lynch mob catching up to Donlevy on the street like that is the film's one indisputable great moment. I also like the scenes where the newspaper office gets destroyed and where McCrea and Hopkins hide under the dock, but there is something glum about the rest. McCrea is such a goofy character that he's hard to take seriously and Hopkins just whines and suffers instead of taking charge. The great moments are too few and too far between. Any interest Hawks had in it originally died over dealing with both Hopkins and Sam Goldwyn and he doesn't consider it one of his favorites either.

Interestingly all 3 episodes seem to deal with the same theme: civilization and its necessary repression of the Id. Actually, many episodes in the series deal with this idea/conflict, that proper behavior takes a struggle to maintain, that it demands a sacrifice, but that things fall into anarchy without it.

At another level, old Trek episodes are highly enjoyable. Everything is so overdone: the colors, the action, the acting. You can enjoy them on many levels, camp included. And yet they are still solid drama, even thought-provoking. I can see why they generated a huge cult.

One thing that I remembered that I really like about Trek is the problem-solving. They get into a conflict and they go to a table to identify the problem, analyze it, and try to think and plan their way to a solution. This activity is basic to many episodes and it's a large part of their appeal for me.

THE HOLE (GB 2001)

Directed by Nick Hamm
Screenplay by Ben Court and Caroline Ip, from the novel by Guy Burt
Photography by Denis Crossan
Music by Clint Mansell

BLADE RUNNER (USA 1982)

Directed by Ridley Scott
Screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, from the novel by Philip K. Dick
Photography by Jordan Cronenweth
Music by Vangelis

THE SHIPPING NEWS (USA 2001)

Directed by Lasse Hallstrom with two dots above the O
Screenplay by Robert Nelson Jacobs, from the novel by E. Annie Proulx
Photography by Oliver Stapleton
Music by Christopher Young

Caught 2 more Trek episodes: Turnabout Intruder and A Private Little War.

TI--I guess it's tough for women to become captains in the 23rd century. I guess you can't expect a show with girls in mini-skirt uniforms not to be sexist despite it's usual liberal stances elsewhere.

40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS

An okay romantic comedy with Josh Hartnett as a guy who, to get over his bitchy ex-girlfriend (Vinessa Shaw), decides to give up sex (in all its forms) for Lent. Unfortunately for him, he meets a great girl (Shannyn Sossamon) but can't do anything about it, physically. Hartnett has a surprising gift for comedy, and he and Sossamon have great chemistry. Too bad the film is awash in wholly unlikable supporting characters and occasionally stupid jokes. A semi-interesting return to form for director Michael Lehmann (Heathers). I hope that Rolfe Kent's terrific, catchy score gets a release.

Rating: ***1/2

BIG FAT LIAR

Frankie Muniz plays a kid who, along with his best friend (Amanda Bynes), seeks revenge and a confession from an obnoxious film producer (Paul Giamatti) who stole his school paper and is turning it into a movie. Already one of the year's pleasant surprises, this is much better than you'd expect from a kid's movie. Has lots of heart and laughs (especially in the final third). Good score by Christophe Beck; it probably won't be released, but here's hoping.

THE SENATOR WAS INDISCREET (US 1947)

Directed by George S. Kaufman
Screenplay by Charles MacCarthur, from a story by Edwin Lanham
Photography by William Mellor
Music by Daniele Amfitheatrof

Main Cast: William Powell, Ella Raines, Peter Lind Hayes, Ray Collins, Arleen Whelan

During his campaign to get elected president, a politician and his aides must get rid of an incriminating diary.

The pursuit of the diary itself becomes a bit tiresome in this rather obvious satire, but there are successfully surreal moments (William Powell coming out the wrong door of his hotel room in pyjamas and finding himself in the middle of Grand Central Station), and some unsuccessful ones too (the brief, perplexing shot of the aftermath of a train crash).

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay by Charles Bennett, Joan Harrison, James Hilton, Robert Benchley, from the novel by Vincent Sheean
Photography by Rudolph Maté
Music by Alfred Newman

Main Cast: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, Albert Basserman, Edmund Gwenn, George Sanders

Cross and double cross and triple cross and spies and espionage and stuff like that in Europe just before the outbreak of WW2.

Rollicking light thriller with a somewhat childish Boys Own comic book feel. Being typically "Hitchcockian", much of the build-up seems a mere excuse for the staging of the set-pieces, and whilst some are good (the atmospheric early bits in the windmill), others are terrible (Joel McCrea with the inept hired killer), and the mechanics of it all stick out a mile.

The "keep watching the skies" epilogue recalls the later THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD and was probably a propoganda excercise to get America involved in the war.

The pieces of the jigsaw do seem to fit, albeit within the distorted logic of Lynch's world. I sometimes wondered, but now I'm sure that there's plenty more going on inside his cranium than the desire to take the Michael and be considered weird. There is an awful lot of detail on offer in this film, and it's crying out for repeat viewings. Besides, that way you'll get to see those good lesbian scenes again. Fine set of baps on that Harring woman.

Angelo Badalamenti's music does what you'd expect, meaning that it's not to be trusted. Watch out for the composer in an early scene, scarily getting angry with his coffee!

MULHOLLAND DRIVE (USA 2001)

Directed by David Lynch
Screenplay by David Lynch
Photography by Peter Deming
Music by Angelo Badalamenti

Directed by Howard Hawks and William Wyler
Screenplay by Jules Furthman and Jane Murfin, from the novel by Edna Ferber
Photography by Gregg Toland and Rudolph Maté
Music by Alfred Newman

Main Cast: Edward Arnold, Frances Farmer, Joel McCrea, Walter Brennan

Logging boss rejects real love and marries for business reasons. Old flame marries logger's old friend. Old flame has daughter. Old flame dies. Old flame's daughter grows up to look exactly like old flame. Logger visits old friend. Logger tries to rekindle old flame's daughter, in absence of real old flame. Logger's son also falls for dad's old flame's daughter.

What a corker of a plot! You may raise an eyebrow at some of the things in it, like how Edward Arnold doesn't age, and how Frances Farmer falls for him in the first place (then settles for Walter Brennan!), but I still think it's a great movie which has dated very little. I wonder what it was like on the set having both Hawks and Wyler at the helm.

Plenty of interesting themes, and the complexity of the Edward Arnold character gives food for thought. Here is a man who thought that everything was there for the taking ("Come and get it!") yet is doomed to failure in love, and forced to lose his dignity for nothing when it's all too late. And the realization at the end that he is just "an old man" lends an extra hard edge to things.

I'd never seen big-chinned Frances Farmer in a film before. Uncannily like...Jessica Lange!(appropriate choice then to have Lange play FRANCES in that biopic with the John Barry score.)

Excellent semi-documentary logging shots in the first part of the movie too, vigorously scored by Alf Newman. Later parts of the score include string adaptations of the song sung by Farmer in the club scenes, "Aura Lee, Aura Lee, doo ree roo ree ree" (didn't that turn into Elvis Presley doing "Love Me Tender" decades later?) and "I Dream Of Jeannie", also heard in BARBARY COAST.

Directed by George Stevens
Screenplay by Irwin Shaw and Sidney Buchman, from a story by Sidney Harmon
Photography by Ted Tetzlaff
Music by Frederick Hollander

Main Cast: Ronald Colman, Cary Grant, Jean Arthur

A law expert rents a house in which an escaped convict is hiding.

Another excellent, if overstretched, golden oldie. A comedy-drama, the fun is in watching how debonair cold fish Ronald Colman and rabble-rouser Cary Grant play off each other (with Jean Arthur in the middle, emotionally pulled this way and that).

Good dialogues abound as Colman gradually gets "humanized", softening his aloofness (and shaving off his symbolically aloof Duc de Richleau beard) while Grant begins to take the middle ground from the opposite direction. The message seems to be that small doses of justifiable petty lying and minor violence never did anyone any harm. That's what it means to be human!

Come and Get It is tough stuff. I totally identify with Edward Arnold and he just misses the boat his whole life long. Hawks was a conservative but this film seems to suggest that becoming rich has major drawbacks.

Hawks considered Francis Farmer the best actress he ever worked with and this is really her one shining moment in film. Arnold is great. Brennan won the Oscar. But it's really her film and she's great. And she's not even that pretty but she has great appeal and command even so.

The logging footage was shot by a second unit guy Harold Rossen, a long-time Hawks associate.

Goldwyn didn't like the ending that Hawks shot so Hawks suggested some changes. Goldwyn didn't like them. Told Hawks that 'Directors shouldn't write' and so Hawks either walked or was sacked. Goldwyn called in Wyler, told him he could reshoot most of the picture. Wyler told Goldwyn that what Hawks had shot was good and should be left alone. Wyler did re-shoots including the ending, he says it was only a couple of minutes, but he gets co-credit.

Oddly, Hawks would work for Goldwyn twice more, even after parodying Goldwyn in Only Angels Have Wings.

As I mentioned before, the 30s Hawks films seem to be against older patriarchal types. The younger guys defeat them like Joel McCrea in both this and Barbary Coast. I think this is Hawks working out his Oedipal conflict so that he wins. Later, when Hawks is older, it's the old guys who get respect in his films.

Talk of the Town is marvelous. I kinda want Colman to win over Grant but they worked out the ending so it satisfies everyone I guess. Amazing how they keep most of the film confined to the house and how loony Jean Arthur is in the thing.

I love Jean Arthur but she has the strangest persona of any actress I've seen in films: The Plainsman, Only Angels Have Wings, You Can't Take It With You, Talk of the Town, The More the Merrier, even A Foreign Affair---she is one gawky broad. It's strange to even think of her as desirable and yet she's always in the middle of some romance or triangle. There is a remarkable film with her and Fred MacMurray and Melvyn Douglas whose title eludes me right now where her whole character astounds me more than anything else.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips, based on James Hilton's novel, is a moving melodrama about a shy British teacher (Robert Donat) who devotes his life to teaching "his boys" after the death of his lovely, energetic American wife (Greer Garson). Donat won an Academy Award for his excellent, sentimental portrayal of the title character, and the film features Garson's debut performance. — Stephen Thomas Erlewine from (ALLMOVIE GUIDE .COM)

Wow, I haven't seen this movie in maybe 20 years and yet, even now, it has the ability to make this cynical and bitter man a weeping wreck! Beautifully rendered performance by Robert Donat especially as the older "Grandad" (Clive Dunne-type) Mr. Chips. How could any person not feel sympathetic towards this gentle, humble, wise and caring character? The central "courting" scenes between the "shy" Chips and Greer Garson are moving to watch especially the scene where, realising he may lose her forever, Chips risks all, chasing after the train on the platform asking for her hand in marriage. The feeling of history at the school is wonderful with the continous use of shots of the register being called out for a new term really adding to the feeling of the time scale of the film. The latter part of the film has some touching scenes regarding some casualties of World War One, which is ironic, as the film was made on the eve of World War Two. It just adds to the feeling of historic importance of the film. To today's younger audience, I suppose "Goodbye Mr Chips" would appear old fashioned and overly-sentimental, but I say, if more films were made like this today, the world would be a better place and people's "souls" a lot happier and contented. The final shot of Colley turning around in the door saying "Goodbye Mr. Chips" is a classic tearjerking image of the "Golden Age of Cinema". Lovely score by Richard Addinsell too (he of "Warsaw Concerto" fame)
Speaking of the score, there was a "Hymn" used throughout the movie, especially in the "assembly" scenes. Does anyone know what this Hymn is, or was it just part of the score written for the movie. It has a kind of "Jerusalem" quality to it and yet maybe not quite as patriotic as that.

Gae NP Classic FM

Lou, that's interesting about the circumstances of the Hawks/ Wyler shooting of COME AND GET IT. And while I don't know if Wyler shared Hawks' opinion about Frances Farmer being a great actress, he did say "The nicest thing I can say about Frances Farmer is that she's unbearable."

Regarding TALK OF THE TOWN, apparently two endings were filmed, and the choice of final partner for Jean Arthur was determined by audience reaction at previews. By the way, Lou, that other Jean Arthur film you're thinking about must be TOO MANY HUSBANDS, based on a play by Somerset Maugham.

Gae

It's possible that after Hawks, she might have been very unhappy with Wyler or anyone who came in on the film. Farmer wrote an autobiography I've always wanted to read but, as I understand, the majority of it deals with her experiences with mental illness and not her career so much.

Others--Well, with all the films I have backlogged on tape I've never seen, what do I do? Watch more Star Trek episodes I've seen a dozen times before, of course. It's just that they're so short and go down so easy, even if they do come off as silly sometimes.

Still, I can hear my mom right now: "I didn't raise my boy to be a Trekkie."

Sorry Mom.

Caught The Enemy Within with its great Sol Kaplan score and The Corbomite Maneuver with its great Fred Steiner score.

In The Corbomite Maneuver, the first episode shot beyond the pilots, everyone still seems a bit green: Sulu is more like Spock than Spock, McCoy contends against Kirk in ways that would be unthinkable later on, etc. Still, this episode does establish a few regular staples--sitting around a table trying to think a way to a solution to the conflict, Shatner chewing scenery about the difficult responsibility of command, Kirk always going beyond the limits of the ship (it would be great if just once Scottie said, 'you can't do it, it's only a theory, it's never been done' and Kirk orders him to do it anyway and the ship just explodes into dust).

The actors are less green with the show in the later 1st season episode, The Enemy Within, to try making a profound statement on the nature of Man, kind of embracing the duality of Man as a positive.

Both of these episodes involve a panicky, irrational crew member. In Corbomite it's Bailey and in Within it's Capt. Kirk's id. Bailey has a great outburst, calling them all tin soldiers as they remain calm and count off the seconds towards their deaths. But ultimately, the show sides against him. It's grace under pressure that the series favors, and at one point Kirk re-enforces the concept of rules by saying the ship is not a democracy. Kirk's id breaks those rules of conduct and fights against becoming re-integrated with Kirk's supressing superego, but even Kirk's dark half realizes he has nowhere else to go. Under the influence of drugs, Kirk also battles his id in A Private Little War, The Naked Time, and other episodes. Spock battles his id in many episodes too, but then he's so superego to begin with that those moments of eruption are usually a relief. Which means that Trek supports a kind of controlled but still balanced personality that fits itself into a heirarchical social structure. I guess the class struggle doesn't pan out in the 23rd century either.

It makes me angry when a director remakes his own movie. I hear E.T. is being released and I doubt that Hollywood will give the public the option to own the original movie on DVD. It will be the director's cut. I am sick of Hollywood not letting me choose wether I want the Original movie or the director's cut. I wish they would leave the good movies alone and make better new movies. Are they that desprite? If the Star Wars episodes ever are released on DVD, I would like to own the original movies. I do not care about the director's cut because I did not see that movie when I was a kid. These people seem to think that they can change whatever they want. Well that is fine with me as long as I am given the choice to own the original or the directors cut. Steven Spielburg and George Lucas were my heroes but now they have turned into old fools. I have lost much respect for them. I only hope they do not retouch Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Hey everyone, what did you think of THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES, that new one with Richard Gere? I thought it was good, with a sombre mood like THE X FILES. In fact, I found the measured pace actually quite refreshing. Here the visual pyrotechnics are all the more effective for being subtle: note the subliminal glimpses of moth shapes throughout the film, and even how some frame compositions evoke the same symmetry as that powdery night-species with its wings open.

But I still don't know if it makes much sense, however as it's supposedly based on fact we'll forgive any possible loose ends, because...that's life!

Effective music by Tomandandy, the two of them (that moth-like symmetry again).

THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES (USA 2002)

Directed by Mark Pellington
Screenplay by Richard Hatem, from the book by John A. Keel
Photography by Fred Murphy
Music by Tomandandy

Directed by Robert Redford
Screenplay by David Ward and John Nichols, from the book by John Nichols
Photography by Robbie Greenberg
Music by Dave Grusin

Main Cast: Ruben Blades, Richard Bradford, Sonia Braga, John Heard, Christopher Walken, Daniel Stern

Poor farmers are up against property developers. And a ghostly Mr Bean comes and spills his seed all over New Mexico, tee hee.

Just having a bit of fun with the synopsis there. It's another of Robert Redford's mildly mystical movies with an undercurrent of liberalism and touches of "magic realism" (or maybe not, but something like that). It has a slight charm, but the ensemble playing diffuses focus, and it gets a bit boring (but not as boring as Redford's really really stressfully boring LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE).

Dave Grusin's gentle (and Oscar winning) score is largely south-of-the-border melodies on guitar, like the tranquil bits of THE WILD BUNCH. Good semi-ghostly squeezebox waltz for the title sequence of Mr Bean's initial seed-spilling. It sets just the right tone which the film itself has difficulty maintaining.

Directed by Robert Wise
Screenplay by Nelson Gidding and Don Mankiewicz
Photography by Lionel Lindon
Music by John Mandel

Main Cast: Susan Hayward, Simon Oakland

Good-time girl Barbara Graham goes to the gas chamber.

Was this ever really that good? I thought that the mood was too hysterical, reflected in Susan Hayward's annoying Oscar-winning performance. It also seems to badly run out of steam just when it should be building tension. Some striking moments though in the harshly-lit photography, but it makes it look like a (stylish) TV show from the period, not that that's necessarilly a criticism, but it does date it a bit and reduces its scale.

Training Day I almost turned this off, as I found the first hour noisy and
irritating. Watching Denzel bitch at and belittle Ethan Hawkins and
the askance photography and editing were starting to grow weary. The second
hour, however, made watching the first hour worthwhile. Denzel’s decline into
almost psychosis becomes more nuanced, and the audience is hooked into caring
about Hawkin’s character. (For all the talk about Denzel’s fine villainous performance,
which was well-done, I think Hawkins is a real stand out in the movie.) Clues from
the first hour and an amazing act of serendipity gel this last hour into an exciting,
nail biting hour of action that had me glued to the television.

Come And Get It Couldn’t resist renting this movie after Graham’s and
Lou’s comments. I enjoyed it. Can’t help but wonder which scenes were Hawks
and which were Wyler’s. First time I’ve seen Farmer, and she did look like
Jessica Lang. The opening with its crisp cinemaphotgraphy of all snow melting and
the timber being harvested was masterful. Solid music from Newman. (Hey,
you mean Love Me Tender wasn’t an Elvis original? )

Gae, I don't know the name of the hymn, but I watched Goodbye Mr. Chips a while ago and had to get out the kleenex.

Caught Daisies (1966), a wonderfully fun and anarchic Czech film, with two loony women breaking a lot of social conventions (and one or two laws) as they attempt to be "as bad" as the things they see around them. It makes some points (their being rude is nothing compared to what people do to each other in wars) but that's besides the point: the film's just so in love with the silly free-spiritedness of the two women that nothing else really matters. Strange, liberating, sad, beautiful, with a wonderful use of color and B&W, and a very ecclectic score and use of sound.

MALCOLM X (USA 1992)

Directed by Spike Lee
Screenplay by Arnold Perl and Spike Lee, from the book "The Autobiography Of Malcolm X" as told to Alex Haley
Photography by Ernest Dickerson
Music by Terence Blanchard

Main Cast: Denzel Washington, Angela Bassett, Albert Hall, Al Freeman Jr.

The story of the black activist: his early days as a small-time crook, his conversion to Islam in prison, his disillusionment with the behaviour of the Muslim godfathers, his subsequent mellowing, and his violent end.

I remember some talk right here a while back about this film. Is it possible to talk about the movie MALCOLM X without bringing up politics and real life? Probably not. Anyway, no denying that the film is...very long. But it did manage to hold my attention for most of its 200 minutes, and Denzel Washington is spellbinding in the title role. For the most part a dignified portrait, the film seems to play fair, and it does raise pertinent questions about civil rights and the perception of inciting violence in their defence. Recreated interviews from the period go some way to answering our own questions on the subject just as we're forming them in our heads. Malcolm does mellow after his trip to the Middle East, but the film ends with a curious insert: during Nelson Mandela's appearance as the Soweto teacher telling his students what Malcolm X was trying to achieve, the film suddenly cuts to old newsreel footage of Malcolm (or Denzel) saying solemnly "...by any means necessary." Cue end credits.

Pretty serious stuff, intelligently handled, but there is one misjudged scene: Elijah Mohammed's appearance to Malcolm X in prison is like the ghost of Yoda. That voice!

FROM HELL (USA 2001)

Directed by Allen and Albert Hughes
Screenplay by Terry Hayes and Rafael Yglesias, from the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
Photography by Peter Deming
Music by Trevor Jones

"Investigating an ancient civilization, the crew of the Enterprise discovers the preserved brains of three of the civilization's final survivors. The alien beings propose a temporary exchange, wherein they would inhabit the human bodies long enough to construct robotic shells for their minds. After deliberation, Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Dr. Ann Mulhall (Diana Muldaur) volunteer for the procedure. The change is successful, but proves to have unexpected side effects — including an acceleration of bodily processes that means the task must be completed within a brief period of time. Complicating matters further is the fact that the being inhabiting Spock's body no longer wishes to cooperate with the original plan. — Judd Blaise"

Overall, it was a fun, if not "classic" episode, with a few unintentionally funny moments which had me laughing out loud. Notably, Shatner's over-acting jerky moves and facial expressions as one of the Alien beings takes over his body. He walks around the room, as the alien accustoms himself to the body, like some weird robot with hemorrhoids!! The same thing, although to lesser degree happens when Spock is possessed. Nimoy's acting effort at being possessed involving a quizzical expression on his face, followed by a half turn as he falls balletically backwards to the ground. Kirk, as usual, gets to snog with a female member of the crew and in another unintentionally funny moment, collapses to the ground (due to his heightened metabolic rate) immediately after sampling the delights of this female's lips, during a passionate embrace. My first reaction was "Wow, that was SOME kiss"!!
Near the end of the episode, after sampling the pleasures of being alive again, and experiencing the sins of the "flesh", as a favour, the aliens ask that they be allowed to use the bodies "one more time" before disappearing into oblivion. I'm thinking, Yea and we know what for!! They then proceed to touch each others hair and feel each others skin, kissing passionately etc. The lighting changes and sound effects convey their disappearance into oblivion as Kirk and his female crew member return to their bodies still in an embrace. They look at each other confused and let go, embarassed....although Kirk does seem to have a slightly perverse grin on his face. I was thinking while watching this, imagine how they'd felt if they had decided to go out with a "bang" after all...if you know what I mean.

Gae

Directed by Joe Dante
Screenplay by Gavin Scott, Adam Rifkin, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio
Photography by Jamie Anderson
Music by Jerry Goldsmith

Main Cast: Gregory Smith, Kirsten Dunst

I've liked the handful of Joe Dante films I've seen, but SMALL SOLDIERS is pretty weak I thought. The effects are good of course, and are fun to watch, but the human personages have no weight at all, so there's no balance. It's also extremely slack and bland for the first half hour or more, like a TV movie for young children, but things pick up later on when the cruel GREMLINSish mayhem starts. Maybe it's all too similar to GREMLINS on the whole, and the shadow of the better TOY STORY also looms large. But it's still okay.

Gae--There are times when Trek reminds me of the local civic theater trying to put on productions of great classics. But somehow the amateur aspects of the series are part of their delight. Shatner says he can't watch 'the old me' he's just embarrased and wishes the whole thing would go away except that it's his gravy train. Nimoy felt the same way at one time but has come to embrace the series. I heard him speak once and he said there were certain things in it that were so good he remained proud of them and that also the series ultimately gave him the chance to become a director.

There are so many different qualities that go into making Trek entertaining: when it's good it's good and when it's bad it's good too. But basically it works because it's good drama. The basic formula involves an unknown phenonmenon that either threatens the ship or some civilization, or else a personality or civilization that has developed into a cul-de-sac and needs a push to set it back on the right track, in some cases the civilization is us (Trek talks about non-interference but the cast has to interfere or else there's no story). Anyway, there is a conflict or problem that needs fixing. The crew gets together in a strategy meeting to figure out things they can do to solve the problem. Spock is reason and science, Bones is emotion, Kirk is the balance of both sides (although he still requires advice). A friend of mine pointed out that the reason Kirk can beat Spock in 3D chess is that he can access intuition that Spock cannot. But he's also able to keep a cool head in most situations. He represents the best of both worlds.

Ok, once they've done the thinking (which is one kind of action), they must do the physical, put the plan into action. And like a good chess game, every move meets a counter move. Strategies change and adapt to circumstance, girls get kissed, bad things get phasered, faulty machinery gets fixed, mysteries are made rational, but ethical considerations beyond self-preservation govern or motivate the actions as well ("No, I won't kill him. Do you hear, I won't kill him."). Things eventually get solved, sometimes well, sometimes not, sometimes in-between (the great ending of City on the Edge of Forever--history hasn't been altered, the order of the universe is safe, but Kirk personally loses out: "Let's get the hell out of here.")

Trek seems also to possess some intangible magic. A lot of films and TV stick to the express train of good dramatic structure and add all the right flourishes but still flounder. Trek seems to ride out most of its excesses and flaws (but certainly not all as dismal episodes do exist). But, not only that, for as I said before, it even manages the miracle of turning its weaknesses into an entertaining style. But it couldn't do this without having the solid base of a good dramatic situation, interesting characters, etc.

Directed by Tony Richardson
Screenplay by Allan Sillitoe, from his story
Photography by Walter Lassally
Music by John Addison

Main Cast: Tom Courtenay, Michael Redgrave, James Bolam

Angry Young Man gets sent to Borstal and gets good at cross-country running. Whilst training, we see flashbacks of his miserable pre-arrest working class existence.

Semi-memorable Angry Young Man/ English New Wave/ Free Cinema/ Social Conscience drama: I'm not sure what the right label is, but you can see kitchen sinks in some of the shots.

It's quite vivid in its portrayal of the depressing family life (the bickering, the rowdy children, the excitement at getting their first TV set - probably stolen), and Tom Courteney is good, though perhaps a shade too old, as the messed-up protagonist. But the treatment of the seedy surroundings sometimes makes it difficult to know what kind of mood the film is trying to create, what with its fast-motion comic interludes and John Addison's breezy score (jolly jazz, cheery whistling, and "Jerusalem").