Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

By Mike Girard

 

A plane crash – wolves – Liam Neeson, a knife, and a fistful of sharp glass.

In the desolate Alaskan tundra, “men unfit for mankind” work by day and drink by night. Among them is John Ottway (Liam Neeson), a professional hunter who keeps the oil rig teams safe from the territorial gray wolf packs that litter the area. One night he contemplates suicide, but relents after hearing the howling of the wolves. Two nights later, we’re sure he understands the irony.

After surviving a visually gripping and incredibly directed plane crash – one lady fainted in the theater – Ottway assumes leadership of the remaining men. Within hours, the neighborhood wolves find the crash site and begin picking the group off one at a time. As Ottway explains, wolves will ordinarily flee from a fight. Near their den, though, they are fearless. The other survivors are inclined to believe him after a night of chilling howls and growling pairs of eyes.

Director Joe Carnahan handles the CGI-wolf-handicap rather well – it’s pretty difficult to make a character seem genuinely threatened when the bloodthirsty wolves are animated. He keeps the action close and confusing, but not lengthy enough for the viewer to become disoriented. The gore is present, but not in your face.

One cliché managed to slip through – Diaz (Frank Grillo), the cheesy Latino ex-convict, frequently challenges Ottway for leadership of the group. He’s just got a problem with authority, man. Neeson, having become known for badass action movies like Taken (2008) and Unknown (2011), doesn’t take it lying down: “I’m going to start beating the sh** out of you in the next five seconds.”

Neeson, usually ferociously stoic, spends a good amount of time screaming in desperation. It’s a first for him, and I liked it a whole lot. Ottway has to be my favorite of his roles, although I admit I’ve never seen Schindler’s List (1993) and still call myself a film fan. I’m sure there are movies that deal with death in ways much more fascinating than this one. I haven’t seen them, though. The only other movie that comes close for me is Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998).

Each of the main characters in The Grey brings his own story to the film, and each is more touching than the last. I particularly liked the bespectacled Talget (Dermot Mulroney). Don’t be fooled by the masculine tone – you’ll find yourself tearing up more than once.

Overall, the simple premise and dangerous situation gives way to a deeper and more meaningful movie. With a simple but immensely satisfying ending, it’s hard to walk away without feeling philosophical.

I saw this movie with Maria, so I had to buy two tickets for a total of $17. Luckily, the movie was worth far more than that. I might even go see it a second time.

 

The Sagan Series

A mote of dust, suspended in a sun beam.

Of the many jewels StumbleUpon has brought me from the bowels of the web, I think The Sagan Series is my favorite. Its creator, Reid Gower, takes clips of Sagan’s lectures from Cosmos: A Personal Voyage and sets them against beautiful and inspiring visuals. Each video has its own unique original score as well. Anyone who takes pride in being a member of the human race will find these incredibly touching. Sagan explains our place in the universe and somehow keeps an optimistic tone, as he is famous for. Watch the series here.

Incidentally, Neil deGrasse Tyson, a full-time astrophysicist and part-time internet meme will be hosting the upcoming reboot of the Cosmos series.

 

 

Red Tails

Courage has no color. Except for red.

It’s always difficult to judge a movie based on what it is as a film rather than its subject matter. But, I’ve read and watched enough about the Tuskegee airmen – the group of highly decorated WWII-era black American pilots upon which the movie is based – to know that their story is worth a bit more than what this movie has to offer.

The great P-51 dogfight scenes (courtesy of executive producer George Lucas’s experience directing X-wings in the Star Wars films) don’t make up for the overall sloppiness and self-importance rampant in this film. For nit-pickers like me, it’s a nightmare.

For example, take the movie’s poster. It features the film’s two biggest names: Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Major Emanuel Stance and Terrence Howard as Col. A.J. Bullard. These two are billed as the stars of the film, when in reality they have far less screen time and importance in the plot than the younger unknown actors.

Underneath their disembodied heads are the title and tagline – Red Tails: Courage has no color. I’m pretty sure the line is referring to skin color, but when I first read it, I saw it as contradicting the fact that the Red Tails are defined by their bravery and their distinctive red rudders. Maybe I’m the only one, but it really threw me.

The movie itself had almost nothing to offer that I didn’t already know from the trailers and poster. The airmen long for real aerial combat. Col. Bullard fights against the bureaucracy of some very cliché racist white generals (it’s not cliché that they’re racist – it’s a cliché that the only things they have to say are racial slurs). Eventually, the pilots Martin “Easy” Julian (Nate Parker) and Joe “Lightning” Little (David Oyelowo) prove themselves in combat, despite Lightning’s reckless style and Easy’s drinking problem (neither of which are explored or satisfactorily resolved).

The in-flight scenes are riddled with corny Top Gun-style dialogue, and two laughably pointless subplots plague the gaps in between dogfights. Actually, basically every scene on the ground either laughs at its own lame race-based jokes or features one of the two “stars” giving a pep talk.

Unfortunately, Howard overacts in every scene, while Gooding just smokes his pipe the whole movie.

That’s not to say there weren’t bright spots – the score by Terence Blanchard pumped up the aerial scenes nicely, and the dogfights were a lot of fun (it’s amazing what Hollywood can do with World War II).

Overall, the paper-thin characters and stale platitudes didn’t do the Tuskegee airmen justice. I spent $8.50 on the ticket. Now I don’t have any money for lunch this week.

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