I will refrain from making any spelling jokes in this review, tempting though it may be. The spelling bee, to my still somewhat European eyes, seems a very alien tradition, though I’d be hard pressed to say just what exaclty it is about fidgety bespectacled eleven year old kids with overzealous parents spelling words much harder than “overzealous” or “bespectacled” that is so disturbing. But it is. It is also very funny and fascinating to get a look into a world of success and ambition that couldn’t be stranger to me if it were made of cheese and looked like the moon, but I think I said that already.

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A gripping real life story of an honest cop in the late 60s in New York, and the breakthrough for Al Pacino as a big movie star (though I was a bit surprised to hear both the producer and director Lumet talk about how the Godfather was truly Brando’s movie. While old tissuecheek certainly is a very strong presence in that flick, I’ve always felt Pacino and Brando as equally strong. But je digresse). The story, and Pacino’s character based playing, are very intense, and the fascinating fact from today’s point of view is that the movie moves at a quiet pace, yet doesn’t seem slow – a bit too long, maybe, but that’s probably due to an original script that was double the length and needed to be heavily cut. Other cool piece of trivia: the real Serpico came to rehearsals, and was studied by Al Pacino, then shown the door by Lumet once shooting started, and was – or so Lumet reminisces – crushed, because he felt he become friends with them, while to them he was a object of professional interest. He also once told the producer Martin Bregman, in a movie theater empty except for the two of them, that he couldn’t smoke, because it was against the law. Go, Serpico!

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This is a nice enough movie, I suppose, but it left me with a feeling of emptyness where meaning should have been. It can’t possibly want to tell me something about human relations, or the male character’s faults wouldn’t be so blatant and unsubtle, and it can’t be entertainment either, for though there is quite a few funny bits, the overall mood is that of oppression. It must have been liberating for Baumbach, who’s personal history this is rumored to reflect, but doesn’t do much for me.

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Ever since the first of the Lord of the Rings trilogy came out, Middle Earth has been a holiday* staple for me. I liked the original theatrical versions well enough, but it’s only in the extended cuts that the story’s pacing works and the rich undertones of Tolkiens mythology get a chance to resonate through the plot. Aragorn’s singing of the Lay of Luthien is one specific example among many, and not by accident is it in the Fellowship of the Ring, which after this year’s repeat watching of the whole trilogy (split over quite a few days – I’m a geek, not a nerd) is still my favorite. It’s also the one part that doesn’t have cringe inducing dialog in it (“A red sun rises. Blood has been spilled this night” – Yeah, that would be my brain hemorrhaging, you Elf twat), but they’re all precious, of course. Go, looks at them.

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Though the lack of meaning and its pulpy plot development are part of the concept of this highly stylish science fiction comic come alive, it drags a bit toward the end, when even the vestiges of development devolve into a series of ever fancier military gadgetry being deployed. The design is quite nice, but with a bit more reflection on the history and significance of the original artwork it could have also had significance. Ah, well.

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The story of lunar exploration, from Apollo 11 in July 1969 to Apollo 17 in Dezember 1972, in a beautiful collage, narrated from the original recordings and additional comments from the people who have been up there. Amazing footage gives you a glimpse of what it might be like to go where now man has gone before. It’s a bit unfortunate that they emphasized a seamless narrative over historic accuracy, blending the 7 missions into one long trip to Luna, but in the end, it doesn’t matter.Earth, floating in blackness, yet struck by the intense light from the sun, made me realize for the first time the intuitive oddness of space close to a star: dark and empty, not for lack of light, but for lack of illuminable things. That’s got to be an analogy for something.

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If there’s anything meaningful that’s not sickeningly cute and mindlessly inspirational in this movie after the first fifteen minutes, feel free to knock up the rating to a solid “4/avoid”. We switched off when pabot told sonbot to follow his life’s dream, cause pabot never did and now sorely regrets it. Sniff. To think of all the cool gadgets that could have been made from the robot parts if the moviemakers (Two directors! Two writers! Ack!) would have done as father did, not as he says.

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A nice coincidence that this movie would be the next on our Netflix-list after Dirty Harry – this is the movie Dirty Harry should have been (of course that’s somewhat unfair, considering the time gap, but would Harry want me to be fair? There). Where Eastwoods cop sets out to right wrongs in a very private moral (or lack-of-moral) code, this movie unfolds as a giant tragedy, where we can have empathy with everybody, even as they do things that are wrong to begin with, and turn out even worse. “I know you’re a good guy” says the vengeful industrialist in the climactic scene, “so you’ll understand why I have to kill you”. So do we, caught in the same violent logic, and as unable to escape it as any of the characters. Terrific and terrifying.

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It’s a classic among vigilante movies, the best of the series it spawned, and it has Clint Eastwood in it, playing a socially disconnected moralizing force of one, dealing revenge and retribution without restraint. That setup works in Leone’s Man With No Name series, probably in part because of the cool, detached direction and abstraction of the old west setting, but also because we are never supposed to take Eastwood’s side in those. I wanted to rewatch Dirty Harry because it’s set in San Francisco, quickly realized I had never seen it before, and found myself distracted from the sweeping views of bay and bridge by the manipulative moralizing message that weaves through the film. Mores are crumbling, and with a weak justice system unable to keep the depravity in check, men like Harry have to clean up, and get dirty in the process, a dark avenger, protecting us all. Feel reactionary today, punk?

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I should have known. While I enjoyed the charming simplicity of the plotlines in the Narnia series, and appreciated them as the children’s books they were intended to be, none of their story elements packs the mythological punch of Tolkien’s writing, and the Christian parable feels tired once you’ve spotted it. Which is hard not to.

To start with the positive, the movie is nicely done, devoid of cringe-inducing lines or badly done characters, wich is saying something for Disney. But it is also quite boring, and at least a half hour too long. To strip a story about an oppressive regime, war and an epic battle for the survival of a whole world of all the nastyness these things should involve, and leave it with decoratively frozen puppets and the frosty looks of Tilda Swinton, is to deny the book its impact. Sure, you shouldn’t frighten your underage audience into little whimpering heaps, but surely some sense of the consequence of evil would have been appropriate.

Plus, not surprisingly, seeing the crude metaphor for the New Testament, Aslan’s sacrifice for the reinforcing of the “old magic”, rather than reading about it, makes it’s crude and unsubtle symbolism so painfully apparent, that I change my initial statement above – there is a cringy moment there, but it’s all Lewis’ fault.

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