To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before: Re-Watching The Star Trek Films

Posted on September 8, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

59 years ago today, the first episode of Star Trek aired in America.

There’s been a lot of different Star Trek shows and crews over the decades. I have to admit that I’ve always preferred the Original Series, with Kirk sleeping with every alien he met, McCoy and Spock bickering about logic, and Scotty warning that the engines can’t take much more. The Next Generation was strong as well, especially in the later seasons. The subsequent series have been hit-and-miss for me.

I was born long after the Original Series went off the air so, like a lot of people, my real introduction to Star Trek came through watching the films. This weekend, I sat down and watched all fourteen of the Star Trek films in order, from The Motion Picture to Section 31. Here are my thoughts.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979, directed by Robert Wise)

In the first Star Trek film, Voyager returns to Earth, now known as V’ger. James T. Kirk (William Shatner) returns to the Enterprise with his old crew and takes command from Decker (Stephen Collins). Spock (Leonard Nimoy) returns from Vulcan is not happy about it.

Directed by Robert Wise, the first Star Trek film feels out-of-place amongst the films that followed it. It’s long and slowly paced and it doesn’t have the sense of humor that runs through the best of the films featuring the original cast. The film favors Kirk and Spock, with the rest of the original cast being largely used as bit players. Even the costumes are different from the uniforms worn in the later films, making Star Trek: The Motion Picture feel like an entry from an alternate universe.

Despite mixed review, Star Trek: The Motion Picture made the most money of any of the pre-reboot films at the box office. Because the film itself was so expensive, it was still judged to be a box office disappointment. The Star Trek films would continue but in a new direction.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982, directed by Nicholas Meyer)

Featuring a character-driven script, exciting action, the best villain in the history of the franchise, and an ending that will bring tears to the eyes of the most cynical viewer, The Wrath of Khan is the film that set the standard for the Star Trek films that would follow.

Ricardo Montalban, recreating a character that he originally played in the television series, is a compelling villain as the vengeance-driven Khan. Montalban and William Shatner make for perfect rivals, two sides of the same coin. At the same time, the other members of the original cast all get their moments to shine, especially Walter Koenig as Chekhov. Kirstie Alley is the sexist Vulcan to ever appear in the franchise and even the revelation that Kirk has a son is handled effectively. Kirstie Alley, Bibi Besch, and Merritt Butrick all fit in with the original crew.

But the thing everyone remembers about The Wrath of Khan is the death of Spock. Even though the movie features plenty of hints that Spock will return (including his command of “Remember” to McCoy), it’s impossible not to get emotional when Spock sacrifices himself for the crew. “I have always been your friend.” To quote George Costanza, that was hell of a thing when Spock died. In that scene, Leonard Nimoy shows that he was the (logical) heart of the franchise. Just as Spock brought out the best in the rest of the crew, Nimoy brought out the best in his co-stars. Shatner was never better than when he was mourning Spock.

Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984, directed by Leonard Nimoy)

Spock’s back! It’s not a surprise. I think everyone knew, at the end of Wrath of Khan, that the Genesis Project would bring back Spock. Star Trek III isn’t bad. Christopher Lloyd reminds us of how brutal the Klingons were before their Next Generation makeover. The self-destruction of the Enterprise is a powerful moment. I just wish that a film about Spock being given a new life hadn’t featured so much death. Both the revelation that David Marcus tampered with the Genesis Project and his subsequent death feel like missteps. Robin Curtis takes over the role of Saavik and Kirstie Alley is very much missed. DeForest Kelley playing McCoy possessed by Spock was, for me, the highlight of the film.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986, directed by Leonard Nimoy)

Returning home after rescuing Spock from the Genesis Planet, the Enterprise crew is instead sent back into the past so that they can bring two whales into the future. The Voyage Home might not be the best Star Trek film (that honor belongs to Wrath of Khan) but it is the most likable and the most entertaining. Every member of the cast gets something to do in 20th Century San Francisco. The film is full of classic moments, from Chekhov looking for the “nuclear wessels” to Scotty trying to speak to the computer. The moment with the punk on the bus is a crowd-pleaser. I always laugh at Spock’s “One damn minute, Admiral.” After the violence in The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home‘s humor, gentle sincerity, and emphasis on the efforts of the entire ensemble is a welcome development.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989, directed by William Shatner)

Leonard Nimoy got his chance to shine as the director of the previous two Star Trek films so William Shatner was allowed to direct The Final Frontier. The Enterprise crew is brainwashed by a religious fanatic (Laurence Luckinbill) who is also, improbably, Spock’s brother. Only Kirk is able to resist and confront the entity claiming to be God. “What does God need with a starship!?” Kirk demands. It’s such an obvious question that I can’t believe the entity didn’t already have an answer worked out.

The Final Frontier gets no respect and it was probably doomed as soon as Shatner was announced as director. Shatner also developed the story and it’s probably not surprising that the main theme is that Kirk was the only person on the Enterprise strong enough to not be brainwashed by the film’s fake God. Laurence Luckinbill gave a good performance as Sybok but this film really does feel like an unfortunate episode of the original television series.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991, directed by Nicholas Meyer)

Star Trek VI featured the final appearance of the Original Series cast as a group and they get a send-off worthy of their legacy. Having been previously established as the Federation’s greatest enemies, the Klingons finally pursue peace. Just as only Nixon could go to China, only Kirk and the original Enterprise crew can go to the Klingons. This movie is what Star Trek was all about, with enough world-building and continuity for the hardcore fans and a story that was interesting enough to hold the attention of the casual viewers. By featuring the start of the era of peace between the Federation and the Klingons, this film also filled in some of the Next Generation‘s backstory. The Final Frontier was meant to be the final Star Trek film featuring any of the original cast and it would have been the perfect entry for Captain Kirk to go out on. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

Star Trek Generations (1994, directed by David Cason)

William Shatner meets Patrick Stewart as one Star Trek crew passes the torch to the new Star Trek crew. Malcolm McDowell is the latest villain with an ill-defined plan. Picard and Kirk team up to stop McDowell’s villain. They succeed but at the cost of Kirk’s life. As opposed to Spock’s death in Wrath of Khan, Kirk’s death feels pointless and tacked on for no reason other than to signify the arrival of The Next Generation to the films. Seeing Shatner and Stewart together is interesting. Stewart may have been the better actor but Shatner still dominates their scenes together. Not giving Kirk a better send-off was one of the franchise’s biggest sins.

Star Trek: First Contact (1996, directed by Jonathan Frakes)

After the disappointing Generations, Picard and his crew finally got a film worthy of them with First Contact. Not only do the Borg return but the crew goes back into their past and experience a key date in the history of the Federation. After being outshone by Shatner in Generations, Patrick Stewart takes control in this film, giving a multi-layered and commanding performance that still gives the rest of the cast room to shine. Director Jonathan Frakes not only handles the action well but he also shows that he understands what makes the characters click. This was, without a doubt, the best of the Next Generation films and one the best of the Star Trek films overall.

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998, directed by Jonathan Frakes)

Entertaining but forgettable, Insurrection features Picard pulling a Kirk and defying orders from from a superior officer (played by Anthony Zerbe) and going out of his way to save Data from being decommissioned. Insurrection feels like an extended episodes of the Next Generation television series and lacks the epic scale of First Contact. Under the direction of Jonathan Frakes, the ensemble is strong and watching them interact feels like spending time with a group of old friends. F. Murray Abraham and Anthony Zerbe make for effective villains.

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002, directed by Stuart Baird)

Just as the Original Series crew sought peace with the Klingons in The Undiscovered Country, the final Next Generation film finds Picard, Riker, and the rest seeking peace with the Romulan Empire. Tom Hardy plays a clone of Picard who is now the leader of the Romulans. Data sacrifices himself in a move that tries too hard to duplicate the death of Spock. Picard retires. Director Stuart Baird emphasizes action over the chemistry of the Next Generation cast and the end result is a disappointing finale that left critics and audiences underwhelmed.

Star Trek (2009, directed by J.J. Abrams)

I think people forget about what a big deal this Star Trek reboot was when it first came out. Today, people focus on things like Kirk being a Beastie Boys fan and they forget how exciting it was to see Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, and Zoe Saldana all effortlessly stepping into the roles of the younger versions of the original cast. The storyline is predictable and Eric Bana’s a bland villain but the scenes between Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto were a reminder of how important Spock was and is to Star Trek.

Star Trek wasn’t perfect, of course. In retrospect, I think creating an alternate timeline was a mistake because it created a situation where, even if someone died, it was just an alternate version dying and not the version that audiences knew and cared about. The alternate timeline would also lead to one of the biggest missteps in the history of the franchise.

Star Trek Into The Darkness (2013, directed by J.J. Abrams)

After the surprising success, both critically and commercially, of his Star Trek reboot, J.J. Abrams. Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof wasted most of that good will by messing around with one of the franchise’s most memorable characters.

There are some good things to be said about Star Trek Into The Darkness. I like the action sequences and the climatic battle in the film’s futuristic version of San Francisco. But casting Benedict Cumberbatch, of all people, as Khan is a misstep that can’t be overcome. That the movie brought back Khan instead of exploring “strange new worlds” exposed the weakness of Abrams entire reboot. For all the hype, did the Star Trek reboot actually have anything new or original to offer? The answer here seemed to be no.

Star Trek Beyond (2016, directed by Justin Linn)

The final (for now) Star Trek theatrical film featured a memorable villain in the form of Idris Elba and a plot that felt like it could have just as easily been an episode of the original series. In retrospect, the film is mostly memorable for featuring the announcement of the death of Ambassador Spock. (The film was released a year after the death of Leonard Nimoy.) The death of Spock, this time with no Genesis Project around to bring him back, makes this installment feel like right place to end the films. For many of us, Nimoy was Star Trek.

Stark Trek: Section 31 (2025, directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi)

Though there have been many subsequent televisions shows, there hasn’t been a Star Trek theatrical release since 2016. The next installment has been in pre-production limbo for nearly ten years. (Quentin Tarantino was supposedly attached at one time.) Instead of coming to theaters, the latest Star Trek movie came to Paramount Plus.

I debated whether or not to include Section 31 in this list, both because it was a “made-for-TV” movie and also because it was so bad that I think most Star Trek fans would rather forget about it. A mediocre heist film that wastes star Michelle Yeoh and which doesn’t feel like it belongs in the Star Trek universe, Section 31 may still represent the way forward for the franchise. With theaters having never recovered from the COVID shut-downs and more and more people preferring to stream their entertainment at home, the future of the Star Trek films could very well be a collection of assembly line Paramount Plus movies.

Finally, Case turned me onto this short film:

765874: Unification (2024, directed by Carlos Baena)

A collaboration between Otoy, a VFX company, and The Roddenberry Archive, with support from Paramount, 765874: Unification is a 10-minute short film that imagines Kirk meeting Spock in the afterlife. Shatner returns as Kirk, de-aged with CGI. Just as Kirk and Spock were friends in the film, the same was true of Shatner and Nimoy in real life. (You only have to compare Nimoy’s comments about Shatner with George Takei’s endlessly bitter takes to see what true class actually is.) This short film gives both characters the finale that they deserved.

It’s possible that we may never see another true Star Trek film. Most of the original cast is gone now. Patrick Stewart will always be Picard but even he is now approaching 90. But whatever the future may hold, I’m happy for the films that Star Trek gave us.

Guilty Pleasure No. 84: Last Action Hero (dir by John McTiernan)

Posted on July 30, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, Last Action Hero.

Ever since this film was first released in 1993, it’s usually held up as an example of a Hollywood fiasco. The script was originally written to be a modest satire of action films. The screenwriters wrote the character of Jack Slater, an movie action hero who comes into the real world, for Dolph Lundgren. Instead, the film became an Arnold Schwarzenegger extravaganza and the studio ended up tossing a ton of money at it. When the film was originally released, the reviews were mixed and the box office was considered to be disappointing. (That it went up against the first Jurassic Park was definitely an underrated issue when it came to the box office.) Ever since then, The Last Action Hero has had a reputation for being a bad film.

Well, I don’t care. I like The Last Action Hero. Yes, it’s a bit overproduced for a comedy. (It breaks my own rule about how no comedy should run longer than two hours.) Yes, it gets a bit sentimental with ten year-old Danny Madigan (Austin O’Brien) using a magic, golden ticket to enter the film world of his hero, Jack Slater. If you want to argue that the film should have devoted more time to and gone a bit deeper into contrasting the film world with the real world, I won’t disagree with you. But I will also say that Sylvester Stallone starring as The Terminator in Jack’s world was actually a pretty funny sight gag. Danny knowing better than to trust a character played by F. Murray Abraham made me laugh. Danny’s fantasy in which Arnold Schwarzenegger played Hamlet was made all the better by the fact that his teacher was played by Laurence Olivier’s wife, Joan Plowright. Danny DeVito as Whiskers the Cartoon Cat makes me laugh as well, even if it is perhaps a bit too bizarre of a joke for this particular film. (There’s nothing else about the Jack Slater films that would explain the presence of a cartoon cat.)

When you set aside the idea of the Last Action Hero being a symbol of Hollywood bloat and just watch it as a film, it emerges as an enjoyably goofy action movie, one that captures the joy of watching movies (because who hasn’t wanted to enter a movie’s world at some point in their life), and also one that features a rather charming performance from Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Schwarzenegger, I should add, plays both himself and Jack Slater. One of my favorite jokes is when the real Schwarzenegger is at a premiere and he mistakes the evil Ripper for Tom Noonan, the actor who played him in the previous Jack Slater film.) Yeah, the golden ticket is a little bit hokey but who cares? Underneath all of the special effects and action and money spent on star salaries, Last Action Hero is an action movie and comedy with a heart. Danny meets his hero but also gets to become a hero himself. And Jack Slater turns out to be everything you would hope your movie hero would be. In the end, it’s obvious that a lot of the criticism of this film has more to do with the appeal of riding the bandwagon as opposed to what actually happens on screen.

Last Action Hero is a movie that I’ll happily defend.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Days of Paranoia: Serpico (dir by Sidney Lumet)

Posted on May 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1973’s Serpico, Al Pacino plays a cop who doesn’t look like a cop.

Indeed, that’s kind of the start of Frank Serpico’s problems. He’s a New York cop who doesn’t fit the stereotype. When we see him graduating from the Academy, he’s clean-shaven and wearing a standard patrolman uniform and he definitely looks like a new cop, someone who is young and enthusiastic and eager to keep the streets safe. However, Serpico is an outsider at heart. The rest of the cops have their homes in the suburbs, where they spend all of their time with their cop buddies and where they go also go out of their way not to actually live among the people that they police. Serpico has an apartment in Greenwich Village and, as a plainclothes detective, he dresses like a civilian. He has a beard. He has long hair. He has a succession of girlfriends who don’t have much in common with the stereotypical (and there’s that word again) cop’s wife. Serpico is an outsider and he likes it that way. In a world and a career that demands a certain amount of conformity, Frank Serpico is determined to do things his own way.

However, the real reason why Serpico is distrusted is because he refuses to take bribes. While he’s willing to silently accompany his fellow officers while they collect their payoffs from not only the people that they’re supposed to be arresting but also from the storeowners that they’re meant to be protecting, Serpico refuses to take a cut. Serpico understands that the small, everyday corruption is a way of forcing his silence. The corruption may help the cops to bond as a unit but it also ensures that no one is going to talk. Serpico’s refusal to take part makes him untrustworthy in the eyes of his fellow cops.

Serpico and Bob Blair (Tony Roberts), a politically-connected detective, both turn whistleblower but it turns out that getting people to listen to the truth is not as easy as Serpico thought it would be. The Mayor’s office doesn’t want to deal with the political fallout of a police conspiracy. Serpico finds himself growing more and more paranoid, perhaps with good reason. When words gets out that Serpico has attempted to turn into a whistleblower, his fellow cops start to turn on him and, during a drug bust, Serpico finds himself deserted and in danger.

Serpico opens with its title character being rushed to the hospital after having been shot in the face. This actually happened to the real Serpico as well. What the film leaves out is that hundreds of New York cops showed up at the hospital, offering to donate blood during Serpico’s surgery. That’s left out of the film, which at times can be more than a little heavy-handed in its portrayal of Serpico as an honest cop surrounded by nonstop corruption. Filmed just three years after Serpico testified before New York’s Knapp Commission (which was the five-man panel assigned to investigate police corruption in the city), Serpico the movie can sometimes seem a bit too eager to idealize its title character. (Vincent J. Cannato’s excellent look at the mayorship of John V. Lindsay, The Ungovernable City, presents far more nuanced look at the NYPD corruption scandals of the early 70s and Serpico’s role as a whistleblower.) Director Sidney Lumet later expressed some dissatisfaction with the film and even made other films about police corruption — The Prince of the City, Q & A, Night Falls On Manhattan — that attempted to take a less heavy-handed approach to the subject.

That said, as a film, Serpico works as a thriller and as a portrait of a man who, because he refuses to compromise his ideals, finds himself isolated and paranoid. Al Pacino, fresh from playing the tightly-controlled Michael Corleone in The Godfather, gives an intense, emotional, and charismatic performance as Serpico. (One can see why the image of a bearded, hippie-ish Pacino was so popular in the 1970s.) Sidney Lumet brings the streets of New York to vibrant and dangerous life and he surrounds Pacino with an excellent supporting cast, all of whom bring an authentic grit to their roles. Serpico may not be a totally accurate piece of history but it is a good work of entertainment, one that works as a time capsule of New York in the 70s and as a portrait of bureaucratic corruption. It’s also the film in which Al Pacino announced that he wasn’t just a good character actor. He was also a movie star.

Scenes That I Love: Mozart Meets The Emperor in Amadeus

Posted on January 27, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today is Mozart’s birthday so, of course, today’s scene from the day comes from 1984’s Amadeus. In this scene, the Emperor (Jeffrey Jones) delivers his critique to Mozart (Tom Hulce) and anyone who has ever had to deal with an idiotic critic will be able to relate.

“There’s too many notes!”

What really makes this scene work, along with Hulce’s reaction, is Jones’s blandly cheerful manner. The Emperor really thinks he’s being helpful!

#SundayShorts with SURVIVING THE GAME!

Posted on December 15, 2024 by Bradley Crain

Since Sunday is a day of rest for a lot of people, I present #SundayShorts, a weekly mini review of a movie I’ve recently watched.

Jack Mason (Ice-T) is a homeless man who’s having a very bad day. His dog and best friend both die so he’s ready to give up on life. Just in the nick of time, a kind gentleman named Walter Cole (Charles S. Dutton), who works at the 7^th Street mission, shows up, saves his life, and tells him about a potential job opportunity, even giving Jack his partner’s business card. The job would consist of helping out a group of hunters as a survival guide. Soon, Jack is meeting with rich businessman Thomas Burns (Rutger Hauer), who tells him all about the responsibilities of the job and hires him for the position. It looks like things are finally turning Jack’s way as he finds himself on a charter flight out into the mountains, where the hunters are waiting. The night he arrives, they have a huge feast as he gets to know the guys. It’s a strange lot, but hey, he’s got food in his belly and money in his pocket, so he can put up with some odd behavior for a few days. This very short period of happiness turns out to be fool’s gold as Jack is roused from his sleep early the next morning and told to run. They’re going to be playing a game, and the rules are simple… kill or be killed!

SURVIVING THE GAME was released to theaters on April 15^th, 1994, when I was 20 years old. As one of Rutger Hauer’s biggest fans, I went to see it in the movie theater of course. As a fan of B-movies filled with action and violence, I had a good time with it. A big part of that fun came from it’s cast of interesting actors. I’d watch Hauer in any role, and I pretty much have. There’s not a lot asked of him in SURVIVING THE GAME in terms of heavy lifting, but I still enjoy watching him on screen. He looks pretty cool riding his motorcycle with his big goatee and ponytail. I just like Ice-T. There’s something I’ve always found appealing about him on screen, and the same can be said here. Charles S. Dutton is so capable of projecting good on screen. The fact that his character is working at a charity mission as a front to set up homeless men to be hunted and killed was a nice bit of casting. And finally, with other actors like Gary Busey, F. Murray Abraham and John C. McGinley playing the hunters, you just know you’re in for an over-the-top, scenery chewing good time. I also want to shout out one particularly disturbing and graphic scene that involves Charles S. Dutton and a blown up 4-wheeler. It’s the one scene from the film that I’ve remembered ever since saw it that first time at the theater.

Five Fast Facts:

SURVIVING THE GAME was released about eight months after John Woo’s HARD TARGET starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. Both films are re-tellings of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. Woo’s higher budgeted film did much better at the box office.
It was Rutger Hauer’s idea that his character rides a motorcycle rather than a 4-wheeler, like the other hunters in the film. He felt the bike looked like an iron horse, giving him the appearance of a warrior knight!
There’s not a single female character in the film.
Near the end of the movie, there’s a shot of a cityscape with a caption on the screen that reads “Three Days Later in Seattle.” The cityscape is actually that of Philadelphia.
Prior to directing his own films, director Ernest R. Dickerson had been the cinematographer for the Spike Lee joints SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT, SCHOOL DAZE, DO THE RIGHT THING, MO’ BETTER BLUES, JUNGLE FEVER, and MALCOLM X.

Icarus File No. 11: The Bonfire of the Vanities (dir by Brian De Palma)

Posted on September 25, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2021, I finally saw the infamous film, The Bonfire of the Vanities.

I saw it when it premiered on TCM. Now, I have to say that there were quite a few TCM fans who were not happy about The Bonfire of the Vanities showing up on TCM, feeling that the film had no place on a station that was supposed to be devoted to classic films. While it’s true that TCM has shown “bad” films before, they were usually films that, at the very least, had a cult reputation. And it is also true that TCM has frequently shown films that originally failed with audiences or critics or both. However, those films had almost all been subsequently rediscovered by new audiences and often reevaluated by new critics. The Bonfire of the Vanities is not a cult film. It’s not a film about which one can claim that it’s “so bad that it’s good.” As for the film being reevaluated, I’ll just say that there is no one more willing than me to embrace a film that was rejected by mainstream critics. But, as I watched The Bonfire of the Vanities, I saw that everything negative that I had previously read about the film was true.

Released in 1990 and based on a novel by Tom Wolfe, Bonfire of the Vanities stars Tom Hanks as Sherman McCoy, a superficial Wall Street trader who has the perfect penthouse and a painfully thin, status-obsessed wife (Kim Cattrall). Sherman also has a greedy mistress named Maria (Melanie Griffith). It’s while driving with Maria that Sherman takes a wrong turn and ends up in the South Bronx. When Sherman gets out of the car to move a tire that’s in the middle of the street, two black teenagers approach him. Maria panics and, after Sherman jumps back in the car, she runs over one of the teens. Maria talks Sherman into not calling the police. The police, however, figure out that Sherman’s car was the one who ran over the teen. Sherman is arrested and finds himself being prosecuted by a power-hungry district attorney (F. Murray Abraham). The trial becomes the center of all of New York City’s racial and economic strife, with Sherman becoming “the great white defendant,” upon whom blame for all of New York’s problems can be placed. Bruce Willis plays an alcoholic journalist who was British in the novel. Morgan Freeman plays the judge, who was Jewish in the novel. As well, in the novel, the judge was very much a New York character, profanely keeping order in the court and spitting at a criminal who spit at him first. In the movie, the judge delivers a speech ordering everyone to “be decent to each other” like their mothers taught them to be.

Having read Wolfe’s very novel before watching the film, I knew that there was no way that the adaptation would be able to remain a 100% faithful to Wolfe’s lacerating satire. Because the main character of Wolfe’s book was New York City, he was free to make almost all of the human characters as unlikable as possible. In the book, Peter Fallow is a perpetually soused opportunist who doesn’t worry about who he hurts with his inflammatory articles. Sherman McCoy is a haughty and out-of-touch WASP who never loses his elitist attitude. In the film, Bruce Willis smirks in his wiseguy manner and mocks the other reporters for being so eager to destroy Sherman. Hanks, meanwhile, attempts to play Sherman as an everyman who just happens to live in a luxury penthouse and spend his days on Wall Street. Hanks is so miscast and so clueless as how to play a character like this that Sherman actually comes across as if he’s suffering from some sort of brain damage. He feels less like a stockbroker and more like Forrest Gump without the Southern accent. There’s a scene, written specifically for the film, in which Fallow and Sherman ride the subway together and it literally feels like a parody of one of those sentimental buddy films where a cynic ends up having to take a road trip with someone who has been left innocent and naïve as result of spending the first half of their life locked in basement or a bomb shelter. It’s one thing to present Sherman as being wealthy and uncomfortable among those who are poor. It’s another thing to leave us wondering how he’s ever been able to successfully cross a street in New York City without getting run over by an angry cab driver.

Because the film can’t duplicate Wolfe’s unique prose, it instead resorts to mixing cartoonish comedy and overwrought melodrama. It doesn’t add up too much. At one point, Sherman ends a dinner party by firing a rifle in his apartment but, after it happens, the incident is never mentioned again. I mean, surely someone else in the apartment would have called the cops about someone firing a rifle in the building. Someone in the press would undoubtedly want to write a story about Sherman McCoy, the center of the city’s trial of the century, firing a rifle in his own apartment. If the novel ended with Sherman resigned to the fact that his legal problems are never going to end, the film ends with Sherman getting revenge on everyone who has persecuted him and he does so with a smirk that does not at all feel earned. After two hours of being an idiot, Sherman suddenly outthinks everyone else. Why? Because the film needed the happy ending that the book refused to offer up.

Of course, the film’s biggest sin is that it’s just boring. It’s a dull film, full of good actors who don’t really seem to care about the dialogue that they are reciting. Director Brian De Palma tries to give the film a certain visual flair, resorting to his usual collection of odd camera angles and split screens, none of which feel at all necessary to the story. In the end, De Palma is not at all the right director for the material. Perhaps Sidney Lumet could have done something with it, though he would have still had to deal with the less than impressive script. De Palma’s over-the-top, set piece-obsessed sensibilities just add to the film’s cartoonish feel.

The film flopped at the box office. De Palma’s career never recovered. Tom Hanks’s career as a leading man was momentarily derailed. Bruce Willis would have to wait a few more years to establish himself as a serious actor. Even the normally magnanimous Morgan Freeman has openly talked about how much he hated being involved with The Bonfire of the Vanities. That said, the film lives on because De Palma allowed journalist Julie Salomon to hang out on the set and the book she wrote about the production, The Devil’s Candy, is a classic of Hollywood non-fiction. (TCM adapted the book into a podcast, which is how The Bonfire of the Vanities came to be featured on the station.) Thanks to Salomon’s book, The Bonfire of the Vanities has gone to become the epitome of a certain type of flop, the literary adaptation that is fatally compromised by executives who don’t read.

Previous Icarus Files:

Miniseries Review: Moon Knight (dir by Mohamed Diab and Aaron Moorhead & Justin Benson)

Posted on June 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

No sooner had Ryan posted his essay about whether or not comic book companies like Marvel or DC actually need readers anymore then I came over here to type up my review of Moon Knight.

Why is that relevant? Well, Moon Knight is a 6-episode miniseries based on a character who made his debut in the pages of Marvel comics. The character has a loyal following of readers but the Disney miniseries has introduced him to a whole new group of people, many of whom have never even held a comic book, let alone read one. I’m one of those people. If not for the miniseries, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea who Moon Knight is because, for the most part, I’ve never been a comic book reader. I would have to imagine that if I was a comic book reader, it would bug the Hell out of me that people who have never read a comic book are now suddenly acting as if they’re experts on all of the various costumed characters who have been published by Marvel and DC over the past few decades. I can remember how upset I was when everyone suddenly decided that they were an expert on Dario Argento and Italian horror just because they had read some lame article on the remake of Suspiria. No, I wanted to say, you haven’t done the work!

Unfortunately, that’s the way of the world now. With the current pop cultural dominance of the MCU and the DCEU, everyone’s a super hero fan regardless of whether or not they’ve ever read a comic book. And, with the explosion of social media over the past decade, everyone is now in a position to present themselves as being an expert regardless of whether they’re tweeting their own thoughts or just plagiarizing what they’ve read on Wikipedia. It doesn’t matter whether the topic is politics, television, history, science, religion, or comic books. Everyone now claims to be an expert and, as the old saying goes, when everyone’s an expert, no one’s an expert. Again, if that annoys the Hell out of you, I sympathize.

Perhaps you can take some consolation in the fact that, even though I watched all six episode of Moon Knight today, I hardly feel like an expert as far as the character is concerned. For the most part, I enjoyed Moon Knight but I would be lying if I said that I was always able to follow what was going on. Oscar Isaac plays Marc Spector, a mercenary who is mortally wounded in Egypt but who is revived by Khonshu (voiced by F. Murray Abraham), the Egyptian God of the Moon, who tasks Spector with protecting humanity from evil or something like that. Sometimes, however, Spector becomes Steven Grant, a mild-mannered and neurotic Brit who works in a museum gift shop and who is haunted by strange dreams. When Grant discovers that he’s actually Spector, this leads to him meeting Spector’s wife, Layla (May Calamawy) and also having to battle Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke), a fanatical cult leader who is trying to get his hands on ancient scarab that will …. let him do stuff, I guess. Harrow’s evil, Moon Knight’s good, and I guess that’s all we really need to know. Moon Knight is basically a typical MCU “let’s all fight over the artifact” story, with the main twist being that all of the Gods are Egyptian instead of Norse and the hero has dissociative identity disorder and might actually very well be a patient at psychiatric hospital.

With all that in mind, Moon Knight is actually pretty entertaining. It’s biggest strength, not surprisingly, is Oscar Isaac, who appears to be having a ball playing several different versions of the same character. When he’s Marc Spector, he gets to play at being a grim and serious action hero. When he’s Steve Grant, he gets to play a comedic bumbler who gets the chance to prove that he’s stronger and more capable than anyone gave him credit for. Isaac does a good job with both roles and the show is at its best when it’s just Isaac arguing with himself. Playing a villain in an MCU production is often a thankless task but Hawke’s brings the right edge of fanaticism to Arthur Harrow and F. Murray Abraham voices Khonshu with the just the right combination of righteous indignation and weary frustration. The show makes good use of its Egyptian setting and the fourth and fifth episodes are enjoyably surreal as they delve into the corners of Spector’s mind.

Unfortunately, the show’s conclusion leaves a bit to be desired. After all that build-up, it all pretty much leads to a standard MCU street battle and the possibility of more Moon Knight action in the future. That said, I enjoyed the show for what it was. Turn off your mind, relax, and float across the Duat, as the old saying goes.

An Offer You Can’t Refuse #19: Scarface (dir by Brian DePalma)

Posted on July 9, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Hello to my little friend!”

Hi, little friend….

BOOM!

The 1983 film, Scarface, is a misunderstood film. As we all know, it’s the story of Tony Montana (Al Pacino), who comes to Miami from Cuba along with his friend, Manny (Steven Bauer). In return for murdering a former member of Castro’s government, Tony is given a job working for Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia). When it becomes obvious that Tony is becoming too ambitious and might become a threat to him, Frank attempts to have Tony killed. However, the assassination attempt fails, Tony murders Frank, and then Tony becomes Miami’s richest and most powerful crime lord. Soon, Tony is burying his face in a mountain of cocaine while making deals with a sleazy Bolivian drug lord named Alejandro Sosa (Paul Shenar). Tony also marries Frank’s mistress, Elvira Hancock (Michelle Pfieffer), though it’s obvious from the start the the only person that Tony truly loves is his sister, Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). Anyway, it all eventually leads to a lot of violence and a lot of death. Even F. Murray Abraham ends up getting tossed out of a helicopter, which is unfortunate since his character was a lot of fun.

Scarface is a famous film, largely because of Oliver Stone’s quotable dialogue and the no holds barred direction of Brian DePalma. However, I think that people get so caught up on the fact that this is a classic gangster film that they miss the fact that Scarface is also an extremely dark comedy. It satirizes the excess of the 80s. Once Tony reaches the top of the underworld, he becomes a parody of the nouveau riche. He moves into a gigantic house and proceeds to decorate it in the most tasteless way possible and there’s something oddly charming about this crude, not particularly bright man getting excited over the fact that he can finally afford to buy a tiger. Towards the end of the film, there’s a scene where Tony rants while lounging in an indoor hot tub while Elvira languidly snorts cocaine and complains about the crudeness of his language and, at that moment, Scarface becomes a bit of a domestic comedy. Tony’s reached the top of his profession, just to discover that it takes more than a live-in tiger and a wardrobe of wide lapeled suits to achieve true happiness. So, he ends up sitting glumly in his office with a mountain of cocaine rising up in front of him. “The world is yours” may be Tony’s motto but it turns out that the world is extremely tacky. For all of his attempts to recreate himself as a wealthy and sophisticated man, Tony is still just a barely literate criminal with a nasty scar and a sour disposition. The only thing he’s gotten for all of his ruthless ambition is an order of ennui with a cocaine appetizer.

I’ve always found Brian DePalma to be an uneven director. He has a very distinct style and sometimes that style is perfectly suited to the story that he’s telling (i.e., Carrie) and sometimes, all of that style just seems to get in the way (i.e. The Fury). Scarface, however, is the ideal story for DePalma’s over-the-top aesthetic. DePalma’s style may be excessive but Scarface is a film about excess so it’s a perfect fit. For that matter, you could say the same thing about Oliver Stone’s screenplay. Stone has since stated that he was using almost as much cocaine as Tony Montana while he wrote the script. The end result of the combination of Stone’s script, DePalma’s hyperactive direction, Pacino’s overpowering lead performance, and Giorgio Moroder’s propulsive score is a film that feels as if every minute is fueled by cocaine. It’s not just a film that’s about drugs. It’s also a film that feels like a drug.

Scarface is a big movie. It runs nearly three hours, following Tony from his arrival in the United States to his final moments in his mansion, taking hundreds of bullets while grandly announcing that he’s still standing. (Even after all of the bad things that Tony has done — poor Manny! — it’s impossible not to admire his refusal to go down.) It’s also a difficult movie to review, largely because almost everyone’s seen it and already has an opinion. Personally, I think the film gets off to a strong start. I think the scenes of Tony ruthlessly taking control of Frank’s empire are perfectly handled and I love the scenes where Pacino and Steven Bauer just bounce dialogue off of each other. They’re like a comedy team who commits murder on the side. I also loved the “Take it to the limit” montage, which belongs in the 80s Cinema Hall of Fame. At the same time, I think the final third of the movie drags a bit and that Tony’s sudden crisis of conscience when he sees that a man that he’s supposed to murder has a family feels a bit forced. It also bothers me that Elvira just vanishes from the film. At the very least, the audience deserved more of an explanation as to where she disappeared to.

But no matter! Flaws and all, Scarface is a violent satire that holds up surprisingly well. Al Pacino’s unhinged performance as Tony Montana is rightly considered to be iconic. Pacino’s gives such a powerhouse performance that it’s easy to forget that the rest of the cast is pretty impressive as well. I particularly liked the wonderfully sleazy work of F. Murray Abraham and Paul Shenar. That said, my favorite character in the film remains Elvira, if just because her clothes were to die for and she just seemed so incredibly bored with all of the violent men in her life. She goes from being bored with Frank to being bored with Tony and how can you not admire someone who, even when surrounded by all Scarface’s excess, just refuse to care?

Scarface is an offer that you can’t refuse.

Previous Offers You Can’t (or Can) Refuse:

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Winner: Amadeus (dir by Milos Forman)

Posted on January 28, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1984 film Amadeus is about a man who learns, after it’s a bit too late to really do anything about it, that he is thoroughly mediocre.

When we first meet Antonio Salieri (played by F. Murray Abraham), he’s an old man who has been confined to a mental asylum because he attempted to slit his own throat. What should drive Salieri — a respected, if not particularly beloved, composer in 18th Century Vienna — to attempt to take his own life? As he explains it to Father Vogler (Richard Frank), it’s the guilt of knowing that he’s responsible for death of the greatest composer of all time, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

When Mozart (Tom Hulce) first showed up in Vienna, Salieri was already the court composer to the thoroughly vacuous Emperor Joseph II (Jeffrey Jones). At the time, Salieri believed himself to be a genius touched by God. As he recounts to Father Vogler, he prayed to God when he was a boy and he struck what he believed was an ironclad deal. God would make Salieri a great composer and Salieri would remain a faithful believer.

But then Mozart shows up and, from the minute that he first hears one of Mozart’s compositions, Salieri realizes that Mozart is the one who has been blessed with genius. Mozart is the one who is writing the music that will be remembered for the rest of time, long after Salieri and all of his other rival composers have been forgotten. Upon first hearing Mozart, Salieri suddenly realizes that he has been betrayed by God. He is a mediocre talent and he’s always been a mediocre talent.

The worst part of it is not just that Mozart’s a genius. It’s also that Mozart knows he’s a genius. He’s a bit of a brat as well, with a remarkably annoying laugh and vulgar manners that scandalize proper society. Despite the efforts of his rivals to dismiss his talent, Mozart is beloved by the common people. He’s an 18th century rock star and it seems as if no amount of scandal and petty jealousy can slow him down. Even worse, the emperor takes a interest in Mozart and commissions him — and not Salieri — to write an opera.

Rejecting a God that he feels has betrayed him, Salieri plots Mozart’s downfall….

Goddamn, this is a great movie. Seriously, everything about Amadeus works.

The ornate sets and the costumes not only wonderful to look at but they also actually tell us something about the characters who inhabit them. One look at the beautiful but cluttered home that Mozart shares with his wife, Constanze (Elisabeth Berridge), tells you almost everything you need to know about not only Mozart’s tastes (which are expensive) but also his talent (which is undisciplined but also limitless). The empty-headedness of Emperor Joseph is perfectly mirrored by the pretty but uninspired decor of his court while the grubby chaos of the mental asylum seems to have sprung straight from Salieri’s tortured soul. As visualized in Amadeus, there’s a cold beauty to Vienna, one that is fascinating but, at the same time, menacing. As for the costumes, Mozart’s powdered wig somehow seems to be brighter than everyone else’s and his colorful wardrobe demands your attention. Meanwhile, when a costumed and masked Salieri shows up at Mozart’s door, he’s like the Grim Reaper coming to collect a soul.

The witty script is full of sharp lines and director Milos Forman does a wonderful job of balancing comedy and drama. The scenes involving Joseph II are frequently hilarious and Jeffrey Jones does a great job of portraying Joseph as essentially being a very influential dunce. The scene where Joseph tells Mozart that he liked his latest composition but that “there are simply too many notes” is a classic and one to which any artist, whether they’re Mozart or not, will be able to relate. (“Just cut a few and it will be perfect.”)

The film is dominated by the performances of F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce. Hulce is wonderfully flamboyant in the early part of the film and, bravely, he doesn’t shy away from portraying Mozart as occasionally being a bit of a spoiled brat. It’s not just that Mozart can be annoying. It’s also that he’s often deliberately annoying. When we first see Mozart, it’s easy to understand why his very existence so grated on Salieri’s nerves and why Salieri considers him to be an “obscene child.” But as the film progresses, Hulce lets us in and we come to see that Mozart is actually a very vulnerable young man. When his disapproving father (Roy Dotrice) comes to visit, we suddenly understand both why Mozart is so driven to succeed but also why he is so instinctively self-destructive.

Meanwhile, F. Murray Abraham — well, what can I say about this performance? In the role of Salieri, Abraham gives one of the greatest film performances of all time. In many ways, Abraham has a tougher job than Hulce. If Hulce has to convince us that Mozart has been touched by genius despite the dumb things that he often does, Abraham has to make petty jealousy compelling. And somehow, Abraham manages to do just that. Whereas the role of Mozart allows Hucle to wear his emotions on the surface, Abraham has to play a character who keeps most of his thoughts and impulses hidden and the fact that we end up understanding Salieri (if never actually sympathizing with him) is a testament to F. Murray Abraham’s skill as an actor. Abraham won the Oscar for Best Actor for his work in Amadeus and it was more than deserved.

At the end of the film, Salieri declares himself to be the patron saint of mediocrities and, to a large extent, that’s what sets Amadeus apart from other biopics. Most people are mediocre. Most people are not going to end their life as a Mozart. They’re going to end their life as a Salieri or worse. This is one of the few films to be made about a runner-up. It’s interesting to note that, even though the film is more about Salieri than Mozart, it’s still called Amadeus. It’s not named Antonio or Salieri. Even in a film made about Salieri, Mozart is advertised as the main attraction.

(It should also be noted that many historians believe that Salieri and Mozart were actually fairly friendly acquaintances and that, beyond the normal rivalry that any two artists would feel, neither held any significant ill will towards the other. In other words, enjoy Amadeus as an outstanding piece of cinema but don’t necessarily mistake it for historical fact.)

Along with Abraham’s victory, Amadeus also won Best Picture of the year. Of the nominees, it certainly deserved it. (My pick for the best film of 1984 is Once Upon A Time In America with Amadeus as a close second.) It’s a great film and one that definitely deserves to be watched and rewatched.

Film Review: An Innocent Man (1989, directed by Peter Yates)

Posted on June 18, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

Jimmie Rainwood (Tom Selleck) is an aeronautics engineer who, with the exception of once getting arrested for marijuana possession in college, has lived a clean and productive life. Mike Parnell (David Rasche) is a corrupt narcotics detective with a raging coke habit. When Parnell and his partner, Scalise (Richard Young), get a tip about a house where drugs are hidden, Parnell is so coked up that he gets the address wrong. They end up breaking into Jimmie’s house and, when Jimmie steps out of the bathroom holding a hair dryer, Saclise shoots him.

Jimmie survives getting shot but that’s the least of his problems. In order to cover up their mistake, Parnell and Scalise frame Jimmie. They replace the hair dryer with a gun. They plant drugs in Jimmie’s house. Because of his previous marijuana conviction, no one believes Jimmie when he says he was set up. Convicted of a crime that he didn’t commit, Jimmie is sentenced to six years in prison. While his wife (Laila Robins) does everything that she can to get him released, Jimmie is preyed upon by the other prisoners. His only friend is Virgil (F. Murray Abraham), a veteran prisoner who shows Jimmie that he’s going to have to do some terrible things to survive being in prison.

As he showed when he directed Bullitt, the late Peter Yates was a director who could make even the most conventional genre material feel fresh and that is what he did with An Innocent Man. Made at a time when American leaders bragged about their devotion to the war on drugs, An Innocent Man is critical of both the police and a legal system that cares more about punishment than rehabilitation. Even if the plot is predictable, the film is gritty enough to make an impression. Jimmie is so victimized and Parnell and Scalise are so smug that, by the time Jimmie finally has a chance to orchestrate his revenge, you can’t wait to see the cops get what’s coming to them.

Part of the appeal of An Innocent Man is that it features actors who you normally would not expect to appear in a film like this. Tom Selleck, best-known for playing upright authority figures, plays a frightened man who is forced to sacrifice his humanity to survive. When the movie started, I was skeptical that Selleck could pull off the role but, by the end of the film, he had the thousand-yard stare of a man who had been to Hell and back. Meanwhile, David Rasche, best known for his work in sitcoms, is more than convincing as the most corrupt narc around. Best of all is F. Murray Abraham, playing the seasoned convict who knows how to get things done in prison. When he tells Jimmie that he has to “take of care of this,” even if it means committing a real crime, you believe him. By the end of An Innocent Man, nobody’s innocent anymore.