Christmas with Doctor Who

Christmas comes around and so does Doctor Who.

Marking the advent of the holiday, along with a thick blanket of snow and the celebration of togetherness, the Doctor Who Christmas special also returns to the old-styled classic formula with a great nostalgia.

It is like getting a call from an old friend. Or visiting someone you have known for many a year to catch up with the glory, old days.

The episode dubbed “The Next Doctor” starts the year with the actor David Tennant winding down with his tenure in the show before he will be leaving next year. He doesn’t have many shows left to do… four and counting down before someone else will get a chance to get a hold of this famous role.

But there a sadness, in a way, knowing that Tennant will be departing from the series, but continues to invest his acting abilities one hundred percent.

The show begins with a black woman Rosita shouting for help during the Christmas cheer in the middle of Victorian London in 1851. She repeatedly calls out for “Doctor.” Tennant’s character chances on hearing this and rushes to the rescue. Only to find that there is someone else standing in for that part already. This man calls himself the Doctor, plays the part to the hilt and embraces a stage actor’s charm that makes you believe he is the Doctor. He is played by actor David Morrissey.

The real Doctor is confused.

And so is the audience for a time. This “next” Doctor is a reflection of the best of his own abilities. He is very intelligent man who knows how to work with the primitive London. He has built his own TARDIS in the form of a gas balloon which has yet to climb into the great heights above the city. He also has a companion in Rosita.

But the man also has lack of memories. He can’t remember who he is. There is a house belonging to a former man with luggage that has not been opened yet. There is a great mystery about it that needs to be solved.

So the audiences must follow this episode to find out who this man is. But it is rather interesting how it is all worked out by author Russell T. Davies who is also finishing up his writing tenure on the show.

It is learned that the Cyberman has somehow found a way through a cut in time and space when venturing in the previous episodes “Doomsday” where they have seemed to survive the void. And while avoiding total destruction of their interstellar battle, they found a way into Victorian London where they sought refuge.

However, in the process, they have come across the first person to cross paths with them. His name is Jackson Lake. He disappeared in his fight with the Cyberman. Along with his family who were all killed.

His fight with the Cyberman is successful. But there was a downside. It backfires with a electrical charge flushes out all of his memories. And his thoughts were instilled with the real Doctor’s long history.

So Jackson Lake retreats into his mind when a memory of something becomes too painful. The inner spirit of his soul becomes a sancutary for him where he finds safety. The deaths of his wife and child become too much for him. And, in essence, he becomes the Next Doctor.

Both actors Tennant and Morrissey does a nice job with their scenes of understanding each other. Learning from each other. And the bit where Tennant explains who Morrissey really is… does have a very emotional pulse. They are good actors who have been nearly upstaging one another throughout the episode. And now, they come through some sort of understanding. Morrissey really isn’t the Doctor, but someone who is pretending to be one.

There is another Christmas gift which may be nice for the fans of the series. During one of the conversations in the middle of the episode, the Doctor (the real one) does show several flashbacks of his memories. And here we see short clips of the old series in succession which makes a nice connection between the old and new. Becoming a part of the new continuity. And we are treated to several small scenes including Tom Baker from “The City of Death”

While the Cybermen seems a little weaker in this episode, still not like they were in the old series, there is still one villain worth mentioning. Miss Hartigan played by Dervlin Kerwin is a sexually powerful and very driven woman who is not happy with the man’s world she is forced to live in. She uses many of the men as merely objects to further her gains. She may be considered nothing but a living brothel to most men, but she often gets what she wants through manipulation. She wears red which is often considered a sexual color. There haven’t been many villains like this one for the series.

The Doctor brings back her humanity which helps her finally realize the damage she has done. She perishes in the final battle in the episode.

The giant, robotic design is truly a grand thing, boisterous with special effects, yet seemingly fitting for a series such as this one… the mountainous prodigy of metal crushing the city below. And it was nice to see the gas balloon in action as the Doctor takes her into the air. There are some elements of Jules Verne in here, always nice to see…

Much of the production was done in April 2008 at Glouchester Cathedral and St Woolos Cemetery in Newport, giving a rich atmosphere and beautiful scenery laden with the wintery snow, cold, icy burden, freezing like the heart of steel found in the Cybermen.

Not always a great episode, but a sure-fire return to the old days which makes this one a fine example of entertainment. Doctor Who is simply one of the best television shows to be on these days. And it’s a good thing it’s going to stick around longer.

"The Spirit" movie review based on the late and great Will Eisner's comics/inventor of the Graphic Novel

It sucks.

A Dark Night at the Academy Awards

It isn’t surprising that the Dark Knight has been snubbed out of the Academy Awards this time around.

Such a course of actions, in due part of Hollywood’s campaign to keep films mainstreamed, may have turned against the film’s more serious ambitions. Such as gaining credibility in the more casual audiences.

This film proves that you don’t need to be a comic book fan to enjoy something with a good story, a plot and some great acting on the side. Not to mention a decent action flick.

The only award the film is getting is the posthumous award for Heath Ledger for his role as the mysterious arch-villain the Joker. It was basically a sympathy vote cast aside for him.

For all the other accomplishments, from story to acting, the film has gotten no recognition. One almost forgets that this summer blockbuster is the only second film to hit the 500 million dollars range. Not bad for something that’s just a comic book film.

This is the same place where movies like “Braveheart” would get all the credit and due for its cinematic skills. Not only that, there is also the Star Wars films (1977), for better or worse in the science fiction genre, that made a nearly clean sweep at the Oscars. Personally it's for the worse. Considering the Star Wars film’s awfulness in dialogue, the Dark Knight shouldn’t have any problems getting noticed.

But it did.

It’s the same for many other types of awards. If there’s an interesting artist or writer won something out, it’s almost entirely by accident. And the fact that Ledger is the only one to get any serious consideration because he died is a total crock.

Here is the typical attitude of the general audiences and critics who feel that dramatic content has no place in a film such as the Dark Knight. But, like none other film, it deals with heavyweight issues of corruption, greed, political power and the notion of terrorism represented by the Joker. His idea of terrorism is best exemplified by today’s terrorism that exist in modern society. The Joker’s grim realization that chaos is a needed element in today’s world is a horrifying one.

I still stand by my original review of the film as being slightly too dark compared to many of the other entries. (My favorite summer flicks were first Iron Man and second Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Skulls). I loved the Batman Begins film for its steady incline towards the darker edge. But I felt the Dark Knight has been too violent for its type.

However, I still feel the film’s excellent story deserves some praise at the awards. It’s not going to get any. That will probably get the director Christopher Nolan very leery of going for a third turn in the film franchise. His film getting shut out like that may force him to turn to other projects. Nolan is an excellent director who made the wonderfully delirious Memento that tells about an unreliable narrator who has short term memory.

Nolan may seek out other cinematic challenges if the Dark Knight gets shut out like this. Does that mean we’ll get a third film, which is going to wrap things up, that may be slightly disappointing. That we’ll get something that will echo the downward tide of the third entries of both X-Men and Spiderman. Neither one of them gained a satisfactory conclusion to their franchise.

The Dark Knight offers a tragedy of a story involving the fall of a hero in the form of district attorney Harvey Dent. And also the fall of another hero: the Batman. His war on crime may have taken to further level which has caused widespread panic. And it becomes ultimately self-destructive. This single-minded stubbornness in maintaining his fixture on cleaning up his beloved city. Only to find that it is still a corrupted cancer. As his friend and colleague Alfred said, “You spat into the faces of criminals. And they’re turning to the only thing that doesn’t make sense. The Joker.” Beautifully acted by established Michael Caine.

Everything in the story connects with each other. And it makes picture perfect sense how the film operates and maintains itself as a solid action thriller. But it’s more than that. It deconstructions the myths of heroes and villains, turning them inside out. And the film explores the more series moral dilemmas between these characters.

It’s become something better than mere summer hype. This is a film with a message. And we are treated to dynamic performances by all the actors around in the film that tries to bring the dramatic punch to the story. They’re fantastic to watch. Christian Bale offers a masterful job as both parts of the Batman and Bruce Wayne personas. The only actor who is able to create the duo role flawlessly. And this is the best role that is underplayed by Gary Oldman who gives another great performance as Commissioner Gordon. Here we find out exactly why he got the job in the first place. Young, energetic, he isn't the fat buffoon often portrayed in TV and films.

But the typical attitude still prevails. Which is unfortunate. Because this film has become a very good study in plot, characters and story going forward in a single motion. It’s a near perfect execution in filmmaking. But there’s another kind of darkness that is brewing in the night. The kind that seems to linger over a brightening light. That darkness is called the Academy or the Oscar Awards.

Creativity is a difficult thing to praise these days. But the Dark Knight has certainly tapped into the small darkness that is in each of our hearts. And there lies the truth behind the film’s success. We have something to fear, all of us. And the Joker makes that the best representation of this fear in the film.

Here’s to hoping for a third reunion of the film’s director, writer and actor. But I’m not holding my breath.

Monster Mayhem

There is no more room to hide from fear.

That’s the basis for the film adaptation of Stephen King’s story The Mist which was written during the mid eighties. The height of his descriptive powers described a New England town besieged by a coiling mist that seemed more alive as it approached.

It carries imaginative darkness that calls for creatures that go bump in the night. Only that these things are far worse. “The Mist” affords a frightening glimpse into the unreal that stays nearly hidden unless you have enough courage to open the door all the way. If you dare.

What's worse is the indifference of these creatures that take form in the mist: they are seemingly uncaring and an abomination of nature. They merely drift by and would pick at their victims only if bothered… treating people as if they are simply gnats to be smoldered. They have the attitude, wholly single-minded, that goes, “If you screw with us, we’ll screw with you.”

And come in many shapes and forms on an evolutionary scale they do—there are spiders, dragonflies, pterodactyl creatures, and others that have no familiar shape. There are also tentacles which first appear at the beginning of the story which harkens back to the mythological works of H.P. Lovecraft.

In many ways, the original story by King was a homage to the great Providence scribe who set his ideas and stories of godly monsters to old 1930s pulp fiction books. You can feel the glimmer of his works when watching a film like “The Mist.” It’s very unnerving. The entire town becomes engulfed in all darkness. There seems to be no escape.

It was an intelligent move for director Frank Darabont using the extraordinary talents of comic book artist Bernie Wrightson for designing the final creature seen… the mountainous giant, with its unearthly cry, that stalks through on high legs towards the end. Wrightson is a living legend. And his powerful notions of horror is well-realized here. Some of the creatures really do seem otherworldly. They will scare the bejesus out of you.

But are the creatures the real stars of the film?

Not really. There is potential drama ensuing when you put a group of people together in a very stressful situation in a supermarket. Trapped, confined, confused, the people are torn between their beliefs and fear. And what is left is almost primal savagery. Many people devolved into their lesser states due to their lack of understanding of things around them. They are like children compared to the creatures moving inside this mist. A sea of darkness.

It is not helped that a local religious woman, deeply disturbed, turning the entire thing into a biblical Armageddon waiting to happen and she is brilliantly played by actress Marcia Gay Harden. She becomes some kind of messiah with all the answers when a cult is formed under her prayers. She calls for human sacrifice—the greatest primal act committed by man.

There are plenty of good performances in this film. The always sympathetic Ollie Weeks played by Toby Jones seems like a very ordinary man who stops buckling under his not-so-nice boss. I have always liked Thomas Jane who is an interesting actor. He played the Punisher opposite John Travolta a few years ago and always brings a kind of humanity into his role even if his character doesn’t call for it. Jane is a likable actor, kind yet firm, sweet but tough. He is very down-to-earth in this film. Which makes him very accessible to the viewing public.

He takes on the greatest responsibility of taking care not only of his son, but several other people who formed friendships with him throughout the tirade of fear that swallows the supermarket in which they are trapped. It’s a brilliant stroke of fiction. A supermarket feels so familiar, well-known to people… and putting them in a supermarket setting like this brings a whole different feeling of terror in the story/film.

I really liked the directing and the creative ways of keeping the original source of the film. You get a sense of hopelessness that has an awful grasp on people. Right to the very end, despite religion, the military or anything, there is that vast sense of no hope that spirals us together when we realize the cosmos is a bigger place than we thought.

There’s some very nice touches of Lovecraft in the film. The most important revelation in the story is from Private Jessup who only heard things, patching things together, when he said in his confession, “I heard these military scientists… they opened up some kind of window to another dimension. Another universe. And these things started crawling in.”

The tone, the darkness, all of it was nicely handled by director Darabont, known for his work of “The Green Mile” and the “Shawshank Redemption”, who played with the idea of the things out there not meant for this world. And the feeling of sickness swells up inside you when you try to look around every corner, every alcove, wondering if something would be there waiting.

Darabont wanted to make this film black and white in a homage to the old 1950s monster movies. But studio interference caused the film to be reverted to color for the theatrical releases. That’s too bad. It’s a nice idea. And the shades of black and white could only lend further discomfort in the leering darkness that sifts around the New England town. You can see the different take of the film in B&W on the two disc set of this film. Worth the look if you’re a fan of old horror movies.

Perhaps Darabont hopes to become the film counterpart to Stephen King in some of his works. It’s good to see someone who has a good grasp of the original material and convey it with mighty brush strokes of creativity. Much like Roger Corman and Edgar Allan Poe during their cycle of films in the 1960s.

Maybe Darabont will revisit King territory again very soon. It wouldn’t be a bad idea.