Captain Kirk's birthday

Not exactly a party, but a spectacular opening sequence to 2009's "Star Trek," directed by J.J. Abrams.  The movie begins as Captain Kirk's mother is going into labor.  However, her starship is under attack, and she, along with all cast, crew and passengers, are abandoning the doomed starship aboard small, retreating, vessels.  Kirk's father remains on board, fighting off the attack long enough to allow some people to flee to safety.  In the midst of the fight, before his destruction, Kirk's father sees his newborn son and his wife on a ship-to-ship viewing screen.  He lives long enough to see this and to tell his wife to name their newborn son after his father-in-law, Jim.  Kirk's father dies a tremendous hero, but this will be little consolation to James T. Kirk initially, and then the rest is, as they say, history, if not a popular culture phenomenon.   With all due respect to the Star Trek franchise, I think this opening scene tops it all.  It is a great action sequence full of light flashes, explosions and frenzy.  Yet the emotional impact of a father in his final moments, calm, steady, courageous, and duty-bound, facing his destruction to be witnessed by his wife and newborn child, is overwhelming.  A very good, underrated movie, overall.

His day was made a long time ago

Clint Eastwood is an accomplished director, with credits including two top-shelf westerns ("Unforgiven" and "The Outlaw Josey Wales"), as well as "Million-Dollar Baby" and "Gran Torino."  Unlike these films, Clint does not appear onscreen in "J. Edgar," his most recent film, starring Leonardo Di Caprio as John Edgar Hoover, the legendary FBI Director.  "J. Edgar" is an excellent film, with fast-pacing moving back and forth between the end of Hoover's life and a chronological treatment of some of his experiences.  The pacing is so effective that the movie flew by, and I was left wanting more, which is nice, as Carl Spackler would say.  If Hoover could have kept a file on the fictional Carl, he probably would have, what with his apocalypitic fixation on gophers and all.  But back to Clint; he makes good movies.

The public career of J. Edgar Hoover has been well-covered elsewhere.  However, "J. Edgar " briefly treats his accomplishments and controversies. It establishes his steerage of the FBI through its infancy to the mammoth crime fighting agency that it became, incredibly surviving 8 presidents and countless politicians and bureaucrats along the way.  Without his commitment to scientific methods of evidence gathering and analysis,
"CSI" could be a very different show today.  Controversially, the fact that Hoover improperly used his position to enhance and maintain his power is alluded to in the move.  As a result, "J. Edgar" is a fine example of intelligent filmmaking; the audience either brings enough knowledge to the film to understand or leaves with the opportunity to conduct reconnaisance into the life and times of this very private of public men.

Where "J. Edgar" shines is in the treatment of the private life of Hoover.  His relationship with the women in his life (mother and secretary), is fascinatingly portrayed by Judi Dench and Naomi Watts, respectively.  His mother pushed him to achieve and to maintain an iron will.  DiCaprio's Hoover seeks her approval at all times.  No less steely is his secretary, who also has Hoover's back without fail.  However, the  depictions of the complicated and close relationship between Hoover and his Assistant Director, Clyde Tolson, sustain most of the film.  These private glimpses are what "J. Edgar" is all about, and the entire portrait results in another winner for the High Plains Drifter.

The Most Interesting Man in an International Beer Commercial

If you see a movie in a theater over the holidays, you may see the long form commercial for Heineken.  The short form is running on television.  The commercial is a short film, and, though it looks and sounds cool, it trys too hard to be avant-garde.  In fact, it lacks originality.  The theme throughout, with a man taking a woman by the hand and embarking from the kitchen for adventure on the floor of a nightclub is reminiscent of the long Copacabana sequence in "Goodfellas."  Therein, Ray Liotta, hand-in-hand with Lorraine Bracco, moves from the street, through a back door, proceeding to the floor of the Copa, as if the gangster owns the place and does this all the time.  With Ronnie Spector singing "And He Kissed Me" in the background, the scene is a long, seamless shot from street to floor, beautifully filmed and directed by Martin Scorsese.  It is one of the best scenes in cinematic history.  So, if you want to see the long shot, check out "Goodfellas," and have a Heineken.  It is good beer.

Collaboration

I recently watched the AFI Master Class episode in which Steven Spielberg and John Williams discussed their collaboration on such films as "Jaws," "E.T." and "Schindler's List."  Spielberg commented that the musical score provided by Williams has taken his films to another level.  The impact of suitably placed music
in a film is readily apparent.  Who can forget the tension and terror evoked upon first seeing "Jaws" heightened by the perfectly themed score?  Music enhances documentaries as well, perhaps most ably demonstrated in the work of Ken Burns.  The tone set throughout by "Ashokan Farewell" attracted new audiences to his masterpiece on the Civil War.  Symbiotically, interest in the song and the events spiked.  Many people, myself included, mistakenly believed this waltz to be a traditional, 19th century work, that may have been played in campgrounds between 1861 and 1865.  In fact, it was composed by Jay Ungar in 1982, some eight years before Ken Burns conquered PBS.  It may well be the star of the film. 

Homer and the western tradition

Not Homer Simpson, but Homer, to whom The Iliad and The Odyssey are attributed.  The phrase "bite the dust" has been around for awhile, several thousand years before Freddie Mercury and Queen sang about another one.  It's in the Iliad like so many other fragments of honor, duty, bravery, and heroic adventure that form the basis of countless stories we all have seen and heard.  Read both works and count the number of times a passage triggers something you have seen in a movie or read about in another work.  You may be surprised how many references add up until "another one gone, and another one gone."