The Race Between Religion and Spirit.

Ah yes, running in slow motion. We’ve all done it. To Vangelis’s music from CHARIOTS OF FIRE.

The loneliness of the long distance cucumber

British production, written by Colin Welland, directed by Hugh Hudson, nominated for 7 Academy Awards, winning 4 (including Best Picture), CHARIOTS OF FIRE is based loosely on two real life British runners in the 1924 Paris Olympics, who run for very different reasons. Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) runs to prove himself above the anti-semitism he’s experienced all his life, while Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) runs to glorify his christian god: “To win is to honor Him” (which should make anyone trip over from laughing so hard. Even in slow motion).

Movie opens at Caius College Cambridge in 1919, when fervor for The Great War (though what made it “great” is beyond my ken) is still high in everyone’s nostrils, and British supremacy was tangible in the world. The British runners all meet here as students.

Different people would perceive different parts of this movie as inspirational. For an athlete, the running in slow motion, the sacrifices and the winning – both Liddell and Abrahams would go on to win their respective races and bring glory to Britain; for a religious fanatic, the nutty equating of Christ with racing – Liddell gives a speech loaded with metaphor, “committing yourself to the love of Christ – that is how you run a straight race” –  demonstrably ridiculous, because Jewish Abrahams ran “straight races” as well, metaphorically as well as literally – by committing to the love of Allah.

And there are so much of Liddell’s ravings and rantings and refusing to run on Sunday at the Olympics, that it turned me off the film. This real life athlete ruined a film honoring him because his character (Charleson) had to portray him as the lunatic he was.

Liddell’s life plan is to visit China as a missionary, but he puts those plans on hold to attend the Olympics, because, “I believe that God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure.” Suuure you do. Anything as an excuse to rationalize fun. After the Games, he does actually give up running to spread the disease of christianity in China.

Liddell meets with Olympic and state officials who urge him to compete in his Sunday race, “In my day, it was king first, God after.” Liddell replies, “God made countries, God makes kings, and the rules by which they govern.” God also makes wars. Reconcile that with your missionary work, Running Boy – oh, I forgot, missionary work IS insidious war, after all, on Other People’s beliefs.

This is one of those films where it is pointless speaking of the performances, which are so natural and top notch, it is no wonder CHARIOTS received so many awards: Ian Holm is Abrahams’ trainer; Sir John Gielgud once again defines Spectacularly Imperious by appearing in the dictionary right next to the phrase, and here as a College Master. Sadly, two young American actors who were stars in their own right appear here in their last major feature film before virtually disappearing from cinema, Dennis Christopher (who made his mark as the determined young bicyclist in BREAKING AWAY, 1979) and Brad Davis (who shook our foundations in the disturbing MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, 1978).

Watching both Abrahams and Liddell cheer each other on during their respective races for Britain – though both were mortal running enemies – was a joy that no religion could sully; the physicality of driving human bodies to such extremes of performance; the intricacy of cardiovascular function that fuels the human animal; the tendons, joints, muscles, bones impacting the Earth, surging forward in opposition to gravity; the wonder of the raging human adrenaline machine stretched past breaking point… If only Eric Liddell could have understood there is a much more wondrous power than his mythical Christ – humanity.

Run from the truth, Eric! Run in slow motion!

END

All-New, All-Improved, Same-ole Same ole.

Mr. Spoff

If this don’t keep the fanboys happy, nothin’ will.

How do you approach a movie as sodden in mythos as the STAR TREK franchise? The approach must be as trepidatious for film makers as it is for geekboys and weekend viewers alike. Every inch of a production under the STAR TREK aegis would reek of esoterica and legacy. How could anyone possibly circumvent the pitfalls and launch another TREK into warp drive without twisting someone’s seven of nine?

Here’s how: STAR TREK 2009 – a grand homage to a dubious institution. (Some may immediately take issue with “dubious” – but let’s be frank, the original 1966 series was no SPACE: 1999; it was cheap, relatively unsuccessful and aggressively fey. The legend has more cred than the product.)

Funny that director J.J. Abrams and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have recreated Gene Roddenberry’s idea exactly as it has always been – simple story set in space, where English is still the Universal Language, where unknown crew members with different colored tunics always die when they go EVA with the stars, where sparks still fly out of consoles to signify damage being done to a hypersophisticated starship.

The homage and reverence of TREK 2009 comes in two parts: Fully 50% is the efx. They’ve really taken this seriously. The surroundings of the 23rd century are stunning in their detail – Iowa is still a bleak, flat landscape but in the distant haze, hulking cityscrapers loom, rising into the lower stratosphere like ocean liners tipped on their sides; we see the NCC-1701 USS Enterprise in all its maiden glory; jaw-dropping space scenes, which sometimes lapse into total silence during exterior shots, lending the vacuum of space its long-sullied reverential, foreboding air. These latest boastings in special effects technology outdo Lucas – they are the best you will see at this point in history.

The other 50% is the casting. Perfect. Chris Pine is James Tiberius Kirk, looking like Ray Liotta Junior and as fulla beans as we remember the shirtless Shatner; Zachary Quinto is the closest thing to Spock as body oil is to Shatner; Karl Urban channels Bones hilariously, his famous disclaimers scattered passim: “Goddamit, I’m a doctor, not an engineer!”; Anton Yelchin soft-v’s all over the place as Pavel Chekov; Simon Pegg as Scotty steals his scenes (but then Simon Pegg can make even a David Schwimmer film palatable, how could he NOT steal his scenes in a well-made movie?); John Cho (yes, of HAROLD AND KUMAR) is Sulu; and Zoe Saldana as Uhura spreads her pheromones over Spock like chocolate duck butter.

A fitting re-launch of the STAR TREK franchise. And all thanks to Leonard Nimoy! In a wizened cameo as Spock Prime, he is responsible for some kind of time-paradox-anomaly-panty-twist, so these young characters we see are supposedly the same characters we know – but in an alternate time continuum, forging new destinies.

The funny thing is TREK 2009 shows us the well-loved TREK characters when they were young, but we’ve already seen the characters when they were young – and they looked nothing like these guys! Well, except for Spock… amazing what a pair of pointy ears can do.

At film opening, we meet the USS Kelvin, populated by Captain Arab Guy (Faran Tahir) and his crew of Teen Models, under attack from Eric Bana as the vengeful Romulan, Nero, directly tied to the time paradox plot. One of the models is Kirk’s father (Chris Hemsworth – THOR was Kirk’s father? No wonder he’s so fulla beans), who makes the ultimate sacrifice for his unborn son’s escape, in the film’s most touching, human scene, as the mother describes via radio her newborn son – James Tiberius – to the father, as his ship impacts. Birthed during a battle, conflict would follow J.T. all his life like green-skinned babes in space bikinis.

While on planet Vulcan, young Spock, conflicted with emotions from his half-human heritage, is invited to attend Vulcan Academy and declines. For emotionless Vulcans, these guys sure display a lot of emotion – when chastised by the elders, Spock gives the “Live Long and Prosper” salutation not in comity, but in sarcasm. Snidely excellent.

The best aspect of TREK 2009 is that it makes the Enterprise crew and the starship Enterprise powerful, not just in reputation – in action. We see Sulu (whose combat experience is in the seemingly innocuous art of “fencing”) do sword battle like Toshiro Mifune, we see the might of the Enterprise’s big guns; we see Spock give the nerve pinch – to Kirk.

Though there is not much space between explosions and stunts for characterization, TREK 2009 explores well, albeit briefly, the conflict between Kirk and Spock over the captain’s post onboard the Enterprise, also playing up an amusing “romance” between Spock and Uhura. The plot involves Spock Prime re-booting history by accident and Nero traveling through time to nerve-pinch him, with the Enterprise crew being caught in the crossfire and having to rescue their captain (Bruce Greenwood) from Nero’s ship.

And the moment we all wait for: Quinto meets Nimoy and engage in some sizzling hot Spock on Spock philosophy. (Poffy Predicts: Other players in this franchise will come and go – Zachary Quinto will be forever Spock.)

Nimoy’s closing voiceover is the immortal intro to this immortal series: “Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life-forms and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before.”

Again.

END