my cinematic a to zed: e-h

Enigma: (2001. dir: Michael Apted) A Ukrainian dog digs up a human arm. A single word, the German word for the flower Columbine, is transmitted over all frequencies then an ominous silence reigns in Nazi airspace; when messages resume, the code has been changed, and the English can no longer read it. A haunted genius, loosely based on Alan Turing (a heterosexual version played by Dougray Scott), is recalled back to his duties from the clutches of a nervous breakdown. Thus begins Enigma.

There are few places, few moments in history that I romanticize as fiercely as I do Bletchley Park. In the thick of WWII, a disparate crew of geniuses, puzzle fanatics, and maths experts were secretly gathered on an unassuming estate some miles north of London where they quietly broke Nazi codes and thereby allowed the Allies to win the war. Realistically, crammed into tiny huts and forced to share rooms, taking down or, at best, deciphering messages all day, even one's personal conversations restricted by fears for national security, I'd have been miserable. Still, I often dream myself into that time and place. This movie, then, was made for me.

First off, Tom Stoppard wrote it, managing to squeeze a Brobdingnagian heap of exposition -- about the enigma machines, the breaking of the codes, the shifting political face of the war, not to mention the mores and customs of the time -- gracefully into the action without dragging at the timing. Then there's the cast: stuffed full of fantastic Brits, from Tom Holland to Corin Redgrave to Saffron Burrows. I've seen Dougray Scott act well in only two films, and this is one. Kate Winslet and Jeremy Northam, meanwhile, have a gleeful old time, he as a silky, condescending government spy-catcher, she playing the frumpy girl for a change.





Firefly: (2002. creators: Joss Whedon and Tim Minear) This is the best thing that television ever came up with. Only television didn't come up with it; Joss Whedon did, and that makes him a big damn hero. Fox, that inscrutable tyrant, cancelled the series practically before it debuted, leaving fourteen episodes and the postscript film, Serenity, which hit cinemas a few years later. Do not under any circumstances judge the TV show by the movie, which has lost the good, beating heart and deft humor of the original. My theory is that Joss' own heart was broken by the cancellation, hence the icy spirit of the movie. It's not bad, Serenity; it just doesn't inhabit the same beautiful space that Firefly did.

It can't be described, not with justice, but here's the cornerstone: some five hundred years in the future, Earth-That-Was is no longer inhabitable, but humankind has moved out into space, creating livable planets out of moons with a process known as terraforming. The planets are tied together under the empirical rule of the Alliance, and some of the crew of Serenity, the transport-class spacecraft we follow, fought ferociously for the Browncoats in favor of independent rule in the interplanetary war six years earlier. An amalgam of Chinese and American languages is spoken, and the feel of the 'verse is as much Western as sci-fi. Settlers are dumped on a terraformed planet not with rayguns and teleportation devices but with six-shooters and horses and chickens. That's out on the boundaries of the galaxy. The closer to civilization, aka Alliance territory, the more futuristic and sci-fi it gets, but our crew of thieves and misfits keeps its distance when it can from civilization.

Whedon is never afraid to get dark (the darkest eps are the best: "Out of Gas", "War Stories", and the chilling swan-song "Objects in Space") but he's downright poetical with his humor, as well. I was going to quote some favorite lines, but it's better you watch it yourself, hear them in context. (OK, just one: "If wishes was horses, we'd all be eatin' steak.")

Seriously. It's so good I sometimes wish I'd never seen it before so I could watch it again for the first glorious time.





Gorky Park: (1983. dir: Michael Apted) Why is this a neglected film? It's a cold-war classic far superior to any John Le Carre outing, including the bloodless and ridiculously overhyped Smiley series, which are packed full of tasty British actors doing little or nothing, including Sir Alec Guinness, so distant in the role you can barely see him; his edges are almost blurry, he's so far gone. This one, on the other hand, has a tasty menu of Brits acting up a storm. The whole thing is worth a viewing just for Ian McDiarmid's five-minute masterpiece of a performance, or Ian Bannen at his best, or Alexei Sayle as a black-market profiteer. It's based on Martin Cruz Smith's novel, arguably his best, and it's got William Hurt at his handsomest (as the Moscow policeman walking a thin line between solving a triple murder committed in Gorky Park and avoiding the quicksand of fingering KGB for it) and Lee Marvin as the Big Bad. What's not to love? Plus an engaging mystery that has a ring of truth about it and snappy dialogue (Irina: "KGB have better cars, you know?" Arkady: "Yes, but they don't always take you where you want to go, do they?"), a great sense of atmosphere, a good take on the menace and mundanity of the interlocking rings of Soviet hierarchy, and the story never gets muddled in the telling. Its biggest flaw is that it bogs down in its sentimental-hogwash love-story toward the end, but the last shot, of six angry sables romping toward freedom in the snow, is wonderfully satisfying.





Hearts of Darkness; a Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991. dir: George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr) Along with Les Blank's Burden of Dreams, this is my favorite movie-about-a-movie documentary. Both are behind-the-scenes studies of lumbering behemoths of the cinema (Herzog's Fitzcarraldo and Coppola's Apocalypse, Now!) and their respective directors' doubts and egomanias. This one was originally begun by Eleanor Coppola as a way to pass the time (years, it turned out) while her husband's film, massively over-budget, massively behind-schedule, massive in every respect, was shot. It's best watched in tandem with reading her published journal of the same title, which lets us in on further details, like that Francis was frequenting an onset love-nest with a production assistant during shooting, and the marriage was in danger. Apocalypse is one of the most fascinating movies ever made, and that makes this one fascinating doc. If you really catch the bug, read assistant director and actor ("Terminate" pause "with extreme prejudice") Jerry Ziesmer's account as well, set forward in Ready When You Are, Mr Coppola, Mr Spielberg, Mr Crowe.