Who’s responsible? Robert Zemeckis (director), Ray Winstone (Beowulf), Anthony Hopkins (Hrothgar), John Malkovich (Unferth), Angelina Jolie (Grendel’s Mother)

When can we see it? November 16, 2007

What’s it about? The original English epic presented in cutting-edge, motion-capture computer animation. Beowulf fights monsters, dragons, and Angelina Jolie?!

What looks good? The character animation looks impressive, especially compared to the doll-eyed zombie children on view in The Polar Express. The designs look convincingly Anglo-Saxon, the cinematography looks rich, subtle, and distinctively un-cartoony, and Grendel (who will speak all his lines in Old English) looks like one nasty son of a bitch.

What looks bad? Angelina Jolie plays Grendel’s Mother, which suggests they’re taking considerable liberties with the source material. Computers still can’t simulate fire convincingly, or water, or horses, or . . .

Worth seeing? All signs point to “Yes.”

Worth GOING to see? Yes. You can’t get 3-D IMAX in your living room. (Yet.)

Where can I see the trailer? HERE

The Essays page, long empy and dormant, now contains some actual essays!

You can now view all three of my previously published works:

• “Shakespearean Prosody Unbound,”
  published in Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 45.1 (Spring 2003): 1-19.
• “Undelivered Meanings: The Aesthetics of Shakespearean Wordplay”
  published in Renaissance Literature and its Formal Engagements, edited by Mark Rasmussen (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 139-58.
• “On the Value of Lycidas,”
  published in Studies in English Literature, 37.1 (Winter 1997): 119-36.

Optima is a sans-serif typeface created by German type designer Hermann Zapf, who designed Palatino and Zapfino.

Zapf designed its letterforms in the proportions of the Golden Ratio.

“WomoPage” has found a new home at obsession with Detail.

Updates will be scarce over the next couple of weeks, so until then, bask in the warm glow of my new layout.

Like most of America, you probably haven’t seen United 93. You’ve avoided it out of an understandable reluctance to relive the emotional trauma of September, 11. If so, here’s my advice to you: Go see this movie. Now. Drag every friend and relative you can coax, cajole, wheedle, or sweet-talk along with you.

I can guarantee that you will not “enjoy” United 93, you will not find it entertaining or diverting or any of the things we’ve come to expect (or settle for) in our summer movies. I am equally confident that this film will move you more deeply and profoundly than anything you’ve seen in years, that you will be riveted by the experience in a way that makes other films seem petty and insignificant.

The only movie I can think of remotely comparable in its visceral effect is Schindler’s List and that film had the cushion of historical perspective; we knew going in that the holocaust was over, the monsters who perpetrated it utterly defeated and long dead. Not knowing how Al Qaeda’s war on modernity will unfold, we must watch this film without the comfortable certainty of a forgone conclusion.

The story of the passengers of United flight 93 ( “The Flight That Fought Back”) is already becoming legendary and it’s one of this film’s genuine achievements that while it is deeply respectful it is never reverential. It never devolves into the trite hagiography that would dehumanize the men and women it depicts. We don’t get a neatly packaged “back story” for any of the characters, but we do get the impression that their lives extend beyond the boundaries of the film. We overhear snippits of conversations and phone calls, but we never even catch the names of the people. It is exactly like our typical experience of fellow passengers on a plane trip. We are not surrounded by heroic characters or saints but by ordinary, flesh-and-blood people just like us.

In fact, the film is full of real people. FAA operations manager Ben Silney plays himself and the crew of the plane are portrayed by actual United pilots and stewardesses. This is just one of the techniques writer/director Paul Greengass (The Bourne Supremacy) employs to give the film a sense of urgent, objective reality. The film is shot in a loose, hand-held style and edited as if from available footage rather than meticulously composed shots.

The opening of the film could almost be a documentary about an airport. We see the mundane details of flight preparation, and without the context we bring with us, these montages would seem unremarkable, even dull. Greengrass never plays the scenes for suspense; he just presents them and lets us generate the tension. When, for instance, we see the plane being fueled up for its cross-continental journey, we know that those thousands of gallons of jet fuel are potentially a gruesomely effective weapon. The film never comments on this; it simply shows it and moves on, forcing us to make that connection.

This narrative strategy of elliptical storytelling, while common in top television shows (from The Sopranos to The Wire to Battlestar Galactica) is rarely used in movies, where we are usually spoon-fed the story. In United 93, we are constantly piecing information together for ourselves which automatically makes the film more engaging. Moreover, the people in the movie spend most of their time desperately trying to piece together the conflicting and confusing information they’re getting. We the audience are always a step ahead of them and this generates enormous tension while simultaneously making us re-live the confusion of that day.

You can expect to feel every emotion you had that day during the film. When they show the second plane crashing into the second tower, you will feel just as nauseous as you did five years ago. But what the film gives us that we couldn’t have that day is the catharsis of clear, deliberate action. At one point, the FAA director yells at an air force officer, “I don’t want more updates, I want action!” But there’s nothing anyone on the ground can do. So when the passengers realize that they are on a suicide mission and that they must take action, we feel grateful relief even though we know the tragic outcome.

Perhaps the film relies too heavily on the audience to provide its context. It may be that this film will have little or no emotional resonance for anyone who doesn’t already remember the events it depicts. I just don’t know. But however well or poorly the film ages, it is, right now, as powerful an experience as one can have in the cinema.

Again, I simply urge you to see it. And not for any political or sociological reasons. See it because it is a great and powerful film.

United 93 (2006)
Grade: A

Mission: Impossible III kicks off the summer ‘06 movie season with gusto. It’s a sleek, effective action film, the kind of film the James Bond production team should be making these days but doesn’t.

Tom Cruise started the Mission: Impossible franchise 10 years ago as a director’s showcase. (Cruise has probably worked with more A-list directors than any star in history.) Brian De Palma (The Untouchables) helmed the first film and turned out one of the great suspense set pieces of his career: an elaborate break-in to an impenetrable room with Cruise suspended on wires. John Woo (Hard-Boiled) directed the second installment with tons of slow motion and none of the brio he brought to his Hong Kong action masterpieces.

It took a while to find a director for the third film. David Fincher (Fight Club) was attached to the project at one point, as was Joe Carnahan, based on his ludicrously over-rated film Narc. But Cruise finally settled on J. J. Abrams, the creator of the Lost and Alias TV series. Abrams is hardly a visual stylist on the level of De Palma or Woo, but he manages his story and his cast more deftly than either of his predecessors.

Mission: Impossible III has the same pacing, the same engaging-yet-predictable plot twists, and the same sense of humor as Alias. Not surprising, since Abrams brought along his writers and editor from the show as well as composer Michael Giacchino, who wrote the superb, Bond-inspired score for The Incredibles. Unlike Alias, the film doesn’t have to pretend that LA looks just like Berlin and Shanghai; it shows us the real thing. And cinematographer Dan Mindel brings the same rough-edged slickness we saw on display in The Bourne Identity.

None of the action set pieces have the punch that Steven Spielberg or Michael Mann, or even Doug Liman, can bring. One scene that unfolds on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge echoes James Cameron’s superb bridge chase from True Lies and clearly demonstrates the difference between solid craftsmanship and inspired artistry. But each of the big action beats tells part of the story, so we’re spared the kind of loud, gaudy, and perfectly superfluous displays that litter the films of Michael Bay and all his ilk.

It’s the attention to the story—to keeping the narrative brisk, clear, and engaging—that sets the film apart from the standard, formulaic Hollywood action orgy. The clever way the film deals with its McGuffin, for instance, minimizes needless exposition and maximizes the time we spend on thrills. (Ronin pulled a similar trick, with similarly good results.)

Driving the story is super spy Ethan Hunt, played by Cruise. Mr. Cruise may be a Scientologist and a nut case (isn’t that redundant?), but he’s got considerable talent as an actor. Very few actors can hold the center of a big action movie; just look at any of Nicholas Cage’s failed attempts. Cruise, like Sean Connery and Harrison Ford and virtually no one else, keeps you focused on the character rather than the pyrotechnic set pieces. That’s particularly impressive since Ethan Hunt is an even thinner character than James Bond or Indiana Jones.

While the movie is undeniably a star vehicle we get top-notch actors in every single supporting role, which gives the film an amazing energy. This is the first Mission: Impossible movie to make the IMF team a genuine part of the story. Particularly delightful is Simon Peg (Shaun of the Dead) as a lab technician who talks Cruise through the back streets of Shanghai over the phone. And with Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Maggie Q, Billy Crudup, and Keri Russell on hand, there’s not only tons of acting talent, but eye candy aplenty for every taste, gender, and orientation.

Best of all, on the acting talent front, is Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain Owen Davian. Hoffman deliciously underplays his role, which makes him much scarier than a bombastic, larger-than-life villain could be. When Davian starts quietly and matter-of-factly threatening Hunt and his girlfriend, the effect is monstrous and chilling.

Michelle Monaghan, as Hunt’s fiancé Julia, is good too, but her role is so slight she never make much of an impression. Since so much of the plot revolves around her, that’s a serious weakness. We know Hunt cares deeply about her, but we never get a chance to share those feelings.

While it’s hardly the best this genre has to offer, Mission: Impossible III gets the job done with style. It’s exactly what Cruise’s career needs right now and exactly what we want for the summer.

Mission: Impossible III (2006)
Grade: B