I like to watch a lot of movies at Christmas. And I'm not particular. I grab whatever catches my eye, and turn the season into a mini film festival.
Here's what I looked at this year:
Tora Tora Tora
I've only only ever seen this on televison. This time I watched it on…well…a television. But it was a bigger television and the DVD was in widescreen.
Not an especially critically acclaimed movie, but I like it. I like the slow buildup, and the Japanese perspective (although all the major Japanese naval figures seem to get let off the hook…Japanese army hierarchs are casted as the architects of the war, while the naval leaders are reluctant warriors making the daring best of a bad situation). In places it's a beautifully shot movie. The scenes of the Japanese planes taking off from the carriers just before daybreak on the morning of December 7, 1941 are especially good, as are those of the attack waves heading south over Oahu toward Pearl Habour.
In retrospect, it was a momentous and insane attack. It was predicated on a series of utterly incorrect and outmoded assumptions as to what the American response would be. It was as if the Japanese leaders expected a 19th century outcome, in which some sort of treaty would end the conflict and split up various Pacific and South East Asian territories in manner agreeable to Japanese Imperial interests. War really is a law-of-unintended-consequences business.
Nicholas Nickleby
Lushly filmed version of the Dickens novel. I liked it. Didn't love it, but I liked it. Period piece drama, but with a nice current of humour.
Hawaii
Apparently this was the highest grossing movie of 1966. The DVD version is supposed to be slightly abridged to a mere 160 odd minutes (down from 180 or so, but apparently that includes a musical overture and intermission). In other words it's epic in scale.
I saw it on TV as a kid, and haven't seen it since. It follows the life of a Protestant missionary (Max Von Sydow) and his wife (Julie Andrews) as they settle in Maui in the 1820s. An entertaining movie with some great images that to me falls a little short of 'classic' status. Some of the images in the movie came right back to me (a man in mourning gouging his eye out), while others had stayed with me and were just as intense as I remembered (pox-stricken Hawaiians running into the ocean in the middle of the night to alleviate the fever).
The thing with Hawaii is that it's such an obvious tourist destination that it sometimes seems to lack the travel cachet of other parts of the world. The 'Hawaii vacation' has the ring of banality to it. Yet its history is pretty unique. It was uninhabited by any human beings until sometime between 500 and 800 AD, when Polynesian navigators from the South Pacific made their way to the islands. Magellan entered the South Pacific late in 1520, yet it wasn't until 1778 until James Cook became the first European to hit Hawaii. Such an isolated place, and yet so perfectly habitable.
And geographically it's dramatic and diverse, and changing every day with lava flows from the Big Island expanding the archepelago's footprint bit-by-bit.
Enter the Dragon
2012 will be the year of the Dragon, so this seemed appropriate. Bruce Lee movie, in which Lee travels to an island near Hong Kong, ostensibly for a martial arts tournament, but in reality to gather intelligence on the islands Bond villian-like owner and--for good measure--to avenge the death of his sister at the hands of the villian's henchmen some years earlier.
Quiet, disciplined, slightly underdogish, Bruce Lee is among the more likeable action heros. His fight scenes are entertaining and satisfying. As I said, the movie borrows heavily from the Bond franchise (the villain even has a Blofeldian white cat), but it's worth noting that the shoe was soon on the other foot. Following on the heels of 'Enter the Dragon' was 'The Man with the Golden Gun,' a Bond film with a Southeast Asian setting that featured a derivative dose of Lee-inspired martial arts scenes.
One more thing...cool theme riff in the soundtrack!
Valkrie
Tom Cruise as a German colonel turned would-be assassin of Hitler. Based on the true story of the July 22, 1944 assassination attempt on the German leader. A bit of a bleak story, but well told. It got mixed reviews but I think it's decent enough and should hold its value over the years. There's a bit of a spin on it; most of the rebel officers are generally held up as principled anti-Nazis. One wonders how many of them simply knew the game was up as the war progressed, and were looking to save themselves and their positions by getting rid of the madman before they were completely annihilated (and possibly held accountable themselves for war crimes)?
Margaret
In November of 1990 a young Willingdon Black was in London, England for a bit shy of a month. A happy period of live music, theatre, football, galleries, museums, general urban exploring and…politics.
Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, but was facing increasing unpopularity, and an anxious and rebellious cabinet. Worried that she was sinking their chances of re-election, British Conservatives began plotting against her.
It all unfolded very quickly.
First one of her senior ministers resigned. Then another challenged her for the party leadership in a vote among Conservative MPs. Thatcher failed to win the requisite support in the vote, triggering a 'second ballot.'
Access to the visitors gallery of the British House of Commons was not hard in those days. I was in the House of Commons when the news spread through the ranks of the sitting Members of Parliament that a second ballot was required. I basically found out about it when they did. It was widely considered to be the fatal blow, and to be watching it unfold first hand was electrifying.
As for the BBC production, I liked it. Partly because it's cool when an event you were a real-life witness to is deemed worthy enough for its own film, and partly because it was a smartly-produced effort.
I went back to the House of Commons on the day of Thatcher's resignation. This time the lineups were huge. The opposition had called for a motion of no confidence, and Thatcher was scheduled to defend her government during the ensuing debate. It was apparently one of her greatest performances.
I missed it.
I finally got into the visitors' gallery just as she was getting up to leave, mouthing the word 'sorry' to former Labour leader Michael Foot as he rose to pay 'tribute' to her (as I recall it was more of an elegant evisceration). The debate raged on without her (and without many of her potential Tory successors). There were many great speakers, able to rattle off arguments and opinions full of vigour and wit without the aid of any notes, and without an excessive reliance on the kind of stock banalities one tends to get from politicians.
For all that, one of the memories that has stuck with me was waiting inside the House of Commons just before getting into the visitor's gallery. The very attractive wife of Thatcher's leading Tory challenger, Michael Heseltine, strode by with some guy who was not her husband. A wag in the lineup watched them go by, then asked suggestively:
'Ooos 'eee then?'
The Long Walk to Finchley
Maybe they're a little obsessed with the Iron Lady at the Beeb (or maybe I am). This time it's the story of Thatcher's early years, detailing her relentless efforts to get elected as an MP. Very well-acted, with a tinge of satirical humour. Apparently there's a film called 'Iron Lady' coming out with Meryl Streep as Missis Phatchah. The thing with the English, though, is they've got a deep well of acting talent serving up thespians able to toss off a Thatcher (or whomever) at will. In this case someone named Andrea Risebrough, who nails it, but who hasn't and will never get the accolades Streep will.
