Random Thoughts: No nomination for Harry Potter? Really Hollywood?

Let me make one thing perfectly clear.  I'm not a big Harry Potter fan, although at least two of my sons are not to mention various other family members.  But I have seen all of the Harry films, found some of them just so so, others pretty good, and still others a total bore (Deathly Hallows Part One).  Yet, I found Deathly Hallows Part Two to easily be the best of the bunch, a damn good film, and a really terrific sendoff for the series.

It would seem that most people are in agreement with me as the film garnered a 96 per cent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes making it one of the most well received films of the year.

Yet, even though there were nine best film nominees this year, the Hollywood elite decided Harry and the gang didn't deserve so much as a nomination.  Frankly, accomplishing what this series did, how many tickets the series sold, and how many people were employed on the films, you would have thought they'd be a little more grateful than that. 

But instead we get the usual oddball conglomerate of Best Picture Nominees,  a list that as usual has no real rhyme or reason for it’s existence.  It’s not like I’m saying HP & The Gang should win the award, but to not even nominate it is more than just an oversight.  It’s just another example of Hollywood elite snobbery that does nothing more than turn the general public off.

Oh sure, we get something like The Tree of Life as a nominee so all the elitists of film land can prove to us once again that the ones who buy most of the tickets don't know art when they see it, or squat about films in general.  Sure I do.  If it bores your ass off, and doesn't make a lick of sense, it's art.  And the consensus of opinion of the average moviegoer and even some critics  is that The Tree of Life is a crushing bore.  I guess that means we’re all just low brow dim wits who don’t know artsy fartsy when we see artsy fartsy.  And even Sean Penn doesn’t think the film was that great and he starred in the damn thing.  And if you can’t please Sean Penn with artsy fartsy, then we know you’re just blowing smoke up our ass.

Then there's the case of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close which scored a paltry 48 per cent on the Rotten Meter.  But it's this year's 9/11 movie and I guess there's something in the rules that says if it's a 9/11 movie, it gets a guaranteed nomination.  It’s the only explanation I and even most critics can come up with as to explaining it’s listing in the Best Picture category.  

I could also make the case that Potter was at least as good as The Help (76 per cent), or is certainly equal to Woody Allen's latest self-indulgent shlubfest, Midnight in Paris.  And of course, let's not forget this year's big gimmick film, The Artist, which somehow won a best screenplay nomination despite the fact that there's not one word of dialogue spoken in the whole damn thing.  The next time someone tells me Titanic didn't deserve a best picture because of the clunky dialog in Cameron's script, I think I'll tell them to shove a copy of The Artist screenplay up their ass. 

Two years ago the gimmick film was The Hurt Locker, the gimmick being that it had a woman director and the ladies had yet to win one despite the fact that they have directed way more deserving films than this one note Johnny.  It’s already been forgotten by most people, and a high percentage of those forgot about it before the credits finished rolling.  Then there was Slumdog Millionaire the previous film, which was entertaining enough, but was totally ridiculous in it's premise of learning everything you need to know to win Who Wants to be A Millionaire in the slums and that you can get all hot and bothered over a girl at a very young age and stalk her until you are well in your teens.  Hadn’t Anakin Skywalker covered that eternal love stuff territory once before?  Use the force Jamal!  .And they consider Harry Potter movies fantasy? 

Don't even get me started on the ridiculous win of Crash over Brokeback Mountain, which proved despite it's supposedly liberal leanings, Homophobia still wins out in good old Hollywood.  And yes, this year’s racism is a very bad thing movie is The Help, a theme which also seems to be a big boost for squeezing your film into the Best picture category.  But like I said, just don’t make a movie about gays or lesbians because then your goose is cooked before it even gets basted.  Just ask Ang Lee.  Hollywood has to keep the right wing nutcases happy somehow.   

Let’s be real.  The Oscars are not really much of an indicator of anything anymore.   At least not for me and a whole lot of other people.  Once upon a time I did think it was a big deal, but not any more.  

When they finally got around to acknowledging the Lord of the Rings Trilogy,  the Oscar TV ratings went up just as they did during Titanic’s big year.  Since then, as one film after another joins in the race to be the film the general public cares least about, the ratings have once again begun to slide.  It only took about one year for the viewing audience to figure out that nominating ten films was simply another dog and pony sleight of hand trick, and I'm sure we'll once again be able to pretty much guess the Best Picture Winner before the end of February (The Artist, what a shock!).  And before long, even The Miss America pageant will be more relevant then this yearly self congratulatory “let’s drool all over one another” crappy crap  fest.  

And that thing they used to call an Oscar bounce where winning Best Picture added gazillions to a film’s gross?  It appears that has pretty much passed into the annals of history as well.  Just ask the producers of Hurt Locker about that piece of fiction.

I should point out some other snubs as well although I really don’t want to spend too much time on this nonsense.  Look at the animation feature category.  What’s up with the two obscure films nobody’s ever heard of and that nobody is never really going to give a damn about?  Chiquita Bananas and the Lovely Rita Meter Maid?  Top Cat Does Paris?  What the hell is that crap?   They’re the Herman Cain and Michelle Bachman of the Academy awards.  Nobody cared when they came out and no number of nominations is going to get most viewers to give a rat’s ass .  Hell, the DVD’s and Blu-rays weren’t even released in this country.  Left out of the animation category were Cars 2, Spielberg’s Adventures of TinTin, Rio, or even Winnie The Pooh which had a whopping 91 percent on the Tomato meter.   

People are so excited in regards to TC does Paris that the IMDB message board is just brimming with excitement over it.  There are exactly three posts.  The enthusiasm is just overwhelming.  And according to this damn thing, the movie came out in 2010.  I thought these films were supposed to be released in 2011?

Then there’s the fact that only two songs were nominated (two songs?  really?) because they have a real quirky half assed nominating system for best song.  Look at the bright side.  At least you won’t have to watch all five of them being performed with some overdone overblown stage productions.   The two songs that did get nominated aren’t exactly going to be getting heavy rotation in anybody’s house anytime soon.  I love and adore The Muppets, but that song Man or Muppet will never be another Rainbow Connection. 

I could go on and on, but the fact is that like most people these days I just don't care enough, and I don't even make it a point to watch the thing which is a far cry from way back when I live blogged the event.  Hmmm…maybe I’ll do that this year for the purpose of poking a little fun.  Oh wait, I forgot.  I’m having an operation on the sixth of February so I doubt I’ll be up for that.  Maybe next year we’ll do it when Hollywood’s Elite shits on the ticket buyers once again.

Clyde's Movie Palace: The Moon-spinners (1964)

 

 

Written by Michael Dyne
Based on a novel by Mary Stewart
Cinematography by Paul Beeson
Directed by James Neilson

A few weeks back I was lamenting about the fact that the producers of 2007’s Nancy Drew film had found it necessary to do the usual dumbing down of the script because they fell into the studio group think that the only film a tweener or teenagers, particularly female tweener types, will watch these days is when said film is targeted at an audience that has recently undergone a lobotomy.

Now I'll admit that I don't know a whole lot of teenagers but of the ones I do know, most of them are no different than the teens of any other era. They can be just as obnoxious as we were, they do a lot of things their parents loathe, they listen to music we don't get, but they also know when they are being sold a bill of goods. So when you have thrown the likes of tweener favorites such as Hilary Duff into any old crappy vehicle, they stay away in droves.

The everlasting film monument of Ms. Duff will be the likes of such waste products as Raise Your Voice, A Cinderella Story, The Perfect Man and Material Girls, box-office bombs one and all. I'm not sure how much talent Duff actually has as an actress if she has any at all, because I've only watched a smidgeon of Material Girls and The Perfect Man. But I hear she can play the hell out of Lizzie McGuire.

I did see her in a plug-in supporting role in Cheaper by the Dozen but it was a part any young girl from central casting could have handled. But it did get her name on the credits so at least that was something, not to mention the fact that it was about the only vehicle she has been in that actually turned a profit.

If they had starred Duff in something that was at least passable or better yet, something that could be watched by all ages without inducing extreme mental anguish, I might be writing a different story here. Given the opportunity to redeem herself and show the world her true acting skills by taking on the role of Bonnie Parker in The Story of Bonnie and Clyde, she opted for marriage and pregnancy instead.

Back in the early and mid sixties Disney had the right idea. It's one thing to be graced with a talented young actress, but it's quite another accomplishment when you manage to put her into films that people actually want to invest time in at the best, or at least not totally embarrass the young actor or actress at the worst.

In films like Tiger Bay (non Disney), Pollyanna, The Parent Trap, and In Search of the Castaways, Mill's star shone brightly as a child actress. But by the mid sixties, and 1964 in particular, when The Moon-spinners was made, she had hit her teen years and would have to find the right vehicles if she was going to make the transition from childhood favorite to adult icon. Besides Moon-spinners, Mills was in two other films that same year including The Chalk Garden and The Truth About Spring both good films which I suppose can also be considered as her first real adult roles. I guess you could call 1964 her coming out year.

The Moon-spinners is very loosely based on the romantic mystery novel of the same name by Mary Stewart. In other words the name's the same but the game has a different set of rules. The key ingredient, and probably the most important one that made it intact to the screen version of the novel besides the title, was the Greek Island of Crete. I don't think Uncle Walt made it a habit of taking his films off of the studio lot to be made, but he did for this one and a wise move it was which is why he was always smarter than the rest of us. Think of Greece as being an uncredited co-star of this film.

Nikky Ferris (Hayley Mills) and her Aunt Fran (Joan Greenwood) travel to the town of Aghios Georgios (I think its pronounced ayos yoyus but don't hold me to that) on the Greek Island of Crete. Auntie Fran is a musicologist and a collector of folk songs. I guess it's nice respectable work if you can get it especially if it pays for a working vacation in Greece. So what does one do with collected folk songs? It doesn't matter really because it's only an excuse to get our two intrepid females to Crete.

Based on a tip Fran had received from another hotel in Heraklion, she is especially interested in a song called The Moon-spinners, which coincidentally is also the name of the hotel that she and Nikky plan to take up residency in for a few days.

They arrive in Aghios Georgios just in time for a not so big fat Greek wedding that is taking place in the village. Before they arrive at the hotel though, the film cuts away to quickly introduce us to Sophia (Irene Pappas) and Stratos (Eli Wallach) who own and run The Moon-spinners Inn. It doesn't take us long to find out two important things about Stratos. First he's very superstitious, and studies astrology to guide his path.

The second thing that we find out from his crappy demeanor is that he is somebody we would not care to associate with under any circumstances. And although it isn't spelled out to us in so many words, we know that there is something very sinister about him. In other words, if you're going to make a suspenseful mystery film, then Wallach should be your go to guy because criminality oozes out of his DNA.

When Fran and Nikky arrive at the Inn they are told by Sophia that there are no rooms and that she had not received the telegram Nikky had sent to reserve them. Her answer in regards to the rooms is a lie but the part about not having received the telegram is not as she exchanges an angry glance with Stratos' cohort, Lambis (Paul Strassino).

When her son Alexis (Michael Davis) blurts out that indeed there are rooms, Sophia relents and rents a room to our travelers. Alexis explains that the reason Sophia didn't want to rent them the rooms is because of his Uncle Stratos.

Alexis: It's Uncle Stratos. Since he come back from London, he don't like no one. But I like you both so everything okay!

You'll quickly learn to like Alexis. He's actually quite a refreshing change from the usual kids sent down from Hollywood casting to play in these films and a lot better than if Uncle Walt had plugged in one of the Mousketeers.

They barely have time to set their suitcases down when Uncle Badass comes barging into their room. He quickly lets them and us know four important things:

1. They are not welcome at the hotel
2. There is no bath and they can bathe in the sink
3. They can stay the night but had better be on the first bus leaving in the morning
4. You don't want to hire Stratos and put him in charge of promoting Greece as a vacation spot. He has this way of putting a damper on tourism.

As she is overlooking the bay from her Hotel room balcony, Nikky sees a small motorboat being pull up to the dock guided by an English Guy (Peter McEnery). As he docks, he is aided by Stratos cohort Lambis. No, it's not that Lambis is a helpful kind of fellow. It's just that he has a few questions for English dude.

Lambis: You went to the Bay of Dolphins?
English Guy: Yeah
Lambis: Skin diving?
English Guy: Yes, the water's so clear. You can see everything. And how much do you see? Hmm? (Cue suspenseful dramatic musical notes as Lambis turns back to face English Guy). It was you, wasn't it? Out there in that boat watching me. Don't be so shy next time, I'll give you a diving lesson.(Cue Cheshire cat type grin on English Guy. Pan camera back up to the drooling Nikki on the balcony.)

Yep, English Guy is one cool cat. And Nikky, who has been watching from the balcony (but is too far away to hear) decides that English Guy is just the dude for her after having been camped up with Aunt Fran for the whole trip. Hell, if I had to spend a whole trip with fussy Aunt Fran I'd think he was hot too.

Later in the evening when Nikky and Fran go down to join the wedding party English Dude wastes no time in introducing himself as Mark Camford, English Dude.

As he watches them from a distance, Stratos seems none too pleased about this particular turn of events and decides to serve the threesome at their table himself. It is then that we finally find out exactly what or should I say who the Moon-spinners are:

Stratos: It is a legend.
Nikky: Who are the Moon-spinners?
Stratos: Three sisters who spin the full moon.
Mark: Doesn't the legend have to do with the Bay of Dolphins. Alexis told me there was suppose to be a sunken ship laden with treasure.
Fran: Really?
Stratos: In Greece, there are many old tales.
Mark: I understand that when the moon is full you are supposed to be able to see the treasure at the bottom of the bay. (turning to look directly at Stratos) Do you think there is any treasure in the Bay of Dolphins? Stratos: There are sharks, and many dangerous Octopus along the rocks.
Nikky: Sharks?
Stratos: Yes. (Pointing at Mark) I warned you before not to go swimming there.
Mark: I see you quite often out there in your boat.
Stratos: Let us hope that I do not fish you out one day without an arm and a leg.

I only have one thing to say about this brief scene: Well played. It tells us just enough to move the story along without telling us too much too soon making everything else anticlimactic. We know that there may or may not be something in the Bay of Dolphins that both Mark and Stratos wish to possess. And we also learn that both of them are well aware of what the other one is up to as this cat and mouse game between the two of them continues to play itself out.

After making a date with Nikky to go for a swim the next morning, Mark follows Stratos, who says he is going night fishing out to the Bay of Dolphins. Unbeknownst to Mark, he is followed there by Lambis, who along with Stratos is planning a trap for Mark to walk into. When Mark arrives at the Bay....

Well, I better not tell you about that. Let's move on. The very next morning after being stood up by Mark, Nikky decides to take a walk in the hills. It is here that she comes across an old church and goes inside to explore it when suddenly....

Well, I'd better not tell you about that either. Later, when Nikky is heading into the village she is confronted by Stratos who doesn't believe her when she says she was out mingling with some shepherd boy. Not taking any chances of letting Nikky return to the village and ruin his plan Stratos....

Oh well, forget it. You'll have to watch the movie to find out what's what and who is really whom and who is doing what to whom and if there really is a sunken treasure in the Bay of Dolphins. If so, exactly what kind of treasure are we talking about and whom does it really belong to? And is Mark Camford more than just English Dude, Treasure Hunter? And most of all, will we finally get to hear the town people sing for Aunt Fran?

Let's just say that there are enough surprises, plot twists, adventure, and some really good edge of your seat moments that make this film what Alexis might call a "really good show." It is the kind of family type mystery adventure film that we probably should have gotten out of Nancy Drew last summer but got the usual by the numbers crapfest that hit the big screen.

For instance, one extremely well crafted, suspenseful and photographed scene in Moon-spinners that takes place at a windmill is worth more than every single plot contrivance that inherited the Drew film. And if you've seen Moon-spinners you know which scene I'm talking about because it’s the one everybody remembers the most.

Once again Hayley Mills shows us how to get it right. Mills gives another strong performance as Nikky. While the script sometimes caters to a certain fifties and early sixties view of women, there are enough moments here where she is allowed to show that she does have a mind of her own and can take matters into her own hands when necessary. She won't be pushed around if she can help it and she let's Mark know this in no uncertain terms.

Make no mistake about it, it is Nikky's mettle that carries this film, even more so once she is finally clued into what is actually going on. She may not have chosen to be dropped unsuspectingly into all of the mystery and intrigue, but once there she more than makes the best of it.

In one of the film’s more suspenseful moments, Nikky tries to escape from a locked windmill.

Peter McEnery is the big discovery here and as Mark, there are almost times as if he is playing a young and dashing James Bond type. His best scenes are those with Stratos, but the romance between him and Nikky often reminded me of the kind of relationship one would expect in a film where the participants are more at odds through much of the film. Of course, this being sixties Disney, the romance is kept to an absolute bare minimum but Mills does get her first screen smooch planted squarely on the lips. Hey, you got to take it anyway you can get it in the early world of Disney.

And then there is Alexis, who seems to show up at just the right moments when he is needed for the plot to turn a corner or just to help out, sometimes more than just a little bit. But unlike many films when we find such characters annoying and distracting, we welcome his presence in this film because he is just so darn likable.

Eli Wallach is cast as the villain for a reason. He has made a whole career just out of the playing the heavy in many films, and does it as well if not better than anybody else. Five years ago I saw him in the film The Holiday and even at the age of 92 he was still chugging along. In 2010, he made an appearance in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

Joan Greenwood plays Aunt Fran as if she is the Aunt that you love but would probably find a bit annoying if you had to spend too much time with her. Irene Pappas though is given little to do except to look worried on occasion and to admonish Stratos the rest of the time.

Later in the film silent screen actress Pola Negri shows up as Madame Habeeb and you'll get a kick out of her and that's all that I can tell you because of plot points. And John Le Mesurier and Sheila Hancock show up to introduce another plot twist late in the film as an "ambassador" and his alcoholic wife.

It doesn't matter whether you are a tweener, teen-ager, adult or elderly, The Moon-spinners is a film that any age group can follow along and enjoy even if the film was squarely aimed at the younger set. Nowadays, studios crank out generic films such as those I mentioned at the beginning of the article, and in the end they end up appealing to almost no one except extremely rabid hardcore do or die fans of the actor or actress mentioned above.

Take Lindsay Lohan before she dove into a bottle of gin and lost herself for a couple of years. Put her in quality well written films such as Parent Trap, Mean Girls and Freaky Friday, then you make money. Throw her into crappy movies such as Lohan's Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen with a crappy generic script and its snake eyes, you lose bub.

Although The Moon-spinners may not have helped Haley Mills segue into a consistent and successful adult career, it still stands on its own merits. It's the kind of film that doesn't play down to or insult the intelligence of its core audience. And in all the times that I have viewed this film I have never ever felt insulted but I am always entertained. And if I am always entertained I have no choice but to give you my grade which is a B+.

Your best chance of catching The Moon-spinners is by either purchasing or renting the DVD. Unlike the great job Disney did with the double disc DVD’s of Pollyanna and The Parent Trap, this DVD is bare bones. Although the picture quality is adequate, the film is shown in what appears to be a cropped 1.33:1 film ratio which is how it would have ran when it played on The Wonderful World of Disney about three years after it's theatrical run.
How was the film originally shot? Nobody seems to know for certain. It's really incredible when Disney can do such great work on some releases and can't even bother to put at least a decent film transfer on a disc at other times. We aren't begging for a full fledged extras laden disc here, but there is no reason other than trying to get by on the extreme cheap to not at least digitally clean a film up and show it in it's theatrical film ratio. But it's not the most egregious example of poor quality Disney DVD. That would belong to another film which I hope to review at a later date.

Clyde’s Movie Palace: Nancy Drew (2007)

starring
Emma Roberts
Tate Donovan
Max Theriot
Josh Flitter
Daniella Monet
Kelly Vitz
Rachael Leigh Cook
Laura Harring
Marshall Bell
Pat Carroll

I owe a lot to Nancy Drew and so do you. If it weren't for her I would not be writing all these wonderful and witty reviews for you to soak up and then what would you do for entertainment? And what would I be doing? I'd probably be in my living room, in my lounger with my gut hanging over my belt, drinking a Budweiser, while watching the NFL draft and waiting for my laundry to be finished. So thanks to Nancy, instead of doing that I'm in my computer room, sitting in my office chair, writing this review, waiting for my laundry to finish and drinking my Budweiser while my gut hangs over my belt.

I won't swear to it but I think the first Nancy Drew book that I read was The Hidden Staircase Mystery. Don't ask me what it was about though, because I've long forgotten, just as I've long forgotten all of the generic plots that made up the Nancy Drew series from one book to the next. It's only been about forty years so what did you expect?

So why did I start reading Nancy Drew and not something like maybe The Hardy Boys as a very young twelve and thirteen year old? I had three sisters older than me, one slightly younger at the time, and my two younger brothers were still fooling around with Dick, Jane, Sally, Mother, Father, and Spot. So naturally there weren't any Hardy Boys Books laying around the house for one to read. But there were a few Nancy Drew books tossed about. Then there's the fact that I'm pretty sure one of my sisters made the astounding proclamation that I was incapable of reading anything beyond the Sunday Funny Papers and comic books. Wrong again, Sis.

As it turned out, after reading several of the books I was hooked and I not only wanted to read more, I wanted to write Nancy Drew books as well. In the sixth grade a friend of mind and I did in fact write two or three stories along that line. I don't know how good they were but they were good enough for the teacher to let us get up in front of the class and read them. I don't know if my writing partner Danny Noll kept those or not, but hey Danny, if you run across this let me know.

Nancy Drew books at that time weren't easy for me to come by and I ended up reading the same few we had in the house many times over. We didn't live near a public library so that was no help. My parents certainly couldn't afford to keep me stocked up in Nancy Drew books at the time although I did ask for a few of them one Christmas and got some Whitman Books about some prissy teenaged female named Donna Parker instead. I read one, but it sure wasn't Nancy Drew.

How could she be with a crappy title like Donna Parker at Cherryvale High gracing the cover of her book along with some crappy square dancing. I kept waiting for Donna to be knocked on the noggin or better yet, to inhale some chloroform out of a handkerchief but to the best of my memory it never happened. As for Nancy, she may have done some square dancing in her lifetime, but you would never ever see her engaging in such silliness on the cover of one of her books. And besides, Donna Parker was quite the wuss, while Nancy was the female detective every guy would want to be, if he was a girl that is. And then again, there may be some guys out there who did fulfill a lifelong wish to become a female detective. More power to them.

Then there was the year that we moved from the home I had known most of my lifetime. In the space of about a years time we moved to three different locations. It was a difficult time, making it hard to not only find friends but to find ways to be accepted in new neighborhoods. When we moved the third time, we actually landed near a public library and that was when I was finally able to read practically the whole series that had been released. I was also able to start reading The Hardy Boys and I liked them as well, but my heart always belonged to Nancy.

The librarian though, didn't think it was such a hot idea for kids to read only detective stories churned out on a regular basis by the great Carolyn Keene and Franklin W. Dixon (neither of whom really existed), so she tried to get me to read something called a Newberry Award Winner. I read just enough to learn that when somebody sticks an award on  children's books, it meant that parents loved it and kids would hate it. It was a bore, and I went right back to Nancy and the Hardy Boys.

Eventually I had read all there was to read and my visits to the library where I would sit and read for hours began to slowly fade away, as did my keen interest in teenage detectives. Eventually I would go on to read real works of great literature by such authors as Harold Robbins, Jacqueline Susann, and of course the greatest of them all, Stephen King.

By the time Pamela Sue Martin hit the television airwaves as Nancy, along with Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy as The Hardy Boys, I was working nights and VCR's ran about $1500 bucks at the time so I missed out. But my brother says that Pamela Sue Martin was the definitive Nancy Drew and I'll take his word on it until I can catch up via Netflix. The Hardy Boys episodes are available on Netflix's Watch Now feature but not Nancy so I'll have to wait until I have an opening in my queue to fit her in and judge for myself. I don't know why she isn't on Watch Now. I guess it just must be more sexism by the big boys at the top of the entertainment chain.

In the mid nineties, Nancy Drew showed up on the tube again in a series seen in France and Germany according to the IMDB. I know little about this series as it lasted only through thirteen episodes and Nancy was played by Tracy Ryan as a 21 year old. I initially found this clip on you tube and thought it was interesting. In the clip Nancy as seen breaking up with Ned as he heads off to Africa. They are meeting in Paris as Nancy is there solving a mystery.  Since then, I have viewed the entire series on Netflix, but will hold back my opinion until a later date.  But you can view it and the Hardy Boys series that went along  with it on instant streaming. Here's a taste for your viewing pleasure.

In 2007 Nancy Drew finally made her way back to the big screen.  Her last theatrical appearance dated back to 1938-1939 when Bonita Granville brought the character to life. Years later, Granville went on to become what most people know her by-the producer of the Lassie television series. You can find her four Nancy Drew films by renting them at Netflix or purchase them as a set from Amazon, which I already have done but haven’t had time to watch them as of yet.   Eventually I hope to write a review of those but don't expect it to be any time soon unless I'm totally deluged with requests which I know with 100 per cent certainty that I won't be.

Not willing to venture into a movie theater filled with female teenagers and tweenagers, I had to wait on the release of the DVD to give my assessment since I was once a Nancy Drew connoisseur. After having been on what seemed like an endlessly long wait by Netflix, Nancy finally arrived this week.

When I first saw the trailer for the film last year, I have to admit that I cringed-a lot. This was not the Nancy Drew I knew. This was another dumbed down teenager pretending to play detective with a supporting cast of the usual assortment of goofballs, oddballs, nitwits, and misfits that producers and writers mistakenly throw into teener and tweener movies because they honestly believe every teenage girl aspires to be either the neighborhood nutcase or failing in that, the stupidest most obnoxious kid on the block.

Besides that, this Nancy Drew appeared to be way too young. She was still in High School for crying out loud. The Nancy Drew I knew was always seventeen or eighteen, self confident, and the most popular gal around. And what in the hell was she doing in L.A.? Why not start her off with a mystery in her hometown of River Heights? Still, despite my many many misgivings, I decided to withhold judgment until I had actually seen the movie.

The producers chose Emma Roberts to become the teenaged super sleuth. I had previously seen Ms. Roberts in a film called Aquamarine, about two teenage girls who found a mermaid after a hurricane. The film was average as far as entertainment value goes and quickly forgettable because I would be hard pressed to sit down and write a review of it without viewing it once again.

At the time filming of Nancy Drew began, Roberts was all of fifteen years old, sixteen by the time the film was released. Since she has her drivers license in the film, she is actually playing someone who is at least sixteen or seventeen depending on what mythical state River Heights is supposed to be located in. So as you find out by watching the DVD extras, she did not actually do any driving sequences. But, by the time the film was over I was willing to give the writers and producers somewhat of a break on the age thing. I have no ideas what their plans were, but maybe they were hoping it would rake in enough cash for there to be a few sequels, in which case you didn't want your young actress to so old that by the time you make sequel three it would be like watching Stockard Channing in Grease. And of course actresses play older and younger characters all the time as I pointed out when I recently reviewed Kim Darby's performance as Mattie in True Grit.

That being said, the problem arises not because of Roberts age but because the writers, Andrew Fleming and Tiffany Paulsen, decided that although their Nancy is seventeen or eighteen, there are way too many scenes where they force Roberts to behave more like a clueless fourteen year old than the popular, self-confident teenager she was in the books. It was as if they were trying to have it both ways. It would have been fine to have taken Nancy back a couple of years to her early days of high school, but you have to be true to what the character was to become. In essence, it was as if they thought Nancy was too smart and too sure of her self so they found it necessary to make her the odd man out at times in order to make her palatable to younger teenagers. Which means they had little respect if any for their target audience.

When the film began, I actually had high hopes that I was wrong and that the preview was edited in a certain way in which they thought it would most entice some teens into the theater. I already knew they had been wrong on that score if that had been their plan. Most of the comments I had read regarding the trailer after viewing it on YouTube were mostly negative, from teenage girls of course.  But the film opened with some nifty sliding scenes of artwork that one used to find in the Nancy Drew books. It was one of those touches that one can appreciate when you adapt an icon onto the big screen. Unfortunately, the credits had to end and the movie had to begin. It opened with a huge resounding thud.

Nancy is hiding in a closet in a church office as two thugs are rummaging through a desk. She sneezes and is quickly discovered. So does she try to escape? No, not yet. She begins negotiating with them while the police and the police chief, the fire department, her dad, her best friends Bess & George (Amy Bruckner & Kay Panabaker), and wannabe boyfriend Ned Nickerson (Max Theriot) wait outside. It is not really explained why these crooks would want to sit down and hammer out a peace treaty while the cavalry arrives for Nancy, except that Gary and Steve make Harry and Marv from the Home Alone movies look like first rate cat burglars by comparison.

At one point, Ned interrupts the negotiations by giving Nancy a call on her cell phone to tell her about a dream he had where she ran off to California and met that "guy from Smallville" and then he (Ned) turned into a rat. Nancy, in that polite way that she has about herself, quickly tells him to buzz off which is the first sensible thing that has happened since the movie started. Finally one of her Housekeeper's lemon bars seals Gary's appetite and the negotiations with the two crooks come to and end with their surrender agreement. As they begin walking out of the church, Gary and Steve begin arguing with themselves and finally Nancy decides to end the whole business along with my misery by actually escaping this time. And she does it in such a way that teenage Nancy Drew might accomplish such a feat and my hopes are raised once again that the film will get on track. But they are quickly dashed as we take another turn for the very worse.

As Nancy escapes to the roof, the two crooks are apprehended. If we had left the scene here, everything would have been peachy keen and hunky dory but instead more goofiness is waiting in the wings. Nancy slips and slides down the church roof but manages to catch onto a gutter before falling to the ground. Having watched the Batman TV series in the sixties and learning that you should always carry everything in your utility belt, and always knowing when such a crises will arrive, Nancy just so happens to have a rope with a hook in her detective kit so that she is able to latch it onto the gutter and repel down the side of the building to the adoration of her friends, and the working men and women of River Heights.

Her dad Carson Drew (Tate Donovan) is there as well. but he's not applauding. In fact he's a bit put out by it all. After having her picture taken with the whole gang and departing with her dad, the Sheriff gathers everybody around to say a prayer for Nancy to have a safe journey to California. I couldn't imagine at the time what mode of transportation they would be using that would have made that scene necessary but we find out rather quickly it's a train. I guess even Amtrak needs a little divine intervention these days.

On the way home, Carson makes Nancy promise that there will be no more sleuthing while they are in California. It could be because if you try and negotiate with Los Angeles crooks, you're apt to come out of the pow-wow with a large hole in the middle of your skull. Still, I couldn't help but groan. It was bad enough that we had to have Darren Stevens telling Samantha no witchcraft for eight seasons of Bewitched. Now they have to bog down Nancy Drew with a no sleuthing promise to Daddy Dearest.

Yeah, I know she isn't going to keep the promise any more than Samantha did which makes the whole thing stupid and unnecessary. That you see, is exactly what my point is. You know you're going to end up with one scene after another of Nancy debating with herself as to whether to keep the promise or not just before she goes on to do what she's supposed to do and what we know she is going to do and before long the whole bit does nothing more than elicit a yawn.

I have no problem with Nancy and dear old Dad wandering off to California land. In the books, Nancy is forever globe trotting. Recently I played a demo of a Nancy Drew Computer Game just for kicks and she was in New Orleans for that one. (No, don't ask me how I did in the game.) But this movie has an ulterior motive for sticking Nancy out in Hollywood. Instead of just Nancy Drew, Detective, they want to give us Nancy Drew, Fish Out of Water.

I'm sure the producers, director and writer saw it as giving us two kinds of stories for the price of one, but in case they hadn't noticed, the fact that Nancy is a famous super sleuth already makes her different from any teenager I have ever known. Nancy is the epitome of a fish out of water where ever she goes.

But to make this part of the movie work they now have to make her over as some kind of an oddball. To do this, they write the film as if Nancy has just dropped into the year 2007 from the year 1957 or even earlier. I suppose the idea may have come from The Brady Bunch Movies which dropped the goody-goody family into modern times for a clownishly satirical movie. Thankfully the producers don't go quite that far, but they go far enough into it when they should have just given Nancy a mystery with a little more excitement and substance then telling her to be on about her business.

What we get with this odorous fish tale escapade is Nancy trying to get accepted by two obnoxious teenagers, Inga (Daniella Monet) and her friend Trish (Kelly Vitz). They are the usual stereotypical cardboard cutouts of what Hollywoodland Producers see as the obnoxious teen out to do somebody in.

One of Inga's and Trish's schemes also involve getting Inga's brother Corky (Josh Flitter) in on the plot. Later he regrets having done so, apologizes to Nancy, and then latches on to her for the rest of the film. His character actually serves little or no purpose for being in the movie other than to take up screen time so one can only surmise why he was even scripted in the first place. He's suppose to be the comic relief I guess. I found this out only because I watched the DVD extras and actor Josh Flitter who plays the character boldly declares that he has the funniest lines in the movie. That wasn't a difficult status to achieve in this film, believe me.

As for the mystery itself, the house Nancy and Carson are living in while they are out in California once belonged to a famous actress who was murdered. In fact, Nancy picked it just for that reason before she knew Dad was going to pull the Darren Stevens bit on her. The actress, Dehlia Draycott (Laura Herring) disappeared for a length of time at the height of her career. When she returned, she threw a big party but never made it down to meet her guests. Instead, she was found floating in a pool, dead as the proverbial doornail. Nancy describes it as one of the great mysteries of all time. I don't know about that but it'll do for a starter kit.

It seems that the caretaker, Leshing (Marshall Bell) who takes care of the grounds around the mansion, was once an employee of Draycott. Of course, he's obnoxious, unkempt and hates everybody. He is obviously prime suspect number one.

And eventually when she's not having to deal with Inga and Trish, Nancy does get around to working on the mystery and when she does it's the only genuine moments in this film that work. It does in fact, actually show somewhat of a heartbeat. It also gives us an indication of what the film could have and should have been if the powers to be hadn't been dead set on throwing in the usual teen nonsense they feel they have to regurgitate into every single teen movie produced these days, especially those geared toward young girls.

And unlike the silly opening scenes with Gary and Steve, at least they let Roberts play the rest of the detective scenes straight as they very well should have done to begin with.  (At least for the most part. There's a silly bit of business with Bruce Willis in a cameo role)  And when she's on the case, Emma Roberts does a credible job as Nancy despite her age. If the film had done better at the box office one could almost see her maturing in the role quite nicely if the film was made by more capable hands than the ones responsible for this sorry bit of business.

She actually goes about her detective business quite systematically and through the process of elimination she finally uncovers several secrets including a slight plot twist, although predictable, works just the same. There are several of the scenes which occur in every Nancy Drew book including being knocked unconscious,getting in a car chase, almost being blown up, and dragged away after being chloroform-ed. So we certainly can't fault Roberts for the films shortcomings, because she is able to rise above it all to introduce at least a little sensitivity into the character. She often says a lot just by her facial expressions and with her eyes. It's not her fault if the teen misfit particular plot line should have been in a different movie altogether and does nothing but drag the rest of the movie downward.

Eventually Ned Nickerson does come out to give her a hand, although this is not the Ned from the books. That Ned was cool, confident, and sure of himself, yet was willing to help Nancy with whatever she needed him to for. He understood that being a detective was first and foremost in Nancy's life.

This Ned is written as the exact opposite. He's not sure about anything and although he comes out to Hollywood to join Nancy, he isn't very helpful and is given little to do except sit around and mope, even to the point of worrying that Nancy is going to run off with thirteen year old Corky. By the time he heads back to River Heights, he had already overextended his welcome in my opinion. And if this Ned had popped up in the books, Nancy would have vanquished him by the end of Nancy's Mysterious Letter, the volume where he popped up in the first place.

As for Bess and George, once Nancy leaves River Heights for L.A., they are not seen or heard from again. Their screen time is donated to Inga and Trish of course, and yes, Inga and Trish do eventually come along on Nancy's magical mystery tour, but they are even less helpful and less useful than Corky or Ned. Maybe Bess and George saw the screenplay and decided it was best to keep their feet firmly planted in River Heights where they could save a little bit of their dignity.

Its hard to decide if the Carson Drew character is as bad as he seems in this film or if it's Tate Donovan's acting credentials. It's not like he has a lot to do anyway, but when he's around I found him to be more of an annoying old fart than the understanding father he was supposed to be. He has two emotional ranges, stodgy, and stodgier. He goes on endlessly about how he wants Nancy to be just like every other teenage girl and after a while you just want him to shut the hell up and let Nancy do her thing. When Nancy gives a party and the house is wrecked, instead of being angry he is overjoyed because oh my god Nancy is a real teenager after all. Give me a break.

The movie ends much in the same way it began, with a silly phone call for Nancy that wouldn't have happened in the books, and the same kind of title sequences that opened the film. It's just too bad that none of the adults involved in the making of this movie didn't  bother reading the books themselves when they were lifting the artwork ideas out of them and just gone with it. If they had, then I certainly would be giving it a better grade. Instead I have no choice but to give them a grade of C, because unlike Nancy Drew or even Emma Roberts, they are totally clueless. My advice, watch Nancy solve her mystery, skip the rest.

Clyde’s Movie Palace: The Astronaut Farmer (2007)

Starring Billy Bob Thornton
Virginia Madsen
Max Theriot
Jasper Polish
Logan Polish
Bruce Dern
Bruce Willis Written by Mark and Michael Polish
Directed by Michael Polish

If I was building a weapon of mass destruction, you wouldn't be able to find it – Charlie Farmer

Back in 1979 there was a T.V. film about an ordinary guy who wanted to go into space. It was a film filled with its fair share of fun and adventure. The premise of that movie, Salvage 1, was that a junkyard entrepreneur (no, not Fred Sanford) wanted to build his own spaceship, fly it to the moon and salvage all of the space junk NASA had left behind. He would then bring it back to earth and sell it for a profit. Granted, it’s been a number of years since I’ve seen the film but the fact that I remember this particular television movie almost thirty years later should tell you that it left an impression on me.

The TV series that followed didn’t quite live up to ratings expectations, but taking a trip to the moon and back as your opening salvo is a tough act to follow. Salvage starred Andy Griffith as Harry Broderick, the guy who planned the salvage jobs to top all salvage jobs. When I first heard of the film The Astronaut Farmer, I thought they might have gotten their ideas from that particular movie and looked forward to a fun time. It didn’t seem to hurt that they cast Billy Bob Thornton in the lead especially if he was as wacky as any of the other characters he’s been playing over the past few years.  Can anybody top Bad Santa?

I hope you got a chuckle or two out of that quote that you read at the very beginning of this review because laughs are very few and far between. I haven’t been this depressed watching a movie since Leonardo DiCaprio sank like a frozen popsicle at the end of Titanic after Kate Winslet told him she’d never let go. I suppose Farmer is supposed to be uplifting in some kind of spiritual way, but it spends so much of its time shoving the audience and the film’s characters into a bottomless pit of hopelessness that I’m not sure a hundred foot high crane could pull you out of your misery at the end let alone an Atlas Rocket.

Billy Bob Thornton plays Charlie Farmer, a former astronaut who never was able to fly into space because he had to leave NASA to save the family farm after Daddy Farmer bought the farm literally by doing himself in. But dreams do die hard, and Charlie decides that after saving the family farm, marrying and having his wife pop out a few kids, it’s time to make his dream come true. His wife Audrey (Virginia Madsen) didn’t know she was having those kids as cheap labor for Charlie. And that’s where we come in because when the film opens, the rocket is pretty much built and ready to go so at least we don’t have to sit through an hour of watching him build the damn thing.

And it’s a good thing he’s about ready to go too because Charlie is in debt up to the visor on his Official NASA Salvaged Space Helmet. So much so that he’s missed six mortgage payments and the bank is about to foreclose. I guess his wife, Audrey, just isn’t making enough tips at the old diner to pay the mortgage while hubby is out in the barn hammering together the old family space capsule. And when the bank finally does decide to foreclose after over a half a year of missed payments, Charlie shows his appreciation by throwing a brick through the bank window. That’s gratitude for you.  (Seeing as how events have played out since writing this review, it is now my opinion that he should have thrown three or four-Clyde)

It’s not that the town people think Charlie is totally nuts. They just think he has this “problem” due to the fact that his father checked himself off the planet when the bank foreclosed on him. I guess there were no bricks around for Charlie’s dad to heave through a window so he decided to take option number B, suicide, from the movie list of bank foreclosure plot options.

After throwing the brick, Charley is forced to go have a session with a school psychiatrist who also happens to be an ex-girlfriend. She tries to explain to Charlie that he really wants to go into outer space because of his father. Of course that’s not it at all because Charlie has this dream you see, and dreams should never die because if you don’t have your dreams, what have you got? So Charlie goes on about his way, determined to orbit the earth as the first corn growing cattle raiser in space. And it doesn’t matter one iota if he drags his family and the audience down right along with him.

I actually had high hopes at the beginning of this film when Charlie shows up for breakfast wearing a space suit in the very first scene. I mean it sure seemed like Thornton was going to play one of the strangely odd characters he seems to have cornered the market on. But it doesn’t take long for us to find out that there is a perfectly legitimate reason for him to be wearing the space suit at the breakfast table. He is going to his kid’s school to give a talk about space travel and to let the kids see the suit. Yep, for the first time in a while Billy-Bob plays this role straight down the middle which is too bad. If any movie could use a lot more levity this one could.

Then of course the big bad government eventually has to butt into the act. I don’t mind that so much as a plot device anymore because after all these years of seeing it in thousands of movies, it turns out that we should have been paying attention. We do have a big bad evil government. In fact, when Charlie goes before the FAA and NASA board that is supposed to decide if he can fly or go back to milking the cows, it is one of the better scenes in the whole film. There is one comical scene where Farmer is trying to sell advertising on his space ship, and a funny ten second bit with a kid outside the school psychiatrist’s office, but otherwise this is strictly a trip down Drearysville Lane.

Bruce Dern is on hand as Audrey’s father. He thinks Charlie is a swell dad. He doesn’t have a whole lot to do in the movie except to literally give everything he has to help bail the family out of trouble when the plot calls for it.  Bruce Willis shows up midway through the film to offer some of his own advice to Charlie. The kids all look as if they come from central casting. They do quirky things such as pulling the marshmallows out of the Lucky Charms and only eating them because the cereal part tastes like cardboard. They like to use a lot of space lingo and talk incessantly about their dad’s dream that at one point you begin to wonder if they are actually kids or brainwashed secret agent dwarfs. But they do manage to look sad when the script calls for it (which would be for most of the movie), worried when they are supposed to, and supportive of Charlie all of the time. The teenage son (Max Theriot) spends most of the movie looking spaced out which is perfectly understandable considering who his father is.  Maybe it’s method acting.  Theriot would give the exact same performance a year later in Nancy Drew as Ned Nickerson.  So practice makes perfect.

As for Madsen, she always looks good in whatever role she is playing. It’s a good thing too because the way they’ve written her character of Audrey, for much of the film I thought I was watching another remake of The Stepford Wives. I mean, you’re so far behind in your mortgage that the bank is foreclosing and you know nothing about it? And to top it off, when Charlie pulls the kids out of school to rush production on his spaceship, Madsen’s reaction amounts to look at Charlie lovingly, smile, and say yes dear. I suppose I shouldn’t complain though because didn’t Barbara Billingsley, Donna Reed, and Jane Wyatt make whole careers out of doing just that? I know, none of them ever had to work in a diner for tips but that’s beside the point.

Look, if anybody is willing to suspend their disbelief for any film, I’m your guy. But when I do, I want to be entertained and not constantly hammered over the head with such an obvious message about holding on to your dreams no matter how cockeyed or full of caca they are. In a movie about farmers wanting to be astronauts, you would expect there to be some fun along the way instead of a plot that looks like it came out of some psychiatric handbook. For the most part this film is seldom fun, and not very entertaining. Even when Charley does decide to launch, the movie throws you another curve ball as if The Polish Brothers who wrote and directed it want to extend your misery for another half hour or so. By the time the end credits role, you feel absolutely no jubilation. The only think you feel is relief that it’s all over.

So I don’t know where The Polish Brothers got their inspiration for this film, but certainly somebody should tell them that for a film to be uplifting, it is not necessary to bury you in a grave of total misery fifty feet under. I suppose they never saw that old movie Salvage, which was a fun and entertaining film even if it was made for television. Certainly any ideas they could have gleamed from that film would be more inspiring than anything about The Astronaut Farmer. And anytime I have to recommend an old TV film over your theatrical big budgeted production, then I have no choice but to give you my grade which for The Astronaut Farmer is an earth bound, planted on the ground C-. Now let’s go watch Lost in Space.