Tag: review

Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

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(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert are the newlywed couple Gil and Lana Martin.  They have migrated from the settled and comfortable area near Albany, New York to settle in the frontier farming community of Deerfield in the Mohawk Valley.  But this is during the American revolutionary war and the Mohawk Valley is the scene of conflicts between Americans and their Indian allies versus British troops, loyalist settlers and their Indian allies.  The movie starts off with Lana learning to accept the rigors of frontier life after her more affluent existence with her well-to-do family.  But once the young couple begin to prosper the attacks begin.  The Indians burn down their homestead and they are reduced to living as servants in the house of a rich old woman Sarah McKlennar (played by the irascible Edna May Oliver).  Gil is enlisted in the local militia and they participate in the Battle of Oriskany where they are victorious but at a cost of nearly half their men.

Meanwhile Lana gives birth to their daughter and the Martins find a happy life working for McKlennar.  But eventually war returns to Deerfield.  An overpowering war party of Indians is approaching.  The settlers abandon their farms for the relative safety of Fort Schuyler.  The settlers resist the attack for as long as their ammunition holds out but eventually Gil is sent out on a desperate mission to get reinforcements from Fort Dayton.  Three Indian braves chase him for hours through forests and grasslands until finally he reaches the fort and brings help.  Just as the Indians have occupied the stockade and a desperate hand to hand battle is under way, the militia from Fort Dayton arrive to save the settlers.  They quickly defeat the enemy and restore order.  The commanding officer informs the settlers that the war is now over and the English have surrendered to General Washington.  Lana and her child have survived the battle but Mrs. McKlennar was mortally wounded and as she dies, she leaves her farm and money to the Martins.

The movie is a semi-historical account and the action of the story is dramatic enough and the characters interesting enough to keep the viewers’ interest.  I found Edna May Oliver’s portrayal of the cantankerous Mrs. McKlennar as probably the dramatic highlight of the movie.  Fonda and Colbert do an admirable job as the young couple trying to survive the war and various character actors such as Ward Bond and John Carradine add substantially to the effort.  I would rate this movie as a diverting historical adventure story.  Perfect for a winter evening when you don’t want to go to sleep too early.

The Verdict (1982) – A Movie Review

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The Verdict is a courtroom drama about a Boston lawyer, Frank Galvin (played by Paul Newman) who brings suit against the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, one of its hospitals and a world-renowned doctor who botched the anesthesia on a woman who was there to give birth.  The woman went into cardiac arrest, the baby died and she ended up in a permanent coma.

(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

Galvin is currently an ambulance chaser who spends most of his time drinking.  Years earlier he had a brilliant career and was married to the daughter of a senior partner at a prestigious law firm.  But when he threatened to expose witness tampering by one of his colleagues, he was indicted on trumped up charges and his career and marriage disappeared.  Now years later his former mentor Mickey Morrissey (played by Jack Ward) throws him one last chance to pull his life out of the gutter.  He gives him the above-mentioned malpractice suit knowing that the Archdiocese will pay handsomely to hush up the criminal negligence.  And he hopes this financial success will give Galvin a chance to revive his law practice.

But when Galvin goes to the nursing home to take photographs of the comatose patient, he has a moment of conscience and decides that instead of settling the case out of court he will prosecute the doctor for negligence to get justice for the destruction of this woman’s life.  The woman’s sister and brother-in-law are enraged thinking Galvin is only interested in the larger settlement that a court case might yield and Morrissey is shocked at what he sees as the foolishness of throwing away a guaranteed $70,000 fee for accepting the settlement.  But Morrissey agrees to help Galvin with his court case.  Likewise, the judge in the case and the defense attorney Ed Concannon (played by James Mason) are astonished that Galvin is determined to go to court.  But Concannon has enormous resources as the head of a powerful and unscrupulous law firm.  He sets to work to destroy Galvin’s case.  He coerces the expert witness on anesthesia not to testify for Galvin and even plants a spy in Galvin’s life by paying a woman, Laura Fischer, who wanted to work for Concannon, to insinuate herself into Galvin’s life and even sleep with him in order to provide the defense team with the details of Galvin’s case.

And Concannon’s tactics work brilliantly.  Galvin’s case is hopelessly inconclusive and it seems inevitable that the jury will come up with a verdict of not-guilty.  The only possible hope is an OR nurse who refuses to testify for Concannon.  But she also refuses to help Galvin.  Her angry defensiveness leads Galvin to suspect she is protecting someone else and upon reviewing the employment records he guesses that Kaitlin Costello, the admitting nurse on that day, is the one being shielded.  Costello resigned shortly after the incident.  By some underhanded tricks Galvin finds Costello and convinces her to testify.  What we learn from her testimony is that the patient had eaten an hour before coming to the hospital and should not have been given anesthesia.  The doctor had worked on five difficult surgeries in a row and had made the mistake due to fatigue.  After the catastrophic injury to the patient the doctor threatened Costello to change the note concerning her pre-op meal from 1 hour to 9 hours by doctoring the admission record.  Costello refused and made a photocopy of the form just in case someone else doctored it.  And that was exactly what happened.

After this riveting testimony, Concannon raises an objection to the photocopied document which is sustained by the judge and then raises an objection to the testimony based on its lack of credibility without the photocopy.  The judge sustains this also and advises the jury not to credit any of the testimony.  But obviously the jury cannot unhear such damning evidence and they find for the plaintiff.

The plot of this movie doesn’t sound very extraordinary when narrated as a synopsis as I have just done above.  But the acting by the principal cast is extremely well done.  I especially enjoyed James Mason’s work as Concannon.  The way he portrays the Boston Brahmin lawyer and his staff rings true.  But the whole cast is strong.  David Mamet wrote a very lively script.  I would say this is easily among Paul Newman’s best films, right up there with The Sting.  I highly recommend this film.

Enemy of the State (1998) – A Movie Review

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Back when this movie came out in 1998, before the 9-11 attack and the Patriot Act, the idea of the surveillance state having the wherewithal to use information from telephones, e-mail, surveillance cameras and satellites to choreograph a manhunt in real time seemed like a paranoid’s conspiracy theory nightmare.  Well, other than for the ineptitude of our intelligence agency doofuses it’s now a living breathing reality.

(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

Jon Voight plays Thomas Reynolds, a mid-level NSA official who is trying to ensure the passage of a bill very close to the Patriot Act that will legalize the kind of surveillance of American citizens that back then was thought unthinkable.  In furtherance of this aim he corners the chairman of the congressional committee responsible for approving the bill at a lake where the congressman is walking his dog.  He tries persuasion then threats.  But when the congressman refuses to approve the bill and walks away from him Reynolds has an assassin assault him and inject him in the neck with a drug that will simulate a heart attack.  Then the congressman is thrown back in his car which is then sent rolling to the bottom of the lake.

Unfortunately for Reynolds, there was a surveillance camera in a wildlife blind that was being used for Canadian Geese wildlife research.  This motion activated camera captures the murder and the identity of the murderers.  A member of the cabal spots the researcher, Daniel Zavitz, replacing the memory on the camera and alerts Reynolds who has the NSA trace the researcher.  Zavitz discovers what he has and hides the video in a video game just in time to escape the NSA hit squad sent out by Reynolds.  What ensues is the squad being fed street location information on the fleeing researcher via satellite images.  Finally, Zavitz runs into a lingerie store and sees a man he knows named Robert Dean and hides the video in Dean’s shopping bag before running out of the store.  He is chased by the team into heavy city traffic where he is run over and killed by a speeding fire truck that happens by at that moment.

Will Smith plays Robert Dean, a labor lawyer that is using his friend, Rachel Banks’ connections to get damaging surveillance evidence against a mafia mob boss to help his client fight back against union breaking intimidation tactics.  Rachel has an ex-CIA agent named “Brill” who can get surveillance on anyone.  Dean brings the video to the mob boss and tells him to lay off or risk being exposed to prosecution for the evidence on the video.  The mob boss threatens Dean that if he does not reveal the identity of Brill, he will kill Dean.  Undeterred, Dean goes shopping for a Christmas present for his wife Carla in a lingerie store when Daniel Zavitz shows up.  Recognizing Zavitz he hands him his business card before his old acquaintance rushes out of the store.

Meanwhile the NSA team searches Zavitz’ body and fails to find the video but they find Dean’s business card.  Reynolds orders them to destroy Dean’s life to facilitate finding the video and also to discredit him in case he tries to expose the video to the public.

And very systematically that is exactly what they do.  They break into his home in order to place microphones and tracking devices into his home and his clothing.  They send evidence to the police, newspapers and to his courtroom adversaries that makes it appear that he is guilty of fraud, theft and malfeasance.  They send photos to his wife that make it appear he is having an affair with Rachel Banks.  He’s fired from his job, his credit cards are cancelled and his wife throws him out of the house.  Finally in desperation he goes to Rachel Banks’ house.  She had at one time been his mistress so he needed her help in clearing his name with his wife.  But when he gets there, he finds her murdered and his clothes and belongings staged in the house to make him the suspect.

Now with nowhere else to turn he uses Rachel’s secret signal to contact Brill.  Brill, played by Gene Hackman, tells Dean the bad news that the NSA is destroying his life for some information he must have received without knowing it.  He also warns him that his clothes must be bugged then he leaves Dean to his fate.  Finally, after a manhunt that chases Dean through streets and tunnels and down the side of a hi-rise hotel he sets fire to a building to summon police and rescue personnel to scare off the killers.  After he is inside an ambulance, he steals an officer’s gun and escapes.  He returns home and finds the video and then meets up with Brill.

We learn that Brill was an NSA agent who was disowned by the agency out of convenience when a mission went sour.  His partner was killed in the mission and the partner’s daughter was Rachel Banks.  Brill brings Dean to his secret hide out.  They decipher the video and discover what the fuss is about.  But unfortunately, right before reaching Brill’s base, Dean made a phone call to his wife and the NSA was able to find his location and using satellite data they followed them back to Brill’s base.  As the agents break in, Brill and Dean escape just as the building is pulverized by an enormous fireball of an explosion.  In the ensuing chase the video is destroyed and so Brill and Dean decide to entrap Reynolds into a confession.  But the plan backfires and Brill and Dean are captured by Reynolds and the team.  Reynolds threatens to kill Brill and Dean if they do not give up the video.  Brill refuses and Reynolds shoots him in the hand.  Dean agrees to get him the video and tells them to drive to the restaurant owned by the Mafia mob boss.

Dean goes into the restaurant with Reynolds and some of the agents and using confusion between the video that Dean had shown the mob boss previously and the video that Reynolds wants, he gets the two groups into an argument that turns into a full-on fire fight.  Reynolds, the mob boss and most of the gunmen on both sides are killed in the shootout.  But Dean had hit the floor and survived.  Brill escaped in the confusion and the FBI which had been monitoring the crime family shows up in time to collect the survivors and sort out the crimes involved.  Dean is cleared of all the crimes he had been accused of and reinstated in his job and restored to his family.  Brill escapes to an island paradise to leave behind the world of espionage.

This movie is one long frenetic chase.  But for the most part it’s entertaining.  Sure, there are some over the top sequences and some of the characters are a little thin on acting skill but the action sweeps you along and the predicament that Will Smith’s character endures keeps your attention through all the running, jumping, hiding and seeking.  And after what we’ve learned in the last five years about the capabilities and lack of ethics at our intelligence agencies it doesn’t seem far-fetched at all.  Will Smith and Gene Hackman provide just enough old guy-young guy chemistry to provide some interest in their espionage mission.  I’ll recommend this movie as a full tub of popcorn’s worth of thrills.

The Fly (1958) – A Science Fiction Movie Review

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(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

Andre and François Delambre are two brothers who own a technology company.  Andre is a genius and he is working on a teleportation machine.  He shows it to his wife Helene but she notes that the machine still has some problems.  When Andre thinks the machine is perfected, he tries to teleport his cat but it disappears.  Finally, after much work, he shows his wife that it can teleport a guinea pig successfully.  Next, he plans to teleport himself.

The next day Andre’s little son catches a fly with a white head in the garden with his butterfly net.  Helene makes him release it.  When Andre does not appear for dinner Helene goes down to his laboratory.  But the door is locked and Helene finds a typewritten letter from Andre saying his experiment has gone awry.  A fly entered into the chamber and during the teleportation the fly got a human arm and head and Andre got the head and leg of a fly.  He could still think like a human but he was finding his mind slipping away.  He tells Helene to catch the fly so that he can go through the teleporter with it and hopefully return to normal.  They catch the fly but it escapes again.  Andre despairs and tells Helene (through writing on a blackboard) that he will destroy his dangerous machine and his notes.  And he wants to die so he tells Helene to assist him by crushing his head and arm in the hydraulic press in his lab to destroy the evidence of his horrible accident.  She agrees.  After helping her husband to suicide she calls her brother-in-law François (played by Vincent Price) who calls police inspector Charas.  When they arrive, Helene tells them how she killed her husband.  Later on, after much coaxing she tells them the story of the fly.  But they assume she has gone mad.  Inspector Charas gets a warrant for her arrest for murder.  But just before she is taken away Andre’s son tells François that he has found the fly in a spider’s web.  François calls Charas to the web and they see the fly with its human head and hand and hear it cry for help as the spider comes to devour it.  Charas crushes the spider and its victim with a rock and is horrified by the reality of Helene’s story.  Charas and François figure a story involving Andre’s suicide to protect Helene.  The movie ends with François assuming the guardianship over Andre’s wife and son.

I saw this movie as a child on tv.  And then, as now, the big scene in this movie is the spider web scene.  The pathetic little voice coming out of the haggard face of the fly is horrifying as we see the enormously magnified head of the spider come closer and closer to the poor trapped fly.  The other notable scene is where Helene pulls off the hood hiding Andre’s head and we see his repulsive fly face.  It’s kind of hard to see it.  It seemed out of focus but it was reasonably hideous and Helene screams to very good effect.  The only decent acting was done by the police inspector.  The rest of the cast acted their lines but no Academy Awards were earned.  Vincent Price gave his usual over the top delivery.  One surprise for me was that the actor who played Andre was David Hedison and I recognized him as the captain on the 1960’s television series “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” about a US Navy submarine that was always bumping into giant squid and other under sea monsters.  This movie is for connoisseurs of campy giant insect sci-fi films.  It’s not as good as “Them!” but it’s still fun for fans of this type of movie.

Training Day (2001) – A Movie Review

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(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last two paragraphs to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

Training Day is a crime drama starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke. Hawke plays Officer Jake Hoyt, a young LA police officer who is heading out on his first day under the command of highly decorated and influential narcotics detective Alonzo Harris played by Washington.  But from the minute Hoyt meets up with Harris he realizes that nothing will be done according to the department rules or even according to the rules of law.  Harris pressures him into smoking what he thinks is marijuana but then finds out contains PCP.  Harris uses narcotics busts to steal money and drugs from the perpetrators without actually arresting them.  In one scene Harris uses a phony search warrant to steal $40,000 from a drug dealer’s house and then has to run a gauntlet of gangbangers who riddle his car with bullets as he escapes.

The only legitimate police work done occurs when Hoyt spots two men attempting to rape a Mexican teenage girl.  Hoyt has to subdue both men singlehandedly because Harris remains a spectator.  When the two men are cuffed Harris tells the girl to just leave without getting her information and merely beats and robs the two attempted rapists without charging them.  Hoyt sees the girl’s wallet on the ground and retrieves it to return it later.

And it just keeps getting worse.  We find out that Harris has the Russian Mafia after him for beating one of their men to death.  Now he has to come up with a million-dollar payment or be gunned down by the Russians.  He cuts a deal with the leadership of Los Angeles’ dirty cops whom he calls the “three wise men.”  He agrees to give them the $40,000 to obtain for him a search warrant that will allow him to steal $4,000,000 from a major drug dealer who is also a retired policeman.  Harris offers Hoyt a part of the money but Hoyt refuses.

And it just keeps getting worse.  Harris and the dirty cops are going to make it look like the drug dealer shot at them during the arrest and had to be killed in self-defense.  When Hoyt refuses to shoot the drug dealer Harris does it but tells Hoyt he is still going to have to claim to have done the shooting.  If not, the other cops and Harris will claim he did and because of the difference in stories Hoyt will be under suspicion and his blood test will show that he was using PCP.

Hoyt pulls a gun on Harris and threatens him.  The rogue cops tell Harris they’re going to shoot Hoyt but Harris defuses the situation by claiming that Hoyt is okay and will be allowed to opt out of the rogue unit Harris runs.  Hoyt calms down and leaves with Harris hoping to end his work with Harris after that day.  Harris tells him that they have to stop off at a Mexican gang house to hand off some payments for various illegal activities that Harris is involved in.  Harris says he has to go to the bathroom but ducks out and leaves Hoyt to be murdered by the gang.

But during the setup for the killing, they find the Mexican girl’s wallet on Hoyt and it turns out she is the niece of the gang leader.  When he calls up his niece and confirms Hoyt’s story, he lets Hoyt go.  Now he goes looking for Harris at his girlfriend’s house in a notorious gang area.  A knock-out drag-out fight ends with Hoyt beating Harris into submission and taking the million-dollar payment to bring into the police as evidence against Harris.  Harris calls on his neighbors to shoot Hoyt but we find out that he has alienated even these hardened criminals by his violence and corruption and they abandon him leaving Hoyt to leave with the cash.

Harris makes a run for the airport but two cars full of gunmen box in his car and riddle him with machine gun bullets and he staggers onto the street to die.  In the last scene we see Hoyt trudging exhaustedly home while a radio report announces the death of the hero cop Alonzo Harris during the execution of a warrant on a dangerous drug dealer.

This movie is a relentless assault on the sense of duty of an honest cop.  Harris pushes at the limits of criminal behavior from the beginning of the movie until the end.  Hoyt keeps meeting up with proof that the police system is riddled with corruption from the top down.  But Harris is a glib and persuasive devil who excuses every illegality as “how things have to get done in the real world.”  And surrounded by Harris and the other dirty cops Hoyt is confused and demoralized.  But he maintains his integrity even when it almost costs him his life.

The movie is incredibly gritty and hard edged.  But if a movie like that is acceptable then it is undoubtedly exciting, dramatic and entertaining.  Denzel Washington puts on a tour de force performance.  To paraphrase his character, “King Kong’s got nothing on him.”  So, for an audience that tolerates very crude language and movie violence “Training Day” is highly recommended.

The 47 Ronin (1941) A Movie Review

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This film was made in Japan during World War II and was a form of propaganda meant to showcase loyalty, courage and the martial spirit of the Japanese people.  It is a true story that occurred in the early 1700’s during the shogunate of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi.  It was a time when a formerly prosperous people were slipping into poverty through governmental mismanagement.  And cultural and social norms were unravelling.  The samurai class was finding itself relegated to a diminished role in the feudal system of the Edo period.  But the samurai code still tied them to their patron, the daimyo or lord.

Plot

This story is about a case of revenge.  Lord Asano was a daimyo who was insulted by one of the shogun’s officials named Lord Kira.  Flying into a rage Asano attacked Kira with a knife inside the shogun’s residence which was a capitol offense.  The shogun decreed that Asano would have to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) and his lands would be confiscated.  No penalty was decreed against Kira for his insults.

The leader of Lord Asano’s samurai, Ōishi Yoshio, decided that he would organize all the willing samurai under him to revenge their lord against Kira.  He recruited forty-six other samurai including his own fifteen-year-old son and then waited for over a year until Lord Kira’s suspicions were allayed.  To this end Ōishi patronized brothels and became a disgrace, exhibiting public drunkenness until Kira’s spies became convinced that he was a dissolute man.  Ōishi even divorced his wife.  But it is thought he did this to protect his wife and remaining children from retribution by the authorities.

Then when all was prepared Ōishi led his men against Kira’s castle and using swords and bows they stormed both gates of the castle and killed Kira’s men and rushed his private rooms.  Only his wife and children were found.  But when they checked Kira’s bed, they found it was still warm.  So, they ransacked his rooms until they found the entrance to a hidden courtyard where Kira and a few guards were hidden.  They overpowered the guards.  Then Ōishi respectfully offered Kira the chance to commit seppuku but the man was too terrified even to answer.  Kira’s head was cut off and ceremoniously washed and prepared and taken to Lord Asano’s grave where it was bestowed with the appropriate prayers.  Afterward Ōishi and his men gave themselves up to the shogun’s authorities.  Although the shogun had forbidden revenge against Kira, he decided that because the revenge was so popular among the populace, the ronin would not be treated as criminals but instead allowed to commit seppuku.  And so, about a year after the attack the ronin each committed ritual suicide and were given honored burial next to the grave of Lord Asano.

Discussion

This is a very strange movie for Americans to sit through.  First off, it’s almost four hours long.  Four hours of subtitles is hard to endure no matter how good the movie is.  Secondly, the oddness of the action and manners of both the era being portrayed and Japanese cinema in general presents a considerable barrier to an American audience immersing itself in the story.  And thirdly, the majority of the movie is static and is portrayed by conversations between the characters.  Even the storming of the castle occurs off screen and is read to the audience by one of the characters, Lord Asano’s widow.

I found the three problems I mention above, as too extreme to allow the movie to be thought of as entertainment.  It’s more of an historical experience.  I would not recommend this to anyone who isn’t interested in Japanese history and culture for their own sake.

Hayes Carll – Little Rock (2005) – A Country Music Review

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I bought this album seven years ago and then didn’t listen to it until last year for reasons that I haven’t been able to remember.  And when I did, I just added it to a large rotation of music tracks so that I never even noticed that the songs were by someone new.  But today I played the album and said, “Hey I love this stuff!”  So, I looked him up and found out his genre is considered “Americana.”  I figure that means he doesn’t want to be called a country music singer because he’s a lefty and there’s more street cred with the hippies if you say you’re an Americana artist.  Well since I couldn’t find any offensive lefty stuff on his website, I haven’t cast him into the outer darkness.

This guy writes most of his own stuff and it’s good.  Stylistically, it’s all over the map.  There’s blues, country, rock and roll, folk and a mixture of acoustic and electric instruments.  He’s got sad songs and laments, comic songs and tales of the musician life.  It’s really hard to pigeon hole him.  His voice is a little ragged but definitely interesting.

He’s definitely not mainstream commercial country which for me is kind of a good thing.  I’m going to have to get some of his other albums.  I recommend this one for country music fans.  Whether he’s filthy hippie or not is an open question.  I’ll have to do more research.

Star Trek – The Original Series – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 24 – Turnabout Intruder

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Great Caesar’s ghost!

If there had been no other reason to cancel the Star Trek series, this episode, in and of itself, would provide that rationale.  But it is the last episode so here we go.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy, the holy trinity of landing parties, arrive at planet blah, blah, blah where Dr. Janice Lester, an old flame of Kirk’s from his Starfleet Academy days, is sick with radiation poisoning.  Dr. Coleman, her private physician,  informs McCoy that she needs space medicine or something.  But when they leave Kirk alone with Janice to tend to a patient who’s already dead, Janice shoots Kirk with a petite phaser that she had hidden in her purse.  Then she drags him to a wall full of lights and standing next to him pushes a button that exchanges their personalities.  Now Janice in Kirk’s body (JIKB) carries Kirk in Janice’s body (KIJB) over to the bed and starts strangling KIJB with a stylish pastel scarf.  But the others return before JIKB can get the job done.  Coleman is in cahoots with JIKB and is given medical authority over KIJB by JIKB, much to the chagrin of McCoy who feels his authority has been trampled on as ship’s physician.

Coleman keeps KIJB sedated to keep up the charade but KIJB fools dim-witted Nurse Chapel into leaving the room and smashes a drinking glass that the sedative was in, to provide a tool to cut through her restraints.  But JIKB happens to see KIJB running by and punches her out, which raises eyebrows on both McCoy and Spock.  And as you know both characters love raising their eyebrows.  At this point everyone in the crew has noted the highly emotional, annoying and sometimes hysterical actions of JIKB.  Spock is so suspicious that he interviews KIJB in the holding cell.  And he uses the Vulcan mind meld and learns the truth of the personality transfer.  When Spock acts on this knowledge he is accused by JIKB of mutiny and is court-martialed.  JIKB’s bearing and words during the trail soon raise doubts in the minds of all the officers.  When Scotty and McCoy discuss in the corridor outside the trial the outcome if Spock is acquitted Scotty states clearly that they will have to commit mutiny.  But they were recorded secretly by JIKB.  Now Spock, McCoy and Scotty are declared mutineers by JIKB and he declares that they will be executed.  Sulu shouts out that the death penalty is forbidden and JIKB flips out and has a hissy fit.  Now Sulu and Chekov as the most senior remaining officers decide to defy JIKB and when this occurs on the Bridge JIKB spazzes out and we see the personalities reverse for a brief moment before reversing again.

Now JIKB freaks out and runs down to Coleman and says he’s afraid he’ll lose the Kirk body.  Coleman tells JIKB that he must kill KIJB right away to prevent permanent reversion.  But when they go down to do this KIJB attacks Coleman and suddenly the reversion happens spontaneously.  Now we have Kirk and Janice back in their own bodies and she wails and moans about losing the Enterprise and being just a poor weak woman being discriminated against by strong cruel men.  Kirk says some incoherent things about coulda, woulda, shoulda and the thing mercifully ends.

Just to put it right out there this episode broke the Shatner Mockery Index Meter so it gets an 11 for that.  JIKB snapping at everyone in the crew and behaving like a refugee from the tenth-grade mean-girl’s lunch-table is something to behold.  It makes me wonder if Shatner was given a course of estrogen injections before the filming began.  But my favorite scene is where Spock informs JIKB on the bridge that the same star course he had ordered could be made in less time by going faster.  She flounces off the bridge with her nose in the air.  In other words, he was attacking her driving skills.  Well, what can I say?  It’s finally over.  Free at last.  Free at last.

Score:  4   //   11

Note:  this is the last episode.  When I have recovered sufficiently from the strain, I intend to do some follow-up posts on the whole series, but not right now.  Oh, the pain, the pain.

Star Trek – The Original Series – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 23 – All Our Yesterdays

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Kirk, Spock and McCoy visit planet blah, blah, blah that is about to be destroyed by its sun going nova.  The whole population has used a time machine to escape into the past.  But one librarian is sticking around to handle any late arrivals.  He tries to convince the Enterprise crew to use the time machine to escape.  Kirk accidentally goes through the portal and ends up in an analog of 17th century England.  And McCoy and Spock follow him and end up in an Ice Age hellhole.

Kirk is accused of witchcraft when he is heard talking to Spock and McCoy when they are in a different time through the portal.  He finds a fellow time traveler and convinces him to help him escape back to the future.  When he gets back, he has to violently convince the librarian to help him find Spock and McCoy.

Meanwhile Spock and McCoy are found by another time traveler.  It is a woman named Zarabeth who has been sentenced to the Ice Age prison by an evil dictator.  But because they are now 5,000 years in the past, Spock reverts to the emotional condition his ancestors existed in at that time.  He becomes quite belligerent when McCoy calls him a pointy eared Vulcan.  And, of course, he falls in love with the pretty woman (played by very pretty and very young Mariette Hartley) in the skimpy cavegirl outfit.  When McCoy accuses Zarabeth of lying about whether McCoy and Spock can get back to the future Spock becomes enraged and starts choking McCoy.  McCoy brings this to Spock’s attention and he realizes that he is acting like a primitive.  Zarabeth clarifies that she knows she can never return to the future alive but she doesn’t know whether Spock and McCoy can.

The two men decide to try to find the way back and with just minutes to go before nova Kirk has the librarian open the path to the Ice Age time portal.  After Spock paws at Zarabeth for a few moments Kirk successfully urges the two men to return.  McCoy talks to Spock about how he feels about leaving Zarabeth in the past and Spock says some Vulcan jazz about her being dead and buried but it sounds more like bitterness than lack of emotion.  The librarian quickly makes his escape to his own time destination and the Enterprise beams the landing party back just in time to escape the nova.

This is a pretty good episode.  Sure, it’s silly and set up as a thriller with the clock running out on the nova.  But the story moves along and watching Leonard Nimoy act almost like a human being is amusing.  I especially liked when he had McCoy by the windpipe.  Even Kirk avoided his usual histrionics.  And the funny little bald librarian provides some humor to the proceedings with his bureaucratic fussiness.  And Mariette Hartley is a charming looking woman and did the best she could do with the lines she was given.

With the series all but over and faced with the reality of transgender Kirk in the final episode I feel extremely generous.  I’m going to award this episode with a 8 // 2.

Star Trek – The Original Series – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 22 – The Savage Curtain

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Ah, the last three episodes.  The light at the end of the tunnel.  Must stay strong.

The Enterprise is investigating signs of life on a planet whose surface is covered with molten lava.  Suddenly the viewscreen on the Bridge is filled with an image of Abraham Lincoln sitting in a leather chair in his usual coat and stovepipe hat.  He explains that he is on the planet’s surface and would like to come aboard the Enterprise.  Suddenly an area of earthlike environmental conditions appears on the planet’s surface.  Kirk orders full presidential honors to be extended to this inexplicable appearance of an historical personage.  This occasions Scotty to assume the kilt.  Lincoln displays a charming personality and obvious ignorance of the modern sociological conditions when he describes Uhura as “a charming negress.”

Despite strong opposition by McCoy and Scotty Kirk and Spock decide to transport down to the planet’s surface with Lincoln.  There they meet up with another historical personage, Surak.  He was the founder of modern Vulcan culture and revered by all Vulcans including of course Spock.

Next, they meet up with a native of the planet.  He looks much like a giant steaming cow-dropping with eyes.  He informs us that the Enterprise crew have been selected to instruct the natives with a demonstration of the relative strengths of good and evil.  Kirk, Spock, Lincoln and Surak will represent good and Genghis Khan, Kahless the Klingon, Zora and Col. Philip Greene will represent evil.  If you don’t recognize any of the names other than Genghis Khan the reason is because they’re made-up conquerors from pseudo future history.

The Cow-Pat declares that the winning side gets to live and the losing side will already be dead.  But to make the deal more persuasive to Kirk it is revealed that the Enterprise is being held captive in orbit and will also be destroyed if Kirk’s side loses.  The bad guys fake a parlay then attack.  They are driven off by our heroes in whom the force is strong.  While Kirk attempts to convince everyone to build spears for a battle to the death.  Surak declares that he will attempt to negotiate a peace with the enemy.  Spock declares that this is an honorable position.  But he continues to build weapons with Kirk and Lincoln.

Shortly after he leaves for his peace mission Kirk, Spock and Lincoln hear a scream followed by a voice that supposedly sounds like Surak repeating over and over, “Help me Spock!”  It is in reaction to this that Spock declares, “A Vulcan would not cry out so.”  But Kirk and Lincoln want to attempt a rescue.  The plan is for Kirk and Spock to perform a frontal attack on the enemy base while Lincoln circles behind their position and frees Surak.  But when he reaches Surak, he finds him already dead and his entry discovered.  Then we find out that Kahless was mimicking Surak’s voice and now shows how he will mimic Lincoln’s cry for help.

But suddenly Lincoln staggers toward Kirk and Spock to warn them of the trap.  After warning them he falls forward and we can see he has a spear planted in his back.  He dies there and the battle is joined between Kirk and Spock and the four evil warriors.  When Kirk manages to kill Col. Greene the other three evil fighters run away.

At this point Road Apple declares Kirk and Spock winners and sends them home.

This episode is the source of a quote that has echoed down the decades with my brothers and me.  At any random time since its inception in 1969 any one of us might exclaim in “Spockian” tones the seemingly meaningless sentence, “A Vulcan would not cry out so.”  The question of why we would say this is open to psychological or maybe neurological debate.  But suffice it to say that mocking Star Trek could be boiled down to mocking that one line.

I assumed this episode would be as aggravating as many of the season three installments.  But I actually enjoyed it.  Sure, it was absurd but the extra characters added some much-needed novelty to the overdone interactions between Kirk and Spock.  Once again, the guest stars were much better actors than the crew of the Enterprise.  Even the oversized cow chip had more panache than Kirk and Spock.  Although I did enjoy one comment by Scotty where he mentioned something about haggis in the lunch room.

I’ll be magnanimous and give this a  7  //  4.

A Vulcan would not cry out so.