spitfire-4 Reviews

Piece of Cake (1988)

Piece of Trash

[1/10 · 3 July 2003]

"Piece is Cake" is defeatist, revisionist history of the worst kind, whose only point is to unfairly savage the reputation of the (admittedly fictional) pilots it portrays. It left a remarkably bad taste in my mouth.

In the March 1989 "Aeroplane Monthly", Roland Beamont wrote a stinging condemnation of the way that RAF Fighter Command was portrayed in the TV mini-series. A few of his comments are worth repeating:

"There was no sense of defeatism at any time in any of the squadrons that I saw in action, and a total absence of the loutishness portrayed in 'Piece of Cake'. It would not have been tolerated for a moment... ...The prevailing atmosphere was more akin to that in a good rugby club, though with more discipline. Nor was there any sense of 'death or glory'. RAF training had insisted that we were there to defend this country, and now we were required to do it - no more and no less.

"There was no discussion of 'bravery' or 'cowardice'. People either had guts or they did not - but mostly they did. But we knew fear, recognised it in ourselves and in each other, did our damnedness to control it, and then got on with the job...

"...I could feel no 'glory', but there was a sense of greatness, and none of this bore the slightest resemblance to 'Piece of Cake'."

Beamont was, in his own words, "a fighter pilot who, unlike the author and producer of the recent TV series, was there at the time".

Beamont served with 87 Squadron both in France and the BoB, before going on to become one of the premier exponents of both the Typhoon and Tempest, and a post-war test pilot.

"Piece of Cake" is an absolute, total misrepresentation of the way pilots in Fighter Command acted at the time. It is nothing less than a complete and utter disgrace...

Heartbreakers (2001)

I've heard of high concept, but...

[2/10 · 14 January 2003]

This film exists for one reason - to show off Jennifer Love Hewitt's legs. Not there's anything wrong with her legs. By any criterion, they're fantastic. But when the movie has ended, that's about all you can remember, the short dresses and high heels. Oh, there are a couple of slightly amusing in-jokes referencing other movies ("Rebecca", "Chasing Amy"), but the plot is thin with a laughable conclusion, the characters aren't interesting or believable, and the script is putrid. Veterans such as Weaver and Hackman deserve better than this.

But as a showcase for Hewitt's quite amazing legs, it works just fine...

Flambards (1979– )

A virtually perfect mini-series

[10/10 · 25 July 2002]

"Flambards" gets virtually everything right; characters that we truly care about, great acting, wonderful music, and a story with twists and turns, skillfully told. But what is does better than anything is truly conjure up the spirit of Edwardian England.

The period around 1910 was one of the great watersheds in history; airplanes, cars, and gramophones heralded a new age, only to have World War One stop everything in its tracks. "Flambards" captures all of this perfectly; the resentment of the old guard, the thrill of the new possibilities (especially for women), and the despair of the war years. Of all of the things about this series, the mood and atmosphere are the best.

As an aside, speaking as an airplane buff, the airplanes are incredible. They are painstakingly accurate reproductions of real types, and it's wonderful to get a chance to actually see in the air types that you've only read about in books.

This is a virtually perfect mini-series, quite possibly the best of its kind ever made. It's that good.

Thrill Seekers (1999 TV Movie)

A fairly bad movie with an interesting plot

[4/10 · 30 January 2001]

The production values of this movie are really, really, bad. People run through train stations with guns drawn while no-one notices, and the special effects of disasters are very amateurishly done. The motivations of the main characters are simplistically drawn. Add a whole slew of pretty bad performances, and you've got a recipe for disaster.

Yet despite all this, I rather enjoyed the movie, in spite of itself. The time travel paradoxes were well handled - to the point where I found myself rooting for the nominal "bad guys," instead of the "good guys." The story is interesting and well handled, and Catherine Bell is, as always, a knockout.

One point - the general premise of the film (and this isn't really a spoiler; it's spelled out right away, but if you don't want to know anything about the film, stop reading), that of time travellers from the future taking vacations to the past to view disasters, is taken (uncredited) directly from C.L. Moore's classic story "Vintage Season," one of my favorite sci-fi works. The details are different, but the premise is identical. Moore's story has been filmed more faithfully, as "Disaster in Time." Anyone who liked "The Time Shifters" should check it out, or even better, the original source material.

Chasing Amy (1997)

A brilliant, sad, movie

[10/10 · 3 July 1999]

For a comedy, this is one of the saddest films I've ever seen. It was funny, truly one of the funniest movies I've seen in years (and OK, so there's some crude language, but that's preferable to Mike Myers' potty obsession), but the core of the story was in the relationships. Watching Holden make his doomed proposal to Alyssa and Banky was one of the hardest things to watch I've ever seen; you knew what he was going to say, and like Alyssa, you just wanted him to stop. The way that Alyssa mutters "Don't" to herself is heartbreaking. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

I also have no problem with Holden's sudden about-face when confronted with Alyssa's past - I don't agree with Holden's actions (in fact I think he's an idiot for the rest of the movie), but love is like that. If Chasing Amy has any serious message about relationships, it's that relationships make no sense. You don't know who'll you'll fall in love with or why, and you don't know what will make you fall out of love either.

The dialogue is funny, the acting adequate (I like Joey Lauren Adams' voice!), and the story is original enough to be memorable. The only thing I didn't like was Hooper's stock characterization, which is likely to offend both gays and blacks. Somehow I don't think Smith is too concerned about that. He's making a self-contained, self-referential universe in his films, just like Star Wars. In twenty years, will directors be making in-jokes referencing Kevin Smith films?...