ghpilato Reviews

Battlestar Galactica: Daybreak: Part 2 (2009) Season 4, Episode 20

Ron Moore goes all the way

[10/10 · 21 March 2009]

You cannot fault this finale much at all for style. The music, the action, the boldness all ring true to a stunning final movie. But this is about wrapping up plots too. And I can sure tell you right now that some people will be very upset at the plot finales. Without spoiling anyone, it's all about the particular answers that are given to some of the long-term questions of the series. While never anything but completely bold and amazing, like the climax of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", this is an ending that is all about never holding back. The totality of the many, many plot threads is indeed tied in a very interesting final knot on a very large tapestry, that ends up really making quite the final statement about life, the universe, and everything. God, miracles, determinism, human frailty, the status of the human condition right now on Earth -- these are the subjects of the final themes and the final significance and epic closing of this 5-year story. I'm sorry I'm being so vague, but I wouldn't dare spoil anyone yet.

So bold. So definitive. So epic. So human and so satisfying.

Is this the best moment for the series? The best? No. Just the end. The show is full of peaks with different sorts of drama peaking at each one. The journey's the thing. And it really depends on one's personal favorite character and favorite arc. So much has changed and so much has been so steady since the beginning, it is very difficult to pin down any one part and hail it the most. Certainly, this end is one of the stand outs, though.

A few other favorite episodes of yours truly would be: "33", the first episode of the first season, post-miniseries, when the dramatic intensity couldn't be pitched any higher, and yet every character still made huge strides towards the long haul, setting up an incredible epic perfectly after the marvelous reimagination and efforts of the miniseries; the episode "Six Degrees of Separation" from the first season, as funny and sexy as it gets, with a masterful psychological twist on Dr. Gaius Baltar's predicament as principal human genius/accessory to genocide; "Kobol's Last Gleaming", the two-parter finale to the first season, as epic and suspenseful as television has ever been in any form, with massive twists and an unbelievable cliffhanger; "Home part two", a mini-finale of sorts, the end to the first act of a three act story (presented in four seasons), the episode where everything that matters is supremely satisfyingly dealt with and made ready to move on to more, pointing the epic onward as much as every individual character's plots; "Occupation/Precipice", the two-parter that opened the third season, the tough-as-nails allegory of occupation tied tightly to the situation in Baghdad at present, masterful and mesmerizing; "Sometimes a Great Notion", perhaps the darkest episode of the series, where the floor falls out from before, all hopes left behind after the massive revelations of the previous episode, and also the most dramatically potent and stunning of moments, perhaps, in the series, as major epiphanies are all dwarfed by the overwhelming loss of hope.

This is a finale that satisfies all that has gone before. This series will be remembered for generations.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

More Moving Than I Expected It To Be

[10/10 · 4 January 2009]

'Twas amazing. Best effects film in ages (not just awesome effects, but a real movie magic feeling comes from this that we kinda take for granted in the 21st Century with effects today). Ages, being really, I guess, since event effects films like Titanic, The Matrix, Jurassic Park and Forrest Gump. Not about animation, where amazing things happen every year in film, e.g.Wall-E, but visual effects blending with real live action. Along the lines of the successes of the Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films recently. But those are so filled with animation and obviously computer-enhanced realities that the "magic" one feels by the use of less effects to create more illusion is a bit missing. Course, this was not about Two-Face in The Dark Knight stuff, not just like that with its half live action, half animated face, or even like a fully believable Golem in LotR, this was a movie where everything was fairy tale and everything was immediately touched with a sense of photographic trickery, but where you just couldn't tell exactly what was make-up and what was CGI, or what was an illusion or real... even though a lot of the tricks are clearly there. You know you're looking at Brad Pitt's face on an actor who is probably about 10 yrs old, with CGI and makeup all doing their best, but you're just not interested in thinking about that. Subjective of course, that's just what I felt. Plus, the movie was really eloquent on the subjects of our perception of age and beauty. It's a tragedy though. Like Forrest Gump in some ways, even if Forrest Gump was a cultural satire and a journey through the American Experience since the 60s, this was a similar feat of storytelling on film. Won't say much more, don't want any spoiling here. Verging on "a little too perfect", though, also... and I do some negative criticisms, but you should definitely see it...

Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned (2007) Season 4, Episode 0

Twelve Million Plus Saw It on Christmas and It Was Pretty, But Not Great

[6/10 · 30 December 2007]

This is the second Christmas Special for New Who to really disappoint, without actually being dull, particularly bad, or really horribly offensive. This was prettier, wittier, and just plain bigger than the story we got last year for Christmas, but it still paled in comparison to the hit of 2005's special which introduced the ever more popular David Tennant as the dashing geek, the Tenth Doctor. The primary complaint to be leveled here is that this was a rather tired and very familiar sort of story for Who, all flashy and fun but still overwrought with so many strange notes of high passion when the passion just seems to be all wrong for the moment. It was not bad, just tired. Nothing really new and worthy went on here after the first five minutes passed. For fear of spoiling your enjoyment, I'll keep quiet about most of the details.

Great success was to be found here by the production team for Who in making a truly beautiful show, all shiny and gorgeous, but the many witty homages, jokes both inside and out, and great casting aside, this was still just another overwrought melodramatic Russell T. Davies story with some really bizarre scenes involving the deaths of short-term characters and some inexplicably emotional responses to said deaths. If you watch this for the cheap thrills of the Who-ness of some really pretty big-budget Doctor Who on Christmas, then by all means, enjoy. But the thematic, imaginative, and storytelling great heights and depths that have been reached occasionally in the best of the new series are not touched here, merely aimed for - and missed.

This was a very pretty disappointment. Frankly, I'm tired of that. The majority of the big themes are undeveloped enough make the justification for epic qualities, unfortunately. Even if it surely justified 12.2 million live British viewers upon first viewing.