Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol

by Courtney Hilden

Most of the episode's spoilers are unrevealed in this review.

By now, even Americans are well-aware that Doctor Who, the alien traveler who takes humans as companions, has their own Christmas special. This Christmas, the Doctor, Amy and Rory headed out to a strange planet where the clouds have to be controlled and where the sky swims with fishes and sharks. In an attempt to save a crashing spaceship, the Doctor has to work on the miserable old man who controls the sky by going back into his past and changing his childhood.
As usual, the crew who worked on set design deserve a huge award for the episode, which was beautifully constructed. The planet was phenomenal and strange. The fish were a wonderful touch to a planet that otherwise seemed like a vaguely steampunk remake of last year's Christmas speical Dickens-esque London.
The delightful episode had lots for older, sci-fi fans, like with the spaceship that was meant to emulate the Bridge in the most recent Star Trek movie. The nerd references continued, with discussion of how you can tame the sky (Firefly perhaps?) and with "Bored Now" (a classic quote from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)
Matt Smith gave a wonderful, energetic, manic performance. His bon mots were inspired and delivered perfectly. Casting him and his Doctor as the Ghost of Christmas Past (and later Christmas Future) was a good idea, because, more than any other character, he lives in the past. Smith works magic with children, and his interactions with child!Sanders was more of two children talking to one another than an adult (alien) and a child. David Tennant's Doctor, for all his silliness, gave off the air of being adult and filled with adult desires. There is something strangely adolescent about Smith's performance, one that has desire but is still terribly confused by it. This is a fascinating touch to add to a character, one that has made watching the Doctor more psychologically penetrating.
Michael Gambon's performance, unsurprisingly, was made of win. He made a great Scrooge-like character. Unfortunately, the only sad thing about this episode was how little we saw of Rory and Amy, and the complete lack of everyone's favorite character, River Song.
The trading of a woman's body was incredibly creepy. Anthropologists have documented the way in which women's bodies have been traded throughout societies, and the unanswered question of what Mr. Sanders would do with this young lady's body went unanswered. They showed us where they went (a frozen storage facility.) Sanders strange infatuation with Abigail taken as "security" also emphasizes the anthropological theory of women as a sexual trading object.
As a finaly note: Does anyone know where I can get a sonic screwdriver to float in my fish bowl?

"Hell is the Truth Learned Too Late"

Or, a Review of "Third Girl"
by Courtney Hilden

"Third Girl," the latest in this series of Poirot's adventures, is by far the most messy and difficult to understand story. The story involves a young woman named Norma, who visits Poirot, telling him that she believed she had committed a crime. This is apparently all Poirot needs, because he is off, tracking this girl down and trying to decide if she, indeed, has done something wrong. He discovers her involvement in a crime, including that of her two roommates, Frances, an actress, and Claudia Reese-Holland, a secretary and lover of Norma's Father, and Norma's boyfriend David, a painter. It's an embarrassingly bad and bland attempt at making a mystery interesting.
Other than that, it is hard to know where to begin with this dead carcass of a mystery. It is slow moving. The majority of the characters are impossible to care for, and Mr. Rodderick and Norma's interactions feel more like a creepy incestuous relationship than that of a father or daughter. At least one of them was suppose to believe that they were in a real relationship. Sonia and her relationship with a much older man was also creepy. The music was also melodramatic and miserable. Music is only suppose to be that on the nose in soap operas.
Once again, Jemima Rooper manages to give a great, relateable and believable performance as the title character. If her miraculous work making her the only consistently good thing on Hex and this episode of Poirot is any indication, Rooper deserves bigger and better roles, because she can clearly work material into something good.
There are other, smaller things that made this better. Poirot being insulted several times for being too old was a nice touch of levity (and perhaps another meta comment on the series, as part of the inclusion of a stand-in for Christie herself.) It was also nice to show Poirot being compassionate and solving this mystery for genuine concern for Norma, and not for being harsh and unyielding like he has become in other outings. Next time, he should be allowed to feel for his victims. Helping others should be his motivation, not enforcing the law on other's.

3:10 to Yuma

by Courtney Hilden

3:10 to Yuma is a Western following Dan Evans (Christian Bale), a rancher desperately in debt, who agrees to transport Ben Wade (Russell Crowe), a notorious criminal, to the Contention Train Station to get Wade on the 3:10 train to Yuma, a prison. While transporting Wade, the two feel each other out, not exactly bonding but developing a level of respect.
Bale is engaging as Evans, and you can’t help but root for him. The film also stars the geek-approved Kevin Durand (who played Keamy on Lost) and Alan Tudyk (who played Wash on Firefly). Given Durand’s menacing performance on Lost, it’s unsurprising that he also plays a bad guy here, though it’s a one-note character. It’s too bad Durand wasn’t playing the bad guy, as Crowe’s Wade is stiff at the beginning of the film and far too warm at the end. Tudyk plays Doc Porter, one of the few uncompromisingly good guys in the movie, and looks better here with his blonde beard and large glasses than he does in his other recent movies. The only actor who grates in this movie is Logan Lerman, who plays William, Evans’s oldest son.
The film also had a surprising amount of people of color. Often, Westerns have whitewashed the American West. Although this movie isn’t perfectly progressive, it does at least acknowledge that there are non-whites in the West and that they are treated poorly because of it, like when they stop at a labor camp populated mostly by Chinese immigrants, who are treated as slaves. Unfortunately, all of the Native Americans in this film were depicted as evil, since one was part of Wade’s band of thieves and the others were part of the “blood thirsty” Apache tribe that attempts to kill most of the main characters. The only good thing with the Native Americans is that Evans acknowledges that they were kicked off their land and that the Apaches here are the kind who absolutely refuse to move and are more likely to be violent because of their social position. Most Westerns don’t acknowledge the unfairness and inequality that the U.S. government encouraged, but this film does, although it’s brief. Unfortunately, the Apaches are also apparently incompetently violent, since Wade defeats them. And, as always, all the good guys are white.
There were lots of realistic touches that made the movie work. For example, most of the blood was appropriately dark to the point of black. (Most movies make blood bright red so it’ll stand out, but in fact when exposed to air like that, it oxides much more, turning it dark.) The details on the sets, especially Porter’s operating room, were dead on and gave a great feel to the movie.
Like most Westerns, they're not much for accuracy but do have lots of violence. It's an interesting movie since it attempts to give a Christian allegory to a genre that has always worshiped lawlessness and rough living, and some of the actors give great performances.

A Little Bit of Feel-Good

A review of I Could Have Been Your Cellmate
by Courtney Hilden

Mo'Nique's I Could Have Been Your Cellmate is two smaller films in one: a stand-up performance and a documentary on a women's correctional facility in Ohio.
As uninformed as most Americans probably are about correctional facilities, they’re probably even less informed about those facilities for women. At this particularly facility, “the Farm,” over 80 percent of the prisoners have suffered from some kind of abuse. A large majority of women prisoners are mothers.
The most powerful part of the documentary are her interviews with the women. The women all look incredibly normal, not like, say the women in Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” music video. One of the prisoners Mo’Nique talks to looks like an-about-to-retire Grandma. A fair amount of the women have very positive attitudes about their incarceration, saying that they have jobs or are taking classes in an effort to improve themselves.
Mo’Nique herself obviously believe in rehabilitation for prisoners, which is part of the reason she filmed this documentary and comedy show. She herself explains that they deserve “A Little Bit of feel-good.” She even admires them, because they’re still standing. Even if you don't like Mo’Nique, but seeing her here as a caring, respectful, kind observer of prison life will make you respect her in turn.
I also ended up learning more about her. For example, I had no idea that Mo’Nique was a mother or that she had been abused by her first husband. Upon further research, I discovered that her own brother abused her and was later sentenced to jail. This detail gives the documentary an extra oomp, since, as she keeps saying in her standup performance, “could have been your cellmate.” And maybe that’s the most interesting thing about Mo’Nique: she sees the prisoners and her as more similar than different. Her comedy is about uniting people in humor, not isolating them into groups.
She discusses a lot about sexuality. There were little hints of it in the beginning, mentioning the race problems within the prison and the belief that female prisoners are lesbians. She riffs entirely on the idea of anal sex, saying that she respects and pities gay men. She then criticizes those who use the Bible to defend or reject homosexuality, saying that it’s about what they think, not what the Bible says. “I don’t feel like you have to turn to the Bible…for all of your righteousness,” she explains.

The only thing odd about the film was it's structure. In the beginning, Monique interviews several prisoners. Then they cut to her standup performance at the prison. Then, at the end of the film, they go back to interviews and shots of her seeing other parts of the facility. Why it's structured this way is never clear, and it feels incoherent.
Mo’Nique is always fun to watch, especially where she wears an orange-jumpsuit designed dress. What makes this comedy special different is that, as an audience member, you can tell that Mo’Nique was working to make a cathartic experience for these female prisoners. It’s hard not to admire that desire.