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The Daily Dose/May 27, 2011
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
Notes from around the Human Experience...
CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEW: The Beaver: Maybe the subject, depression, is too dark for America right now. Or maybe America doesn't want to face the fact that a lot of us could benefit from some teddy bear-type companionship, but this movie has completely flopped at the box office. The Beaver grossed just a bit over $100,000 its opening weekend, and as of this week has earned about $620,000, a fraction of its $21 million production cost.
Your Loss: Too bad, because while History will not be fawning over this movie for generations, Jodie Foster has put out a thoroughly enjoyable, yet dark movie.
Leading Off: Walter Black - played by Mel Gibson - is depressed and unable to run his company, his family or his life. His wife, played capably by Foster, kicks him out and Walter is such a train wreck he can't even kill himself successfully and he wakes up in a motel room, on the floor, hung over, with a stuffed beaver he found in a trash can laying next to him. Soon enough the beaver is telling Walter how screwed up his life is and the next thing anybody knows Walter and the beaver are inseparable and Walter is living a useful life again.
Fly In The Ointment: We don't know if it was because they would've have preferred a badger or maybe something in a Beanie Baby, but the Beaver's arrival at home causes problems. Rather than accept the fact husband/daddy is now enjoying a fulfilling, balanced life talking through a stuffed animal, both wife and the oldest kid (Porter, whose own life isn't exactly being cited for its balance in psychological journals) really wish Walter would go back to being Walter, despite the fact Walter on his own is not able to function normally and seldom gets out of bed.
Putting Nature And Circumstance To Work For You: The youngest son, though, is on board with the beaver, and is now enjoying a satisfactory relationship with his father.
Dry, Technical Matter: The ending might surprise you. It surprised us. Or it may not surprise you. We tend to take movies as they develop and not spend too much time trying to predict what's coming up.
Mel, Oscar On Line Two: We're not experts on the matter, but boy oh, boy, but we're putting Mel Gibson down for a performance we're officially calling "Splendid". You never got the feeling you were watching Gibson play a role, or that you were watching Gibson merely be himself, or a caricature of himself. You get the feeling you are watching Walter Black deal with his depression by talking through a beaver. You can see it in Walter's eyes.
Gibson is the highwater mark, though. Jodie Foster is good as his wife, and the kids do a good job of acting like kids today do, but we weren't too impressed with the writing, which is rich, coming from the staff that produces this crap and The Bottom Ten every Fall.
Standard Internet Disclaimer: Gaylon is not a movie buff, much less a professional movie reviewer. His thoughts are subjective and are not based on established cinematic standards. For reference, two of his all-time fave movies are Fletch and Precious.
We Interrupt This Column For A Word From The Ratings Department: Following is the Official Writer's Shack rating scale:
EX - Excellent; the very best the Human Experience can produce in every respect.
VG - Very Good. Well worth your time.
GD - Good. Worth your time.
AR - All Right. Not completely without merit.
SP - Nothing of substance; a steaming pile, utterly without merit.
Final Ranking: VG. We would have preferred a better script, and some background on how Walter got to this point, and the secondary story involving Porter - who has a nice, profitable racket writing term papers for his high school classmates - could either have been expanded or eliminated, but we're quibbling because Gibson's performance makes an otherwise good movie very good.
One More Thing: We're more or less the same age as Foster and instead of feeling old at the realization she's now playing mommies, we took comfort that she is aging gracefully.
WAR IS HELL: The British sink the German battleship Bismark on this date in 1941. In addition to the fact they were at war and its good to sink the enemy's ships, this was in retaliation for the German sinking of HMS Hood on May 24.
The battle - which, interestingly, to us at least, History has yet to assign a name too - occurred about 300 nautical miles off the coast of France.
Oh, Jesus H: A nautical mile equals just a shade over 6,072 feet, so 300 nautical miles equals about 350 statute miles.
And You Wonder Why You Don't' Get Invited To More Parties: At sea working sailors simply round the nautical mile off to 2,000 yards.
Back On Message:The British inflicted minor damage on Bismark later on the 24th before losing sight of Bismark for a few hours, though they later found her after intercepting a radio message sent from Bismark.
Those Zany British: Hilarity, however, ensued, when the British incorrectly plotted Bismark's position. Despite themselves, the British found Bismark via airplane observations on the morning of the 26th.
Those Zany British II: The British launched an attack on Bismark later that evening. Unfortunately, even more hilarity ensued when the British attacked themselves.
Monty Python's Sailing Circus: Only some deft ship handling - and the fact the torpedoes didn't work - prevented HMS Sheffield from being hit.
If At First You Don't Succeed: The final British assault began around 9am the morning of the 27th. Armed with torpedoes that actually worked, not to mention the precise location of the enemy, the Bismark sank an hour and a half later. About 2,200 Germans died, with 110 survivors captured before a U-boat alarm caused the British to flee the area.
Thought For The Day: To accept whatever happens is to put oneself beyond sorrow or joy. - Chinese maxim.
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Andrew Johnson, who became president following Abraham Lincoln's assassination, did not have a vice-president, so Benjamin Wade, the President pro tempore
of the Senate, would have become president had Johnson been removed from office.
Answer To The Bonus Trivia Question: Rick Wise of the Philadelphia Phillies is the only other major league pitcher to retire at least 30 batters in a major league game. On September 18, 1971 Wise - pitching at home against the Cubs - gave up a leadoff home run in the second and then retired the next 32 batters, until allowing a single with two outs in the 12th. The Phillies would get a run in the bottom of the 12th on an RBI by Wise - we are not making that up - to win 4-3.
Today's Stumper: A nautical mile is equal to what man-made geographical measurement of angular distance? - Answer next time
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