What I’ve Been Watching Lately
At the theatre: EXTREME MEASURES. A father (Brendan Fraser) goes into a partnership with an eccentric scientist (Harrison Ford) in an effort to find a cure for his two children. The kids are afflicted with Pompe disease, a form of muscular dystrophy. The partnership between Ford and Fraser is uneasy at best. Fraser’s character is a businessman; he’s the money-raiser for the operation. Ford is an anti-social researcher who’s uneasy outside his lab. Both men are driven to succeed, one for his children, the other for himself. Both are extremists. Somehow they manage, however, to surmount their differences and achieve their goal: creating a vital enzyme which victims of this disease can’t produce in their own bodies. This is one of Harrison Ford’s best performances in years. Fraser is completely believable as the determined dad.
On DVD: IMAGINE THAT. Eddie Murphy plays a high-powered executive whose little daughter carries a blanket through which she communicates with imaginary friends. Murphy’s character reminds me of the type Ray Stevens sang about, “You’d better take care of business, Mr. Businessman!” He’s divorced, emotionally distant from his little girl, and impatient with her fantasy life–until, that is, he discovers that her “imaginary” friends know things about the world of high finance! They possess knowledge that he uses, leading to a string of stunning successes. The remainder of the film is predictable, but I found it more entertaining than the first 30 minutes or so which are rather tedious. The ending is sentimental, as I figured it would be, but I don’t mind a dose of sap now and then.
On VHS: THE BIG COUNTRY. This big ol’ William Wyler western is the sort of film about which you can affirm, “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore!” More’s the pity. It stars Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston, and Jean Simmons. Peck is at the top of his game as the quiet ship captain who finds himself sailing an ocean of prairie populated by cowboys and cowgirls fierce as any shark in the Pacific. Because he doesn’t feel the need to prove himself to his spoiled fiancee, the rancher’s daughter, he’s dismissed as a coward. But Greg Peck wore the mantle of Hero effortlessly. At times, the movie drags a bit. Then are scenes that might seem to go on too long–e.g., Peck is thrown again and again from the saddle before he teaches “Ol Thunder” who’s boss; a seemingly endless fist fight with Charlton Heston’s surly Top Hand (“All I can say, McKay, is, you take a hell of a long time to say goodbye”). But director Wyler evidently thought that a Big Country was big enough for big, long set pieces. Along the way, there are funny bits and clever dialogue. The climax is as gripping as anything done before or since. Burl Ives sinks his teeth into his role as a rival rancher, one of his best performances. The invigorating score, by Jerome Moss, is well worth the Oscar nomination it received. Yup, this’un’s a good ‘un.
