2012 Films: "The Iron Lady"

Technically released in 2011, this is the first film I’ve seen in 2012.

Who’s In It: Meryl Streep and Alexandra Roach as Margaret Thatcher; Jim Broadbent and Harry Lloyd as Denis Thatcher; Olivia Colman as Carol Thatcher.

Who Made It: Phyllida Lloyd directs from a script by Abi Morgan. Produced by Damian Jones and distributed by The Weinstein Company.

What It’s About: As her mental state deteriorates with age, Margaret Thatcher reminisces about her rise to power and tenure as Prime Minister. 

My Take: This is not the story about Margaret Thatcher that I would have wanted to have seen made. The frame story, set in present day as Thatcher attempts to come to grips with the death of her husband while beginning to suffer the effects of dementia, takes up far too much screen time. What I would have wanted to be the meat of the story, Thatcher’s rise to power in a male-dominated Tory Party and leadership in the waning years of the Cold War, is reduced to a series of flashbacks. However, Meryl Streep rises above the films flaws in a mesmerizing performance. We all expected Streep to carry the film; I simply would have liked her to have had more help.

For More Information: The Iron Lady on Wikipedia.

2012 Reading: "A Storm of Swords"

A Storm of Swords is the third book in G.R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series. Weighing in at nearly 1,200 pages, it is almost as long as the first two books combined. Following the continued fighting in the War of the Five Kings, ASOS dramatically expands the scope of the story and introduces new point of view characters. I’d highly recommend all of the first three books of the series to anyone who enjoys the fantasy genre. 

Click to purchase: for Amazon Kindle; for Apple iBooks; for Barnes & Noble Nook.

Rewatching Voyager: 006 "The Cloud"

This episode bristles with the excitement of watching people play holographic pool and talk to animals.

Synopsis

After poking their noses into a nebula where they don’t belong, the crew proceeds to show how little sense of urgency they possess about returning home. Paris and Kim play pool. Chakotay demeans Native Americans everywhere by leading Janeway through the most insulting rendition of Indian culture this side of Tonto. When it turns out that the nebula was a living creature, Janeway goes all Jane Goodall and insists the crew risk their lives again to repair the damage they caused. Surprising no one, everything works out fine.

Nitpicks

• Neelix is fairly sensible at the beginning of this episode when he bemoans Captain Janeway’s insistence on playing explorer instead of focusing on the mission of returning her crew home. He still needs to die, however.

• Hopefully someone on board noticed that Janeway almost got them all killed in this episode in order to slake her thirst for replicated coffee. One wonders if the Kazon could have convinced her to give them the Caretaker Array’s secrets had they just thrown in a case of Taster’s Choice as part of the deal. 

• Technobabble reigns supreme in this episode. It’s used to describe the effects of the nebula on the Voyager, the structure of the nebula creature, and the crew’s solution to the “how do we heal it?” problem. This technobabble tumor will metastasize in later seasons.

• There are some excellent effects in this episode when the ship is traveling through the nebula being.

• I enjoyed the mutual snark between Tuvok and Kim after the Vulcan provides the ensign with some unwelcome criticism of his job performance.

• Because of this excursion, the ship will have to travel 14 light years out of their way to replenish the energy supplies lost in the nebula. At the roughly 935 times the speed of light the ship is traveling, that’s a 5-day sidetrack from their journey home.

Journey Statistics

Stardate: 48546.2 (~July 18, 2371).

Distance From Home: 69,795 light years.

Surviving Crew: ~141 and the Maquis.

Rewatching Voyager: 005 "Phage"

Ever see an episode of a television series that comes so close to being great, only to fall apart right at the end?

Synopsis

While scoping out a planetoid for dilithium, Neelix is critically injured by a Vidiian who uses a device to remove Neelix’s lungs. The Doctor, still seeming way too human for a hologram, creates “holographic” lungs, but they require Neelix to live in the 24th Century equivalent of an iron lung. Rendered incapable of movement, and forced to stare up at the Sickbay ceiling all day, perhaps for the rest of his life, Neelix eventually demands that the Doctor allow him to die. Unfortunately, before they can do so, Janeway and the crew track down and capture the Vidiians, whose advanced medical abilities are able to transplant a lung from Kes to Neelix.

Nitpicks

• The Vidiians, a race of biological scavengers who steal organs from others in order to combat a deadly disease, are pretty interesting, and their makeup is quite cool.

• Also nifty was the low-energy phaser trick used to locate the Vidiian ship in the “hall of mirrors” asteroid. 

• In other words, this is a pretty good episode of Star Trek, marred only by the fact that they let Neelix live.

Journey Statistics

Stardate: 48532.4 (~July 13, 2371).

Distance From Home: 69,803 light years.

Surviving Crew: ~141 and the Maquis.

Rewatching Voyager: 004 "Time and Again"

Synopsis

After detecting an explosion on a nearby world, the Voyager moves to investigate. They discover that the planet was destroyed because of its unusual power system. When Janeway and Paris are sucked back in time, they soon learn that their investigation into the cause of the explosion will actually have the effect of instigating the crisis. Yes, it’s another time travel episode. In the end, Janeway breaks the loop, and none of this ever actually ends up happening, which in terms of character narrative makes this entire episode pointless.

Nitpicks

• “Time Warp!” Ugh. Please note that we’re only three episodes into Voyager, and already 67% of them have been stupid time travel plots.
• This episode and the one before it do a good job of highlighting a unique trait about Janeway, as far as Trek captains go: she was originally a science officer. She likes to roll up her sleeves and dig into the technobabble. Which is fortunate for her, given that technobabble is more common than hydrogen on Voyager.
• By the late 1990s, time travel had become a crutch for weak writing in Star Trek. That Voyager begins its run by dipping deeply into this well bodes ill for the series’ future.
• Tom Paris and Harry Kim have one of the few very realistic male human friendships in Trek. But theirs is just a faint echo of the awesomeness that is Bashir and O’Brien.

Journey Statistics

Stardate: Unknown (By placing it halfway between the episode before and after it, we get ~June 26, 2371).

Distance From Home: 69,846 light years.

Surviving Crew: ~141 and the Maquis.