Taking a Shining

Over the years, every now and then, I've read something written by Stephen King. For the most part, I've always found his books decent: enjoyable, but not so great that I want to rush out and read another right away. Last month, when my husband and I were taking a weekend at Rocky Mountain National Park and staying at the Stanley Hotel, it seemed only appropriate that I be reading The Shining while we were there.

When you actually read the book, it's clear that while King may have been inspired by the Stanley Hotel, he's not saying the Overlook Hotel is the Stanley. The geography is tweaked, both in where the Overlook is said to be located in Colorado, and in the layout of the hotel itself, which seems in King's imagination to be (appropriately) a more spacious and yet also claustrophobic funhouse. Not that I was looking to one-for-one the real place into my imagination as I read; it's more that it's a bit funny to see how hard the Stanley has leaned into "we're The Shining hotel!" schtick when it doesn't really match up all that much -- particularly in light of Stanley Kubrick's movie adaptation, which for many people is the definitive image of what the Overlook Hotel looks like, inside and out.

That's been an irritation for Stephen King over the years, who has many times complained about different aspects of Kubrick's film. The complaints have morphed at times, receding a bit when he oversaw his own TV mini-series adaptation in the late 1990s (actually filmed at the Stanley), then heating up again around the time he published his sequel novel, Doctor Sleep (soon to be a "major motion picture," as they say).

Reading the book, you can understand why the Kubrick movie doesn't sit right with him. The film has its fans (and I'm not here today to review it), but in many ways that feel significant not just to a defensive author, it is not the same thing. From the more gradual "infection" of Jack Torrance by madness, to the menacing topiary animals on the lawn, to a significant character living rather than dying, the book charts a very different path through a similar story.

I would not necessarily say that the book is "better," though. (For one thing, it's been long enough since I've seen the movie that my memory isn't all that clear.) I do think the book is rather longer (and more long-winded) than it needs to be. There's slow burn, and then there's a glacial pace, and there are moments when The Shining comes uncomfortably close to the latter for me. With only three significant characters for most of the tale (and only one setting), there's only so much to explore here. In its narrative construction, you could almost imagine The Shining as a tight one-act play... but Stephen King has conceived of it more like a generational epic that just happens to spend the bulk of its time on one generation.

On the other hand, in detailing such a vast and sordid history for the Overlook Hotel, King gets to stuff his novel full of various disturbing imagery, to a generally effective end. If this doesn't scare you, that might. Specters abound, each trying to tickle your imagination in a different way. This was written early enough in King's career that he might be said to still be playing with technique, an interesting context in which to consider this broad array of frights. But the hotel conceit holds it well; all sorts of ghosts might plausibly inhabit an old hotel.

This encounter with Stephen King went like most of the rest for me: I enjoyed the book well enough, but didn't feel an immediate pull to pick up another of his novels. A tingle, maybe? Specifically, in this case, because King's sequel, Doctor Sleep, is soon to be released as a movie. Because it's essentially impossible to read The Shining without having Kubrick's movie worm into the experience, it might be interesting to read King's sequel (to the book) before the sequel (to the movie) has any chance of doing the same.

In any case, I'd give the source of it all, Stephen King's original book, a B.

DS9 Flashback: The Die Is Cast

To repair an unsatisfying ending before the filming of the episode "Improbable Cause", the writers of Deep Space Nine decided to make the story a two-parter. Now, they had only a few days to craft the second half. But they rose to the challenge with "The Die Is Cast."

A fleet of Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order ships is headed for the Founders' homeworld, looking to bombard it from orbit and wipe out the Dominion leadership in one swift strike. Captive aboard the lead ship, Odo is tortured by Garak (under coercion by Enabran Tain), as the station crew mounts an unauthorized rescue with the Defiant.

The dramatic spine of this episode comes from really exploring the relationship between Odo and Garak. On the surface, you wouldn't imagine much common ground there, but the writers hit on a truly meaningful secret for Odo to be keeping. As Ronald Moore, who wrote the script, put it: "even though he's discovered that his people are, in a metaphorical sense, Nazis, he really wants to be with them." Odo has never had a place he truly belongs, and he's in a constant emotional struggle to overlook everything wrong here to find that place with his people.

Odo acknowledges how powerful the appeal of going home can be, forgiving Garak for his actions in this episode that came from a similar motivation. Show runner Ira Steven Behr (who, starting with this episode, took over Michael Piller's executive producer role) felt it was important to remind the audience that Garak might sometimes have good things in the past, but he is not a good guy, deep down. "Could you torture someone, if you had to? Garak can do it."

That torture scene is the best of the episode. Actors Rene Auberjonois and Andrew Robinson deliver two amazing performances: Odo's bluster quickly unraveling in panic, Garak's pleading that Odo say something, even a lie, just to end it all. The teams behind the makeup, costuming, and visual effects all work together to create a truly horrific look for the desiccated Odo. The camera positioning is perfect too, with moments like Odo straining right at the lens to try to change shape, and a tight closeup on the two -- nose to nose -- at the most painful moment for both.

The ship battle at the end of the episode, however, is a close second in terms of quality -- and the most sophisticated space action yet seen on the show. Amazingly, these battle scenes were achieved without the extensive use of CG that would characterize later seasons of the show. This was 20 days of motion control filming (reportedly, the most ever for a one-hour television show), with 4 days alone dedicated to the shot of the Defiant destroying a Jem'Hadar ship and sailing through the debris. To fill out the fleet, the background ships are actually backlit transparencies instead of full models -- with the constantly moving camera and lower-resolution video format of the time hiding the cheat. The end result is kinetic, exciting, and a huge step up from what the series managed before this.

This episode also shows off the benefits of having recurring, secondary characters on the show. Ordinarily, it can be hard to generate as much interest in an episode that focuses too much on guest stars to the exclusion of main characters. But Deep Space Nine has now had enough repeat appearances by secondary characters that they're no longer your average guest stars. Garak really takes center stage here, and the main characters mostly sit this one out. Outside of Odo, the most significant scene for any main character is when Bashir tries and fails to have a Garak-style lunch of intellectual conversation with O'Brien.

Nevertheless, the episode is filled with compelling character moments. Enabran Tain's arc is that of a controlling sociopath brought low. He's taunting, baiting, and manipulating Garak throughout the episode -- and his sanity seems to crack wide open when he comes up against an opponent more calculating than he. Eddington (making only his second appearance since his introduction in the season premiere) is revealed to be a man of divided loyalty who betrays Sisko once and promises never to do it again -- very meaningful track laid for future episodes.

Plus, of course, there are many more great moments for Garak throughout the episode. His vendetta with Dukat is mentioned, and his keen survival sense is as sharp as ever -- he flees the bridge almost immediately when he realizes the Founders' ambush. Knowing that knowledge is power, he keeps secret Odo's confession about his people (though we see, when Odo again refuses to return to them, that Garak understands how much this must hurt). There's also his wonderful, fatalist acceptance in the end that he is, in fact, a very good tailor.

Other observations:

• I'm not sure the Romulan and Cardassian ships really need to decloak to use the wormhole, but it does make for a great teaser at the start of the episode to see all their ships fly by the station.

• The Romulan Colonel Lovok, played by great "working actor" Leland Orser, is a neat character to observe on a re-watch, knowing the twist that he's actually a changeling infiltrator. His reaction to learning of Tain's experimental anti-shifting technology is especially good. Also great is his questioning Garak about why he's protecting Odo -- the first time through, you wonder if he might betray Garak to Tain; once you know he's a Founder, you realize he's actually curious why a "solid" would show any allegiance to Odo.

• With the elimination of the Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order, the Lovok changeling brags that only the Klingons and Federation pose any remaining danger to the Dominion. The writers admitted that "I doubt either of them will be a threat for much longer" was just an idle threat here -- but the line quickly became inspiration for the season 4 premiere.

• The destruction of the Romulan/Cardassian fleet is compared to the Borg battle at Wolf 359. That Sisko agrees with this characterization means a lot, given his personal connection.

• The final shot is compellingly staged: a long, single take of Garak in the ruins of his shop, wiping grime off a mirror to reveal Odo's distant shadow.

• I mentioned earlier that Ronald Moore wrote this script. One can see in it a lot of the DNA that would make up the revival of Battlestar Galactica he would create years later: schemes and plots, questions of morality, main characters pitted against each other.

Turning this story into a two-part episode was absolutely the right call; this conclusion was even better than the setup. I give "The Die Is Cast" an A-.

Psycho Analysis (Part II)

When it comes to classic movies, most have failed to capture my enthusiasm. But one of the notable exceptions is Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. I liked it when I first saw it, and it has only grown in my esteem since then -- both just in ruminating on it, and in re-watching it. The more I grew to love Psycho, the stranger it seemed to me that it in fact had a number of sequels made in the 1980s. Sure, today even a moderately successful film will spawn follow-ups. But Psycho?

Just as Psycho II followed the original film by over 20 years, so does the action pick up more than two decades after the events of the original story. Norman Bates is being released from psychiatric confinement, ostensibly "cured" and free to return to life in his creepy house overlooking the Bates Motel. The sister of one of his victims is convinced he will relapse and murder again, but can't get anyone to take her seriously. And indeed, when Norman returns to the scene of his past crimes, his sanity begins to slip. Will he kill again, or is he truly reformed?

Now, of course, you must go into this second film having put from your mind the idea that it will live up to the original. That's not going to happen. In fact, Psycho II tests your resolve right out of the gate; its opening scene is a replay of the original's famous shower scene, a frankly foolish choice. Does anyone in the world -- even if they haven't seen Psycho -- actually need this particular bit of back story filled in for them? Why lead off with one of the classic moments of all cinema, that this movie is obviously never going to top?

Perhaps the strategy here is to force you to compare immediately, and to get over it. Because once you do get over it, Psycho II is actually better than you might expect. It's built on a fun gimmick -- not simply that it's a sequel to a horror film. Not even just that it brings back members of the original cast decades after the original. (Halloween has done that. Twice!) No, it does something I believe to be utterly unique in the genre: the killer of the first film is here in the second placed in the role of the victim/hero.

The psychological sophistication of the time period is obviously lacking, but there's enough here to put the audience in a bind. Are you supposed to be rooting for Norman to go full crazed slasher? That's what you're here to see, right? Are you not entertained? Or are you sympathetic to how much the deck is stacked against Norman? He's surrounded by potential triggers, essentially set up to fail. Is Norman losing his mind, or are the things he sees and hears really happening? It's actually quite intriguing how much more cerebral this movie is than the one that preceded it.

But, of course, it's also a gory slasher. Far more gory, in fact, than the first Psycho. There are many moments of violence in Psycho II, most of them really far over-the-top -- and also, regrettably, not very convincingly executed. They're often moments of unintended comedy rather than horror.

Yet even if the movie loses you for a moment or two when things get hokey, Anthony Perkins pulls you back in, giving a pretty strong performance as Norman Bates. He brings credibility to a situation that's not entirely credible. The fact that he treats it seriously allows the audience to take it seriously. Also returning with Perkins from the original film is Vera Miles as Lila Loomis. Plus, the cast is filled with plenty of recognizable 80s actors, both those who were already established at the time and those who would become more well-known later -- including Meg Tilly, Robert Loggia, and Dennis Franz.

If your instinct is to just leave well enough alone at Psycho and never to see any of the sequels, I get it. (Indeed, I've heard they go sharply downhill after this one.) But when I found myself in the proper frame of mind one night to give Psycho II a try, I actually found it to be reasonably entertaining. I'd say it's worth a B-. Among most horror sequels, that's really quite a high mark.

DS9 Flashback: Improbable Cause

By late in the third season of Deep Space Nine, the series' commitment to character and openness to serialized storytelling was yielding big benefits. Several plot threads from previous episodes were gathered together for "Improbable Cause."

An assassin tries to kill Garak by setting off a bomb in his tailor shop. But Odo's ensuing investigation reveals that Garak was not the only target. Several former operatives of the Obsidian Order have been murdered, in apparent preamble to some unknown action by the former head of the Order, Enabran Tain, in conjunction with the Romulans.

This story pays off Garak's exile, Odo finding his people's homeworld, and the previous tease of an illegal Obsidian Order fleet. But it wasn't any of those episodes that inspired series editor Robert Lederman to team up with David R. Long to pitch the idea of Garak blowing up his own shop to escape assassination. He'd been cutting together "Second Skin," in which Garak murders a high-ranking Cardassian agent, and figured there's no way that dangerous spies would let him get away with that without retaliation.

The writing staff loved the pitch, but ultimately pulled on different parts of series history to craft this script -- chiefly, bringing in Enabran Tain. One thing they did not bring in was the notion of a two-part episode. René Echevarria's script had Odo and Garak getting captured in the final act, but then being released because Garak had slipped sensitive information to Bashir earlier in the story that Tain didn't want released. Everyone found it an unsatisfying ending, but the episode was due to go before the cameras in days.

In one of his last acts as executive producer on the show, Michael Piller suggested that maybe Odo and Garak shouldn't get away. What if, instead, they remained on the ship, which then went into battle against the Founders in a second episode? The idea was well-received, even though it came so late in the process that the next episode was already in production planning. "Through the Looking Glass" was thus filmed after this episode, between the two halves of the two parter, to ultimately be aired first.

A lot of action and drama is deferred to that second part, but there's plenty of great material in this episode. It subverts the usual Bashir/Garak pairing to give us an Odo/Garak pairing instead. Garak tries similar lies and half-truths about his true nature -- claiming he's already broken into Odo's files, trying to rush past the affection Mila has for him, making constant taunts and interrogations of his own (how can Odo ascribe emotions to others when he doesn't understand them?) -- but Odo's reactions to these games is very different than Bashir's. And Odo figures out Garak's scheme: he blew up his own shop as cover to get protection from a real assassination attempt.

That said, there's plenty of great Bashir/Garak material too. Their opening conversation is a fun culture clash. (Shakespeare is farce, not tragedy, because Julius Caesar was such a fool; humans still eat like they fear starvation, even though they have plenty.) Their last exchange is a parody of the original story line of this episode: if Odo and Garak don't return, Bashir is supposed to find secret information in Garak's quarters... and eat it.

But the best Bashir/Garak moment comes in the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. It's one of the series' best exchanges between the two. Bashir is trying to make a point about someone who repeatedly proves to be untrustworthy. Garak suggests the true moral of the story is that one should never tell the same lie twice. And what puts the exchange over the top is that the plot of the episode itself is Garak's take on the story. Knowing he could not ask for protection, knowing he would not be believed, he told a bold and unique lie: he blew up his own shop.

This is another episode directed by Avery Brooks, and he has by this point established himself as one of the best directors of the show. As always, he gets great performances from the actors. Andrew Robinson is at his best as Garak (the "act out" that goes to commercial on his coy smile is particularly great). Odo's questioning of the Flaxian assassin (about his poisonous perfumes) is both playful and cutting. The three-handed scene at the end of the episode -- between Garak, Tain, and Odo -- is marvelously balanced, highlighting each of the three when they get in a good verbal jab. Even a one-off minor character comes off great -- the Romulan operative's irritation at learning that her records have Garak's occupation wrong is a wonderful little moment.

But Brooks is really growing in the use of the camera as well. Standing out in particular among many great shots is the sequence where Odo goes to the infamous "Star Trek caves" to meet an anonymous Cardassian contact. The scene places the contact on a level high above Odo, introducing a third dimension to the action. The director of photography serves up great lighting, framing the Cardassian's face in shadows, but with his eyes brightly lit. It's a fun bit of stagecraft to depict the spycraft.

Other observations:

• This is the third episode in a row to include Garak (with, obviously, a fourth one next). He's practically part of the main cast at this point. (No complaints here.)

• There's a fun little bit of filler just before the bomb goes off in Garak's shop, where Kira comes to Bashir to discuss the unusual environmental needs of a visiting alien. Though it's a throwaway scene, it feels like there real joy between the two. By this point, Nana Visitor and Alexander Siddig were a real-life couple, and it feels like Avery Brooks tapped into that for this moment.

• As Garak's shop burns, he notes that Julian's pants won't be ready on time. Garak's the liar, but Julian's pants are on fire. (Ha! My husband fired off that one.)

Picking up on Garak's intriguing back story, "Improbable Cause" opens an engaging two-part episode. I give it a B+.

Abstract Concept

"Serious gamers" sometimes look down their noses at party games. Such games are generally so straightforward, so uncomplicated, so basic. But in truth, elegant simplicity can be one of the hardest things to achieve in game design. And perhaps it takes a party game that isn't quite designed right to appreciate the ones that are.

Take Concept. At the core, it's a clue-giving game. Players take turns trying to get any of the other players to guess an answer printed on a randomly dealt card -- anything from a book title to an historical figure or a common household object. You and the guesser score points whenever you're successful; you play around the circle a set number of times, and the player with the most points wins.

The gimmick here is that you give your clues non-verbally, using a large game board. Various icons are arranged on the board, representing various concepts (it's right in the name of the game). Food, land vehicle, fictional character. Basic shapes. Colors. Several dozen icons in all. When you're giving clues, you place markers on different icons to try and establish a relationship that points to the answer you're trying to reach. The markers are color-coded, and you can use this to try to relate "sub-concepts" to each other within the larger umbrella of the answer you're after.

In essence, it's like a game of charades where you don't have to gesture, a game of Pictionary where you don't have to draw, a game of Taboo where you don't have to speak. It's all just about working with your limited pool of icons and figuring out clever ways to link them. It's an interesting take on clue-giving, a sort of grand equalizer where drawing ability, shared personal history, and thinking fast don't really matter.

But it's hard to tell whether this is really a strong idea for a game or not, because there are some strange design decisions that get in the way of the fun. For one, players are supposed to work in pairs when they give clues. It isn't made clear exactly how this is supposed to work. You can't really talk to each other, or everyone else will hear. You're not required to alternate putting clue markers onto the board; one player can just take over the process. You're not on a long-term "team" with your clue-giving partner, because once you're back to guessing, you're an individual just like every other player. This whole "quasi-team" thing simply isn't thought through in the design, or isn't explained properly, or both. It's so murky, I can't even tell what the game designers thought it was meant to accomplish.

There are three difficulty levels of word on each clue card, but the easiest level is so easy that it barely functions as a game. Perhaps this was done so that the game could be played with younger players, but it seemed clear to me that for adults, whatever charms this game might have don't begin to come across until you step up to at least medium.

I'm not sure there are charms there to be found, however. Concept certainly isn't clear or clever enough to dethrone modern party game champs like Codenames or Decrypto. It doesn't even rate as high as an older, simple game like Squint. It comes across as an incomplete game design, a germ of an idea that really isn't being presented in its best form.

I'd give Concept a C. It's possible I'd try it out again if it were ever suggested on a game night. But with so many other party games that have made a bigger impression in my group, I'm doubtful that would ever happen.

DS9 Flashback: Through the Looking Glass

When Deep Space Nine, in its second season, staged a sequel to the original Star Trek classic "Mirror, Mirror," it felt like a one-off. But the writers had enjoyed playing with their series' regular characters in unusual ways, and soon had an idea for a sequel to their sequel. With "Through the Looking Glass," a pattern of regularly checking in on the Mirror Universe was established.

"Smiley," the Mirror Universe version of O'Brien, abducts Sisko and takes him to the other side. The Mirror Benjamin Sisko has been killed, and Smiley wants our Sisko to impersonate him for one important assignment: persuade a scientist to abandon her work for the enemy and join the Terran Rebellion. That scientist? None other than the Mirror version of Ben's own wife, Jennifer.

This episode might just be the peak for the Mirror Universe (excepting the original series episode that started it all). Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, and Discovery would all return to this well, but generally just for action thrills and schticky violence. Of course, pure escapism has its place -- but I do enjoy the character-driven pathos of this story, of Sisko having to interact with a specter of his late wife. Incredibly, that wasn't actually the core of the story pitch. Originally, staff writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe's suggestion was just to have Sisko go to the Mirror Universe to replace his counterpart. Show runner Ira Steven Behr came up with the idea of having it be to rescue Mirror Jennifer. I guess that's why he got to run the show.

There's a nice arc between the two Siskos, with Jennifer starting out cold (hearing her ex-husband has been killed) and ultimately warming to Benjamin -- to then ultimately figure out on her own that our Sisko is not hers. There's meaningful dialogue between them about the line between freedom and slavery. Plus, Avery Brooks gets to cut loose and have some fun as Sisko playing "Sisko." (I particularly love his gleeful delivery of "I changed it!", speaking of the station's security access code.)

But Sisko sleeping his way around the Mirror Universe is a bit troubling when you stop to think about it. Sure, it's nice to see that he's not a celibate character -- this would seem to be the first time on the show (and since the death of his wife) that he's had sex. But to do so with both Jadzia and Kira -- even when it's "not really them" -- is kind of creepy. It's faintly exploitative even as the episode is trying to be empowering by having Intendant Kira use sexuality as a weapon against anyone and everyone.

Because Mirror Odo and Quark were both killed off in the last Mirror Universe episode, the "prime" versions of the characters are featured in a comedy cold open at the start of the episode. Also, new Mirror characters are introduced that we didn't meet last time: Bashir, Rom, Jadzia (who doesn't seem to be joined with Dax), and Tuvok (a Voyager cameo requested by executive producer Rick Berman).

As always with Mirror Universe efforts, most of the fun comes in watching the regular actors perform "out of character." Everyone does seem to be having fun, especially Nana Visitor as the Intendant. (Reportedly, she loved the persona and hated the costume. She had to stand in front of a fan between takes to avoid sweating in the non-breathing rubber, which could easily discolor.) Colm Meaney gets to show us a more assertive "Smiley" than last time, Alexander Siddig gets to swap Bashir's usually clueless pomposity for bold swagger, Avery Brooks gets to swashbuckle all over the screen, and Max Grodénchik gets to bring us a brave and noble version of Rom.

Money is spent in the right places. They save it by not building new sets for any ships -- the corridors of Smiley's ship are just Defiant hallways bathed in red light. They then spend it on a pretty well-executed action sequence at the end of the episode, full of phaser blasts and fun stunts.

Other observation:

• We see a decloaking Cardassian ship in the Mirror Universe. It was a fun detail reminding us of their alliance with the Klingons -- but a detail the writers would later wish hadn't been included. The final Deep Space Nine Mirror Universe episode would revolve entirely around the idea that cloaking technology doesn't yet exist there.

A fun lark with more pathos than most Mirror Universe adventures, I give "Through the Looking Glass" a B+.

Rhapsodic Reception?

Last year, there were a couple of movies nominated for the Best Picture Oscar that I didn't make it around to. One was the Queen/Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. I finally caught up with it recently -- finding a movie that, while not bad, would not have made my best of 2018 list.

First, a grain of salt before I serve the meal: I don't often like biopic movies. It's the expansive cradle-to-grave type films that truly bore me, though, and Bohemian Rhapsody is not that -- it narrows focus to a roughly 15-year period from the formation of the band to its performance at the 1985 Live Aid concert. In doing so, it steers clear of some of the tropes that make many fawning biopics so dull. But not all of them.

My real issue with most biopics is that they often lack a compelling arc of narrative, character, or both. With fiction, there's usually a reason for the story, a thesis statement (overt or obscure) about people in general, or one person in particular -- something illuminating about the human condition. I don't mean to suggest this must always be profound or formal. You'll rarely find a message that's novel or unexplored by countless stories told before. To me, it's more the spine within the tale that made it worth the telling. Biopics are often just a collection of scattered events from the life of their subject, failing to add up to much.

Bohemian Rhapsody doesn't totally fall into this trap, but neither does it completely avoid it. Sprinkled in throughout the two-hour and 14 minutes movie, repeated phrases do illuminate what seems to be the intended "grand unified theory" of Queen -- they're a found family. They're outcasts, making music for outcasts. But this statement is sporadic, dropped in occasionally out of some sense of dramatic obligation, and not truly essential to most of the events depicted.

You might believe that the lack of cohesion here is because the movie is based on true events: life isn't always neat, so don't expect a story taken from life to be orderly. But the thing is, Bohemian Rhapsody is more than willing to play fast and loose with the facts. It suggests an early lack of self-confidence by Freddie Mercury his friends say he never had, invents a nay-saying producer character (played by Mike Myers) that reportedly never existed, depicts a break-up of the band that never happened, and advances by years the moment Mercury received his AIDS diagnosis. I'm open to taking dramatic license with true events to tell a good story -- I just think the changes ought to actually add up to a good story. The inventions of this movie create moments of drama, but that's all they are: moments that don't quite fit into a narrative whole.

That said, many of the moments do work on their own. Particularly strong are the final 15 minutes, when Bohemian Rhapsody basically becomes a concert movie depicting Queen's 1985 Live Aid performance. It's energetic, uplifting, and exciting, conveying many of the emotions you feel when you actually go to a particularly great concert. The performances have good energy throughout the film too. Obviously, Rami Malek won an Oscar here for playing Mercury (despite not doing his own singing), but I think the actors playing the other members of the band (Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, and Joe Mazzello) are similarly invested -- they just aren't given enough to do to really shine.

Bohemian Rhapsody became notorious for the firing of its controversial director Bryan Singer, who was replaced by Dexter Fletcher. The movie does feel like it has one authorial hand, but I feel this is achieved by hyperactive editing that makes any schizophrenic shifts in tone look intentional. There are multiple times in the film where dialog scenes are given the action movie treatment, with rapid cuts of half-second shots that call too much attention to themselves and threaten dizziness. This actually won a Best Film Editing Oscar for these efforts, I suppose in recognition of how one unified film was created from material shot by two directors... but I found the cutting distracting. The stronger moments in the film utilize longer, more considered camera takes.

All told, I didn't find Bohemian Rhapsody to be any worse than the typical music biopic -- though I didn't find it much better either. I'd give it a B-.

The End of the Voyage

Over two volumes, author Marc Cushman's These Are the Voyages series took me from being skeptical that he'd have any new information about the original Star Trek to enthralled with what he had to say. After finishing his books on season one and two of the original series, I was eager to jump right into his book on the much-maligned (though not unfairly so) season three.

Season three is notorious among fans of the original series for its precipitous drop in quality. Many lay this at the feet of the producer who oversaw this final season, Fred Freiberger. But in These Are the Voyages, Season Three, Marc Cushman delves into the full story of what happened. It's an intricate tale of almost inevitable decisions, a tale with unclear villains and heroes.

Having already offended NBC executives several times over, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry overplayed his hand in a showdown over the time slot for Star Trek season three. He threatened to walk away from day-to-day production of Star Trek if it was scheduled on late Friday nights, and the suits saw that ultimatum as a win-win. When Roddenberry followed through and gave up oversight, at the same time the show's budget was reduced once again, a decline in quality was sure to follow.

But Cushman's chronicle is interesting in how it isn't so black and white. He details how Roddenberry shifted his attention to a self-serving merchandising scheme and alienated some of the series' biggest advocates in the process. He shows how Roddenberry slighted long-time collaborators to whom he could have bequeathed the series, choosing an outsider to take over... and then documents how this quickly drove away the last few people who might have protected Star Trek.

On the other hand, Cushman writes how new producer Fred Freiberger might not deserve all the hate fans have given him over the decades. A detailed log of each episode's creation shows how Star Trek might not even have gotten a full third season had Freiberger not kept things running as close to on-time and on-budget as he did. The same careful recounting of every episode also shows that the third season was not, week in and week out, as bad as everyone remembers. Sure, there are notorious clunkers like "Spock's Brain" and "And the Children Shall Lead." But there were also episodes either wholly great or at least featuring great moments: "The Enterprise Incident," "The Tholian Web," and others.

This third volume of These Are the Voyages paints an intriguing picture of art and commerce colliding, of people still trying to do good work without full support. It follows the fracturing of a found family as the show came down around them, with actor protests on set delaying production, longtime directors getting fired by new company management, and people with a deep emotional investment learning bit by bit to let go.

Season three of Star Trek was inarguably the worst, but the book about it is the most fascinating. I zipped through These Are the Voyages Season Three faster than either of the earlier volumes -- two books I'd already enjoyed a great deal. If you're a Star Trek fan with any interest at all in the behind the scenes of making entertainment, it's an essential read. I give it an A.

Achieving Your Golems

The re-skinning of a board game is hardly a rare phenomenon. Decade-old games are resurrected with a new theme. Kickstarter successes are bought and released more broadly by publishers who update the setting. Designers update a beloved game system with a new theme (and a sprinkling of gameplay additions). But I can't say I'd ever come across a game that was released in two versions in the same calendar year -- until I encountered Century.

Released in 2017, Century: Spice Road was a game about trading spices. Also released in the same year, Century: Golem Edition offered (I'm told) the exact same gameplay as Spice Road, but with the theme of gathering gems to create giant-sized golems. I've played the Golem Edition a few times recently, and while I don't quite know what to make of the two different skins draped over the same game, I can say I found that game to be pretty good.

The gameplay is streamlined and simple. It's written on just one double-sided rules sheet, and can be explained in a minute or two. There are four colors of gems, of ascending values. A row of five cards shows different combinations of these gems to build different golems; each is worth some amount of points, and the game ends in the round when one player builds their fifth golem.

To accumulate the necessary gems, players work with a hand of cards in a system much like one of my personal favorites, Concordia. You must play one card from your hand on your turn. Each card either makes gems for you, or converts specific gems you have into specific other gems. You can take a turn off to acquire a new card for your hand, but when your hand runs out (or when the cards left in it don't help you), you must take a turn off to return all your previously played cards to your hand and start again.

It's a simple engine-building game. Because players obtain different cards for their hands, everyone's strategy/engine is slightly different. And yet the game keeps all the players in fairly close contention with each other (in pacing, if not necessarily in score) -- everyone approaches the game-ending condition of five golems at about the same time.

The nature of competition between players evolves throughout the game. Early on, there is competition to get desirable new "engine" cards. (You choose what you like from a row of options, but to pick from farther up the row, you must "bribe" each card in the row before it with one of your gems -- bribes which ultimately go to the person who takes that card.) Later on in the game, no one is really fighting over the gem-trading cards. Instead, competition gets fierce over the golems. Play is open enough that you have to watch (and can watch) whether one of your opponents is going to reach a particular combination before you can. With a strict one action per turn system, sometimes you're just too slow and have to resort to Plan B.

Luck does perhaps play a large role in the game. Having a card flip over at just the right time -- a particular golem or a particular gem-trading card -- can swing the game pretty hard for one player. Another liability in the game is how easy it is to cripple yourself when building a golem. Engines need fuel, and if you trade all your gems away, it can take you a long time to trade your way back to relevance.

But if the game can go bad in those ways, the upside is that at least it's quite a short game. Even with 5 players, even having to explain rules to some of them playing for the first time, the game can easily be finished in less than an hour. The pace also tends to increase, not decrease, as the game goes on. The decisions get faster and easier, as you're really beholden to the engine you've built. (Of course, the inability to change strategies on the fly could also be argued as a negative.)

For a fairly straightforward game, I did find Century: Golem Edition to be reasonably compelling. It seems to me to have potential as a crossover/gateway game for more casual players. (And perhaps the theme of gems and golems is better for that purpose than trading spices.) I give the game a B+.

DS9 Flashback: Distant Voices

After more than a dozen story credits on Star Trek: The Next Generation (including the widely loved "Darmok"), writer Joe Menosky was allowed to leave Star Trek without really leaving Star Trek. He gave up his job on staff and moved to Europe, but was still allowed to lob story ideas at his former co-workers whenever he had them. One of these became the Deep Space Nine episode "Distant Voices."

Bashir is attacked by a telepathic alien, sending him in to a strange coma. Struggling against both the dreamlike environment in which he lands and his accelerated aging, Bashir must find a way to escape the mental prison. But to do it, he'll have to confront his own secrets and fears.

Menosky was known for unusual premises (like TNG's "Masks" and DS9's "Dramatis Personae"), and this started out as no exception. Bashir's comatose dreamscape was to have featured guest stars playing concepts like "youth," "age," and "joy," in a literally introspective trip through his psyche. Staff writer Ronald Moore suggested the tweak that convinced the writing staff that this far out idea might actually work: have the regular actors play parts of Bashir's psyche, and set the whole thing on a falling-apart version of the station itself.

This gives the lighting crew a chance to present the show's traditional sets in a very different... well... light. There's fun spookiness throughout, from near-black corridors to a sinister visit to Quark's bar to a broken-down Infirmary. The main cast cuts loose too; particularly fun are Armin Shimerman as a frightened Quark, and Rene Auberjonois as a hyper-suspicious Odo who doesn't even trust the other characters. There's also a fun horror movie quality to the way they're all taken down one by one.

If the end result is a bit more grounded than Joe Menosky originally conceived, he can at least take consolation that it's all still pretty weird; the episode is crammed full of dream "logic" that includes unintelligible whispering, rapid jumps in setting without explanation, a Marilyn Monroe-style rendition of "Happy Birthday," and tennis balls spilling out of opened consoles. But the weirdness is in service of a solid character-driven story about Bashir's own insecurities -- chiefly fear of aging and fear of failure.

The story has Bashir lamenting his 30th birthday -- a milestone that had just been reached in real life both by the co-writer of this script, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, and the actor embodying the character, Alexander Siddig. As a belated gift, Siddig got to be featured in every single scene of this episode, a rarity even when a script focuses on a particular character. He also got a taste of what some of his co-workers dealt with, having to endure three-hour makeup sessions to apply the "old age" look as his character rapidly ages inside the coma delusion.

It is not a good makeup effect, in my opinion. By the end of the episode, Bashir's face looks troweled on -- not pliable enough to look real, or for Siddig to work through it. Unfortunately, he brings a performance to match, affecting a Yoda-esque sing-songy cadence as he shuffles around. Much to my surprise, this episode actually won the Emmy for Outstanding Makeup -- even though other Trek episodes such as "All Good Things..." had far more convincing old age looks. Perhaps they won more for the admittedly cool and scary look of the Lethean alien?

It's an interesting episode for Andrew Robinson as Garak. For the second time this season, we spend most of an episode with a Garak who isn't actually real. Here, Bashir is projecting behaviors onto a psychic version of him -- those of a disguised villain secretly leading him to his doom. (The reveal of Garak as the Lethean is an especially neat morph, by the way.) Robinson threads the needle between "regular Garak" and the intentionally large performances the other cast members give, offering a chance to know something is off without giving the game away. He also has great fun in the bookending scenes in the real world, where Garak speaks of age as a mark of power and status, and compliments Bashir on not fully trusting him.

The episode also has interesting revelations for Bashir, of course. We learn here that his real aspiration was to be a tennis star, but that he went into medicine for his parents' approval. That's an intriguing notion, given how proud he's always been of healing people -- though it also explains his talents at racquetball.

Also explained is Bashir's previously established mixup of a preganglionic fiber with a postganglionic nerve. When this was first mentioned, many fans in medicine wrote in to point out that, similar as the names may seem to the average person, the two things are actually nothing alike and could not possibly be confused. Robert Hewitt Wolfe's own wife, in pre-vet studies, needled him about it too, so here he wrote those words into the mouth of the villain. Bashir must have messed this up on purpose! (A few more seasons down the road, the writers would come up with a further explanation of that.)

Other observations:

• Actually.... nope, I think I covered it well enough this time.

This isn't one of Alexander Siddig's better performances, and the makeup is truly unfortunate. Still, I find the story itself and the secrets it reveals about Bashir to be fairly compelling. I give "Distant Voices" a B.

Tangled Up in Blue

I was really impressed with writer-director Jeremy Saulnier's thriller Green Room. I was less taken with his next film, Hold the Dark -- though I was still left with enough goodwill in the reserves to seek out Saulnier's earlier efforts. This led me to his 2013 thriller, Blue Ruin.

Blue Ruin is the story a Dwight Evans, a homeless man whose life went hopelessly off track after his parents were murdered. Now the murderer is being released from prison, and Dwight is willing to sacrifice all of what little he has to seek vengeance.

This movie was made before Green Room, but has much of the same DNA in it. It's a compact story that puts an outclassed hero in an impossible clash with an intractable foe. The message is not obscure in any way: this is a story about the high cost of revenge. But though the story is clear and simple, that doesn't necessarily mean it's predictable. Multiple times throughout the film, just as I was calibrating my expectations to what I thought was going to happen next, there would be a sudden shift that surprised and thrilled me.

It's not just the story that's smart and slim; the dialogue itself is also incredibly economic. For large chunks of the movie, the main character is completely on his own. His thoughts and mood have to be conveyed without the benefit of words. Not only does Saulnier's script set this up well, the performance from actor Macon Blair is excellent.

Saulnier is an even stronger director here than a writer. The tale is incredibly suspenseful, and presented in a visually dynamic way. Violence is used shockingly and effectively to drive the message home. I was instantly wrapped up in the tale, and it kept me that way without ever letting up.

I give Blue Ruin an A-. And while it's getting a bit late to be updating my old Top 10 Movie List from 2013, I must do so now -- Blue Ruin makes it. Any fan of thrillers would be well rewarded to check it out.

DS9 Flashback: Visionary

Fans of long-running TV series can be hard on episodes of their beloved entertainment. But often, no one is harder on the writers of these shows than the writers themselves. Such is the case with Deep Space Nine's "Visionary" -- a perfectly fine episode from season three that the writers themselves seem not to care for.

A Romulan delegation comes to Deep Space Nine for a Starfleet intelligence briefing on the Dominion. But Romulans being on the station is far from the most unusual thing happening. O'Brien is experiencing time jumps, glimpses of five hours in the future. And what he sees is a series of escalating threats to both himself and the station.

This story was pitched by a school teacher from Texas named Ethan H. Calk. Show runner Ira Steven Behr then gave the idea to a friend, John Shirley, to write the script (which, in the end, was polished by staff writer Ronald Moore). Having this many hands in the mix really isn't unusual for television, and isn't related to why many on staff wound up unsatisfied with the results. According to Behr, the idea felt much more like an episode of The Next Generation than of Deep Space Nine. Although it was centered on O'Brien, the "most human" character -- it wasn't really about him or especially tailored to him. This was a science mystery of the week, a type of story that Behr was trying to steer away from in season three. Some might even argue that they did do this story on The Next Generation -- "Time Squared" also dealt with time travel on an unconventional scale of hours. It still plays out quite differently from "Visionary" (and isn't nearly as good).

Ronald Moore stood up for the episode, feeling it was refreshing to tell a time travel story not bogged down in concerns about "preserving history." I side with him; The Next Generation was off the air by this point, so go ahead and tell the story they might have told but now couldn't. Besides, this story is filled with plenty of fun character moments to leaven the story and keep things from getting too technical. (A great example of steering clear of unnecessary details is when O'Brien interacts with his future self and both declare "I hate temporal mechanics.")

There's plenty of playful fun at O'Brien's expense throughout the episode, from Bashir mocking his deficient fantasy life if all he can hallucinate is a conversation with Quark, to Bashir lamely apologizing in one time jump for having failed to save his life. Other characters get light moments too, particularly Quark (who lies brazenly to the Romulans, wants to profit from O'Brien's trip to the future, and whose dart-throwing technique is a great sight gag) and Kira (whose claim to being "diplomatic" is undermined by a smash cut to her debriefing by the Romulans).

Though it's an O'Brien episode, Odo actually gets a fair amount to do in it. He's taken off guard when the Romulans reveal his secret love for Major Kira. (He's also the object of their xenophobia, which fails to distinguish between Founder and changeling.) He gets to show off his skills during his investigation of the Klingons (and specifically notes he is showing off, to remind Sisko how good he is). He also gets in several good one-liners, including the expected digs at Quark.

The ending of the episode has a surprise twist -- and it's not that a cloaked Romulan warbird is ultimately the cause of O'Brien's time jumps. (Nerdy fans of Star Trek will suss this out the moment that a mysterious "quantum singularity" is mentioned, recalling when Next Gen taught us of their use in Romulan engineering.) No, the twist is when the "O'Brien we know" dies, and his future self takes his place. It was an idea Ronald Moore introduced in his final rewrite, leading to a neat existential discussion at the end of just whose life it is O'Brien is now living.

Other observations:

• There's nothing like a classic "Vertigo zoom" to convey disorientation. The famous camera technique is employed here when O'Brien flashes forward for the first time.

• The bar fight is staged pretty well. Scenes like this don't always get enough extras, or enough fight choreography. It feels convincingly out of control.

• O'Brien and Kira have actually been through a few adventures together. There's a nice acknowledgement of their friendship when she shows up in the Infirmary with a report for Sisko, but first stops to ask how the chief is doing.

• Klingons are so often portrayed in the same limited way that it's fun when they shake things up. The idea of Klingon covert intelligence operations is a pretty sharp turn from their normal values of honor and combat.

It's probably fair to say this wasn't the most "Deep Space Nine-y" of Deep Space Nine episodes. But it's one I enjoyed a fair amount. I give "Visionary" a B+.

Freak -- Out

Because he publishes a new novel every year (unlike other bestselling, foot-dragging fantasy novelists), I've had many occasions here on the blog to write about my love-hate relationship with Terry Brooks. On the love side: I discovered him as an impressionable teenager and so I over-praised him -- not unlike many I know who loved The Wheel of Time books (reading them decades before I sampled and failed to finish them). On the opposite side, I fully recognize that the quality of his books has slipped steadily over the years -- and yet I can't bring myself to quit.

One of his recent novels could go a long way toward helping me kick the habit. Street Freaks is a stand-alone tale from Brooks, not tied to any series, and a departure in more ways than that. It's his first foray into science fiction. Set in a future version of Los Angeles, Street Freaks is the story of a young teen named Ash Collins. Pursued by assassins who killed his father, Ash hides out with a group of outcasts in a notorious section of the city. Why are people after him? And why did Ash's father use his final message to direct Ash specifically to this gang of misfits?

There are a few ways in which Brooks uses this book to try new things. After dozens and dozens of novels, this is his first ever to be written in the present tense. It's also one of the few to never switch narrative perspective, being told entirely from the point of view of the main character. These two decisions work together to make the book feel like more intimate. It's not first-person, but it's the next closest thing, making the story feel personal and immediate.

Immediacy seems to be a particular focus for Brooks here; this book is more compact and tightly paced than others he's written. It's not action on every page, but it is action right from the first page -- as opposed to most of his books that take a few early chapters to establish character before really diving into plot.

But in other ways, Terry Brooks is slipping back into his familiar habits. Once again, he's writing a book filled with young characters, and leaning even more into a YA fiction vibe than usual. There's an awkward romance shoehorned in, involving one character slowly trying to wear down the other's protests of how they just aren't right for each other. (Guess which one's the female?)

There's a high fantasy "chosen one" element woven into the story. Ash is given the trait of having an exceptional memory, which unfortunately is mishandled in key ways. First, it's something that both the reader and the other characters are just asked to take on faith for about half the book; there are no demonstrations of this ability for 150+ pages. Second, the unfolding plot strongly suggests that there's a reason Ash has this ability. This leads you to believe for the entire book that you've guessed the ending... only for Ash's memory to be completely unexplained in the end. I'm not sure what's worse, to have a flashing neon Chekhov's Gun, or to introduce a Chekhov's Gun that's never fired. What I do know for sure: I wound up disappointed twice, once when I thought I'd guessed the ending 10% into the book, then again when the end left me with an unresolved plot point.

This little side trip into science fiction by Terry Brooks hasn't delayed his other writing. The four-book series he's in the midst of right now, the one he's said will conclude his long-running Shannara series, is still on its schedule with a new book every year. (The third book was released a few months ago.) Since I've already started that series, and have been reading Shannara books almost as long as I've been reading books (that don't come with a vinyl record telling me when to turn the page), I'm probably committed to finish those. But Street Freaks was a powerful motivator for me to cut Brooks off after that. I give the book a D. Even if you're a fan of his other writing, this one is best skipped.

DS9 Flashback: Prophet Motive

Though all incarnations of Star Trek have been primarily dramatic, some weren't afraid of staging largely comedic episodes. Deep Space Nine was the most willing to try of the "second age" Star Trek shows, usually focusing on the Ferengi when they wanted to play for laughs. So it was with "Prophet Motive."

Grand Nagus Zek arrives on the station, but he isn't acting like himself. He's generous, philanthropic, and honest -- and he has a vision that all Ferengi will follow his example. Quark initially suspects an elaborate scheme, but soon decides there's actually something very wrong that he's determined to uncover. Meanwhile, Dr. Bashir finds himself nominated for a prestigious award he thinks he has no chance of winning -- but the enthusiasm of his friends and colleagues is infectious, and he begins to get his hopes up.

This episode sprang from two unusual sources of inspiration. One was an unsold script that show runner Ira Steven Behr had written years earlier when he was first trying to break into the business -- an episode of the sitcom Taxi. The story, about a caddish character shocked to learn than the womanizing uncle he idolized has changed his ways, formed the loose outline of Quark's story here.

Bashir's story line was inspired by real life. As this season of Deep Space Nine was kicking off, the final season of The Next Generation was nominated for an Emmy for Best Dramatic Series. Knowing that science fiction never really got award love outside of technical categories -- and being up against the red hot new NYPD Blue -- everyone involved with the Star Trek knew they had no chance. Unless... what if they did? As the Emmy ceremony drew closer, many of the people who'd worked on the now departed Next Generation talked themselves into believing that just maybe it wouldn't be "an honor just to be nominated." But in the end, as expected, they lost. (Not as expected, they lost to Picket Fences.)

This B story actually shows that Deep Space Nine didn't have to turn to the Ferengi when it wanted to be funny. The banter between O'Brien (giving the doctor grief about his chances) and Bashir (needling the chief about how much longer his wife will be living off station) is great fun. Odo catching Bashir working on a speech he's sworn he won't need is amusing too. That said, it is an odd little story line. Bashir tells us at the beginning exactly what's going to happen, and that's exactly what happens in the end. It's not exactly the most engaging narrative -- though it is enough to hold some humor.

The A plot is carrying most of the weight, though. From fun silent acting by Tiny Ron as Zek's servant Maihar'du, to a splash of "The Odd Couple" when fussy Quark and slovenly Rom have to live together, to big sight gags surrounding the book of the "New Rules of Acquisition," and even an audio gag as a kidnapped Zek hums happily inside his sack -- the light touch works. It's broad, for sure, but it works. Particularly fun, I think, is how this episode leans into the "Rom isn't as dumb as everyone thinks he is" gag that only been flirted with before this. In the course of this episode, we learn Rom has been stealing from the Quark's bar for years to furnish his quarters, and that's he's both brave and clever enough to embezzle from the Grand Nagus himself.

The serious elements of the episode are interesting, though. Ultimately, we learn that Zek has met the wormhole aliens, who have altered him to behave this way. We see the Prophets again for the first time since the pilot, with Quark now an unlikely substitute for Sisko. It winds up being an intriguing subversion of lofty Star Trek principles: the same noble drive for self-improvement that humans praise is attributed by Quark to ambition and greed.

This episode is the first of eight to be directed by Rene Auberjonois -- following in the footsteps of Avery Brooks and several Next Generation actors before him to take the reins of a Star Trek episode. He had directed many plays before this, but never an hour of dramatic television. At the time, he said of the job that one "has to make so many decisions and I'm not a person who particularly likes to make decisions." Much more recently, he confessed in an interview that he probably didn't really want to direct for Star Trek that much in the first place, but sort of felt an obligation to do so. He didn't think too highly of his own work in many episodes, though he said he grew more comfortable with directing over time.

You can see his theatrical background in this episode. The work with the actors is very good. Auberjonois gets solid performances from all of them, particularly Armin Shimerman as Quark and Max Grodénchik as Rom. Actors are blocked in interesting ways throughout, particular highlights being Rom sitting in the window as he reads the New Rules of Acquisition, and a row of intimidating Prophets that Quark encounters in the wormhole. But the camera placement is quite pedestrian throughout. It is often treated like the proscenium of a stage, with the actors playing right to it. Auberjonois was correct: he would get better over time.

Other observations:

• The opening moments of the episode remind us about oo-mox, and how molesting a Ferengi is a gross (but effective) way to get what you want. But this makes it more noticeable when, later in the episode, Zek grabs Quark's ear playfully.

• Fun acting from people as wormhole aliens in this episode. Nana Visitor plays "Prophet Kira" with particularly stilted and clipped speech. And Tiny Ron, who never once on the series speaks as Maihar'du, does have dialogue here as a Prophet.

• The game of darts makes its debut as O'Brien and Bashir's new down-time diversion. It was much cheaper to show than the racquetball court.

• Armin Shimerman invents a Ferengi gesture of promise here, pinching his ring finger and thumb together. Fun, but not as enduring as Leonard Nimoy's "live long and prosper."

A fun little lark, I give "Prophet Motive" a B. It may not be one of the greats, but I think Rene Auberjonois was being too hard on himself in evaluating the finished product.

Art Critique

I recently saw the new movie The Art of Self-Defense. It's a quirky, dark satire starring Jesse Eisenberg, Alessandro Nivola, and Imogen Poots. When mild and meek Casey is mugged and beaten one night, he decides to enroll in a martial arts class. The Sensei of the class comes on supportive and kind at first, but is gradually revealed to be an intense figure with extreme and particular views. Casey soon finds his entire identity being re-molded by the man.

I've heard comparisons between this movie and Fight Club -- which is a pretty fair jumping off point. Both present critical looks inside a cult of personality, and both are aware of the taint of toxic masculinity. But where Fight Club plays it so straight that a section of its audience actually didn't realize it was against those things, The Art of Self-Defense is more overtly comedic. It's a dry comedy in which every character takes every moment seriously, but the behavior and the dialogue are plainly meant to be funny to the audience. It's even more dark than it is dry, though, so while many lines really are laugh out loud funny, you might occasionally find yourself a bit too embarrassed to laugh out loud.

The casting really is perfect. The main character Casey is the exact kind of milquetoast that no one (outside maybe Miacheal Cera) plays better than Jesse Eisenberg. Alessandro Nivola infuses the Sensei with a great underbelly of menace and danger, but then covers that up with just enough kindness and reasonableness that you can believe people falling under his spell. Imogen Poots is the determined Anna, masking a sea of emotions behind a hardened exterior that occasionally cracks and leaks. (It would be nice if the movie used her more, though it's a particular point of the story that it doesn't. At least her moments really make a mark.)

All three actors are wonderful at the played-completely-straight comedy of the film. And writer-director Riley Stearns fills out the rest of the movie with people who capture that same quality. Some of the best laughs comes from minor characters who breeze in, drop some wickedly sharp truth, and then are never seen again. An early scene in which Casey goes to by a gun is so direct and apt that it's almost more sad than funny; either way, it's a highlight. The movie even manages to generate laughs when simply (and repeatedly) showing a photo of a "character" we never even meet.

Yet while I found it a fairly astute joke engine, I also found The Art of Self-Defense to be fairly predictable. It's a lean script for a short movie, and all the big developments are telegraphed well in advance. Indeed, the story arc is so out in the open that I can scarcely imagine that Riley Stearns thought he was hiding any "twists" -- so perhaps the predictability isn't a weakness but a strength: however wacky this world, it's always playing fair with the audience.

The film seems to be a bit more "art house" than I might have expected; it doesn't seem to be playing widely in that many venues. But I expect those who go to the trouble of seeking it out are the sort of people who would enjoy seeing it. I give The Art of Self-Defense a B+.

DS9 Flashback: Destiny

Because Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was set on a station and couldn't as easily "boldly go" in search of stories, it more often generated them from the characters themselves. Sisko's role as the Bajoran Emissary was fertile ground that spawned several episodes, including season three's "Destiny."

Now that a treaty between the Bajorans and Cardassians has been reached, a pair of Cardassian scientists are coming to the station to assist in establishing a relay to aid communications through the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant. But a Bajoran Vedek named Yarka warns that Sisko their work will fulfill a dark prophecy from the Prophets themselves.

According to the series' writers, this episode was an especially tough one to create. They'd bought a pitch in the second season from outside writers David S. Cohen and Martin A. Winer, and had even allowed the writing team to work on multiple drafts themselves. The initial take had a Starfleet executive coming to force Sisko out of his role as Emissary, fearing a Heart of Darkness/Colonel Kurtz sort of situation where Sisko had "gone native." It took into season three before the staff writers identified why they felt this story wasn't working -- it revolved around a miraculous, wonderful prophecy. If it was flipped around to be dark and ominous, then Sisko could be put at odds with his duty, with the Bajoran people, and with Kira in particular.

That sounds right on paper, but I think the final episode doesn't push far enough with this take. For one thing, the prophecy doesn't carry much force. Only this Vedek Yarka, specifically said to be out of step with most Bajoran religious figures, is arguing the apocalyptic nature of what's going to happen. For another, there really isn't much conflict for Kira here. She explains calmly to Yarka that she has little trouble compartmentalizing Sisko her superior officer from Sisko the Emissary. When Sisko tells her basically to keep religion off his bridge, that's that.

Sisko doesn't seem especially conflicted here, either. He never really seems to consider what it really means to have an entire alien world looking to him as god-adjacent, and how much responsibility he really bears for their well-being. He only goes down this road far enough to speculate how much his fate is fixed by the wormhole aliens who really can see the future, a notion Dax swats away for him pretty quickly. He just has to be himself, she says. But isn't the whole point of this story supposed to be that this is an identity crisis for Sisko and he doesn't know who he is?

But if this episode is a somewhat sad Christmas tree, lop-sided and sparse, it's still at least adorned with pretty decorations. The interactions between the two Cardassian scientists and the regular characters make for some really nice moments. They make a point of kindness toward Kira, recognizing how odd it must be for her to have them here. One in particular, Gilora Rejal, squabbles with O'Brien over differing approaches to engineering; later we learn that she thinks it's sexy that a man would know anything about engineering, and that he would stand up to her. Add the third Cardassian to the mix, the secret Obsidian Order overseer Dejar, and it makes for some fun commentary on nationalism. (She doesn't even like the other two enjoying non-Cardassian food.)

There are a few nice moments with Odo. His own take on Sisko as Emissary is an interesting one, as he's lived among Bajorans longer than anyone while still maintaining a distinctly "outsider" view (not just of Bajorans, but of all humanoids). On the comedic side, we get two new complementary Rules of Acquisition (both war and peace are good for business), and Colm Meaney's great reaction when O'Brien realizes Gilora is flirting with him. (It's probably not an easy thing for O'Brien to be lusted after by a Cardassian, but he handles it with more diplomacy than you might expect.)

Other observations:

• Gilora Rejal is played by Tracy Scoggins, who played a main character in the final season of Babylon 5.

• The episode ends with reference to a "fiery trial" prophesied in the Emissary's future. A few stories in later seasons could fit the bill (including the series finale), though it's hard to say whether the writers were later trying to connect with this episode, or if the deliberately vague nature of the average prophecy allowed connection without deliberate effort.

• One of the original writers, David S. Cogen, wasn't happy with how he was rewritten: "I still get a headache when I watch it." He once recounted a TV executive telling him that "Destiny" was his favorite Deep Space Nine episode, and was taken aback. "Hell, it's not even my favorite Deep Space Nine episode."

There are minor thrills in the sort of sci-fi predestination paradox presented here, but this is hardly a standout episode of the series. I give it a B-.

Russian to the Theater

Although it's now more than 20 years old, I've never seen the animated movie Anastasia. But I have now seen the touring production of the Broadway musical it inspired, as it has stopped here in Denver to run for a few weeks. It's the story of a woman who may or may not be a lost member of a Russian royal family, coached by a pair of con men to take part in a scheme that will take them all the way to Paris.

My husband and I have seen a lot of shows at the Buell Theater over the last year, but Anastasia is far and away the most show we've seen. It's an over-the-top spectacle that's using the latest technology to come as close to presenting a live movie on a stage as they can manage. A huge projection backdrop combines with a few strategic set pieces and plenty of lighting effects to completely transform the stage in scene after scene. The musical moves from castle interiors (in their prime and years later in decay), city streets, a moving train, a green forest, the inside of a raucous dance hall, and more. The action moves from Leningrad to Paris. And at every step, the set is completely transformed.

Frankly, it's more interesting to watch the scenery than what's happening in front of it. Anastasia isn't a bad story -- but it's the most rote, dutiful musical I've seen in a long while. Each beat of the story rigidly follows the framework for the Platonic ideal of a Broadway musical: here's the moment where the protagonist sings a song about this, and it sounds kind of like this. Here's a song where the lovers come together; it happens right when it's supposed to, and it sounds like this. On and on.

There are only a few departures from this slavish formula -- and not surprisingly, they're the moments that drew the most enthusiastic response from the audience: a brazen, comedic number early in Act Two (performed by two heretofore minor characters), and an elaborate ballet number in the second act (presented as the main characters stand near the wings, singing a song you won't remember).

The music manages the neat trick of being utterly forgettable while burrowing deep into your brain. That's because a lot of it sounds quite a lot like other music. One of the show's most prominent recurring melodies is a waltz that sounds an awful lot like John William's main theme for the Harry Potter movies. So yes, you'll walk out of Anastasia absent-mindedly humming a tune -- Hedwig's Theme. Other music so dutifully fills the role of "the song in the musical that does this" that the next morning, I can only think of "The Song That Goes Like This" from Monty Python's Spamalot.

Anastasia is certainly a feast for the eyes. Even though you know that 90% of what you're seeing is projected, you constantly forget that. The visuals are crafted with enough care, and supported with enough other (and more conventional) theatrical lighting that you're instantly swept up in each new setting. But it's a run-of-the-mill tale of "journeying for one thing only to find the thing you're really looking for," ordered into expected scenes that are built to hold forgettable songs.

All told, I'd give Anastasia a B-. Don't see it for the story; see it only if you're interested in the spectacle a big Broadway production can deliver.

This One Goes to 11

Last month marked the 50th anniversary of the first human walking on the moon. It's a milestone I expected to be celebrated in the news rather more than it was. But one way it was commemorated was in a documentary film released earlier in the year, Apollo 11.

The 90-minute film is comprised almost entirely of archival footage. (The only parts that aren't are a few very brief moments of rudimentary animation to show mission progress and illustrate a few spacecraft maneuvers.) It is a straight-forward look at the mission from launch to splashdown, without adornments (acknowledging, I think, that it doesn't need any).

This approach to the making of the film is both to its credit and detriment, depending on how you look at it. Because it features no narration and no interviews, the movie doesn't really convey much of a sense of authorial intent. Sure, there is an intent here: it's in choosing to assemble it this way, and in the choices of what's shown. But if you're expecting a documentary to express a strong point of view or message, you won't find one here.

On the other hand, by presenting this so matter-of-factly, the documentary becomes the closest possible thing to having actually been alive in 1969 to witness these events. It's an expansive picture of everything from the fashions of spectators watching the liftoff to the wonders of being a quarter-million miles from Earth. And it takes you through absolutely every major moment of the flight.

What's truly remarkable about the film is just how amazing the picture quality is. I was expecting images like the famous blown-out TV broadcast of Neil Armstrong's "one small step," or the grainy video footage the astronauts sent back mid-flight. But that's only a tiny bit of what's presented. A great deal of archived film has been exhumed, including some shot in 70mm. Other footage has perhaps been cleaned-up through modern processes. But by whatever alchemy, a great deal of what you see in this movie looks like it could have been shot yesterday -- as if an expensive Hollywood blockbuster spent a lot of time and money recreating 1969 for the big screen.

Apollo 11 enjoyed a brief run in theaters earlier this year, which included a handful of screenings in IMAX. I feel truly sorry to have missed it there, because was a breathtaking, emotional spectacle even watching it at home. I was swept up in that historic journey all over again, even with as much as I've read and seen about it over the years.

I give the documentary an A-. If you're at all a fan of space travel, this look back at its golden age and greatest achievement is sure to thrill you.

DS9 Flashback: Heart of Stone

Many episodes of Star Trek (particularly the various spinoffs of the 80s and 90s) juggle two different story lines, an "A plot" that's the main dramatic focus and a smaller "B plot." Every once in a while, though, it's the B plot that turns out more successful. So it was with Deep Space Nine's "Heart of Stone."

Kira and Odo pursue a Maquis raider to an unstable moon, but encounter a problem on its surface. Kira's foot becomes trapped in a strange crystalline formation that is slowly expanding to envelop her body. Meanwhile, aboard the station, Nog tries to convince Sisko to write him a recommendation to join Starfleet Academy.

As conceived, the main story here was the Odo/Kira one. It's a long con by the Changeling Leader (with Salome Jens' name held out of the opening credits to preserve the surprise), who is probing Odo's reluctance to rejoin them. Disguised as Kira in a sophisticated display of shapeshifting that includes withstanding phaser shots and confusing both tricorders and transporters, she draws all sorts of information from him. Where does his name come from? What dire situations has he been before that bonded him to solids? Ultimately she learns his big secret: he's in love with Kira.

The situation was loosely inspired by a scene from the film adaptation of the Ken Kesey novel Sometimes a Great Notion -- more specifically, as show runner Ira Steven Behr put it, "a great scene in a not so great movie." A character's leg becomes trapped under a large log, and he drowns when the water rises over his head. Unfortunately, their attempt to recast this scenario for science fiction proved too much for the production to realize. As director Alexander Singer noted, the growing rock effect was the sort of thing that, "had this been a feature, they would have spent months in preparing, and shooting tests and so on." On a television budget and schedule, they got, in Behr's words, "a horrible, horrible prop." Nana Visitor said "I looked like a big old hot fudge sundae, and my head was the cherry on top."

The actors do their best with it, salvaging some good moments out of the unfortunately hokey situation. Rene Auberjonois arcs Odo carefully from a standoffish opening scene, through tension-cutting humor and more technobabble than he's usually asked to handle, and is great in the final revelation. Even sadder than Odo confessing his love under such circumstances is when he realizes he's been duped -- because he can't believe Kira would actually love him back. Visitor is great in shading her performance just enough for you to sense something is off without quite pegging it; it's fun on a re-watch to know that she's playing the Changeling Leader as Kira. It's an intriguing physical performance too, with her voice strained once the "rock" reaches her lungs and throat -- not to mention that Visitor had to overcome her claustrophobia for the second time in a season to play this.

But it's the B plot that really shines in this episode -- and not just because the A plot was compromised by the visuals. Staff writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe was the one who suggested that Nog (more than Jake, or Wesley on The Next Generation) would be most interested in joining Starfleet. And the reason behind it is heartbreaking -- he sees his father Rom's squandered potential, and doesn't want to end up the same way. It's a story about class and lack of upward mobility, a great use of the capitalist Ferengi on the show for something other than comedy.

The acting here is even better. Aron Eisenberg (who initially needed reassurance they weren't writing him off the show) gives one of his best performances of the series, crediting his scene partner Avery Brooks for feeding him a performance of his own that drew this out in response. Even the secondary performances are good in this half of the episode: we see that Jake can't even conceive that Nog would be serious (as he's already rejected Starfleet himself), we see Quark push too far in his keeping his brother down, and we see Rom stand up in defense of his son. It's all very emotionally honest, and perhaps extra resonant for many Star Trek viewers who might wish for their own place in this idealized world.

Other observations:

• It's great watching Nog try to blend human and Ferengi customs (handshakes and bribery).

• The rock encompassing Kira may look silly, but the Star Trek caves have never looked better. This is surely the same set used throughout The Next Generation and earlier Deep Space Nines, but it seems to be painted and/or lit a bit darker and more realistically here.

• I wonder, when "Kira" orders Odo to leave her behind, if his refusal came as a surprise. To a Founder, having an order refused seems generally unthinkable.

• An off-screen alien, Ensign Pran, is mentioned here. The writers made him purposefully unusual -- a pregnant male whose offspring "bud" on his body -- knowing he would never be seen. They wanted less human aliens to at least exist in Star Trek, even if it wouldn't be practical to show them.

• I'm not sure if the writers yet knew where they were heading at the end of the season, but the bell is rung again loudly in this episode: "No changeling has ever harmed another."

It's tantalizing to wonder: if the prop rock had looked more convincing, might this have been one of the all-time best episodes of Deep Space Nine? Hard to say, though there's still a lot to like here despite shortcomings that can't be ignored. I give "Heart of Stone" a B.