Podcasting Them Softly

50/50 is an honest and funny film that dares to stare cancer in the face and laugh at the issues that it creates. I was not prepared for how accomplished this film would be. This is a true story, one that’s sad but oddly uplifting, and lead actor Joseph Gordon Levitt was absolutely perfect in his role – understated, never going too hard for the emotions, always feeling 100% natural. Seth Rogen was spot-on here as Levitt’s best friend who has to deal with the fact that his buddy has been given 50/50 odds of survival after being diagnosed with cancer. He’s always able to make us laugh with his affable stoner routine, but when Rogen wants to get serious, as he did here and in Sarah Polley’s obscenely underrated Take This Waltz, he can be very effective. And for 50/50 to work at all, it needed a lot of genuine humor, as there’s nothing remotely funny about the situation that JGL’s character is facing. Unfortunately, cancer has become one of those almost universal things in the world, and if you haven’t been affected by it personally, then you probably know someone who has, perhaps a friend, family member, or a close loved one. There’s a moment in the film where JGL makes a startling confession to his therapist (the always lovely Anna Kendrick, who exudes confidence and smarts and warmth in everything she appears in) that he just wants people to stop bull-shitting him and tell him straight up that he’s going to die. It’s a great moment of acting and direction and it was then that the movie grabbed me by the heart.

Director Jonathan Levine has had an interesting career, starting with the cult horror item All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, the 90’s marijuana-infused period piece The Wackness, and the cute and quirky zombie rom-com Warm Bodies; he’s a tough filmmaker to pin down. But as you watch the film unfold, you notice a seriously talented hand guiding this graceful movie, and it’s all the more impressive to learn that Levine was a last minute replacement for another filmmaker who apparently left the project over creative differences. The humor and pathos are well balanced, nothing goes over the top, and Levine’s unforced manner in which he directs his actors adds to the organic quality to the entire piece. Terry Stacey’s intimate and measured cinematography is stylish but never ostentatious, and the editing is sharp as a tack. And it’s got a killer soundtrack – I don’t remember a collection of semi-older-pop songs in a movie that’s as good or as well selected as the ones sampled here. Michael Giacchino’s score is subtle yet highly effective, and that right there is why 50/50 works as well as it does. It never hammers you over the head with how inherently sad the entire scenario is, and because Levine doesn’t wallow in anything for too long, nothing ever becomes maudlin in the way that lesser movies dealing with this subject matter have been.

But the best asset of the entire piece is Will Reiser’s tender screenplay, who based the work on his own experiences, with JGL portraying him on screen. While comfortably predictable in some respects, he gets so much right in the little details, and for the first time in a long time, I felt that the voices of the thirtysomethings in this film were 100% believable depictions of actual people living in the here and now. The dialogue felt true to the times and to the people speaking, and the frequently colorful (and often times laugh-out-loud-funny) vulgarity was just what friends would say to each other. Confusing and stressful interactions with doctors were skillfully handled, and tearful and painful discussions with parents are heartrendingly examined (Anjelica Houston nails a few scenes as JGL’s mom). Plus, there’s this terrific scene where JGL, Rogen, Philip Baker Hall (really good in an uncharacteristic role) and Matt Frewer all get high on medicinal marijuana, and I swear, the way it’s shot and cut – you feel like you’re getting a contact high because of Levine’s aesthetic. I absolutely love this movie. You laugh in all the right spots, you choke up when necessary, and the film has a quietly powerful quality that’s very tough to convey with words. And without spoiling anything, the ending is fair and earned and completely believable. This is a potent slice of filmmaking that deserves a higher profile.

 

George Miller made one of the wiser decisions in modern film history when he recognized his limitations in the feminism department and brought Vagina Monologues scribe Eve Ensler on as a consultant to his franchise-rebooting summer smash Mad Max: Fury Road.  Nicolas Winding Refn, always a willing collaborator (in one of many examples, he let Bryan Cranston write his own death scene in Drive), has done one better and co-written his latest film, The Neon Demon, with the talented Mary Laws and Polly Stenham, and the results are nothing short of stellar.  The work is a grim meditation on society’s focus on beauty, spiked with unease, biting humor and a story that may well be Refn’s most fully realized.  In the wrong hands, this material could easily play as misogynist fantasy (something we already have an abundance of in Hollywood), but here the writers have stuck the landing on crafting a surprising and clever tale that reveals its intent slowly while satirizing our surface obsessions with almost limitless style.  In the dog eat dog world of the fashion industry, Refn has found the perfect metaphor for how chasing the ideal of beauty at all costs can devour us whole.

Speaking of style, the visual variety is Refn’s calling card,  and he’s outdone himself with The Neon Demon.  Applying his Kubrickian pristine framing and penchant for Lynchian dreamlike interludes to an industry based entirely on how things look, the director has crafted a near-flawless playground for his considerable talents.  Even better, it’s not mere eye candy—there is purpose and progression to every image he shows us, and within those images is some of the strongest work he’s drawn from his actors to date.  Each raised eyebrow, pregnant pause or quick sigh is loaded with meaning, and you won’t find a bad performance from any member of the cast.  Not to say the likes of Elle Fanning and Jena Malone simply gaze at each other for the duration; Refn and his co-writers have come up with some of the most stinging dialogue you’ll hear at the movies this year, sometimes uproarious and often sharp as a razor.  Nods to other genre films abound, from the older likes of Repulsion and The Hunger to more recent additions to the canon such as Under The Skin and The Witch, yet the film very much stands on its own two perfectly sculpted legs.  And in keeping with a current delightful trend of 80s-style synthesized scores, collaborator Cliff Martinez turns in some of his best work.

I’ll avoid diving into any great detail on the story, because to discuss it would be to rob the experience of its building momentum and payoffs.  Fanning is a simple waif from the south named Jesse who’s deposited herself in a seedy Los Angeles motel with dreams of modeling superstardom; as she points out to the lone sympathetic male character in the movie, she’s never been good at anything, but she’s always been pretty.  With an almost vampiric relish, everyone who enters Jesse’s orbit obsesses over her innocent beauty and either tries to claim it for themselves or resents it with feverish jealousy.  She quickly rises through the ranks of the modeling world, growing in experience and ego, seemingly supercharged by the attention and desires of all around her.  Where her powers lead her is the business of the third act, of which I will say little although those who find the first two more or less devoid of the R in Refn will be glad to hear that the last 10 minutes generated more walkouts at the screening I attended than any other I’ve ever been to, so patience will be rewarded–depending on your definition of reward, that is.  While the male characters are, with one exception, generally vile, this movie is squarely focused on women’s relationships with each other and how the ever elusive ideal of physical perfection shapes them, frequently for the worse.  The Neon Demon, bitter, beautiful pill that it is, may be Refn’s finest work to date.

Undoubtedly one of the silliest, most aggressively ridiculous movies I’ve encountered, The Food of the Gods was released in 1976 and was mildly based on the H.G. Wells novel The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth. Written, produced, and directed with lunatic glee by shlock-master Bert Gordon, a conossieur of rear projection giant-themed C-movies (Village of the Giants, Attack of the Puppet People, The Amazing Colossal Man), The Food of the Gods centers on a mountain town that experiences a series of attacks by mutated animals that have ingested a mysterious substance, and it happily lurches from one scene to the next with an amazing grasp of its own idiocy firmly intact. Each performance is terrible in its own special way, the directing is haphazard, the “special effects” are bargain-basement atrocious and absolutely hilarious to behold, and the musical score and sound effects completely bonkers. And yet the movie remains a pisser all throughout, exactly because of how shitty-amazing it is as a whole. The finale involving a siege of plus-sized rats attacking a house followed by cinema’s chintziest flood has to be seen to be believed. Everyone HAD to know what a piece of crap they were all making, and when they all saw the finished effects work and the stupid looking killer animals on display (THOSE CHICKENS POWER), they hopefully all had a laugh. The final moments are actually fairly dark and clever. A Samuel Z. Arkoff Production of an American International Pictures Release.

One of the dangers in adapting a stage play into a film is that you won’t be able to break out of the theatricality inherent with so many plays. Fortunately, film director James Foley seemed to be acutely aware of this when he decided to take on Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), an adaptation of David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name with the screenplay written by the man himself.

Right from the start, Foley keeps things visually interesting by bathing the film in Giallo-esque lighting that would make Dario Argento proud. Cinematographer Juan Ruiz Anchia photographs two salesmen talking in adjoining telephone booths, bathing them in white and blue light respectively with contrasting red in the background. Not only are these colors of the American flag and thereby making a subtle allusion to the notion that this story is a damning indictment of Capitalism, one of the principles that made the United States what it is today. The two men bitch and gripe to each other about the potential clients they have to cold call and then turn on the charm once they get them on the phone. Welcome to Mamet’s cutthroat world of real estate sales populated by desperate, often cruel men that are driven to make as much money as they can, consequences be damned.

One night, an office of down-on-their-luck salesmen are given the pep talk from hell by a ruthless man named Blake (Alec Baldwin), an executive sent by their bosses Mitch and Murray, on a “mission of mercy” as he sarcastically puts it. He starts off by telling them that they’re all fired. They have a week to get their jobs back by selling as much property as they can. He gives them an additional incentive: first prize is a new Cadillac El Dorado, second prize is a set of steak knives and third prize is, as he puts it, “you’re fired.” If the salesmen do well they will get the new Glengarry leads and the promise of better clients and good money.

Blake delivers an absolutely punishing speech as he belittles them (“You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch?”), is downright insulting (“You can’t close shit, you are shit! Hit the bricks, pal and beat it because you are going out!”), and demoralizing by even questioning their manhood. He throws in all sorts of “encouraging” words, like “Get them to sign on the line which is dotted,” and “Always be closing.” Alec Baldwin delivers a blistering performance as Blake. His character was not in the original stage play, Mamet wrote him specifically for the film. In his brief amount of screen time, Baldwin dominates the screen against the likes of Ed Harris and Jack Lemmon as he delivers a devastating monologue with ferocious intensity. At one point, Dave Moss (Ed Harris) asks him, “What’s your name?” to which Blake replies, “Fuck you! That’s my name. You know why, mister? ‘Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight. I drove an $80,000 BMW. That’s my name.” Blake is an icy motivational speaker that only motivates the salesmen out of fear of being unemployed, making this scene eerily relevant to our times as that is also the prime motivator for most people trying to hold down a job in our current economic climate.

If there was ever a film that deserved an Academy Award for best ensemble cast then this is it. Glengarry Glen Ross features a dream collection of acting heavyweights: Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, and Alan Arkin. Pacino plays the slickest salesman of the bunch – Ricky Roma, a smooth-talking, well-dressed bullshit artist of the highest order. This is evident in the scenes where Roma spins an incredibly long and convoluted story, seducing a mild-mannered middle-aged man named James Lingk (Jonathan Pryce). It’s a marvel of acting as we watch Pacino do a spectacular verbal tap dance around the actual pitch until the last possible moment when he’s got the guy’s complete and utter confidence – even then he presents the land he’s pushing as an opportunity as opposed to a purchase, preying on Lingk’s insecurity. It’s a brilliant bit of acting as Pacino commands the scene with his mesmerizing presence. Jonathan Pryce is also excellent as he portrays a weak-willed man susceptible to Roma’s polished charms.

Harris plays Moss as an angry man pissed off at the lousy leads (i.e. clients) and is plotting to defect to a rival, Jerry Graff. George Aaronow (Alan Arkin) is a nervous guy unable to close a sit (pitching a client in person) and seems keen on Moss’ plan to steal the new Glengarry leads and sell them to the competition. John Williamson (Kevin Spacey) is the office manager, a pencil pusher that shows little remorse in what happens to his staff. He’s a smug son-of-a-bitch who takes a particular interest in Shelley “The Machine” Levene’s (Jack Lemmon) plight. Levene is an older salesman trying to make enough money to pay off mounting medical bills for his sick daughter, which colors everything he does.

Levene is a pathetic character desperate to keep his job and still capable of a slick sales pitch (in a nice touch, he often refers to an imaginary secretary named Grace while calling a potential client on the phone), it’s just his judgment that’s off as he finds out with devastating consequences later on in the film. Jack Lemmon somehow manages to make him sympathetic. We see both sides of Levene in a scene where he tries to sell property to a man (Bruce Altman) in his home. The man is not interested and despite Levene’s desperate attempts, asks him to leave. It is an increasingly uncomfortable scene that is hard to watch as the man finally and firmly rebuffs Levene. Your heart really goes out to Lemmon’s character as he dejectedly walks back out into the pouring rain, looking very much like a drowned rat. It is to Lemmon’s incredible skill as an actor that he makes you care about such a pitiful man.

Director Foley successfully transfers Mamet’s play to the big screen by creating atmospheric visuals. There is a somber mood that permeates almost every scene. The first half of the film takes place at night during an oppressive rainstorm. Anchia’s rich, textured cinematography is the key ingredient in giving Mamet’s play a cinematic look. He relied on low lighting and shadows with blues, greens and reds for the first part of the film. The second part adhered to a monochromatic blue-grey color scheme. All the locations are given their own distinctive color scheme, in particular, the hellish red/navy blue of the Chinese restaurant that the salesmen frequent. The overall atmosphere is dark, like that of a film noir.

And then there is Mamet’s trademark hard-boiled dialogue or “Mamet speak” as it is known. It has a sharp, staccato quality to it that cuts right to the point with characters often interrupting each other or their dialogue overlapping as evident in the scene where Moss tells Aaronow of his plans to rob their office. One thing that is evident in Glengarry Glen Ross is just how good Mamet is at writing amusing dialogue. For example, at one point, Williamson asks where Roma is to which Moss replies, “Well, I’m not a leash so I don’t know, do I?” Mamet’s characters talk like they are thinking about what they are going to say next as they are saying it — much like in real life.

David Mamet’s play was first performed in 1983 at the National Theater of London and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984. That same year it made its United States debut in the playwright’s hometown of Chicago before moving to Broadway. Shortly thereafter, producer Jerry Tokofsky (Dreamscape) read the play on a trip to New York City in 1985 at the suggestion of director Irvin Kershner who wanted to make it into a film. Tokofsky then saw it on Broadway and contacted Mamet. The playwright wanted $500,000 for the film rights and another $500,000 to write the screenplay to which the producer agreed. Washington, D.C.-based B-movie producer Stanley R. Zupnik was looking for A-list material and co-produced two previous Tokofsky films. Zupnik had seen Glengarry Glen Ross on Broadway and found the plot confusing. He also knew of its reputation in Hollywood as being a commercially difficult project but figured that he and Tokofsky could cut a deal with a cable company.

During this time, Al Pacino and Alec Baldwin became interested in Glengarry Glen Ross but without any concrete financing both Kershner and the actors dropped out for various reasons. Pacino had originally wanted to do the play on Broadway but was doing another Mamet production, American Buffalo, in London at the time. Director James Foley read the script in early 1991 and was hired to direct only to leave the project soon afterwards. By March 1991, Tokofsky contacted Baldwin and practically begged him to reconsider doing the film. The producer remembers, “Alec said: ‘I’ve read 25 scripts and nothing is as good as this. O.K. If you make it, I’ll do it.’” This prompted Foley and Pacino to get back on board with Jack Lemmon agreeing to do it as well. Foley and Pacino arranged an informal reading with Lemmon in Los Angeles.

From this point, Foley and Pacino had subsequent readings with several other actors. Lemmon remembers, “Some of the best damn actors you’re ever going to see came in and read and I’m talking about names.” Alan Arkin originally wasn’t interested in doing the film because he didn’t like the character he was asked to portray but fortunately his wife, manager and agent pushed him to do it. Tokofsky’s lawyer called a meeting at the Creative Artists’ Agency, who represented many of the actors involved, and asked for their help. CAA showed little interest but two of their clients – Ed Harris and Kevin Spacey – soon joined the cast.

Due to the uncompromising subject matter and abrasive language, no major studio wanted to finance Glengarry Glen Ross even with actors like Pacino and Lemmon attached. Financing ended up coming from cable and video companies, a German television station, an Australian movie theater chain, several banks, and, finally, New Line Cinema over the course of four years. Because of the film’s modest budget of $12.5 million, many of the actors took significant pay cuts do it. For example, Pacino cut his per-movie price from $6 million to $1.5 million. This didn’t stop other actors, like Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis, Joe Mantegna, and Richard Gere from expressing an interest in the film.

Once the cast was assembled, they spent three weeks in rehearsals. The budget was set at $12.5 million with filming beginning in August 1991 at the Kaufman Astoria soundstage in Queens, New York and on location in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn over 39 days. Ed Harris remembers, “There were five and six-page scenes we would shoot all at once. It was more like doing a play at times [when] you’d get the continuity going.” Arkin said of the script, “What made it [challenging] was the language and the rhythms, which are enormously difficult to absorb.” During principal photography, Tokofsky and his producing partner Zupnik had a falling out over credit for the film. Upon the film’s release, Tokofsky sued to strip Zupnik of his producer’s credit and share of the producer’s fee. Zupnik claimed that he personally put up $2 million of the film’s budget and countersued, claiming that Tokofsky was fired for embezzlement, which seems rather ironic considering the subject matter of the film. To date neither one of them has gone on to produce another film with the lone exception of The Grass Harp in 1995 by Tokofsky.

It takes a certain kind of personality to sell something that people don’t need but convincing them that they do. There is a whiff of pathetic desperation to Mamet’s salesmen. It seems like their best days are behind them. It’s a vicious circle of sorts – they can’t get access to new, potentially good clients unless they close some of their old ones and they are all deadbeats. These salesmen will say and do anything to keep their job, which begs the question: is that what it takes to be a good salesperson? Ed Harris believes that the film is “about the evils of the free enterprise system. You’ve got these guys selling bogus real estate and they’re upset because they can’t sell it.” The film is a rather timely one as it addresses tough economic times, something that we are experiencing now. One of the reasons Mamet’s characters have such a hard time selling these properties is because nobody has any money and what they do have they’re holding onto it. First performed on stage in the “Greed is good” 1980s, Glengarry Glen Ross was a scathing indictment of the free enterprise system. The film was made in the early 1990s when the economy was doing well and now it has become relevant once again in the lean and mean post-9/11 New Millennium.

People tend to forget how much was riding on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan when it was released in 1982. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) was considered to be a big bore and not really indicative of the television series. The powers that be wanted to make sure that the next film would not repeat the previous one’s mistakes. So, they removed series creator Gene Roddenberry and replaced him with veteran T.V. producer Harve Bennett. He proceeded to watch the entire run of the original series and decided to dust off a classic villain and give Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) a decidedly personal stake in this new mission.

Early on in the film there are two crucial exchanges between Kirk and his two closest friends. In observance of his birthday, Captain Spock (Leonard Nimoy) gives Kirk a copy of Charles Dickens’ novel A Tale of Two Cities (Spock refers to Kirk’s fondness for collecting antiques) and the latter quotes the famous opening passage, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” to which Spock replies, in reference to this day, “Surely the best of times?” This bit beautifully encapsulates the film as a whole, featuring the crew of the Enterprise at their best and at their lowest. Wrath of Khan is often regarded as the strongest film of the franchise – “Surely the best of times,” indeed.

The second important exchange happens between Kirk and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley). The latter gives the former 400-year-old reading glasses and we get a glimpse at his living quarters – full of the antiques Spock alluded to in the previous scene. Kirk is surrounded by reminders of the past and is staring down yet another birthday. “It’s about you flying a goddamn computer console when you want to be out there hopping galaxies,” McCoy tells him. He encourages Kirk to take command of a starship again before he gets too old.

I love these early scenes because they not only allow us to get reacquainted with Kirk and co., featuring quiet, human moments that give us insight into Kirk and his friendships with Spock and McCoy, but they also establish the themes of friendship and mortality that will feature prominently later on. The opening scenes with Kirk confiding in Spock and McCoy are like revisiting old friends you haven’t seen in a while and there is something enjoyable and reassuring about seeing these veteran actors dusting off and slipping so easily back into their iconic characters. There is a shorthand and a familiarity between these characters because the actors have so much experience playing them.

Most contemporary films would do away with scenes like this, viewing them as extraneous and unnecessary, but on the contrary they are vital to getting us invested in Kirk’s dilemma of getting old and becoming obsolete vs. going back out there and mixing it up in outer space once again. “Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young,” Kirk says early on and it is the film’s central theme as it pits two aging enemies against each other. The film openly acknowledges the age of the cast, in particular Kirk, who comes face to face with his own mortality. The film even starts off on a playfully cheeky note as the entire Enterprise bridge crew are killed off in a battle simulation.

Before Kirk makes a decision, fate intervenes and forces his hand. Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) and his crew manage to escape the desolate planet prison that Kirk banished him to many years ago and decide to exact revenge on his most hated enemy. He kidnaps two key crew-members from the U.S.S. Reliant (while also marooning its crew and commandeering the ship) and steals Project Genesis, a device that will take a lifeless planet and bring it violently back to life. Carol Marcus (Bibi Besch), an old ex-flame, and her son David (Merritt Butrick) – that resulted from their brief union – are the primary architects of Project Genesis. They send out a distress call, which Kirk and the crew of largely inexperienced cadets on the Enterprise intercepts, unaware that Khan has set a trap for them.

I also like how this film is steeped in classic literature, from John Milton’s Paradise Lost to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Spock gives Kirk a copy of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. The book’s famous opening lines, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” is cited and its hero dies to save his friend, sly foreshadowing to the end of Wrath of Khan. On two occasions, Khan paraphrases Ahab in Moby Dick, most memorably in that classic scene where he conveys his passion for wreaking vengeance on Kirk: “I’ll chase him round the moons of Nibia and round the Antares maelstrom and round perdition’s flames before I give him up.” I appreciate a science fiction film that isn’t content to merely throw around technical jargon, but also allude to classic literature, both thematically and quoted by its characters. It makes sense because characters like Kirk and Khan are mythological in nature themselves.

The scene where we first meet Khan gives Ricardo Montalban a chance to savor the moment as he relishes every word like a fine meal, giving the dialogue a unique spin as only he can. Khan is an aggrieved villain with an axe to grind – years of hatred for Kirk. He has the cunning intelligence to devise a trap in which to ensnare his old foe. Montalban’s take on Khan is a deliciously evil one and there is no doubt that he is more than a formidable match for Shatner’s Kirk. Khan isn’t out to rule the galaxy. No, this is a personal vendetta against Kirk and he’ll stop at nothing to get his revenge. Khan is on a mission of vengeance, plain and simple, and after hearing him recount the hardships he and his people endured it is hard not to – I wouldn’t say sympathize, but understand what motivates him. He’s seen his wife and 19 of his people die. He’s had years to brood over what happened and what he’d do to Kirk if given the chance. Once he gets control of the Reliant, Khan strikes back, hurting the Enterprise crew in a way so that Kirk gets a taste of what he’s been through and this makes their battle a very personal one with a lot at stake for both men.

The Wrath of Khan may be William Shatner’s finest moment in the Star Trek franchise as Kirk wrestles with his own mortality and must confront and conquer his self-doubts. He also must deal with an old nemesis, which makes the battle personal for him as well. Shatner does a nice job conveying these initial doubts about getting back into the Captain’s chair, then his joy at being back in a mission, then anger as he is tricked by Khan, and finally grief of the toll the battle takes on him and his friends. The veteran actor has to convey a wide-range of emotions and does so with his usual dramatic flair. Even better, we get to see who can overact more, Shatner or Montalban, as they take turns chewing up the scenery with melodramatic gusto complete with some great, spirited exchanges and some insanely quotable dialogue. It’s not just what is said but how it’s said that makes it so memorable. They are both acting hams, fond of … dramatic … pauses and sudden outbursts of emotion, but both clearly bring the best out of each other. Part of the enjoyment that comes from this film is watching these two go at it, holding nothing back, just like their characters.

The veteran cast from the show inhabits their roles with the ease and confidence that comes from years of practice. It helps that the main cast portray characters with detailed backstories thanks to the T.V. series and so there is all of that baggage for them to draw on, not to mention their complete familiarity with their respective roles. All Kirk and McCoy have to do is exchange a knowing look between each other to suggest more than any dialogue could. The screenplay draws on the Enterprise crew’s long-time camaraderie by raising the emotional stakes, making this mission a very personal one for Kirk and whose outcome will not only impact him, but also his mates. The nature of friendship is explored in Kirk’s yin to Spock’s yang. They complement each other because together they provide the right mix of instinct and logic. This balance is in flux in The Wrath of Khan when Spock reminds Kirk that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” to which Kirk adds, “or the one.” These are words that will gain importance at the film’s climax as they come back to haunt the characters.

In The Wrath of Khan, Kirk is forced to face two people from his past – one hostile and one he used to be romantically involved with – both of whom will dramatically change his life in unexpected ways. Only by defeating Khan can Kirk overcome the doubts that plagued him at the beginning of the film. Kirk is a man of action who relies heavily on his instincts. Engaging a like-minded adversary like Khan reawakens these tendencies where they had been inactive after the events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Director Nicholas Meyer keeps the film moving at a decent pace, but knows when to let things breath for nice, character-driven moments that provide important motivations for future actions later on in the film. There’s a reason why The Wrath of Khan is considered the best film with the most compelling story in the series: it pits the Enterprise crew against a truly formidable opponent, features thrilling spacecraft battles, and has an incredibly moving finale. Surely the best of times.