Knight at the Movies ARCHIVES
Tall Tales, large and small:
The Terminal, Dodgeball
6-23-04 Knight at the Movies column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
It’s sometimes forgotten that director Steven Spielberg is also a screenwriter and one of the uncredited secrets
to his gigantic success is his ability to spot great stories. Amazing Stories, the anthology television series that he
created and produced in the mid-80s, crystalized in 30-minute episodes this unerring gift for finding terrific
material.
The Terminal is another of those amazing stories and it emphasizes another of the writer-director-
producer's innate talents: his skill at focusing on the small and human amidst the gigantic and impersonal. Here,
in yet another of the Spielberg underdog films (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. and Duel are the best),
Tom Hanks portrays Viktor Navorski, who has arrived at the JFK airport in New York from a fictional Eastern
European country just as a revolution has occurred. Viktor cannot enter the U.S. and he can’t go back home until
the country officially recognizes the U.S. (it sounds crazy-realistic – the kind of conundrum upon which
presidential elections are decided, for example).
Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci in a canny performance), the official charged with dealing with the problem, just
wants Viktor to go away and he instructs his head of security (Chi McBride in a droll turn) to give Hanks a
handful of restaurant and store coupons, and advise him to wait in the international terminal until things are
resolved. “There’s only one thing you can do here – shop,” the guard says to Hanks, turning him loose.
Hanks is then Castaway again – with his isolation compounded by his character’s inability to barely understand,
speak or read English. But like the character he played in that not terribly good dessert isle picture, Viktor uses
his ingenuity to survive and thrive, setting an example for All Humanity in the process. Viktor becomes sort of a
Eastern European fairy godfather to everyone he meets, sprinkling heart and simple wisdom as he plays
matchmaker, sympathizer, and bashful suitor to Amelia, the lovelorn stewardess played with no particular verve
or zest by Catherine Zeta-Jones (it’s pretty stock stuff she’s asked to do, in her favor, however).
That all this doesn’t become cloying dreck has more to do with Spielberg’s sprightly tone than with Hanks’s
performance (imagine Dustin Hoffman or Tom Cruise in the lead “wiz dat tick ock-sent und yew ken geese my
mean-ink”). The best parts of Spielberg’s last picture, Catch Me If You Can, were the jaunty sequences in which
Leonardo DiCaprio’s con man impersonated a jet pilot and strode through the airport. With The Terminal it’s as
if Spielberg wanted to spend more time in the airport, too, and here, aided by the humongous set (in the Kubrick-
Hitchcock tradition) and John Williams’s perky little score, he does just that (it also would have been great fun
to have seen DiCaprio scurry by). The movie, more than anything else, is low carb Spielberg – Spielberg-lite if
you will – a fizzy summer diversion.
The Terminal is great for an audience craving an escape from all the CGI effects – which is an old whine – but it’
s interesting to note that Spielberg, who almost single-handedly invented the summer blockbuster with Jaws,
has stayed in the game because he hasn’t forgotten to start with the story before piling on the effects.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dodgeball is Revenge of the Nerds and Bless The Beasts & The Children for the new Millennium. Ben Stiller,
who seems to be making his 417th picture in a row (as noted by many others), acts another of his larger than
life, idiot characters. White Goodman, like Derek, the vacant male model Stiller portrayed in Zoolander, is
horribly, laughably unlikeable.
The dumb story about competing gyms in a dodgeball tournament seems as dated as White Goodman’s early 80’s
hair and fu-manchu mustache and much of the film feels like an extended sketch from Stiller’s short-lived variety
show but, like Zoolander, Stiller gets in enough stupid-but-funny zingers to make this an okay waste of 90
minutes.
“Dodgeball is a game of violence, exclusion, and degradation,” the grizzled old coach says at one point (Rip Torn
playing another of his tough as nails characters) before tossing off the requisite “fag” jokes. That there are only
a couple doesn’t make them any less offensive (same with the fat jokes) but hey, dude, lighten up and check this
out: If you thought Zoolander was homoerotic, this time there’s 90 minutes of hunky little Stiller packed in gym
clothes, often shirtless, and a scene in which he attaches electrodes to his nipples.
Add to that Jamal Duff as Stiller’s ever-present, hulking body guard/assistant, Me-Shell (he’s like a black
Popeye), and a team full of Circuit party-sized guys with names like Lazer, Blade, and…Blade. Unfortunately, for
the ladies, a team called the “She-Mullets” remains unseen. And yet, as the dyke gym teacher in Hairspray
exclaimed, “C’mon ladies, let’s play dodgeball!”
The Terminal, Dodgeball
6-23-04 Knight at the Movies column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
It’s sometimes forgotten that director Steven Spielberg is also a screenwriter and one of the uncredited secrets
to his gigantic success is his ability to spot great stories. Amazing Stories, the anthology television series that he
created and produced in the mid-80s, crystalized in 30-minute episodes this unerring gift for finding terrific
material.
The Terminal is another of those amazing stories and it emphasizes another of the writer-director-
producer's innate talents: his skill at focusing on the small and human amidst the gigantic and impersonal. Here,
in yet another of the Spielberg underdog films (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. and Duel are the best),
Tom Hanks portrays Viktor Navorski, who has arrived at the JFK airport in New York from a fictional Eastern
European country just as a revolution has occurred. Viktor cannot enter the U.S. and he can’t go back home until
the country officially recognizes the U.S. (it sounds crazy-realistic – the kind of conundrum upon which
presidential elections are decided, for example).
Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci in a canny performance), the official charged with dealing with the problem, just
wants Viktor to go away and he instructs his head of security (Chi McBride in a droll turn) to give Hanks a
handful of restaurant and store coupons, and advise him to wait in the international terminal until things are
resolved. “There’s only one thing you can do here – shop,” the guard says to Hanks, turning him loose.
Hanks is then Castaway again – with his isolation compounded by his character’s inability to barely understand,
speak or read English. But like the character he played in that not terribly good dessert isle picture, Viktor uses
his ingenuity to survive and thrive, setting an example for All Humanity in the process. Viktor becomes sort of a
Eastern European fairy godfather to everyone he meets, sprinkling heart and simple wisdom as he plays
matchmaker, sympathizer, and bashful suitor to Amelia, the lovelorn stewardess played with no particular verve
or zest by Catherine Zeta-Jones (it’s pretty stock stuff she’s asked to do, in her favor, however).
That all this doesn’t become cloying dreck has more to do with Spielberg’s sprightly tone than with Hanks’s
performance (imagine Dustin Hoffman or Tom Cruise in the lead “wiz dat tick ock-sent und yew ken geese my
mean-ink”). The best parts of Spielberg’s last picture, Catch Me If You Can, were the jaunty sequences in which
Leonardo DiCaprio’s con man impersonated a jet pilot and strode through the airport. With The Terminal it’s as
if Spielberg wanted to spend more time in the airport, too, and here, aided by the humongous set (in the Kubrick-
Hitchcock tradition) and John Williams’s perky little score, he does just that (it also would have been great fun
to have seen DiCaprio scurry by). The movie, more than anything else, is low carb Spielberg – Spielberg-lite if
you will – a fizzy summer diversion.
The Terminal is great for an audience craving an escape from all the CGI effects – which is an old whine – but it’
s interesting to note that Spielberg, who almost single-handedly invented the summer blockbuster with Jaws,
has stayed in the game because he hasn’t forgotten to start with the story before piling on the effects.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dodgeball is Revenge of the Nerds and Bless The Beasts & The Children for the new Millennium. Ben Stiller,
who seems to be making his 417th picture in a row (as noted by many others), acts another of his larger than
life, idiot characters. White Goodman, like Derek, the vacant male model Stiller portrayed in Zoolander, is
horribly, laughably unlikeable.
The dumb story about competing gyms in a dodgeball tournament seems as dated as White Goodman’s early 80’s
hair and fu-manchu mustache and much of the film feels like an extended sketch from Stiller’s short-lived variety
show but, like Zoolander, Stiller gets in enough stupid-but-funny zingers to make this an okay waste of 90
minutes.
“Dodgeball is a game of violence, exclusion, and degradation,” the grizzled old coach says at one point (Rip Torn
playing another of his tough as nails characters) before tossing off the requisite “fag” jokes. That there are only
a couple doesn’t make them any less offensive (same with the fat jokes) but hey, dude, lighten up and check this
out: If you thought Zoolander was homoerotic, this time there’s 90 minutes of hunky little Stiller packed in gym
clothes, often shirtless, and a scene in which he attaches electrodes to his nipples.
Add to that Jamal Duff as Stiller’s ever-present, hulking body guard/assistant, Me-Shell (he’s like a black
Popeye), and a team full of Circuit party-sized guys with names like Lazer, Blade, and…Blade. Unfortunately, for
the ladies, a team called the “She-Mullets” remains unseen. And yet, as the dyke gym teacher in Hairspray
exclaimed, “C’mon ladies, let’s play dodgeball!”
Spielberg's winning amazing story, another helping of Stiller
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