Film Review: Big Miracle

2012-02-03T07:41:41Z

Big Miracle
Directed by Ken Kwapis

One film this week has noteworthy political content and the most surprising thing is which film it is. From a casual distance, “Big Miracle” looks like a very generic animal rescue story, essentially “Free Willy” x2.5, as assorted people try to help two adults and one juvenile whale escape from behind an ice barrier in the Beaufort Sea. It’s based on a true story of an event that captured national attention in 1988, and the film makes use of news footage from that period, with every major network anchor commenting on the situation as it unfolds.

It also embellishes the story with various formulaic characters and circumstances, including a love story, a somewhat precocious local boy, and an evil “big oil” tycoon. The basic storytelling is no less unsubtle than the recent “The Muppets,” for example. However, what’s surprising, and where the movie manages to shine on some level, are the moments during which several of the major players’ motivations are explored.

It would have been very easy to show involvement from the White House as being a matter of national pride or jingoism, especially in a movie aimed mostly at kids, but it’s described as much more of a compromise of conflicting interests. This was the end of the Reagan administration and we’re given staff who want to send Reagan out with an episode that might help cover for a bad environmental record, while also boosting (the senior) Bush’s election chances, but only if it won’t go bad and cause an even larger stain on the legacy. Similarly, we’re shown conflicts involving the use of a Russian icebreaker ship (in reality there were two) and standoffs between the political interests and Greenpeace (as embodied by an activist played by Drew Barrymore).

Another episode depicts the oil company boss (Ted Danson) being manipulated by his wife into realizing that he can appear friendly to the environment in a way that will probably make it easier to rape it later. It’s a retrospective, narrative example of ‘greenwashing’ a company’s image at a point in time that’s almost as early as the phrase was coined.

This might actually be a good movie for kids, not just as predictable entertainment, but as a way of educating them about how the media and various political interests operate. We see rival television outlets and personalities more interested in ratings than the story, and clear conflicts between local and wider cultural perspectives, along with the other interests already outlined. The film also delivers little after-the-fact nuggets, like the quadrupling of Greenpeace's membership following the incident.

As a story, it offers relatively little that hasn’t been done multiple times before, although this time there might be a little nostalgia for those parents who remember the story. But as a surprisingly nuanced examination of questionable motives, especially for a children’s movie, it exceeds expectations.

Compromise media shield law seems likely

2009-10-31T02:25:03Z

According to the Associated Press, agreement has been reached between senate, white house, and press representatives on a new version of a media shield law "to protect reporters from being forced to disclose their confidential sources in federal court."

In brief, it would allow the government to seek a source's identity in instances of security leaks with national security implications, the burden would be on the journalist to justify non-disclosure of source identity in criminal cases, and the burden would be on the state to justify disclosure in non-criminal cases.

Of interest to Sacramento Press readers and writers, "The revised bill would also extend protections for freelance or citizen journalists by defining a journalist by the nature of activity engaged in rather than by the organization that employs the reporter."

Full story: Yahoo News

Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "white house"

Film Review: Big Miracle

Compromise media shield law seems likely