ELVIS
(2022)
This fictional telling of Elvis Presley’s meteoric
rise to fame and his slow descent isn’t really worth a sentence of criticism.
Obviously, to expect a biopic to stick to the truth about its subject is
absurd—even the most illustrious lives aren’t exciting enough to sustain a
big-screen entertainment.
But director Baz Luhrmann has invented an
Elvis life that didn’t exist. And, even worse, his lead actors—Austin Butler as
the King and Tom Hanks as his shady manager/puppet master—fail miserably in turning
their characters into anything more than cartoon figures. Actually, Hank’s Col.
Parker comes off as more Muppet than human. This will be remembered as the low
point of this legendary actor’s career.
Butler possesses an “Elvis” look—though the filmmakers are very slow in altering him into the prematurely aging, drug-abusing singer—but he seems incapable of expressing emotions other than shaking his body.
The first sin of “Elvis” is to turn
Presley’s on-stage performance into a national crisis while exaggerate his
gyrations into something almost spasmatic. I’ve seen hundreds of videos of
Presley performing and he never shook like Butler does in the film. (I can’t
wait until someone does the Joe Cocker story.) In addition, Lahrmann and his
screenwriters leave the impression that Elvis is headed for jail for his lascivious
performances and that spurs his draft notice. Yes, Elvis stirred up the conservatives who
feared the influence of Black music becoming part of mainstream white culture,
but there was no doubt that Presley’s career would be ending.
The
movie star part of Presley’s life is glossed over, both his success and how it
pushed the singer to record middle-of-the-road material at the same time that
British-invasion rock left him behind. But the film hits its heights with the
recreation of, and behind the scenes look at, Presley’s 1968 television special,
a rare instance of the thrill of rock ‘n’ roll music captured on TV. It also
marked the moment Elvis stood up to Col. Parker’s safety-first approach, but it
didn’t last.
The attempts to show Elvis’ sensitivity to
what the country is going through in the late 60s—the killing of Martin Luther King
Jr. and Robert Kennedy—ring hollow and the film’s constant flashbacks to remind
viewers of his Black music influences come off as heavy handed. (Pointedly, the
film never mentions Presley’s biggest singing influence, Dean Martin.)
After
the slam-bang editing of the first two hours of the picture, the final, sad
conclusion of his life drags to a close. Butler’s laid-back performance fails
miserable by the end as I could barely tell the difference between a clean
Elvis and a drugged-up one. The only change seems to be a willingness to call
out Parker for the manipulator he was.
And that is the saddest aspect of Elvis’
life and career—allowing Parker to control it, never growing up and taking over
his own life.
If you really want to know about Presley,
seek out the 2018 HBO documentary “Elvis: The Searcher” or watching the
superbly done 1979 TV movie “Elvis,” starring Kurt Russell.
This “Elvis” isn’t even very good at
myth-making: If I didn’t already know it, nothing in this film would persuade
me that Presley is one of the most important figures of modern music. But, then
again, if this film inspires those who don’t know Presley’s music to take a
listen, then it has done something worthwhile.
PHILIP
BAKER HALL (1931-2022) and JAMES CAAN (1940-2022)
More than once in this blog I’ve lamented
the disappearance of the roster of great character actors who made 20th
Century movies so entertaining
Philip Baker Hall, a latecomer to film who
died last month at 90, was among the last of those actors whose skills, instant
recognition and commitment to even the smallest role, continued that
traditional into this century. (Paul Sorvino, who also recently died, also fits
the category, mostly in mob roles.)
I first encountered the sad-eyed Hall in a lead role—a little-seen one-man performance filmed by Robert Altman—as a drunken, ranting, but spot-on Richard Nixon. In “Secret Honor” (1984), the 53-year-old Hall, after a decade of toiling in small roles on television, gives nothing less than a career-making performance as the disgraced former president. It should have propelled him to stardom, but it took a while.
Twelve years later, he was top billed in
Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Hard Eight” (1996), as a veteran Vegas gambler who
schools a struggling John C. Reilly in the life. Though little seen, the role,
along with a smaller role in Anderson’s masterpiece “Boogie Nights” the
following year, made Hall one of the leading supporting players over the next
20 years. (In 1991, he made his now legendary appearance on “Seinfeld” as a
library cop.)
Just a small sample of his roles include
CBS executive Don Hewitt in “The Insider,” a fictional game show host Jimmy
Gator in “Magnolia” (again for Anderson), another TV exe in “The Truman Show,” a
detective in “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” as Sen. Everett Dirksen in the TV film
“Path to War,” as the CIA director in “Argo,” a police captain in “Rush Hour”
and a mob boss in “You Kill Me.” His last role was as part of the ensemble of
the TV series, “Messiah” in 2020.
(For a heartfelt remembrance of Hall, look
for the article by LA Times sportswriter Sam Farmer, who was a friend of the
actor.)
Any remembrance of James Caan begins with
his Sonny Corleone in “The Godfather,” a supporting role that concludes with
one of the cinema’s most famous death scenes. “Sonny at the tollbooth” has
become a standard idiom describing any situation that ends badly. But before
that bloody takedown, Caan supplies the fire in an otherwise underplayed,
surprisingly quiet film.
Though the actor felt cheated that some of
his best moments were left on the cutting room floor, his combative, boisterous
Sonny—overreacting to the shooting of this father even as he’s unsure of how to
fill the Don’s chair—earned an Oscar nomination.
But before that landmark role and after
years of working in television, he established himself as a leading man, first
as a scientist-astronaut in Robert Altman’s “Countdown” (1967); as a dangerous
character who hooks up with a woman running away from her life in Francis
Coppola’s “The Rain People” (1969), both co-starring Robert Duvall; as author
John Updike’s one-time high school star Harry Angstrom running from the
drudgery of middle-class life in “Rabbit, Run” (1970); and, to much acclaim, as
real-life doomed NFL running back Brian Piccolo in the TV movie “Brian’s Song”
(1971).
For
a time, Caan succumbed to the destructive habits of stardom, becoming persona
non grata in Hollywood before Coppola cast him as the by-the-book military man
facing family problems in “Gardens of Stone” (1997). That led to starring roles
in “Alien Nation” (1988), a big budget bust; “Misery” (1990), a mega hit that
won co-star Kathy Bates an Oscar; and then, opposite Bette Midler, in “For the
Boys” (1991).
From the mid-90s onward, Caan was
relegated to mostly touch guy supporting roles, memorably in Wes Anderson’s debut
“Bottle Rocket” (1996), a corrupt contractor in “The Yards” and as Will
Ferrell’s long-lost father in “Elf” (2003). But he never stopped working:
romancing Ellen Burstyn, another 1970s legend, in the “seniors” comedy “Queen
Bees” (2021) and as an elderly mobster in “Fast Charlie,” scheduled for next
year.
While Caan’s career doesn’t match what Duvall
and Al Pacino, his “Godfather brothers,” have accomplished, he remains an icon
of 70s-80s cinema who, at his best, was just as believable as a twitchy
mobster, a professional athlete or a discontent husband.
THE
MOB (1951)
I watch a ton of low-budget film noirs from
the 1940s and ‘50s and even those with sophomoric scripts and awful acting hold
my interested better than most new films. And then, occasionally, I catch a gem
that I’ve previously never seen or even heard of.
This fast-paced police vs. mobsters
starring Broderick Crawford, just a couple of years after winning the best
actor Oscar for “All the King’s Men” (1949), and filled with great character
actors, benefits from a first-rate script and its moody, deep-shadow
cinematography by legendary cameraman Joseph Walker (“Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington,” “His Girl Friday,” among over 100 others).
The film opens with Crawford, a Los
Angeles cop, buying a ring for his fiancé at a pawn shop when he witnesses what
looks like another policeman shooting a suspect. He tells the cop to call in the
shooting but instead the guy bolts. Turns out, the man killed was the cop and
the shooter was a mob gunsel disguised as a cop.
His commanders explain to Crawford’s Johnny
Damico that the dead policeman had infiltrated the mob that controls the docks.
So they send Johnny to New Orleans to create a new identify and then,
eventually, return to Southern California and find work on the docks.
Union corruption is hardly a fresh film
topic—best examined in Elia Kazan’s masterpiece “On the Waterfront” in 1954—but
“The Mob” stands out with its snappy, sarcastic dialogue and willingness to
show across-the-board criminality. The screenplay by William Bowers, one of Hollywood’s
best writers of the era, is based on a book by Ferguson Findley. Credits for
Bowers, who 20 years later showed up as a congressman questioning Michael
Corleone in “The Godfather Part II,” include “The Gunfighter,” “Cry Danger,”
“30“ and “Support Your Local Sheriff!” to mention just a few.
It’s probably Crawford’s second-best
performance—his Johnny is convincing as both an uncompromising tough guy and a humble,
working-class cop. He’s well supported by Richard Kiley, a superb actor who
should have been a star, as a dockworker who befriends Johnny; Ernest Borgnine as
a smooth-talking mob boss; Neville Brand as the mob enforcer; Jay Adler as a
slimy hotel manager; Matt Crowley as an in-the-know bartender; Lynn Baggett as
a sexy blonde who tries to get info out of Johnny; along with Charles Bronson
and John Marley in small roles.
This is the actual first film directed by Robert
Parrish, who served as editor on “All the King’s Men,” as he was replaced by
actor Dick Powell on his first assignment, “Cry Danger.” He made high profile
pictures through the 50s (“Lucy Gallant,” “Fire Down Below,” “The Wonderful
Country”) but never directed a better film than “The Mob.”
While it’s an easy target, actors and
their egos and pretense inevitably make for amusing comedies. “Tootsie,” “My
Favorite Year,” “Birdman,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” are just the most
prominent examples of the laughs that are easily mined when filmmakers take aim
at their own business.
Add this uncompromisingly biting Spanish-language
gem to that list. Argentine co-writers-directors Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat
(Andrés Duprat also gets a writing credit) offer a sausage-making look at the
process, from the financing process to rehearsals to post-screening press
conferences and the indulgent, childish ways that actors and directors go about
their business.
Penélope Cruz, fresh off her down-to-earth,
Oscar-nonmined performance in “Parallel Mothers,” sports a frizzy, mountainous
red wig as determinedly serious avant-garde director Lola Cuevas, whose antics
to elicit the performances she seeks is just this side of torture. Suffering
under her martinet-style direction are two full-of-themselves actors, movie
star Felix Rivero (Antonio Banderas) and acclaimed thespian Ivan Torres (Victor
Martinez). It’s as if Anthony Hopkins and Sylvester Stallone were cast as
brothers in a Wes Anderson film.
Nearly the entire film takes place during
rehearsals Lola orchestras with the two actors. As repetitive as this seems, the
filmmakers never run out of new ways to show the bloated egos of this trio.
Martinez, who has spent most of this
career on Argentina television, nails the persona of an “artiste,” whose life
is devoted to intellectual pursuits: in one scene he and his wife, a children’s
book author, rhapsodized while listening to a pretentiously awful classical
record.
This may be Banderas’ best film
performance as he hits all the right notes of fake sincerity and cluelessness. His
Felix never tires of bragging about his various acting awards.
Like few actresses, Cruz has the ability to
portray a classic beauty, as glamorous as Elizabeth Taylor or Ingrid Bergman, or
play a quirky comic figure as well as Diane Keaton or Sandra Bullock.
In what thus far has turned out to be an
uneventful year at the movies, this import might be the best film I’ve seen.
THE
GRAY MAN (2022)
If this is the best Netflix can deliver, I
think I can safely predict that its stock will continue to plummet. Generic,
predictable and lacking any sense of quirkiness, this lifeless actioner from
Anthony and Joe Russo, directors of “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers:
Endgame,” doesn’t give star Ryan Gosling much to do beyond firing his gun.
Gosling plays “Six,” a “Bourne”-like
creation of a secret CIA program who discovers that his latest assigned killing
was of a fellow assassin. Like Jason in “Bourne,” he realizes he’s next on the
list and goes on the run, skipping around from one world capital to another
(each proudly labeled when the action shifts).
His nemesis is a rogue agent (pretty
original, right?) played by Chris Evans, clearly trying to exorcise his
“Captain America” persona. Sporting a 1970s-style black mustache and making all
those “Avenger” bad guys look like humanitarians, Evan’s Lloyd is so
outrageously destructive in his methods to capture “Six” that there’s nothing
left to believe about the story.
Gosling is one of the best actors of his
generation, but he never has a chance in this mess. I can hardly wait for the
sequel.
CHA
CHA SMOOTH TALK (2022)
Somewhere there’s a checklist independent
filmmakers use if they have any hope to secure big-screen distribution that
looks something like this:
§
Young
adult working in dead end job;
§
Single
or remarried mother;
§
Goofy
best friend who acts like he’s still in high school;
§
Older
woman whose uncertain life leads to some kind of relationship;
§
Writer-director
also plays the lead character;
§
Cathartic
fight breaks out during a wedding, birthday party or some type of traditional American
gathering;
§
An
indecipherable, yet cool title;
§
Obtain
a slot at Sundance, Telluride or South by Southwest.
I could go on but you know these films; “Cha Cha” checks all these boxes except the “best friend” storyline—maybe it was cut in editing.
But don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad
film and writer-director-star Cooper Raiff presents an appealing,
TV-series-like persona.
Fresh out of college, Raiff’s Andrew works
at a generic version of Hot Dog on a Stick, but after a spirited appearance
escorting his younger brother (Evan Assante) to a friend’s Bar Mitzvah
celebration, he’s convinced to start a business as a party starter. Andrew
becomes the go-to guy in this Jewish community (I never did catch where the
film is set) to serve as organizer of Bar Mitzvahs and, most importantly,
enthusiastically pushing teens to mingle and dance.
Also, at that first gathering, he meets
Domino (the effervescent Dakota Johnson), a young mother—but older than
Andrew—whose autistic daughter Lola (an impressive debut by Vanessa Burghardt)
struggles to socialize. He quickly wins Domino’s heart by coaxing Lola onto the
dance floor.
The rest plays out as you’d expect,
though the film’s strength is its focus on the touching relationship between
Lola and Andrews—he becomes her regular sitter and she grows to trust him.
Leslie Mann as Andrew’s mother and Brad
Garrett as the step-father help find some humanity in these stereotype roles,
while Johnson, who became infamous in the “Fifty Shades” franchise but was
quite good in last year’s “The Lost Daughter,” steals the film. Her and Lola’s
story is much more compelling than the undefined difficulties Andrew faces.
This is just the second feature for the
25-year-old Raiff, (2020’s “Shithouse”—see the checklist on titles) so I have
hope that he will throw out overused plot points next time and work on writing
a story that allows the lead character to grow, not just go through the
motions.
ENCANTO
(2021)
I can’t imagine a more childish film
winning an Oscar in any category. For some reason, it has become OK for
animated pictures made for an audience of grade-school kids to be honored as
the best in the genre.
Occasionally, a movie with wider appeal—“Up,”
“Inside Out,” “WALL-E”—have captured the best animated film Oscar, but too
often it’s been kid-friendly, song-filled fare such as “Brave,” “Frozen” and
“Coco.” The latest winner falls into the latter category.
The Disney fairy tale is set in a mansion
with a mind of its own, located in a small town in Colombia, where the extended
family dominate the community because each has special powers. Everyone except Mirabel,
the teen daughter who mopes around because she didn’t inherit the magic that
has touched other family members. The rest plays out like every story about
fitting in and appreciating others.
There are plenty of songs—composed by
either Lin-Manuel Miranda or Germaine Franco—that all sound the same, while the
animation, though extravagantly colorful, feels as realistic as a computer game
background. All the characters look like they were made from the same mold:
computer versions of giant-eyed plastic baby dolls.
I’m happy films such as “Encanto” get
made, both for their lessons and their diversity, but surely the Academy should
be honoring more ambitious animated works.
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