THE KING’S SPEECH (2010)
A man being treated by a speech therapist for stuttering hardly seems like the plot of a great film. Then again, it doesn’t hurt that the patient is the future king of England.
Tom Hooper, director of last year’s underrated “The Damned United” and the acclaimed cable series “John Adams,” has made a near-perfect character study of a pivotal figure of the 20th Century as he faces both his frustrating disability and the dark clouds of war.
Colin Firth portrays Prince Albert, know to his family as Bertie, second son of the gruff, cold George V and brother of Edward (Guy Pearce), the dashing and well-spoken heir to the throne. Albert prefers to be in the background, limited by his inability to speak fluently and his reserved personality.
Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), in her continual pursuit of a cure for her husband’s speech problem, visits unorthodox Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), who agrees to take on the royal patient, but only under his terms.
The give and take between Firth’s taciturn Bertie and Rush’s gregarious, plain-speaking Lionel is superbly written (by David Seidler) and realized, painting a difficult relationship that goes from royal and commoner to brothers. The performances are career bests for both of these excellent actors.
Raising the dramatic stakes is the biggest crisis faced by the Royal family since Richard III started killing off heirs to the throne: Edward refusal to give up American divorcee Wallis Simpson even after becoming King. The possibility of having to take his brother’s place on the throne doubles Bertie’s insecurities, especially with the newly popular medium of radio requiring the country’s leader to speak directly to the nation.
The film captures the intensity of the times---Hitler is about to launch his assault on Europe---while never losing its focus on the therapy process and the growing bond between these two, very different, men.
Firth, who earned a 2009 Oscar nomination for his subtle portrayal of a gay man mourning the death of his partner in “A Single Man,” finds the right balance of royal macho and frail human in Bertie, as this accidental monarch slowly becomes a warmer, more likeable person. These two performances elevate the 50-year-old Firth to the top ranks of film actors. Yet Rush, who won an Oscar for his first major role in “Shine” (1996), is equally impressive as a nervy eccentric who treats the King as just another patient and also deserve a spot in the best actor category.
Bonham Carter captures Elizabeth’s earthy, no-nonsense persona and unflagging confidence in her husband, foreshadowing her role in leading the country through the harsh times of World War II and her beloved status as “Queen Mother” until her death in 2002.
The film is filled with impeccably acted supporting roles, including Pearce, displaying both the bravado of the young King and the anguish behind one of the most celebrated romances of the era; Timothy Spall as Churchill; Derek Jacobi as the Archbishop; Claire Bloom as the Queen; and Michael Gambon as George V.
While “The King’s Speech” has the trappings of a “Masterpiece Theatre” production, the movie also possesses an unhinged, unpredictable undercurrent that makes the political issues come alive and the characters seem very contemporary.
There’s a poignant, insightful moment when Bertie’s children----future Queen Elizabeth, then 10, and Margaret----greet him with curtsies rather than hugs now that he’s also their King. The difficult balance between personal and public, country and family, turns this story of a very private, privileged man and his informal, working man friend into a fascinating study of class and individual priorities in an unpredictable, changing world.
TRUE GRIT (2010)
More than 40 years ago, this comic Western was viewed as a remnant of old Hollywood, a relic in the midst of a revolution. It earned just a single Oscar nomination (for John Wayne) and was out grossed at the box office by the hipper “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” And the Western movie critics were raving about that year was “The Wild Bunch.”
The Coen brothers’ remake, which offers only cosmetic changes from the original, has benefitted from the rarity of Westerns today and the filmmakers’ cutting-edge reputation to earn critical raves. But what’s on the screen is too often a by-the-numbers horse opera that doesn’t match the energy of such recent Westerns as “3:10 to Yuma” (2007) or “Open Range” (2004).
What saves the picture is its perfect casting: Jeff Bridges is a more disheveled, inebriated Rooster Cogburn than Wayne; Hailee Steinfeld, a 14-year-old newcomer, nails the precocious Mattie; and Matt Damon brings to life the egotistical LaBoeuf, a character than had been left on the page in the original by amateur actor Glen Campbell.
Both films, based on the acclaimed novel by Charles Portis, follows Mattie’s determined pursuit of the low-life drifter who killed her father, a successful rancher, for no good reason. After much hemming and hawing, she hires Cogburn, a federal marshal, to help her bring the killer, who has escaped into Indian Territory, to justice. Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, after the same man for another crime, joins the hunting party.
Even with the spunky, self-reliant Mattie as the focus, the film never picks up much speed until the mismatched trio hits the trail, and even then the Coens add little spin to the tale.
The only interesting addition to the new version is the brief, oddball appearance of a medicine man/trader wearing a bear skin (including the head). A few more “wild” animals could have done wonders for this movie.
Bridges, like Wayne, was born to play Rooster and he does have some fun with the role, but not as much as you’d expect. He plays it pretty straight just like everyone else in the picture.
Steinfeld, discovered during auditions for the role after having very limited acting experience, shows the character’s steely resolve and verbal maturity while displaying real cinematic charisma. Not once is she out acted by Bridges, Damon or Josh Brolin (who has a small role as the killer) and should not be stuck in the supporting actress category just because she’s a juvenile. She is the film’s lead actress.
Unquestionable, this version is better directed and acted than Henry Hathaway’s 1969 movie, and, from all reports, sticks closer to the novel. Yet, overall, it’s the same picture; an occasionally amusing, run-of-the-mill Western.
WHAT DID YOU DO IN THE WAR, DADDY? (1966)
While it’s hard to take seriously a director who made eight “Pink Panther” films---each progressively less funny and more embarrassing---Blake Edwards, who died a few weeks ago at age 88, is hard to dismiss. The grandson of a silent filmmaker, Edwards started in Hollywood as an actor (he played a soldier in “The Best Years in Our Lives”) and then a screenwriter before making his directing debut with “Bring Your Smile Along,” a 1955 B-level musical comedy starring pop singer Frankie Lane. Four years later, he scored his first hit with the military comedy “Operation Petticoat,” starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis.
For television, Edwards created the short-lived 1959-60 series “Mr. Lucky” about a profession gambler and the better remembered “Peter Gunn,” with Craig Stevens as a cool private eye, which ran for three seasons starting in 1958.
He was just hitting his stride. For his next film, he turned Truman Capote’s novel about a New York City party girl named Holly Golightly--- with the help of Andy Hepburn’s iconic performance---into a classic, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961). The next year he directed one of the era’s most memorable dramas, “Days of Wine and Roses,” featuring searing performances by Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick as an alcoholic couple.
Then he created the anchor, for better or worse, of his career: “The Pink Panther” and “A Shot in the Dark,” both starring with Peter Sellers as the thick-headed, clumsy French detective, Inspector Clouseau. Essentially, a Hollywoodization of the absurdly goofiness of the English comedies of the ‘50s combined with the silent pratfalls of the Keystone Cops, the 1964 comedies made Sellers a star in America. But it was another ten years before the pair returned to the series.
A string of box-office failures and high-profile battles with studio chiefs marked Edwards’ last ‘60s career, culminating with his move to England after his married to Julie Andrews in 1969. One of his misfires was the oddly titled 1966 World War II satire, “What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?” The film starts out promisingly, when a ragtag platoon ordered to take an Italian town finds the enemy troops more than willing to surrender. All the Italians want is to celebrate their festival that evening and then, in the morning, they’ll become prisoners.
James Coburn and Aldo Ray, as leaders of this troop of partiers, have no problem with the arrangement and, with the right measure of alcohol and the affections of the local beauty, neither does the uptight lieutenant from headquarters, played by Dick Shawn.
The next morning, the plan goes awry and so does the William Peter Blatty (“The Exorcist”) script, turning into a series of flipped-out officers and mistaken identities. Once the Nazis show up, the film loses any sense of intelligence it started with, wasting the first-rate comic skills of Coburn and Shawn.
During this dry period, Edwards occasionally made interesting pictures, including “The Party,” a satire of hipsters of the ‘60s starring Sellers; “Wild Rovers” (1971), an entertaining Western with William Holden; and “The Carey Treatment” (1972), a murder-mystery starring Coburn.
Then came Edwards’ impressive return to box-office glory with the daring sex comedy “10” (1979), followed by the hilarious, uncensored assault on Hollywood in “S.O.B.” (1981) and the gender-bending comedy “Victor/Victoria” (1982), his best film since “Tiffany’s.” All three movies featured Andrews.
Between the never-ending “Panther” retreads, Edwards explored the theme of “10”---the anxieties of middle-aged men especially in regards to sex---for the rest of his career. “Micki & Maude” (1984), with “10” star Dudley Moore; “That’s Life!” (1986), a high-profile acting platform for Jack Lemmon; and “Skin Deep” (1989), with John Ritter in the Dudley Moore role, were Edwards’ late-career best. His final picture was, appropriately, “The Son of the Pink Panther” (1993), this time starring the nutty Italian actor Roberto Benigni.
Though Edwards only helmed one great film, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” and produced at least four too many “Panthers,” this writer-director had his finger on the pulse of what made audience laugh for more than four decades, a rare skill considering the ever-changing tastes of moviegoers. And in between the sophomoric sight gags and pratfalls, his movies always possessed a dark, sarcastic undercurrent that kept him relevant longer than most of his generation of filmmakers.
THE FIGHTER (2010)
Great acting cannot turn a predictable, simplistic screenplay into a good movie, but it certainly makes it a more entertaining two hours.
This true story of a pair of prizefighting half-brothers, Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and Dicky Ecklund (Christian Bale) from a small town north of Boston follows the template that’s been used in boxing films since the 1930s. Dickey had his shot at glory (he never tires of boasting that he knocked down the great Sugar Ray Leonard) but now is the wild-eyed, irresponsible, cocaine-addicted trainer of Micky, a welterweight struggling to get a shot at a decent fight. Offering little help is his trashy, ambitious mother/manager Alice (Melissa Leo) who dotes on the washed-up Dicky and only sees Micky as a way to keep the money flowing for her and her seven big-haired, loud-mouth daughters.
Under the influence of a feisty bartender (Amy Adams), the soft-spoken Micky break with the family and starts getting better fights. About the same time, Dicky’s robbery scheme lands him in prison, where he attempts to right his life.
If you’ve seen many boxing films, or nearly any sports movies, the story arc and characters are as familiar as an old sock. Yet the ferocious, authentic performances by Bale and Leo are worth the price of admission.
Bale, the reigning “Batman,” who showed what an extraordinary actor he can be in “Rescue Dawn” (2006), turns this sad, drug-addled goofball into an unforgettable character; outrageous, funny and frustratingly human.
Leo’s brassy, overbearing dame runs the family as if she’s a Vegas monster, giving her troubled son and dependent daughters free rides. The actress’ best performances---she was Oscar nominated for “Frozen River” (2008) and deserved to be for “21 Grams” (2003)---have been portrayals of uneducated, determined women and she finds just the right balance again with her Alice, making her both cartoonishly funny and horror-movie scary.
The film is the pet project of Wahlberg, a longtime fan of Ward, having grown up in the area, and he gives a solid performance, especially in the very authentic looking fight scenes. But he should have demanded a better script.
Director David O. Russell (“The Three Kings”) keeps the movie lively and makes great use of real locations in Lowell, Mass., but he’s stuck with the “true story” and sometimes that’s not the best source of convincing drama.
BLACK SWAN (2010)
I’m never surprised when I see a bad film---I feel lucky if 20% of the new movies I watch are any good. What amazes me is the number of bad or mediocre pictures every year that receive the big-budget studio push for prestigious awards. Of course, some of these bad films end up winning awards, which might never have happened if they had slipped into theaters in March.
Example number 186 is “Black Swan.” This overwrought melodrama about an immature, mentally unstable ballet dancer is a glossy version of a low-budget exploitation film. I half expected characters to sprout fangs or wings or, like in a 1970s Roger Corman picture, transform into some kind of beast.
Natalie Portman matches the skin-and-bones look of a prima ballerina and, at age 28, is still believable as a child-like adult. Her Nina lives under the domineering thumb of her mother (Barbara Hershey), a former dancer whose controlling behavior has never allowed Nina to develop relationships or emerge from childhood.
That Nina holds on to a spot in a prestigious New York City dance company is hard to buy; as the movie keeps hammering home, it takes more than physical perfection to be an artistic dancer. Nina has zero personality, lacking any interests beyond her tights and slippers.
The plot involves Nina’s struggle to portray the Black Swan in a production of “Swan Lake” staged by the dance company’s demanding director (French actor Vincent Cassel). What little confidence she possesses is crushed by the arrival of a younger, sexier dancer (Mila Kunis), sending Nina into schizophrenic, disturbing visions.
The performances are alarming poor, led by Portman’s one-note portrayal of this fragile young woman. Her look of pained fear never changes (she’s on the verge of tears for the entire two hours) until she somehow becomes completely possessed in the grand finalé.
Hershey might as well be carrying around a wire coat hanger---it would have provided a more subtle insight into her character than she ever approaches. Gallo hits all the clichés of an overbearing choreographer while Kunis’ character is made to fit whatever the disturbed mind of Nina’s requires.
Darren Aronofsky, whose best known films examined the agony of drug abuse (“Requiem for a Dream”) and the pain of an aging pro wrestler (“The Wrestler”) is clearly fascinated by the physical abuse people are willing endure for their obsessions, but this latest version never rises above TV-movie disease-of-moment dreck.
Yet “Black Swan” has already picked up four Golden Globe nominations and looks to be a shoo-in for a best picture Oscar nomination. Timing is everything.
MADE IN DAGENHAM (2010)
This British docudrama, about a landmark strike by female workers at an English Ford Motors plant in 1968, plays like a TV movie, except for the vibrant, cinematic performance at its center.
Sally Hawkins, who received numerous accolades for her high spirited performance in Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” (2008), portrays Rita O’Grady, one of the seamstresses producing seat covers at the plant, who steps into a leadership role when the women strike for a pay raise that had been promised by the company. This working wife and mother, who never pictured herself as an activist or leader, finds it comes naturally as she confronts arrogant company executives, sexist union leaders and suspicious male co-workers who lose their paychecks when the company locks out all the workers.
Hawkins’ spunky, unaffected performance turns these 40-year-old events into relevant issues in a way that William Ivory’s script, Nigel Cole’s direction and the stock characters who surround her can’t do.
Bob Hoskins gives his usual feisty, bemused performance as the union rep on the women’s side, but Miranda Richardson overplays her role as the Labor Secretary who takes an interest in the dispute. All the officials---government, company, union---are portrayed as narrow-minded fools, which makes the accomplishments of O’Grady and the strikers seem less impressive. In fact, this group of small-town women changed the way one of the world’s largest corporations paid workers, eventually leading to equal pay laws across Europe and North America.
One can’t help but admire “Made in Dagenham” for bringing this little-noted but far-reaching bit of history to the screen, even if it makes for predictable, by-the-numbers cinema.
WILD GRASS (2010)
Legendary French director Alain Resnais’ latest film falls well short of his 2006 effort, “Private Fears in Public Places,” though both share a neon-light look that makes you wonder if it isn’t all a dream. If it had been, “Wild Grass” might be more convincing.
When a retired, somewhat unstable man (veteran actor André Dussollier) discovers a wallet in a parking garage, he becomes obsessed with the owner, in large part because the wallet contains her pilot license. Though he turns the lost wallet into the police (in an extraordinarily laborious scene), he calls and then writes the woman in a desperate attempt to meet her.
Marguerite (Sabine Azéma), who is a dentist and flies planes for pleasure, can’t decide if she wants Georges out of her life or, in some bizarre way, enjoys his attention. When he slashes her car’s tires, she finally goes to the police, but still ends up tracking him down for a meeting.
As with most of Resnais’s films---the best known being “Hiroshima Mon Amour” (1959), “Last Year at Marienbad” (1961) and “Providence” (1977)---“Wild Grass” unfolds at a leisurely pace and the motivations of the characters change on a dime. Most irritating in this movie is the incessive narration of the character’s thoughts that offers bland details rather than real insight. The script, by Alex Reval and Laurent Herbiet, from a novel by Christian Gailly, seems to be attempting to comment on the difficultly in making connections in a modern society and that fate sends us down unexpected paths, but it never made much impact on me. Seriously, the dramatic conclusion hinges on a broken zipper.
But what do I know: critics polled by Film Comment magazine selected “Wild Grass” as one of the ten best films of the year.
That vote probably speaks more to the director’s status in world cinema than the quality of his latest film. Following the deaths in 2010 of Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol, 88-year-old Resnais is the only major figure of the French New Wave still making commercial films. (I’m not sure what you call the recent work of Jean-Luc Godard. His films have become so polemic and indecipherable that you need to be one of his acolytes to appreciate them.) Amazingly, Resnais is shooting another film scheduled to be released in 2012, when he turns 90.
BAD MATH: In last month’s review of “Howards End,” I casually threw out the “fact” that 80% of movies are adapted from books. One of “Thoughts on Film’s” more careful readers pointed out that I was way off the mark and he was correct. In a survey of a two recent years, 78% of movies were original screenplays and just 22% started as books. Of those “original” screenplays, 18% are remakes, sequels or based on real events.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Saturday, December 11, 2010
November 2010
HOWARDS END (1992)I’m convinced that the most popular gripe about movies isn’t that they stink; it’s that they aren’t as good as the book.
The impression comes from the fact that people are more discerning readers than they are moviegoers---paying for plenty of crappy movies but only taking the time to read books written by the best or most popular authors. Probably 80 percent of American films are based (many very loosely) on a book, yet out of those, most moviegoers have read maybe 10 percent of those books.
My point, if there is one, is that many movies are better or at least more entertaining than the book they’re based on, or at least do a good job of conveying the themes of the written word. Just like in the multiplexes, bookstores are filled with dumb, badly written books, sitting next to masterpieces.
Clearly, the more profound and complex the novel, the more difficult it becomes to whittle down its meaning to a two to three hour film. To me, the perfect examples of the screen version improving upon the novel are “The Grapes of Wrath” (1940), the John Ford-directed adaptation of John Steinbeck’s book in which the visuals and powerful acting tell more than the author’s words and “The Godfather” (1972), for which author Mario Puzo and the film’s director Francis Coppola created a screenplay far superior to what’s on the page.
The film version of “Howards End,” written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala for director James Ivory, shows that a novel filled with philosophy, social issues and hard to explain characters can successfully be brought to the screen. I recently watched the film for the first time since I saw it during its initial run in 1992. At the time, I ranked it as the year’s eighth best film. Now, having read E.M. Forster’s novel in the interim, I’m doubly impressed. It’s one of the great novels of the 20th Century, so I could hardly say the movie surpassed the book, but it certainly does it justice.
Ivory and Jhabvala follow Forster’s multilayered plot about the Schlegel sisters and how their lives become entangled with the more reserved and richer Wilcox family, owners of the picturesque home of the title. Along the way, the subtle, beautifully crafted screenplay touches on the social issues so crucial to the importance of the book---the growing feminist movement; the changing nature of the roles of men and women; the value of an inner life; the plight of the poor; changing class distinctions; and the crumbling of the pillars of 19th Century England.
It’s a credit to the filmmakers that this period piece never feels like a visit to an ancient world. The novel was contemporary, written in 1910 and set in the same era, and the movie reflects the immediacy of the social issues and the way they inform the characters and their actions.
The nearly perfect performances by the entire cast accounts for much of the reason this thoughtful novel translates so well to the screen. First and foremost is Vanessa Redgrave as Mrs. Wilcox, who loves Howards End beyond anything else in her life and attempts to convey her feelings along to her new friend, Margaret Schlegel. While Mrs. Wilcox dies early in the film, her spirit---in the form of Redgrave’s piercing, sad eyes and low whisper of a voice, creating a nearly ethereal presence---remains essential to the story and other characters.
Emma Thompson’s Margaret, in many ways, makes the novel’s most confusing, almost contradictory, character more understandable. At the heart of the movie is how Margaret finds a way to go from a free-thinking, literary, independent woman to devoted, forgiving wife of a proud, short-sighted businessman. It helps that he’s played by Anthony Hopkins, equally convincing while portraying both the dashing and the pigheaded side of Henry Wilcox.
While Helen, Margaret’s determined, principled younger sister, is a more static character, Helena Bonham Carter brings to life this feisty, articulate harbinger of the hippies of the 1960s. She refuses to abide by society’s rules and sees life simply as a choice between doing right and doing wrong.
Forster had earlier written “Where Angels Fear to Tread” (made into a 1991 film with Bonham Carter) and “A Room with a View” (filmed in 1984 by Ivory and also starring Bonham Carter) and then later wrote “A Passage to India” (becoming a David Lean film in 1985), and, “Maurice,” published posthumously and filmed by Ivory in 1987. If not for him and Jane Austen, British cinema would have been considerably less interesting in the 1980s and ‘90s.
I do think “Howards End” needed to be 10 or 15 minutes longer, which would have allowed Ivory to let some of the scenes play out a bit more leisurely; the editing more than once ends a scene frustratingly early and I have no doubt some the more off-the-plot, but fascinating dialogue was trimmed for time.
It seems appropriate that this masterful piece of literature, which ends with Howards End---representing the privilege and principles of the British upper class---ultimately going to the bastard son of a working class man, will end up best remembered as the source of a great motion picture, the entertainment of the masses.
LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (2010)This Pittsburgh-set romance misfires on so many levels that I barely know where to start. An uncomfortable, misguided mixture of raunchy sex, social critique of the pharmaceutical industry, sophomoric slapstick and weepy romance, the Edward Zwick-directed film tries to be both hip and tradition, risky and safe. Yet despite all these elements, the film isn’t even close to being ambitious.
The screenplay (by Zwick, his writing partner Marshall Herskovitz and Charles Randolph from a novel by Jamie Reidy) establishes its dysfunctional credentials in the opening scenes, first with Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal in his most gregarious role) acting like an overgrown kid at his sales job at a electronics store (has a salesman ever danced with you?) and then at his parents’ home, where his more successful siblings and disappointed father (who else but George Segal) come off as self-satisfied pains.
Younger brother Josh (Josh Gad), who just sold his startup for millions, arranges a gig for Jamie as a Pfizer drug rep, one of those slick pill pushers who persuade physicians to prescribe their product. Since Jamie’s only obvious skill is his ability to seduce women, he uses his charisma and amorality to become a top salesman, especially once Pfizer brings out its little blue pill (the film is set in the mid-1990s).
But forget about all that: The main attraction of this film is Anne Hathaway’s Maggie, a reclusive artist (of indeterminate skill or success) who is well acquainted with the drug industry as she copes with Parkinson’s disease. They meet cute (when Jamie pretends to be a medical intern) during an examination and soon are ripping each other’s clothes off in a series of unbridled sex scenes, exuding the kind of heat (and nudity) rarely seen in a mainstream Hollywood release. (The pair previous were a less-than-perfect couple as husband and wife in “Brokeback Mountain.”)
Both actors have their moments of exceptional acting, but overall I struggled to find the humanity of these characters; too often they’re just a collection of personality quirks that pop up just when the plot demands conflict. Coming off better than the principles is Oliver Platt, as a crafty drug salesman who sees Jamie as his ticket out of Pittsburgh and back to Chicago, where his family lives. This veteran actor manages to brighten every film he’s in with his ever-expanding but very familiar face and ability to create quirky but reality-based characters.
Making her final screen appearance, Jill Clayburgh plays Jamie’s mother, getting a few funny lines in the opening dinner-table scene.
On the other hand, Gad, as the brother who moves in with Jamie when his wife throws him out of the house, does a weak imitation of Jack Black and is at the center of all the pointlessly crude Judd Apatow moments in the film. Ridiculously, this millionaire willingly sleeps on his brothers’ couch rather than finding his own place, moving in a hotel or, if he insists on clinging to his brother, finding them a bigger apartment. I think he can afford it: this is Pittsburgh not New York. But this isn’t about making sense; it’s about creating “Odd Couple” moments.
Zwick, who’s directed some exceptional films, including “Glory” (1989) and “Blood Diamond” (2006), stuffs his latest with something for everyone, and ends up failing to do much of anything well.
FAIR GAME (2010)Political conspiracy movies are among the few genres Hollywood does consistently well. Doug Liman, whose “The Bourne Identity” (2002) set the contemporary bar, delivers a more cerebral thriller with “Fair Game,” based on the Valerie Plame/Scooter Libby scandal.
If you’ve forgotten this particular Bush Administration criminal/ethical breach, this is the one where Dick Cheney and his minions decided to ruin the career of a longtime foreign operative of the CIA because her husband disputed the president’s claims of proof that Iraq was close to constructing a nuclear weapon.
Naomi Watts, as consistently impressive as any actress during the past decade (since her startling breakthrough in “Mulholland Dr.”) plays Plame as a daring agent venturing into the political hotspots of the globe. While in the midst of an undercover operation to convince an Iraqi nuclear worker to defect, Plame is blind-sided by the reaction following a Robert Novak column in the Washington Post that names her as a CIA agent, outing her to her friends and enemies.
Suddenly, after 18 years of devoted service, she’s cut off from all her field operatives and relegated to unimportant desk duties by the agency.
The movie, to its credit, is less about the investigation that leads to the indictment of Libby and more about the effect this political attack and knee-jerk reaction from Bush’s lieutenants has on these highly esteemed Beltway insiders. Also taking a deserved hit is the media, which willingly airs any dirt dished by the White House no matter how baseless, frivolous or simply false.
While Plame just wants it all to go away, holding fast to her Federal training by accepting the media onslaught and keeping silent, her husband (Sean Penn) believes the best defense is an unrelenting offense. Former ambassador and African expert Joseph Wilson, whose op/ed piece in the New York Times all but called the president a liar, shows up on every media outlet that will have him to assail the Bush Administration and dispute the claim printed by Novak and others that he was sent on the Niger fact-finding mission at his wife’s request.
Penn and Watts, who also played husband and wife in “21 Grams,” display genuine chemistry even as their relationship nears the breaking point under the pressure of the controversy. These great actors, simply by their screen presence, probably make Plame and Wilson more appealing people than they may be in real life, and, to a great extent, paint these bureaucrats as intellectual saints. But Liman makes no pretense about his sympathies. And he shouldn’t when peoples’ lives are forever altered by politicians whose only concern is covering up the lies manufactured to rationalize a war.
RAMONA (1910)This 17-minute silent short is basically the picture-book version of the Helen Jackson’s classic novel of early California. Without inter-title dialogue, the film pantomimes the story of Ramona, the love struck adopted daughter of a wealthy Spanish family who falls for Alessandro, a proud native Californian Indian who works for the family.
More complete versions of this tale of racism in the 1850s (it’s subtitled, “A Story of the White Man’s Injustice to the Indian”) can be found in the 1936 movie starring Loretta Young and at the annual “Ramona Pageant” held in Hemet, Ca., each summer. The influence of this 1887 novel can’t be overstated: tourist flocked to the state to see any site associated with “Ramona” and the book all but invented the cultural identity of the region.
The short is worth a look because it was one of 98 shorts directed by D.W. Griffith that year (though he’s uncredited) and stars 17-year-old Mary Pickford, soon to be “America’s Sweetheart” and the biggest star in Hollywood. The picture is so short that there is hardly time for Pickford to do much except look distraught as Ramona, but at least she’s playing a character that is age appropriate. By her late 20s, she was mostly cast as young girls (she played Pollyanna in 1920).
The Griffith touch is evident in the way he frames his shots (a signature, used often in “Ramona,” is keeping all the actors on the right side of the frame) and his use of the rolling hills of Ventura County, Ca., photographed by Griffith’s pioneering cinematographer Billy Bitzer. Griffith shot scenes at the adobe and chapel at Camulos Rancho, believe to be Jackson’s inspiration for the Spanish ranch of the novel.
Pickford and Henry B. Walthall (as Alessandro) play out the tragedy---they are ousted from their community because of their forbidden love---with slightly more subtlety than the exaggerated acting style of the time.
What struck me, in a watching a complete film made 100 years ago, is how quickly the art form evolved. Just 25 years after this crude film, cinema had transformed itself into a form very close to what we experience at newly minted multiplexes every weekend. The leap from “Ramona” to, say, “It Happened Once Night” (1934) was astonishing; the advance to the latest “Harry Potter” much less so. In fact, many would argue that there’s been no progress in the art since the late 1920s.
THE QUICK AND THE DEAD (1995)If not for its impressive quartet of stars, this cartoonish homage to the Westerns of Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood would have gone straight to video.
Sharon Stone, Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio all play gunfighters who enter a dueling contest in the corrupt desert town controlled by Gene Hackman’s Herod (just for good measure some Biblical symbolism is thrown in). Stone rides into town on a mission of vengeance (a version of Clint’s Man With No Name), while Crowe and DiCaprio have scores to settle with Herod.
Sam Raimi, best known for helming the “Spider Man” franchise, steals liberally from the Spaghetti Western cycle, repeatedly showing close-ups of the characters’ eyes, utilizing a soundtrack that clearly was influenced by Ennio Morricone’s and filling the screen with an amusing collection of gnarly characters, each meaner than the previous.
Raimi shows off all the camera and editing tricks up his sleeve, but the story (by Simon Moore) has the depth of a Yosemite Sam short. You know you’re in the world of make believe when there’s a downpour nearly every night but there’s not a single tree, bush or blade of grass in sight.
Not surprisingly, Hackman gives the standout performance, savory every rotten thing he gets to say or do, not unlike his Lex Luther.
Pre-stardom Crowe---his breakthrough performance came two years later in “L.A. Confidential”---acquits himself well as the hired gun turned preacher who is dragged back in town by Herod just for the fun of it. The 21-year-old DiCaprio is still too much of a kid (in fact, that’s the character’s name) for his role as the town’s hot shot gunman. DiCaprio was in that uncomfortable in-between period that many actors experience: After his exceptional juvenile work in “This Boy’s Life” and “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” and before hooking up with Martin Scorsese and developing into a mature actor.
Stone has the most complex role and it’s through her eyes the viewer enters this vicious community, but she can’t pull off the balance of being a shaky, over-her-head neophyte and a tough cowgirl/hero. A bit more of her “Basic Instinct” persona might have helped, but the screenplay doesn’t give her much to work with. Later in 1995, she was on screen again giving her finest performance to date, as the drug abusing, money-hungry Ginger in “Casino.”
There are plenty of familiar faces among the other gunmen (Lance Henriksen, Keith David) and Gary Sinise has a small role in flashback scenes as Stone’s father.
Raimi doesn’t do a bad job of keeping the numerous pistol duels interesting but when it comes to back story and character development, it’s just one cliché after another.
127 HOURS (2010)Considering that most everyone who sees this film knows how it ends, the level of tension and anxiety it conveys rarely flags. Dramatizing the experience of Aron Ralston, who was trapped in a deep, narrow crevice when a boulder lodged against his right arm while hiking in the Canyonlands National Park in Utah, this movie is mostly a one-man show for James Franco.
Franco, who made a name for himself on the TV show “Freaks and Geeks” and then as Peter Parker best friend and worst enemy in the “Spider Man” franchise, isn’t asked to turn Aron into someone more than just a regular guy trapped in an extraordinary circumstance. He’s an upbeat pleasure-seeker whose enthusiasm for life sustains him as he faces death and Franco pulls it off convincing. It looks like he’ll be a shoo-in for a best actor Oscar nomination.
But there’s just not enough to the story, most of which consists of Aron recording his reflections about his situation and life on his digital video camera. Once he’s trapped by the rock---not long after an encounter with two cute female hikers---the film treads water until he does what made him famous.
British director Danny Boyles, whose nonsensical, sentimental “Slumdog Millionaire” won the 2008 best picture and best director Oscars, tries to jazz up “127 Hours” with split screens, odd flashbacks and hallucinations, yet the devices feel very forced. Maybe if the film had offered more background on Aron or shown him interacting with others in his daily life, I would have been more engaged. Despite the incredible bravery and resilience this man displays, the movie has little to say about anything beyond the facts of the incident.
The actual amputation doesn’t last long but it is wrenchingly realistic and quite painful to watch (and hear). And because that moment is recreated so believable, feeling the exuberance of his freedom becomes difficult. I was still ruminating about how I would never have the nerve to do what he did when, not much later, the credits were rolling. Maybe Boyle needed to apply some of that sugar he used to excess in “Slumdog,” at least to induce a tear or two at the conclusion of those grueling “127 Hours.”
ME AND ORSON WELLES (2009)The idea, from a novel by Robert Paplow, to tell the backstage story of the creation of Orson Welles’ legendary 1937 staging of a modern version of “Julius Caesar” is inspired. Unfortunately, the resulting execution of that idea is rather ordinary, with its focus on a romantic triangle within the company and overblown portrayal of the great director.
Zac Efron, of “High School Musical” fame, plays Richard, a high school senior obsessed with the theater who stumbles his way into a role in Welles’ production despite his lack of experience. He becomes our eyes and ears during the confrontational rehearsals and backstage sniping insured by Welles’ already oversized ego and his obvious need for conflict. As someone tells the new recruit: “You’re not getting paid anything except for the opportunity to get sprayed by Orson’s spit.”
Christian McKay, a British stage actor, does an impressive impersonation of the large-than-life director, but there’s little effort---in the script, in Richard Linklater’s direction or the actor’s affects----to show the man behind the pretentious act. Too much of what Welles says sounds like lines from one of his own theatrical productions.
While there’s enough “Julius Caesar” to keep theater buffs entertained, the heart of the story revolves around Richard’s crush on Sonja (Claire Danes), the troupe’s ambitious “girl Friday.” Deceptively, the film presents Welles as much older and wiser than the 17-year-old, yet the director was just 22 in 1937. Essential, Welles comes off as a very gifted high school bully who has the power to get away with treating people like dirt.
The best scene in the picture isn’t on stage, but a recreation of a radio broadcast in which Welles shows up late and then adlibs most of his lines---he steals liberally from “The Magnificent Ambersons,” the book he tells Richard he’s going to turn into a movie---as rest of the cast watches with jaws dropped. The sequence reveals everything about this amazing artist: his genius for invention, his charismatic line reading and his bravado personality that dominated every room he entered.
Welles has been portrayed more than 30 times in film and on TV---including prominent portrayals by Vincent D’Onofrio in “Ed Wood” (1994), Liev Schreiber in “RKO 281” (1999) and Danny Huston in “Fade to Black,” (2006)---but there’s still no full-blown biopic of this cinematic wonder. His fascinating life---from child protégé to “Citizen Kane” to the unfinished films and lunches at Spagos---is ripe for a screen treatment, a five-course movie meal compared to the appetizer of “Me and Orson Welles.”
The impression comes from the fact that people are more discerning readers than they are moviegoers---paying for plenty of crappy movies but only taking the time to read books written by the best or most popular authors. Probably 80 percent of American films are based (many very loosely) on a book, yet out of those, most moviegoers have read maybe 10 percent of those books.
My point, if there is one, is that many movies are better or at least more entertaining than the book they’re based on, or at least do a good job of conveying the themes of the written word. Just like in the multiplexes, bookstores are filled with dumb, badly written books, sitting next to masterpieces.
Clearly, the more profound and complex the novel, the more difficult it becomes to whittle down its meaning to a two to three hour film. To me, the perfect examples of the screen version improving upon the novel are “The Grapes of Wrath” (1940), the John Ford-directed adaptation of John Steinbeck’s book in which the visuals and powerful acting tell more than the author’s words and “The Godfather” (1972), for which author Mario Puzo and the film’s director Francis Coppola created a screenplay far superior to what’s on the page.
The film version of “Howards End,” written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala for director James Ivory, shows that a novel filled with philosophy, social issues and hard to explain characters can successfully be brought to the screen. I recently watched the film for the first time since I saw it during its initial run in 1992. At the time, I ranked it as the year’s eighth best film. Now, having read E.M. Forster’s novel in the interim, I’m doubly impressed. It’s one of the great novels of the 20th Century, so I could hardly say the movie surpassed the book, but it certainly does it justice.
Ivory and Jhabvala follow Forster’s multilayered plot about the Schlegel sisters and how their lives become entangled with the more reserved and richer Wilcox family, owners of the picturesque home of the title. Along the way, the subtle, beautifully crafted screenplay touches on the social issues so crucial to the importance of the book---the growing feminist movement; the changing nature of the roles of men and women; the value of an inner life; the plight of the poor; changing class distinctions; and the crumbling of the pillars of 19th Century England.
It’s a credit to the filmmakers that this period piece never feels like a visit to an ancient world. The novel was contemporary, written in 1910 and set in the same era, and the movie reflects the immediacy of the social issues and the way they inform the characters and their actions.
The nearly perfect performances by the entire cast accounts for much of the reason this thoughtful novel translates so well to the screen. First and foremost is Vanessa Redgrave as Mrs. Wilcox, who loves Howards End beyond anything else in her life and attempts to convey her feelings along to her new friend, Margaret Schlegel. While Mrs. Wilcox dies early in the film, her spirit---in the form of Redgrave’s piercing, sad eyes and low whisper of a voice, creating a nearly ethereal presence---remains essential to the story and other characters.
Emma Thompson’s Margaret, in many ways, makes the novel’s most confusing, almost contradictory, character more understandable. At the heart of the movie is how Margaret finds a way to go from a free-thinking, literary, independent woman to devoted, forgiving wife of a proud, short-sighted businessman. It helps that he’s played by Anthony Hopkins, equally convincing while portraying both the dashing and the pigheaded side of Henry Wilcox.
While Helen, Margaret’s determined, principled younger sister, is a more static character, Helena Bonham Carter brings to life this feisty, articulate harbinger of the hippies of the 1960s. She refuses to abide by society’s rules and sees life simply as a choice between doing right and doing wrong.
Forster had earlier written “Where Angels Fear to Tread” (made into a 1991 film with Bonham Carter) and “A Room with a View” (filmed in 1984 by Ivory and also starring Bonham Carter) and then later wrote “A Passage to India” (becoming a David Lean film in 1985), and, “Maurice,” published posthumously and filmed by Ivory in 1987. If not for him and Jane Austen, British cinema would have been considerably less interesting in the 1980s and ‘90s.
I do think “Howards End” needed to be 10 or 15 minutes longer, which would have allowed Ivory to let some of the scenes play out a bit more leisurely; the editing more than once ends a scene frustratingly early and I have no doubt some the more off-the-plot, but fascinating dialogue was trimmed for time.
It seems appropriate that this masterful piece of literature, which ends with Howards End---representing the privilege and principles of the British upper class---ultimately going to the bastard son of a working class man, will end up best remembered as the source of a great motion picture, the entertainment of the masses.
LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (2010)This Pittsburgh-set romance misfires on so many levels that I barely know where to start. An uncomfortable, misguided mixture of raunchy sex, social critique of the pharmaceutical industry, sophomoric slapstick and weepy romance, the Edward Zwick-directed film tries to be both hip and tradition, risky and safe. Yet despite all these elements, the film isn’t even close to being ambitious.
The screenplay (by Zwick, his writing partner Marshall Herskovitz and Charles Randolph from a novel by Jamie Reidy) establishes its dysfunctional credentials in the opening scenes, first with Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal in his most gregarious role) acting like an overgrown kid at his sales job at a electronics store (has a salesman ever danced with you?) and then at his parents’ home, where his more successful siblings and disappointed father (who else but George Segal) come off as self-satisfied pains.
Younger brother Josh (Josh Gad), who just sold his startup for millions, arranges a gig for Jamie as a Pfizer drug rep, one of those slick pill pushers who persuade physicians to prescribe their product. Since Jamie’s only obvious skill is his ability to seduce women, he uses his charisma and amorality to become a top salesman, especially once Pfizer brings out its little blue pill (the film is set in the mid-1990s).
But forget about all that: The main attraction of this film is Anne Hathaway’s Maggie, a reclusive artist (of indeterminate skill or success) who is well acquainted with the drug industry as she copes with Parkinson’s disease. They meet cute (when Jamie pretends to be a medical intern) during an examination and soon are ripping each other’s clothes off in a series of unbridled sex scenes, exuding the kind of heat (and nudity) rarely seen in a mainstream Hollywood release. (The pair previous were a less-than-perfect couple as husband and wife in “Brokeback Mountain.”)
Both actors have their moments of exceptional acting, but overall I struggled to find the humanity of these characters; too often they’re just a collection of personality quirks that pop up just when the plot demands conflict. Coming off better than the principles is Oliver Platt, as a crafty drug salesman who sees Jamie as his ticket out of Pittsburgh and back to Chicago, where his family lives. This veteran actor manages to brighten every film he’s in with his ever-expanding but very familiar face and ability to create quirky but reality-based characters.
Making her final screen appearance, Jill Clayburgh plays Jamie’s mother, getting a few funny lines in the opening dinner-table scene.
On the other hand, Gad, as the brother who moves in with Jamie when his wife throws him out of the house, does a weak imitation of Jack Black and is at the center of all the pointlessly crude Judd Apatow moments in the film. Ridiculously, this millionaire willingly sleeps on his brothers’ couch rather than finding his own place, moving in a hotel or, if he insists on clinging to his brother, finding them a bigger apartment. I think he can afford it: this is Pittsburgh not New York. But this isn’t about making sense; it’s about creating “Odd Couple” moments.
Zwick, who’s directed some exceptional films, including “Glory” (1989) and “Blood Diamond” (2006), stuffs his latest with something for everyone, and ends up failing to do much of anything well.
FAIR GAME (2010)Political conspiracy movies are among the few genres Hollywood does consistently well. Doug Liman, whose “The Bourne Identity” (2002) set the contemporary bar, delivers a more cerebral thriller with “Fair Game,” based on the Valerie Plame/Scooter Libby scandal.
If you’ve forgotten this particular Bush Administration criminal/ethical breach, this is the one where Dick Cheney and his minions decided to ruin the career of a longtime foreign operative of the CIA because her husband disputed the president’s claims of proof that Iraq was close to constructing a nuclear weapon.
Naomi Watts, as consistently impressive as any actress during the past decade (since her startling breakthrough in “Mulholland Dr.”) plays Plame as a daring agent venturing into the political hotspots of the globe. While in the midst of an undercover operation to convince an Iraqi nuclear worker to defect, Plame is blind-sided by the reaction following a Robert Novak column in the Washington Post that names her as a CIA agent, outing her to her friends and enemies.
Suddenly, after 18 years of devoted service, she’s cut off from all her field operatives and relegated to unimportant desk duties by the agency.
The movie, to its credit, is less about the investigation that leads to the indictment of Libby and more about the effect this political attack and knee-jerk reaction from Bush’s lieutenants has on these highly esteemed Beltway insiders. Also taking a deserved hit is the media, which willingly airs any dirt dished by the White House no matter how baseless, frivolous or simply false.
While Plame just wants it all to go away, holding fast to her Federal training by accepting the media onslaught and keeping silent, her husband (Sean Penn) believes the best defense is an unrelenting offense. Former ambassador and African expert Joseph Wilson, whose op/ed piece in the New York Times all but called the president a liar, shows up on every media outlet that will have him to assail the Bush Administration and dispute the claim printed by Novak and others that he was sent on the Niger fact-finding mission at his wife’s request.
Penn and Watts, who also played husband and wife in “21 Grams,” display genuine chemistry even as their relationship nears the breaking point under the pressure of the controversy. These great actors, simply by their screen presence, probably make Plame and Wilson more appealing people than they may be in real life, and, to a great extent, paint these bureaucrats as intellectual saints. But Liman makes no pretense about his sympathies. And he shouldn’t when peoples’ lives are forever altered by politicians whose only concern is covering up the lies manufactured to rationalize a war.
RAMONA (1910)This 17-minute silent short is basically the picture-book version of the Helen Jackson’s classic novel of early California. Without inter-title dialogue, the film pantomimes the story of Ramona, the love struck adopted daughter of a wealthy Spanish family who falls for Alessandro, a proud native Californian Indian who works for the family.
More complete versions of this tale of racism in the 1850s (it’s subtitled, “A Story of the White Man’s Injustice to the Indian”) can be found in the 1936 movie starring Loretta Young and at the annual “Ramona Pageant” held in Hemet, Ca., each summer. The influence of this 1887 novel can’t be overstated: tourist flocked to the state to see any site associated with “Ramona” and the book all but invented the cultural identity of the region.
The short is worth a look because it was one of 98 shorts directed by D.W. Griffith that year (though he’s uncredited) and stars 17-year-old Mary Pickford, soon to be “America’s Sweetheart” and the biggest star in Hollywood. The picture is so short that there is hardly time for Pickford to do much except look distraught as Ramona, but at least she’s playing a character that is age appropriate. By her late 20s, she was mostly cast as young girls (she played Pollyanna in 1920).
The Griffith touch is evident in the way he frames his shots (a signature, used often in “Ramona,” is keeping all the actors on the right side of the frame) and his use of the rolling hills of Ventura County, Ca., photographed by Griffith’s pioneering cinematographer Billy Bitzer. Griffith shot scenes at the adobe and chapel at Camulos Rancho, believe to be Jackson’s inspiration for the Spanish ranch of the novel.
Pickford and Henry B. Walthall (as Alessandro) play out the tragedy---they are ousted from their community because of their forbidden love---with slightly more subtlety than the exaggerated acting style of the time.
What struck me, in a watching a complete film made 100 years ago, is how quickly the art form evolved. Just 25 years after this crude film, cinema had transformed itself into a form very close to what we experience at newly minted multiplexes every weekend. The leap from “Ramona” to, say, “It Happened Once Night” (1934) was astonishing; the advance to the latest “Harry Potter” much less so. In fact, many would argue that there’s been no progress in the art since the late 1920s.
THE QUICK AND THE DEAD (1995)If not for its impressive quartet of stars, this cartoonish homage to the Westerns of Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood would have gone straight to video.
Sharon Stone, Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio all play gunfighters who enter a dueling contest in the corrupt desert town controlled by Gene Hackman’s Herod (just for good measure some Biblical symbolism is thrown in). Stone rides into town on a mission of vengeance (a version of Clint’s Man With No Name), while Crowe and DiCaprio have scores to settle with Herod.
Sam Raimi, best known for helming the “Spider Man” franchise, steals liberally from the Spaghetti Western cycle, repeatedly showing close-ups of the characters’ eyes, utilizing a soundtrack that clearly was influenced by Ennio Morricone’s and filling the screen with an amusing collection of gnarly characters, each meaner than the previous.
Raimi shows off all the camera and editing tricks up his sleeve, but the story (by Simon Moore) has the depth of a Yosemite Sam short. You know you’re in the world of make believe when there’s a downpour nearly every night but there’s not a single tree, bush or blade of grass in sight.
Not surprisingly, Hackman gives the standout performance, savory every rotten thing he gets to say or do, not unlike his Lex Luther.
Pre-stardom Crowe---his breakthrough performance came two years later in “L.A. Confidential”---acquits himself well as the hired gun turned preacher who is dragged back in town by Herod just for the fun of it. The 21-year-old DiCaprio is still too much of a kid (in fact, that’s the character’s name) for his role as the town’s hot shot gunman. DiCaprio was in that uncomfortable in-between period that many actors experience: After his exceptional juvenile work in “This Boy’s Life” and “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” and before hooking up with Martin Scorsese and developing into a mature actor.
Stone has the most complex role and it’s through her eyes the viewer enters this vicious community, but she can’t pull off the balance of being a shaky, over-her-head neophyte and a tough cowgirl/hero. A bit more of her “Basic Instinct” persona might have helped, but the screenplay doesn’t give her much to work with. Later in 1995, she was on screen again giving her finest performance to date, as the drug abusing, money-hungry Ginger in “Casino.”
There are plenty of familiar faces among the other gunmen (Lance Henriksen, Keith David) and Gary Sinise has a small role in flashback scenes as Stone’s father.
Raimi doesn’t do a bad job of keeping the numerous pistol duels interesting but when it comes to back story and character development, it’s just one cliché after another.
127 HOURS (2010)Considering that most everyone who sees this film knows how it ends, the level of tension and anxiety it conveys rarely flags. Dramatizing the experience of Aron Ralston, who was trapped in a deep, narrow crevice when a boulder lodged against his right arm while hiking in the Canyonlands National Park in Utah, this movie is mostly a one-man show for James Franco.
Franco, who made a name for himself on the TV show “Freaks and Geeks” and then as Peter Parker best friend and worst enemy in the “Spider Man” franchise, isn’t asked to turn Aron into someone more than just a regular guy trapped in an extraordinary circumstance. He’s an upbeat pleasure-seeker whose enthusiasm for life sustains him as he faces death and Franco pulls it off convincing. It looks like he’ll be a shoo-in for a best actor Oscar nomination.
But there’s just not enough to the story, most of which consists of Aron recording his reflections about his situation and life on his digital video camera. Once he’s trapped by the rock---not long after an encounter with two cute female hikers---the film treads water until he does what made him famous.
British director Danny Boyles, whose nonsensical, sentimental “Slumdog Millionaire” won the 2008 best picture and best director Oscars, tries to jazz up “127 Hours” with split screens, odd flashbacks and hallucinations, yet the devices feel very forced. Maybe if the film had offered more background on Aron or shown him interacting with others in his daily life, I would have been more engaged. Despite the incredible bravery and resilience this man displays, the movie has little to say about anything beyond the facts of the incident.
The actual amputation doesn’t last long but it is wrenchingly realistic and quite painful to watch (and hear). And because that moment is recreated so believable, feeling the exuberance of his freedom becomes difficult. I was still ruminating about how I would never have the nerve to do what he did when, not much later, the credits were rolling. Maybe Boyle needed to apply some of that sugar he used to excess in “Slumdog,” at least to induce a tear or two at the conclusion of those grueling “127 Hours.”
ME AND ORSON WELLES (2009)The idea, from a novel by Robert Paplow, to tell the backstage story of the creation of Orson Welles’ legendary 1937 staging of a modern version of “Julius Caesar” is inspired. Unfortunately, the resulting execution of that idea is rather ordinary, with its focus on a romantic triangle within the company and overblown portrayal of the great director.
Zac Efron, of “High School Musical” fame, plays Richard, a high school senior obsessed with the theater who stumbles his way into a role in Welles’ production despite his lack of experience. He becomes our eyes and ears during the confrontational rehearsals and backstage sniping insured by Welles’ already oversized ego and his obvious need for conflict. As someone tells the new recruit: “You’re not getting paid anything except for the opportunity to get sprayed by Orson’s spit.”
Christian McKay, a British stage actor, does an impressive impersonation of the large-than-life director, but there’s little effort---in the script, in Richard Linklater’s direction or the actor’s affects----to show the man behind the pretentious act. Too much of what Welles says sounds like lines from one of his own theatrical productions.
While there’s enough “Julius Caesar” to keep theater buffs entertained, the heart of the story revolves around Richard’s crush on Sonja (Claire Danes), the troupe’s ambitious “girl Friday.” Deceptively, the film presents Welles as much older and wiser than the 17-year-old, yet the director was just 22 in 1937. Essential, Welles comes off as a very gifted high school bully who has the power to get away with treating people like dirt.
The best scene in the picture isn’t on stage, but a recreation of a radio broadcast in which Welles shows up late and then adlibs most of his lines---he steals liberally from “The Magnificent Ambersons,” the book he tells Richard he’s going to turn into a movie---as rest of the cast watches with jaws dropped. The sequence reveals everything about this amazing artist: his genius for invention, his charismatic line reading and his bravado personality that dominated every room he entered.
Welles has been portrayed more than 30 times in film and on TV---including prominent portrayals by Vincent D’Onofrio in “Ed Wood” (1994), Liev Schreiber in “RKO 281” (1999) and Danny Huston in “Fade to Black,” (2006)---but there’s still no full-blown biopic of this cinematic wonder. His fascinating life---from child protégé to “Citizen Kane” to the unfinished films and lunches at Spagos---is ripe for a screen treatment, a five-course movie meal compared to the appetizer of “Me and Orson Welles.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)