Michael Clayton (2007)

I usually can’t stomach lawyer movies. Almost everyone I’ve seen is either offensively unrealistic or unrealistically offensive. I especially despise the films that purport to expose some real flaw in "the system" but distorts the facts or law claiming "artistic license" to make its point.

I don’t mind the "Perry Mason" kind of fantasy because they are so obviously kitchy, except that ever since that show, it has been necessary for judges to remind prospective jurors that it isn’t the obligation of defense lawyers to force the true guilty party to jump up and confess in the third act.

Now comes "Michael Clayton." This is a fairly typical lawyer movie in many ways. The big civil firm is defending an evil agri-chemical client in a billion dollar lawsuit against cancer victims. Thus, the lawyers are depicted as scum.

That’s to be expected. And the big event that triggers the plot crisis is a straight steal from Sidney Lumet’s classic, "Network." The lead litigator for the firm, after six years of battle, suddenly goes bananas — he’s mad as hell and he’s not gonna take it anymore. So in the middle of a deposition, he claims love for the plaintiff, strips off his clothes and chases her through the parking lot (or so we are told — the director had the good sense to withhold the scene of Tom Wilkenson naked.)

Later, the movie becomes a thriller, with surveillance, murder, a car bomb ... none of that is too interesting to me.

No, the one element I latched onto was the idea of the eponymous Michael Clayton, himself. See, he’s the guy in the firm who is given all the "dirty" jobs, we are told. He’s "the fixer," a self-described "janitor" who cleans up all the messes. When a well-heeled client is facing a scandal, he makes the payoff, does the cover-up. He fixes the tickets, presumably arranges bribes, does all the unethical stuff so the partners don’t dirty their manicured hands.

One of the things he does is refer cases to criminal lawyers. That’s something I know a bit about, because I have been one of the criminal lawyers to whom other lawyers have referred clients.

In my experience, there is nothing dirty or sinister about this practice. Most ordinary people don’t know criminal lawyers. Some do know civil lawyers. They’ve had divorces or other accidents of life and when they or someone they know get into trouble, they call the lawyer they know. Some of these lawyers are sensible enough to know how much they don’t know about the arcane specialty of criminal law, and so refer these cases to lawyers they know.

Now, I am sure that at a level far "higher" than my income bracket, there are those who look for criminal lawyers to "fix" problems. I’ve known a few who traveled a shadowy path, so close to dope dealers and pimps that they were engulfed into that world. It was a 60's & 70's fast lane thing for some and a few didn’t survive.

There were others who traded on reputations for being a "fixer" but were, in the end, pretenders. There was a guy who was famous in the small world of L.A. criminal lawyers. He was an outrageous appearing little man, even for the outrageous times, with purple shirt and lavender tie, high heel boots. In the old Hall of Justice, the elevator operators waited for him, greeted him and told everyone who he was. Around Christmas time, he tipped the girls $25. My boss in the PD office smiled slyly. "How much do you think he’s giving the clerks and the judges?"

One day, the lawyer strolled into the courtroom where I was working. We PD’s were waiting to get our cases heard and there were other private counsel waiting as well. But when this guy came in (let’s call him "Harry") the clerk called his case and the judge called him up to the bench for a private meeting.

"Harry" patted his frightened client on the back and went up to the bench. He whispered to the judge. I could hear him plainly from a few feet away. Harry told the judge the latest joke he’d heard. The judge laughed aloud. Harry walked back toward his client and winked, signaling slyly. The judge granted the extension to pay the fine or whatever it was that Harry was requesting. There was nothing unusual in this. The judge would have done it without the whispers. But Harry’s client and many in the audience were convinced that Harry had the "fix."

The more I watched George Clooney be "Michael Clayton," though, the more I thought of how many times I’ve felt like the "fixer." The tag is implied in social conversation, when acquaintances ask those annoying questions about how it feels to get a guilty person off.

It is fatiguing to know you’re admired by some for your skills at a dirty trade.

2007

These are my Netflix reviews for films already available on DVD and their Oscar results:

La Vie En Rose - best actress
I first admired Marion Cotillard in a startling French film called "Love Me If You Dare." She was also paired with Russell Crowe in "A Very Good Year," a ho-hum romance. But this one is an Oscar worthy tour de force. She becomes Piaf every bit as much as Jamie Foxx became "Ray" and Charlize Theron became "Monster." Piaf's voice, songs, and life intertwined like Judy Garland's, and Cotillard reaches into her character's soul. Formidable.

A Mighty Heart - nominated best actress
The documentary "The Journalist And The Jihadi", is much better, if the issue is finding the truth and global "macro" meaning of this incident. But the film has a different goal: making you feel what Marianne Pearl went through, the "micro" story. As cinematic drama, it succeeds at bringing you deeply inside this strong woman's heart. Jolie is grippingly credible, her cool and rational exterior shielding emotions barely checked beneath the surface until they finally explode, then followed by the need to find strength to go on. The direction and acting by the supporting cast is restrained rather than sensational, honest rather than sentimental, respectful of human emotions and tragedy rather than exploitative. A terrific film.

Once - best song
A new idea for a movie musical that works with young audiences raised on Nick Drake and Beck rather than Cole Porter. It is about time postmodern storytelling met up with music, which is so much a part of the lives of young people.

Ratatouille - best animation
Imagine the reaction to the pitch: "The star is a rat? In a kitchen? A French kitchen?" A delight all the way through. Original, surprising, and clever. This is the rare kind of film that you can really enjoy with the whole family without embarrassment or tedium.

Interview - nominated for best actress
Sienna Miller's role is perfectly suited to her: a spoiled bitchy t.v. & film star who needs to prove to a condescending, self-deceiving reporter that she is smarter than he is. Steve Buscemi is the reporter & directs this basically one set - two character play. The twist ending is a bit too smart, but Miller acts up a storm playing a part that seems made for her.

Overlooked by the Oscars:

Paris J’taime
Je t'adore this anthology. Some of these 5 minute films are like near perfect poems. Some are sketches leaving you wishing to see them in fuller form, others are fully realized stories. More filmmakers should be forced to such discipline.

Breach
Like "The Good Shepard," what is troubling about these spy profiles is that the central character is basically a boring personality, so buttoned up that he reveals little about his motivations and when we discover them, all we can do is shrug. Chris Cooper is fine, as always, with his menacing normality. The script cheats Ryan Phillipe by stinting on his character's relationship with his wife. Pity, their dilemma is glossed over, with the focus on catching the spy, a result we already know. And what about the spy's wife?

Superbad
HS comedies evolve from the same roots - not a shock,filmmakers are postgrad nerds. The urge to be cool, sexy, stoned never ends. "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" was the template. Rogan, Goldberg & buds are the latest to mine the vein with sharp dialogue, knowing sense of teen angst. Two minor players here, Kevin Corrigan & David Krumholtz were featured in a related gem, "Slums Of Beverly Hills."

300
If this is the future of film, I want none of it. What "2001, A Space Odyssey" suggested and "Sin City" foreshadowed, "300" nearly accomplishes: the computer rules the world. Graphic novels & video games provide the sets; superheroes are the character models, and the plot is as old and simple as mythology. Actors? Irrelevant puppets. Theme? Trite, nasty rehash of old ideas: freedom demands ruthlessness; war is glory.

"Lust, Caution" (2007)

Directed by Ang Lee, starring Tony Leung (Mr. Yee), Tang Wei (Mak Tai Tai / Wong Chia Chi) Joan Chen (Yee Tai Tai), Wang Leehom (Kuang Yu Min). Screenplay by Wang Hui Ling and James Schamus from a short story by Eileen Chang.

My first impression of this movie was to compare it to two previous films, one a famous classic in suspense ("Notorious" (1946), the other an overlooked near masterpiece of erotic cinema ("The Lover" (1992)).

The title, "Lust, Caution," itself, suggests the theme, a synthesis of two genres that expose characters to powerful emotions and forces.

The story follows a young woman who is persuaded to become a spy by a young man who is too timid, innocent and self-absorbed with patriotic heroism to sense that she wants to love him. She accepts the task of becoming the mistress of a Chinese military man who is collaborating with the occupying Japanese so that her friends in the "resistance" can gain intelligence and ultimately assassinate him.

Hitchcock’s classic, "Notorious," hung on a similar framework, but differed in important character and plot points as well as style. Ingrid Bergman’s "Alicia," though far from sexually innocent, is thrust into the role as mistress (then wife) of the target, "Sebastian" (Claude Rains), a Nazi, at the behest of her often painfully diffident lover, the federal agent, "Devlin " (Cary Grant).

While "Notorious" focused on Alicia’s feelings for Devlin and his ambivalence toward her, it mostly treats her dealings with "Sebastian" with superficial detachment. We assume that Alicia has consummated her marriage, but there is no show of affection between them other than the formalities, as was befitting the era of film censorship. Hitchcock characteristically seems more moved by Sebastian’s ties to his domineering mother.

"Wong Chia Chi," the heroine of "Lust, Caution," is initially innocent, virginal, and naive. But she is also shown to be an imaginative actress who inhabits her role with passion and deeply felt emotions. She fully commits herself to both needs of her task and this yields her eventual tragedy.

Lee is far more interested in her dealings with the dangerous "Mr. Yee" than her unrequited love for her young man. Tony Leung is best known for Wong Kar Wei’s excellent neo-noir "2046" and "In The Mood For Love." He is well cast here due to his persona as a Bogart-like world wary (I do mean wary, though he is also weary) man who treads the tightrope of intrigue. His is a powerful masculine presence opposite the young actress, Tang Wei, whose delicate face and slender body conceal turbulent passions ready to explode.

Through graphic sexual encounters that earned the film a NC-17, the pair move from his cruelly sadistic dominance to eventual tender love and interdependence, leading to the tragic conclusion when she is faced with the decisive moment - whether to warn him of the impending assassination.

Lee’s achievement is to meticulously document the risky journey each tread, from "caution" to "lust."

"The Lover,"Jean Jacques Annaud’s film of Marguerite Duras’ story / memoir of her sexual awakening as a teenage girl in Saigon in the 1920's, is also explicit in its depiction of a related theme.

The Girl (otherwise unnamed in the story, played by Jane March), begins a torrid affair with The Man (also unnamed, played by Tony Leung - not the same actor as in "Lust, Caution"), learning lessons far more useful in her life as a woman than those of her convent school.

Her family are impoverished French colonials and her lover’s family is wealthy Chinese, raising the issue of social tensions involving the taboos of each culture in their secret affair, especially as it evolves into something like love.

The arc of the explicit sex scenes in "The Lover" are almost the reverse of those in "Lust, Caution," here beginning tentatively and ending in a final, brutal, near rape. Yet, in both films, the sex scenes are the rare ones which prove the overused cliché that they are essential to the telling of the tale.

Like a modern musical in which the setpiece numbers advance the plot rather than interrupt it, these encounters provide understanding of the evolution of the relationships involved. The characters change because of what happens in the darkened rooms.

It is not original to note that Ang Lee's body of work, so seemingly diverse in styles and subject ("Sense And Sensibility;" "The Hulk;" "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; "Brokeback Mountain") includes a common theme which this film shares: central characters who discover their true nature.

Yet, though all three films are excellent, I suspect that "Notorious" will remain the only one called "classic." The other two, because of their ratiings, had limited releases, and faced critics with the dilemma of admiring "pornography." Both are the dreaded "period pieces," demand patience with slow pacing, set in foreign locales. "Lust, Caution" is even subtitled, a fatal flaw.

But their DVD afterlives may provide new audiences who, in the privacy and leisure of bedrooms with remotes in hand, can discover these fine films.

Knocked Up By The Proper Stranger

Last year’s megahit, "Knocked Up," shocked & awed critics & audiences with a combination of raunch dressing on top of an insubstantial salad.

Judd Apatow, the writer / director, had cut his teeth writing for "The Ben Stiller Show" and "Larry Sanders," found his voice with "Freaks And Geeks" and hit big with "The 40 Year Old Virgin." He is now a "brand." Echoing from the Hollywood Hills, you can hear producers shouting at writers from within their sealed window offices: "Make it more ‘Apatow’."

While Apatow's film was about a pregnancy, adult responsibility, and love - ingredients in Hollywood’s cook book since its beginning - part of the shock was that such an old dish could still be so yummy. The subject has been treated mostly as melodrama as far back as the silent era. In the 30's it was meat for the women’s weepies, Stanwyck, et. al. Mixing the drama with laughs was rare.

The one night stand -> pregnancy was the premise for another film, one I saw recently: "Love With The Proper Stranger," released in 1963. Comparing it with "Knocked Up," separated by 44 years, reveals something about our times that should also shock and awe.

In "Knocked Up," rotund stoner man child Ben Stone (Seth Rogan) gets lucky with hottie Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) and she shows up weeks later with the news. Her motives are a bit fuzzy: abortion is barely considered even when she is reminded of the genetic risk when meeting Ben while she is sober. The rest of the movie consists of mutual embarrassment situations until Ben realizes that growing up is survivable after which she can accept him as a mate and father of her child.

"Love With The Proper Stranger" was a big budget studio film, a star vehicle for Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen, complete with the mandatory title song written by Johnny Mercer and sung by Jack Jones. The director was Richard Mulligan, following his success the prior year with "To Kill A Mockingbird". It was written by Arnold Schulman, who began as a writer of teleplays in the 1950's and had previously written "A Hole In The Head" for Sinatra.

Way back then as today (and if not, soon), technology was altering the moving picture business. Millions who ten years before had gone out to movie houses now stayed home to watch T.V. where they could see free dramas (live full length original ones written by the likes of Rod Serling and Paddy Chayefsky), comedy (live skits written by Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart), sitcoms, variety, talk, celebrities.
Hollywood had to scramble to show stories T.V. couldn’t touch.

One strategy was the epic spectacular, in wide screen, color, with casts of thousands. This novelty had worn off by 1960, when "Cleopatra" nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox. A second route was the cheap exploitation drive-in teen slasher film. Small budgets but small, though sure profits. European films pointed to two more channels: realism and explicit sex.

The typical studio responses were the timid sex comedies in the Doris Day style, tepid variants of the stale screwball genre of the Thirties & Forties. But a few filmmakers of the time, working within the studio system, managed to mix the old reliable Hollywood romance with some serious issues treated realistically but with wit and a deft touch of style. Billy Wilder was a genius at this. His European sensibility, hovering between Lubitsch and Sunset Boulevard, led him to edgy comedies: "Some Like It Hot" with its transgender confusion and "the Apartment," about a corporate yes man who falls for his boss's suicidal mistress.

"Love With The Proper Stranger" is set and filmed on location in New York in the chill fall, a black and white unglamourous city of working class people who live in small apartments. It begins in a musician’s union hall where Rocky Papassano (Mc Queen) is conning himself into a job and avoiding one of his many girls. Angie Rossini (Wood) shows up and he barely remembers her from "The Mountains" where they had their one night together that summer. She needs his help to find a doctor. Rocky flops sometimes with a stripper (Edie Adams), who throws him out when he asks for her help with his problem.

Rocky isn’t much different from Ben Stone almost a half century later. Both begin as blissfully avoiding the responsibilities of manhood until faced with the crisis. Angie and Alison, though, seem to be distant sisters, living in different Ages.

Alison is a far more independent woman. Though she lives in her sister's pool house and views her marriage as a scary model, Alison has a career. Angie works the sales floor at Macy’s and lives with her mother and brothers in a tiny apartment with no privacy, trapped by the constraints of their demands that she marry, continue the old country traditions. While her fling was also a reckless whim, soon regretted, the consequences she faces are far more dire than Alison’s.

She and Rocky scrape together money for a back alley abortion, to be done by a shady couple on the floor of a vacant apartment in a condemned building. When Rocky protests and Angie breaks down, the romance begins with a saving embrace.

The script then reverses tone with a comic scene when Rocky takes Angie to sleep in his stripper friend’s bed. When Rocky returns with Angie’s brother (Herschel Bernardi) and a black eye, the men have solved the problem: Rocky is now willing to marry the girl to make it right.

Now is the time for Angie to grow up. She is not satisfied to do the traditional thing. She declares her independence, moves into her own apartment, and the romance can resume and end happily when Rocky realizes that, after all, he does love her (to the surprise of no one).

A final embrace in a crowd of curious real New Yorkers in the middle of 34th Street fittingly climaxes a film that makes skillful use of New York exteriors to create the mood approaching realism.

Of course, serious issues are completely irrelevant to the success of "Knocked Up." It thrives on clever dialogue funning the childishness of the boys — Ben and his crew of geeky stoner buds and Alison’s brother-in-law, Pete (Paul Rudd), who is suspected of an affair but turns out to be in a fantasy league with his pals.

The women in this our world of today are on serious career tracks while the boys are clinging desperately to their adolescence. It seems that forty years of sexual evolution have permitted the tentative Angies to morph into the secure Alisons of our time, but the Rocky’s of olden days haven’t kept step. In fact, they’ve regressed into Bens and Petes, soft and cuddly but barely adequate mate material.

Let’s face it, the battle of the sexes is over. And we lost.