Having recently seen and hated “The Lovely Bones,” I tried to remember other ghost stories that I preferred. Here is the list I came up with so far in no particular order:
1. "Ghost" (1990) Possibly the most successful romantic ghost story. Directed by Jerry Zucker, with Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, some very sexy clay, and Whoopi. Loving spouse is murdered, sticks around to solve crime, save his wife, give her closure. The whole package of sentiment and wishing.
2. "Topper" (1937) The playful society ghosts stay on to loosen up their uptight friend. Cary Grant, Constance Bennet, Roland Young, and a classic white Cord fishtail. Spawned sequels and a T.V. series. Also in this genre are the recent “Ghost Town” which itself was a twist on “Hearts And Souls” (1993) Robert Downey, Jr. as the guy who has to help ghosts find closure.
3. "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" (1945) Rex Harrison, Gene Tierney, directed by Jos. Mankiewicz. A classic woman’s fantasy - a lusty sea captain ghost who helps her to independence and dreamy passion without leaving the toilet seat up.
4. "The Canterville Ghost", story by Oscar Wilde (filmed at least 6 times, including Charles Laughton version) in which a meek dead knight tries to haunt but doesn't have the heart to really scare.
5. "The Sixth Sense" (1999) M. Night Shyamalan’s coming out party with Bruce Willis in dialed down non action mode and Haley Joel Osmond seeing dead people. Everybody claims they guessed the twist - but like deja vu, not until afterwards.
6. "Blithe Spirit" (1945) Rex Harrison play by Noel Coward (sub-sub genre: dead spouse returns to mess up new relationship eg “Kiss Me Goodbye” - James Caan, Sally Field, “Chances Are” Downey, Jr and Cybil Shepard.
7. "The Others" (2001) Alejandro Amenabar sets Nicole Kidman and her supposedly photosensitive kids in a dark house on an isolated foggy island after World War II. The chilling solution to the scary story is logical and satisfying in its horror.
8. "The Innocents" (1961) ("The Turn Of The Screw") Henry James classic ghost tale, directed in glorious black and white by Jack Clayton, starring Deborah Kerr as the prim Victorian (ergo sexually repressed) governess who sees things the children see - or does she?
9. "The Amityville Horror" (1979) Based on the true story of a family that was murdered in their beds, the next occupants have serious problems with the previous owners.
10. "Ghostbusters" (1984) Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Sigourney Weaver, directed by Ivan Reitman. Launched sequels, early video game, hit song and thankfully, Bill’s wacky comic persona.
11. "The Haunting" (Of Hill House) (1963) Shirley Jackson's classic sample of the psychological ghost story genre. Julie Harris, Claire Bloom. Directed by Robt Wise.
12. "The Shining" (1980) A haunted hotel sparks insanity for a frustrated writer - Stephen King’s story as told by Stanley Kubrick through Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, and a kid on a trike who meets scary twins.
13. "A Christmas Carol". The ghosts of Christmas past, present and yet to come visit poor Scrooge, filmed many times and versions. My favorite is the classic Alistair Sim (1951) .
14. "Beetlejuice" (1988) Tim Burton’s twisted vision stars with ghosts Michael Keaton, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis.
15. "Casper" (1995) Christina Ricci meets the animated friendly marshmallow looking ghost.
16. "Field Of Dreams" (1989) The ghosts of Chicago Black Sox players and a father come to Iowa to make me cry simply by saying “wanna play catch?”. Gulp.
see Wikipedia for a more inclusive list
Monday, October 18, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
The Lubitsch Touch
LACMA is in the midst of a four week program showing the films of Ernst Lubitsch, the master of the romantic comedy, a genre that has been a mainstay of Hollywood movies since they began to flicker.
Old school cranks like me wish that more contemporary filmmakers would review the Lubitsch library and learn just a bit of “The Lubitsch Touch”.
His ‘touch’ forbade coarseness in any part of his productions. The plot, dialogue, motivations, themes all had to be elegantly thought out, polished, coherent. Words like “sloppy,” “crass,” or “gross,” couldn’t be used to critique any of his movies. Even his pre-code movies showed a sophisticated view of sex and relationships. The battle of the sexes in Lubitsch films is fought with passion, wit, suggestion, tantalizing comic tension — but never with mean spirited nastiness.
Maurice Zolotow, in his biography of Billy Wilder (“Billy Wilder In Hollywood", Putnam 1977) writes of Lubitsch:
“He was a believer in a well-made screenplay and he didn’t start shooting until the screenplay was perfect. Lubitsch never improvised on a set — nor allowed his actors to utter spontaneous lines. He choreographed each word and gag. He made sure that there was not a single superfluous detail in the script, Once, B.P. Schulberg, then Paramount’s head of production, asked him why he was shooting a scene in a certain way, and he replied that he couldn’t remember exactly why at the moment, 'but it is in the script, which is good enough for me. If I didn’t have a good reason, it would not have been there when *Sam Raphaelson was writing it in the first place.'"
(*Samson Raphaelson writer on 9 Lubitsch films, including "The Merry Widow", "Shop Around The Corner", "Heaven Can Wait", and also Hitchcock’s "Suspicion".)
One of the best is “Design For Living”. Skirting the era of the Code, the movie drastically adapts Noel Coward’s play about a menage a trois among a writer (Fredric March), artist (Gary Cooper), and their muse (Miriam Hopkins). Ben Hecht’s screenplay downplays Coward’s homoerotic suggestions, keeps the eyebrow raising notion that marriage is not the only permissible alternative for relationships. He allows Lubitsch to keep the titillating hetero situations afloat as the three Bohemians assert their desire to preserve a “gentleman’s agreement” of no sex.
The movie’s wisdom about such an idealistic fantasy — which makes it a worthy guide for the 60's renewal of the Bohemian ideal of communal relations — is that it won’t work. But Lubitsch juggles the lovers so deftly that it seems like great fun. When the girl caves in the inevitable, she sprawls languidly on a divan, sighs, “unfortunately, I’m no gentleman.” Of course, the triangle plays out to its logical extremes.
Another pre-code Lubitsch treasure is “Trouble In Paradise”. Herbert Marshall, a thief, combines with soulmate, Miriam Hopkins, to steal from socialite Kay Francis. Marshall falls for Kay and Lubitsch creates subtle scenes suggesting liaisons as George gropes with his choices.
The fact that Lubitsch survived the strictures of The Code is instructive. The Touch thrived with the kind of subtle innuendo that The Code could not repress. “The Shop Around The Corner” is a sweetly innocent love story set in a Hungarian store. The head clerk (James Stewart) and the new girl he reluctantly hires (Margaret Sullavan) disagree about almost everything. Each sees the other as unromantic, although each has been writing anonymous love letters to a secret admirer. If you saw the remake, “You’ve Got Mail” you get the idea.
During the war, his anti-Nazi comedy, “To Be Or Not To Be” proved to be Carole Lombard’s last movie. The story of that movie was credited to Melchior Lengyel, a Hungarian born screen writer, who also had the idea for Lubitsch’s masterpiece, "Ninotchka".
According to Zolotow, the inspiration came in true Hollywood style — over lunch, at the Brown Derby, no less. Lengyel met Salka Viertel there. She was Greta Garbo’s companion and advisor, mentioned to Lengyel that MGM was looking for a comedy that could revive Garbo’s career, so they could trumpet “Garbo Laughs” the way they hyped “Garbo Talks.”
The next day, he called her with an idea. She invited him to tell it to Garbo. At the pool, where Garbo was swimming in the nude, he said, “‘Russian girl saturated with Bolshevist ideals goes to fearful, capitalistic, monopolistic Paris. She meets romance, and has an uproarious good time. Capitalism is not no bad, after all.’ MGM paid him $15,000 for these three sentences.” (Zolotow, p. 79).
Also in typical Hollywood style, Viertel and Lengyel’s script of his idea was rejected. The first director assigned, resigned. Jacques Deval, who wrote “Tovarich” a comedy about Russian aristocrats in Paris tried his hand. S.N. Behrman’s draft created the shell of a plot about a Russian commissar and French gigolo. She comes to Paris to sell nickel ore.
Garbo asked for Lubitsch, on loan from Paramount. He admired her acting, brought on Walter Reisch, a contract MGM writer, and his people, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, to create a polished script worthy of a Lubitsch picture. According to Zolotow, it was Lubitsch’s notion to have her come to Paris to sell with Czarist jewels, previously owned by a dutchess living in Paris with her lover, the gigolo who is going to fall for Ninotchka. Diamonds, Lubitsch said, were more cinematic than nickel ore.
Which brings us to another of the aspects of the Lubitsch Touch that is not often acknowledged. Like many artists of the 1930's, Lubitsch wanted his movies to have “social significance.” But unlike Frank Capra, Lubitsch (abetted by Wilder) would treat the “issues” with subtlety and wit. Ninotchka is a satire of Soviet seriousness. Gags touch upon news items familiar to all movie goers. Stalin’s purges — “there are going to be fewer but better Russians.” The five year plan — “I’ve followed your five year plans for the past fifteen years.”
Zolotow argues that Lubitsch (born in Germany to Russian Jewish parents), like most of his peers, was mildly communist or at least leftist during the era. However, Lubitch in the early 30's had traveled to Russia and returned after three weeks, refusing to speak about his visit. After that, he had withdrawn from pro-Soviet committees that were popular then. Zolotow argues that after Lubitsch’s time in Stalinist Russia, he no longer had the illusions of his peers. Ironically, the movie’s success derived partly from the coincidence of the Nazi non-aggression pact shortly preceding the movie’s release in 1939.
Zolotow also remarks on the circumstances of Lubitsch’s death in 1947. He had a fatal heart attack in the shower. A famous Hollywood story is that Billy Wilder arrived shortly after the death and found a woman there, sobbing uncontrollably. He tried to soothe her, but finally reverted to his somewhat sardonic character. “Look,” he said, “he was almost a father to me, but I’m not crying.” The woman said “Sure, he didn’t fuck you and die before he paid you.” Wilder paid her the $50. Of course, Zolotow reports, Wilder denied the story. “‘The chauffeur paid her.’” (Zolotow, p.85).
Old school cranks like me wish that more contemporary filmmakers would review the Lubitsch library and learn just a bit of “The Lubitsch Touch”.
His ‘touch’ forbade coarseness in any part of his productions. The plot, dialogue, motivations, themes all had to be elegantly thought out, polished, coherent. Words like “sloppy,” “crass,” or “gross,” couldn’t be used to critique any of his movies. Even his pre-code movies showed a sophisticated view of sex and relationships. The battle of the sexes in Lubitsch films is fought with passion, wit, suggestion, tantalizing comic tension — but never with mean spirited nastiness.
Maurice Zolotow, in his biography of Billy Wilder (“Billy Wilder In Hollywood", Putnam 1977) writes of Lubitsch:
“He was a believer in a well-made screenplay and he didn’t start shooting until the screenplay was perfect. Lubitsch never improvised on a set — nor allowed his actors to utter spontaneous lines. He choreographed each word and gag. He made sure that there was not a single superfluous detail in the script, Once, B.P. Schulberg, then Paramount’s head of production, asked him why he was shooting a scene in a certain way, and he replied that he couldn’t remember exactly why at the moment, 'but it is in the script, which is good enough for me. If I didn’t have a good reason, it would not have been there when *Sam Raphaelson was writing it in the first place.'"
(*Samson Raphaelson writer on 9 Lubitsch films, including "The Merry Widow", "Shop Around The Corner", "Heaven Can Wait", and also Hitchcock’s "Suspicion".)
One of the best is “Design For Living”. Skirting the era of the Code, the movie drastically adapts Noel Coward’s play about a menage a trois among a writer (Fredric March), artist (Gary Cooper), and their muse (Miriam Hopkins). Ben Hecht’s screenplay downplays Coward’s homoerotic suggestions, keeps the eyebrow raising notion that marriage is not the only permissible alternative for relationships. He allows Lubitsch to keep the titillating hetero situations afloat as the three Bohemians assert their desire to preserve a “gentleman’s agreement” of no sex.
The movie’s wisdom about such an idealistic fantasy — which makes it a worthy guide for the 60's renewal of the Bohemian ideal of communal relations — is that it won’t work. But Lubitsch juggles the lovers so deftly that it seems like great fun. When the girl caves in the inevitable, she sprawls languidly on a divan, sighs, “unfortunately, I’m no gentleman.” Of course, the triangle plays out to its logical extremes.
Another pre-code Lubitsch treasure is “Trouble In Paradise”. Herbert Marshall, a thief, combines with soulmate, Miriam Hopkins, to steal from socialite Kay Francis. Marshall falls for Kay and Lubitsch creates subtle scenes suggesting liaisons as George gropes with his choices.
The fact that Lubitsch survived the strictures of The Code is instructive. The Touch thrived with the kind of subtle innuendo that The Code could not repress. “The Shop Around The Corner” is a sweetly innocent love story set in a Hungarian store. The head clerk (James Stewart) and the new girl he reluctantly hires (Margaret Sullavan) disagree about almost everything. Each sees the other as unromantic, although each has been writing anonymous love letters to a secret admirer. If you saw the remake, “You’ve Got Mail” you get the idea.
During the war, his anti-Nazi comedy, “To Be Or Not To Be” proved to be Carole Lombard’s last movie. The story of that movie was credited to Melchior Lengyel, a Hungarian born screen writer, who also had the idea for Lubitsch’s masterpiece, "Ninotchka".
According to Zolotow, the inspiration came in true Hollywood style — over lunch, at the Brown Derby, no less. Lengyel met Salka Viertel there. She was Greta Garbo’s companion and advisor, mentioned to Lengyel that MGM was looking for a comedy that could revive Garbo’s career, so they could trumpet “Garbo Laughs” the way they hyped “Garbo Talks.”
The next day, he called her with an idea. She invited him to tell it to Garbo. At the pool, where Garbo was swimming in the nude, he said, “‘Russian girl saturated with Bolshevist ideals goes to fearful, capitalistic, monopolistic Paris. She meets romance, and has an uproarious good time. Capitalism is not no bad, after all.’ MGM paid him $15,000 for these three sentences.” (Zolotow, p. 79).
Also in typical Hollywood style, Viertel and Lengyel’s script of his idea was rejected. The first director assigned, resigned. Jacques Deval, who wrote “Tovarich” a comedy about Russian aristocrats in Paris tried his hand. S.N. Behrman’s draft created the shell of a plot about a Russian commissar and French gigolo. She comes to Paris to sell nickel ore.
Garbo asked for Lubitsch, on loan from Paramount. He admired her acting, brought on Walter Reisch, a contract MGM writer, and his people, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, to create a polished script worthy of a Lubitsch picture. According to Zolotow, it was Lubitsch’s notion to have her come to Paris to sell with Czarist jewels, previously owned by a dutchess living in Paris with her lover, the gigolo who is going to fall for Ninotchka. Diamonds, Lubitsch said, were more cinematic than nickel ore.
Which brings us to another of the aspects of the Lubitsch Touch that is not often acknowledged. Like many artists of the 1930's, Lubitsch wanted his movies to have “social significance.” But unlike Frank Capra, Lubitsch (abetted by Wilder) would treat the “issues” with subtlety and wit. Ninotchka is a satire of Soviet seriousness. Gags touch upon news items familiar to all movie goers. Stalin’s purges — “there are going to be fewer but better Russians.” The five year plan — “I’ve followed your five year plans for the past fifteen years.”
Zolotow argues that Lubitsch (born in Germany to Russian Jewish parents), like most of his peers, was mildly communist or at least leftist during the era. However, Lubitch in the early 30's had traveled to Russia and returned after three weeks, refusing to speak about his visit. After that, he had withdrawn from pro-Soviet committees that were popular then. Zolotow argues that after Lubitsch’s time in Stalinist Russia, he no longer had the illusions of his peers. Ironically, the movie’s success derived partly from the coincidence of the Nazi non-aggression pact shortly preceding the movie’s release in 1939.
Zolotow also remarks on the circumstances of Lubitsch’s death in 1947. He had a fatal heart attack in the shower. A famous Hollywood story is that Billy Wilder arrived shortly after the death and found a woman there, sobbing uncontrollably. He tried to soothe her, but finally reverted to his somewhat sardonic character. “Look,” he said, “he was almost a father to me, but I’m not crying.” The woman said “Sure, he didn’t fuck you and die before he paid you.” Wilder paid her the $50. Of course, Zolotow reports, Wilder denied the story. “‘The chauffeur paid her.’” (Zolotow, p.85).
Monday, March 08, 2010
Notes On Oscars
The renewed expansion of the best movie category to 10 was a transparently desperate move, akin to a closeout sale at Wal-mart. In the Golden Age when studios released many more movies to much larger audiences,10 nominations made sense.
It is unfair to even compare this year’s 10 with the nominees from the best year in movie history, 1939:
"Gone With The Wind" winning over "Dark Victory", "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", "Love Affair", "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington","Ninotchka", "Of Mice and Men", "Stagecoach", "The Wizard of Oz", "Wuthering Heights".
Not even making the cut:
“The Hunchback Of Notre Dame”, “Gunga Din”, “Golden Boy,” “Intermezzo”, “Young Mr. Lincoln”, “Destry Rides Again”.
Although money earning statistics for movies are as reliable as Washington budget projections, I doubt that the nominations of 6 or 7 of the movies moved their earnings needles very far past what they would have earned anyway.
That the award went to a low budget, indy-like war-is-hell movie set in Iraq, directed by a woman and with a small cast of unknowns rather than the blockbuster special effects juggernaut that sucked up all the available youth cash this season, was well within the traditional temperament of academy voters although it can be seen as more evidence of the Academy’s self-destructive tendency toward snubbing audience favorites for arty message movies that appeal to few.
Echoing a trend begun in the Great Depression, “Precious” and “The Blind Side”, a couple of movies that contained unambiguous social messages and captured respectable audiences, gained some recognition.
Arguably, the only movie that sought to address the current economic condition was “Up In The Air”, a droll but somewhat sad dra-medy about corporate downsizing and its cost to the human heart.
Its theme and style was closest to the tradition of Depression era classics like “Meet John Doe”, Frank Capra’s bitter commentary on inhuman corporate values, or his adaptation of Kaufman / Hart’s screwball family play,“You Can’t Take It With You”, which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1938 despite competition from “Grand Illusion”, “Test Pilot”, “The Adventures of Robin Hood”, and “Jezebel”, among others.
In other categories there were also echoes of the classic film era. Jeff Bridges is the kind of workmanlike actor who reminds me of Robert Mitchum. Both are often better than their material. Both have such an easy manner before the camera that they seem to be sleepwalking, whether starring or featured, whether reciting dramatic or comedic lines. For many in the audience, Bridges will always be "The Dude", his classic avatar from "The Big Lebowski".
The film he won for, “Crazy Heart”, is also well within the tradition of subjects for small showpiece movies: a portrait of a drunken country singer. One of its producers, Robert Duvall, succeeded with “Tender Mercies”. In 2005, there was “Walk The Line”, earning a nomination for Joaquin Phoeniz and years before that, “Pollack” brought Ed Harris a nomination portraying a drunken painter.
Sandra Bullock’s win is reminiscent of Sally Fields’ Oscar. Both have been more popular with audiences than with critics, both considered best at lightweight comedies, and both given a chance in their forties to stretch into drama, came up big, Fields in “Norma Rae” and now Bullock. Incidentally, their acceptance speeches are twins — Fields’ direct whine, “You like me, you really like me” compares with Bullock’s equally apparent but slightly more acerbic amazement at her acceptance into the rarefied company that included grand dames Streep and Mirren.
The Oscars have always been little more than a showcase for the huckstering of often tawdry, sometimes collectible, always suspiciously glittering, merchandise. This year the salesmanship made it seem more like a three hour infomercial for products that may have a limited shelf life.
It is unfair to even compare this year’s 10 with the nominees from the best year in movie history, 1939:
"Gone With The Wind" winning over "Dark Victory", "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", "Love Affair", "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington","Ninotchka", "Of Mice and Men", "Stagecoach", "The Wizard of Oz", "Wuthering Heights".
Not even making the cut:
“The Hunchback Of Notre Dame”, “Gunga Din”, “Golden Boy,” “Intermezzo”, “Young Mr. Lincoln”, “Destry Rides Again”.
Although money earning statistics for movies are as reliable as Washington budget projections, I doubt that the nominations of 6 or 7 of the movies moved their earnings needles very far past what they would have earned anyway.
That the award went to a low budget, indy-like war-is-hell movie set in Iraq, directed by a woman and with a small cast of unknowns rather than the blockbuster special effects juggernaut that sucked up all the available youth cash this season, was well within the traditional temperament of academy voters although it can be seen as more evidence of the Academy’s self-destructive tendency toward snubbing audience favorites for arty message movies that appeal to few.
Echoing a trend begun in the Great Depression, “Precious” and “The Blind Side”, a couple of movies that contained unambiguous social messages and captured respectable audiences, gained some recognition.
Arguably, the only movie that sought to address the current economic condition was “Up In The Air”, a droll but somewhat sad dra-medy about corporate downsizing and its cost to the human heart.
Its theme and style was closest to the tradition of Depression era classics like “Meet John Doe”, Frank Capra’s bitter commentary on inhuman corporate values, or his adaptation of Kaufman / Hart’s screwball family play,“You Can’t Take It With You”, which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1938 despite competition from “Grand Illusion”, “Test Pilot”, “The Adventures of Robin Hood”, and “Jezebel”, among others.
In other categories there were also echoes of the classic film era. Jeff Bridges is the kind of workmanlike actor who reminds me of Robert Mitchum. Both are often better than their material. Both have such an easy manner before the camera that they seem to be sleepwalking, whether starring or featured, whether reciting dramatic or comedic lines. For many in the audience, Bridges will always be "The Dude", his classic avatar from "The Big Lebowski".
The film he won for, “Crazy Heart”, is also well within the tradition of subjects for small showpiece movies: a portrait of a drunken country singer. One of its producers, Robert Duvall, succeeded with “Tender Mercies”. In 2005, there was “Walk The Line”, earning a nomination for Joaquin Phoeniz and years before that, “Pollack” brought Ed Harris a nomination portraying a drunken painter.
Sandra Bullock’s win is reminiscent of Sally Fields’ Oscar. Both have been more popular with audiences than with critics, both considered best at lightweight comedies, and both given a chance in their forties to stretch into drama, came up big, Fields in “Norma Rae” and now Bullock. Incidentally, their acceptance speeches are twins — Fields’ direct whine, “You like me, you really like me” compares with Bullock’s equally apparent but slightly more acerbic amazement at her acceptance into the rarefied company that included grand dames Streep and Mirren.
The Oscars have always been little more than a showcase for the huckstering of often tawdry, sometimes collectible, always suspiciously glittering, merchandise. This year the salesmanship made it seem more like a three hour infomercial for products that may have a limited shelf life.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
My nominees for Worst Movies of 2009 involving talented movie makers:
Angels And Demons
One of the worst movies of the decade, especially considering the quality of those responsible, particularly David Koepp & Akiva Goldman who took credit and enormous sums of money for their script. Part audio book with interminable babbling exposition or mostly bogus history and part travelogue of Rome (as if on a one day tour), the script has poor Tom Hanks chasing his tail for more than two hours, scrounging for "symbols" i.e., clues. At its core, it is an old fashioned who-dumm-it, with "obvious" suspects laid out for us, while the true culprit hides in the angelic face of its second billed star. Feeling sorry for Koepp, Goldman, Howard, Hanks, et. al, because of the unwieldy implausibility of the novel they had to work from is not an option because they made too much money to care. They made a film which pretends to support a heavy theme: the tension between religion (The Catholic Church) and science and manages to be offensively dishonest and gossipy about both institutions. Pardon the pun, but the movie does not "illuminate." Rather, it chokes on "dark matter."
Public Enemies
This movie is far too clinical in its attempt to re-create the era. For all its violence, it is bloodless compared to the Warner Bros gangster films of the 1930's when the events and characters were fresh. See any Cagney movie of the time for a far greater sense of the era, far greater passion and commitment to the essence of the time. Mann tries too hard to compare the sensitive, romantic, freedom loving anti-hero desperado against the near fascist bureaucrat Hoover and the Southern, gentlemanly, aristocratic lawman Purvis, who is disturbed by what he has to do to restore order. Depp as usual controls the screen, but this time with little effect.
State Of Play
Russell Crowe needs a workout program. Robin Wright Penn is wasted. Rachel McAdams needs more work.
The International
A muddled travelogue / capitalist conspiracy police thriller. Naomi Watts is wasted, obviously in it for the paycheck. Clive Owen's scowling intensity carries the action. The Guggenheim shootout is awesome but that's about it as the rest is a cut and paste of plot points stolen from Bond movie discards.
One of the worst movies of the decade, especially considering the quality of those responsible, particularly David Koepp & Akiva Goldman who took credit and enormous sums of money for their script. Part audio book with interminable babbling exposition or mostly bogus history and part travelogue of Rome (as if on a one day tour), the script has poor Tom Hanks chasing his tail for more than two hours, scrounging for "symbols" i.e., clues. At its core, it is an old fashioned who-dumm-it, with "obvious" suspects laid out for us, while the true culprit hides in the angelic face of its second billed star. Feeling sorry for Koepp, Goldman, Howard, Hanks, et. al, because of the unwieldy implausibility of the novel they had to work from is not an option because they made too much money to care. They made a film which pretends to support a heavy theme: the tension between religion (The Catholic Church) and science and manages to be offensively dishonest and gossipy about both institutions. Pardon the pun, but the movie does not "illuminate." Rather, it chokes on "dark matter."
Public Enemies
This movie is far too clinical in its attempt to re-create the era. For all its violence, it is bloodless compared to the Warner Bros gangster films of the 1930's when the events and characters were fresh. See any Cagney movie of the time for a far greater sense of the era, far greater passion and commitment to the essence of the time. Mann tries too hard to compare the sensitive, romantic, freedom loving anti-hero desperado against the near fascist bureaucrat Hoover and the Southern, gentlemanly, aristocratic lawman Purvis, who is disturbed by what he has to do to restore order. Depp as usual controls the screen, but this time with little effect.
State Of Play
Russell Crowe needs a workout program. Robin Wright Penn is wasted. Rachel McAdams needs more work.
The International
A muddled travelogue / capitalist conspiracy police thriller. Naomi Watts is wasted, obviously in it for the paycheck. Clive Owen's scowling intensity carries the action. The Guggenheim shootout is awesome but that's about it as the rest is a cut and paste of plot points stolen from Bond movie discards.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
