I kept thinking throughout this, "If only Frank Capra had directed this, it would have been spectacular instead of only very good."
OK, problem: do you believe Cary Grant as a Bolshevik on trial for capital arson? No, me neither. John Garfield might have been better casting--though then we'd have lost the fun of having Cary play against Jean Arthur, who is perfectly cast, but again, in need of Capra.
Had to watch this because Terrence Rafferty told me this morning that Bette Davis's 100th birthday was coming up--next Saturday, so you still have time to get a card. It's a strange flick, too long, overwritten and overacted, simultaneously too big and too claustrophobic, which is another way of saying far too stagy, and yet . . .
Gained a new appreciation this time around for Marilyn Monroe's tiny role. She has about six lines, but she delivers each of them perfectly. More to the point, in the middle of about twenty bit roles before getting star billing, here she is given an opportunity to play off of the image of the sexpot with no talent and only as much ambition as others urge her to have. Would have been nice to see her get more shots at irony.
Let's bracket these as perfectly harmless, mostly enjoyable, ultimately unsurprising popcorn entertainments--not that there's anything wrong with that! The French pic gets the edge, and not just because of that dress Audrey Tautou almost wears in the opening sequence; Prix at least surprises us a bit en route to the unsurprising conclusion, and, being French, has a little genuine cynicism going for it: gold digger, instead of immediately falling in love with the guy who loves her, first teaches him how to dig gold himself. It also reminds my why I liked Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain less than the similarly themed, vastly less promoted film that showed in the U.S. about the same time, Le Battement d'aile du papillon (Happenstance): Tautou's characters are a lot more interesting when they have a bit of the garçonne in them. Gad Elmaleh plays a marginally less hopeless version of the doofus he played so well in the surprising La Doublure (The valet); throw Daniel Auteuil and Kristin Scott Thomas into the mix and this would probably be as good as that.
Comparisons with other Simon Pegg flicks are likewise hard to avoid with Fatboy: not as disappointing as Shaun of the Dead, not as hilarious as Hot Fuzz. The Times review credits it with the potential to "inspire the depressed and the demoralized to grit their teeth and keep running." Doubtful, but I may have to withdraw my "harmless," 'cause it occurs to me that it might inspire the depressed and the demoralized to imagine that they too may find their Thandie Newtons, which will probably only lead to further depression and demoralization in the end.
P.S.--The hell's wrong with people? I was the only one in the audience who stayed for the cover of Toots and the Maytals' "Monkey Man" over the end credits. Turned out to be Amy Winehouse--not as good as the original, but that's a high bar; certainly worth 3 minutes of even my rapidly depleting time left on the planet. Don't bitch about ticket prices if you're not staying for the whole show, eh?
Now there's a dame to murder for. Can I just confess that I wasted my youth thinking that Barbara Stanwyck was just a thoroughly unappealing ranch matriarch on TV? Consider that another black mark on the ledger of the U.S. educational system. She's now a hundred years old and dead, and she's still hotter than Rachel McAdams.
I guess this film is generally considered a phone-in job by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler, and yeah, I guess I can see that the plotting is a little creaky in spots, and that, in theory at least, it depends a little two heavily on the dying-guy-confessing-into-the-Dictaphone frame, but good lord, the dialogue; and good lord, Edward G. Robinson and his "little man" that tells him when a claim is fishy; and good lord, the helplessness of a schlub like Fred MacMurray's Walter Neff in the face and ankle and everything in between of Phyllis Dietrichson. Maybe less than great, but it'll do.
How do I not believe this movie? Let me count the ways:
On the other hand, give the setbuilders in British Columbia credit for great interior shots of the Cloud Room and the lobby of the Chrysler Building: there is virtually nothing else in the film that says "New York"--they apparently couldn't afford enough 1949 cars for a street scene, and even the Cooper character's high-floor office has only a generic city view--but they busted their ass on the Chrysler interiors, including the elevators and elevator doors.
Then She Found Me--Not counting a few episodes of Mad About You, Helen Hunt's writing, producing, and directing debut. I've always liked Helen Hunt, sometimes in spite of herself, so I wish her well, but the trailer looked very much from the Nora playbook.
Son of Rambow--First saw the trailer for this last Saturday at the Angelika, but in writing down titles in a notebook in the dark, I overwrite this one. Could be seriously mawkish, but you gotta love the notion of kids making a movie on their own--sort of a lower-budget Be Kind Rewind.
A perfect Easter Sunday movie, Hong Kong director Stephen Chow's unabashed tribute to his hero Steven Spielberg's film about a Christlike visitor from another planet. But this ET has paws of clay, his Elliot has a bit of an attitude on him, and those of us not blessed with a Chinese frame of mind rarely have the slightest idea where the film is going next. And is it just me, or is the eight-year-old Hong Kong kid who plays Dicky's love interest a dead ringer for Cyndi Lauper?
Not as good as Chow's Shaolin Soccer, but then what is?
Some year I'm going to write a long essay about how this film really isn't blasphemous but is instead a rather conservative historicist treatment of the rise of cults and sects. But not this year, 'cause I have to get to bed early so that I can work out before leaving for tomorrow's M5. And anyway, that's not really why I watch it every Holy Weekend; I watch it because it's a worthy observance for the recovering Catholic. (There is, of course, no such thing as an ex-Catholic.) So good night, and always look on the bright side of life.
I dunno, maybe I'm just too old, but this didn't seem all that magical to me. Plus, it seemed way too scary for kids young enough to find it magical. But there were a bunch of the little rugrats in the theater, and they seemed to be getting it, so I'll defer to their judgment. For me the best moment was the clear allusion to my favorite line of State and Main: "That happened!" In both films, you had to be there.
You gotta love a film that opens with "Bang a Gong" on the soundtrack. You gotta love a heist film that blends in sex, politics, and Black Power. You gotta love a heist film that ends (SPOILER ALERT!) with the heister hero on his fishing boat with his beautiful wife and beautiful daughters. Anyway, I guess you gotta love it. But I merely liked it.
Gloriosky, isn't this art! It's so, like, arty, you know? I mean, like, the astigmatic camera, right? That's art, isn't it?
Yeesh: what a confused fucking film. Does it want to debunk myth (Jesse's a right bastard, ripe for assassination) or does it want to reinvigorate it (Jesse has to dust that fucking picture, just like in every other version, turning his back and basically saying, "Judas, dude, do what you're here for." And the portentous voiceover [see above]??? Puh-leeeeeze!)? And somebody tell me why mumbling and nosewiping gets Casey Affleck an Oscar nomination? I mean, I was no huge fan of Gone Baby Gone, but if you held one of those HUGE-fucking-hole-making six-shooters from this flick to my head and said "You must nominate Casey Affleck for an Oscar or we'll make a HUGE fucking hole in your head," I'd have gone with his performance in that before this.
And don't even get me started on the obscene wastes of Mary-Louise Parker and Zooey Deschanel; M-L: I'll write a script for you, with, like, actual dialogue; Z: let's talk about my musical, with a half-dozen show-stoppers for the female lead. Seriously, have your people call my people.
The 2007 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner, but by my rules (date of U.S. theatrical release) the first contender for 2008 honors. And I gotta say, the critics who suggested that nothing the manifestly incompetent nominating committee nominated was remotely as good as, say, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days was unfair to this. Like that film, this one takes a subject everyone has strong feelings about--one that many of us have kneejerk feelings about--and introduces ambiguity that we're really uncomfortable with. And I'm always a fan of discomfort. Perhaps those Foreign Film bozos aren't quite as bozo-ish as I've been assuming.
Oh, but how about this for a paying-attention-to-end-credits bonus: Sally's paramour in the frame story is played by one Dolores Chaplin, granddaughter of Charles and Oona, thus great-granddaughter of Eugene O'Neill. And so I decided that my evening viewing should also be Holocaust-and-Chaplin-related.
According to my daughter, who should know, the wisest observation I ever made is that it's impossible ever to know what goes on inside a relationship you're not part of. (Hard enough knowing what's up with one you are part of, but that's another story.) That is the moral of the dramatic third of Lucas Belvaux's trilogy. If we've watched the other two films, Cavale and Un Couple épantant, ahead of this one, as I did this time around, you think you know all about the loveless marriage of morphine addict Agnès and corrupt cop Pascal, but you've been looking from the outside, and getting less than half the story. From inside the relationship, it's a very different story, a much more complex story, a much harder and more satisfying story.
As I've mentioned, Belvaux says that the trilogy is not meant to be viewed in any particular order, that he wants people to see it in every arrangement. That's as may be, but the European release order, which is what I followed this time, seems designed to peel the layers of the onion most effectively. Then again, when I watch in a different order next time, maybe I'll feel that's the perfect order. In any case, a remarkably successful narrative experiment: two excellent films, and one rather silly one that nonetheless makes its contribution to the whole.
Rumor has it that this would have been Israel's nomination for the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar except that it was ineligible because it contains too much English. Given that English is the common language of the traveling Egyptian police orchestra and the small-town Israelis they meet as a result of a travel mixup--and given that it is so heavily accented that the filmmakers felt obliged (mostly unnecessarily) to provide English subtitles for the English--this seems like a rather silly technicality, but then it shouldn't surprise me that the Foreign Film committee can't get anything right.
Not that this is an award-worthy film, but it is sweet and funny and idealistic (if only we could just spend some time with people who are unlike us--though at least it's not naïve enough to have made it a Hamas orchestra, say), and it contains a scene of coached romance worthy of Rostand.
OK, look: I take a back seat to no one in loving The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep, but if there's a more perfect film noir than this, I haven't seen it. It has (1) prison escape, (2) sympathetic killer, (3) thwarted love, (4) potential new love, and so on--never mind that it's just one-third of a remarkable coterminous multigeneric trilogy. Good lord, how was I able to buy all three films, on two discs, for $5.98, postage paid? If you can get the same deal, get it! Otherwise, Nf.
All we have are unanswered questions at the start: what was he in for? Why is he out? What does he plan? What alliances and grudges remain? The answers come--not necessarily completely, but satisfactorily--little by maddening little, building both our sympathy for and our frustration with Bruno. The answers will doubtless be refined in the other two films (I'm glad it has been a few years since I saw the whole trilogy in a single M5 day), but this would stand alone if it needed to as a gem of its genre.
One other bit of minor praise: the subtitlers respect us enough to know that they don't need to translate every "bonsoir." On the other hand, I did notice one euphemized translation that I wish had been given straight: at the end of a marital argument, the woman says, according to the titles, "Who cares what you think?" which is a harsh enough thing to say to your ostensible partner in life and love. But I know a little bit of French, enough to recognize that what she really said was "Fuck what you think!" Ouch.
You know, on Oscar night I was thinking, There's Mrs. Joel Coen, looking so un-movie star, thrilled with her husband and brother-in-law's success; but when's she gonna get back up here on the podium? Well, how 'bout next February? Good god, what a performance, giving ballast to a vehicle with scant substance otherwise--providing, as her character does to those around her, a gravitas much needed in a fluffy story that happens to take place in London on the eve of the Second World War. "They don't remember the first time, do they?" she asks the only other grown-up, played by Ciarán Hinds.
Gotta say, extremely disappointed in Amy Adams, who gave us her own unique spin in Catch Me If You Can, Junebug, Enchanted, and even Charlie Wilson's War--why did she feel compelled here to try to channel Marilyn? Fact is, she's better than Marilyn.
New feature:
Essentially, what you have here is Groundhog Day, minus the romance, minus the comedy, minus any remotely appealing characters, minus a single line of notable dialogue, and minus any stake in the action to make you give half a shit what happens. Hell, even the chase scene is boring. Ugh.
I was at least going to say that at least Salamanca looks interesting, but after watching the end credits roll I have to say that at least Mexico City looks interesting. (IMDb does list Salamanca as one of the locations--I hope for the Plaza Mayor where the central action takes place. I also see that the film seems likely to finish a close second to Semi-Pro for b.o. #1 this weekend, which just goes to show ya.)
