Wednesday, October 19, 2011
The first time was not the charm
By Edward Copeland
Though one shouldn't assume, I'm guessing the third time did indeed prove to be the charm as far as screen adaptations of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon go, even though time prevented me from sampling 1936's Satan Met a Lady starring Bette Davis. Reports on that incarnation of Hammett's story claim it turned the tale into farce, changed all names to protect the fictional and rechristened the much-sought-after Maltese Falcon as the fabled Horn of Roland. Unfortunately, I did have time to see the first crack movies took at Hammett's detective classic, director Roy Del Ruth's 1931 film The Maltese Falcon. I can see now — with Warner Bros., screwing up the story credited with creating the hard-boiled detective genre twice within seven years of its publication — how it became a matter of pride and urgency to try again as soon as 1941 to right the cinematic wrongs. This time, the studio hired a talented writer (John Huston) and gave him his first shot at directing in the hopes he'd make the definitive film version of The Maltese Falcon, which he did, even though his casting of Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade looked unorthodox at the time. However, Bogart's Spade ended up being as definitive a take on the private eye as the film itself became on the work of fiction. Now, I realize people exist who enjoy slowing down to gaze upon traffic accidents and part of these misguided souls wants to see how bad the 1931 version really could be. Trying to spare these folks an hour and 20 minutes of their lives prompts me to write about that 1931 Maltese Falcon today.
More than merely a decade separates the two films titled The Maltese Falcon and — with the exception of more sexual innuendo because the camera rolled on the 1931 version in pre-Code era Hollywood — little of what's different plays in the first film's favor. In fact, Huston's Maltese Falcon proved so beloved that when televisions began to spring up in U.S. households and old movies were rerun, the first Maltese Falcon got a new title: Dangerous Female. It's somewhat ironic that the 1931 movie would end up traveling under an alias
because one of the most mystifying changes the 1931 film made from Hammett's story was making that "dangerous female" be named Ruth Wonderly from beginning to end. She still lies and kills, but she doesn't use any fake names at all. Brigid O'Shaughnessy doesn't exist here. In Hammett's version, she also used other aliases but even Huston edited it down to two. Bebe Daniels plays Miss Wonderly in the 1931 version and she's representative of that film's biggest problem. Even some of the cast who were good in other roles in other films, weren't here. Perhaps it's just seeing them in contrast to the brilliant 1941 ensemble, but with the exception of Una Merkel, who plays Sam Spade's secretary Effie in 1931, nearly the entire cast stinks. Granted, part of the problem stemmed from the time period and the cast was populated with many performers who made their names in silents and didn't make the transition well. The only truly decent sound role that Daniels ever got was as the fading star Dorothy Brock in the 1933 musical 42nd Street. However, when I mentioned it as a pre-Code picture, that was not an exaggeration. The opening scene shows a pair of female legs adjusting her dress and walking out of Sam Spade's office followed by Spade (Ricardo Cortez) adjusting the pillows on the couch with the definite implication that hanky panky had been taking place. His relationship with Miss Wonderly seems to be sexual for sure and there's no question about his affair with partner Miles Archer's wife Iva. As Wonderly, hiding from Iva and trying to make her jealous at the same time, Bebe Daniels takes a bath in a scene that nearly shows her nude.
What ultimately ruins this version of The Maltese Falcon and, I suspect, would be the key to any attempt to tell this story belongs to whoever gets cast to play Sam Spade. In the 1931 case, Ricardo Cortez simply sinks the character and takes the movie down with him. Cortez, like Daniels, came from silents. Looking at his resume, he later did appear in one good film, his final film actually — John Ford's The Last Hurrah in 1958 — not that I recall him in it. Cortez portrays Spade as a grinning ghoul. He never stops smiling, laughing or giggling. Because he only seems to have one emotional note, every piece of dialogue gets the same spin, ruining some great lines.
When he's meeting with Caspar Gutman (Dudley Digges) — for some reason Gutman's first name starts with a C here but a K in 1941 — and Gutman explains the falcon's origin dating back to the Crusades, Sam says, "Holy wars? I'll bet that was a great racket!" In a talented actor's hands, that could get a laugh. Coming out of Cortez's mouth, it drops like a lead balloon, but it's how he delivers every line whether he's making a threat, toying with cops or trying to seduce a woman. I don't think it's director Roy Del Ruth who is to blame, not that he ever made an exceptional piece of work, but Cortez in the 1931 Maltese Falcon gives us another example of how a bad lead can ruin an entire film. For a modern example, think Danny Huston in John Sayles' Silver City. Other things that make this film's Sam Spade ridiculous don't have anything to do with Cortez. When he gets the call about Miles' murder, his bedroom looks suitably seedy just as Sam's apartment does in 1941. However, when you see his plush living room, egad. The first thing it reminded me of was those ridiculously large Manhattan apartments the characters in the sitcom Friends somehow afforded. How does Sam Spade afford this nice a place in San Francisco even that long ago when Miss Wonderly's $200 payment was way more than they expected?
One thing I searched in vain to find on the Web was how old Miles Archer is supposed to be in Hammett's original story. In the 1941 version, there doesn't seem to be that much of an age discrepancy between Jerome Cowan and Bogart (In real life, Cowan was born in 1897, Bogart in 1899). However, Roy Del Ruth's version shows Miles (Walter Long) looking as if he has quite a few years on Sam (Long was born in 1879, Cortez in 1900). I was curious how Hammett wrote them, but could never find an answer. The closest I found was a character description on something that claimed to be the final version of John Huston's screenplay for the 1941 film where he writes that Miles is "about as many years past 40 as Spade is past 30." Iva's role increases in the 1931 version and in it, Miles knows that she and Sam had an affair, He returns early from a trip while Iva has called to whisper sweet nothings to Sam on the phone. When Effie steps away from her desk, Miles picks up her extension and overhears his wife and Sam's conversation. He never really gets a chance to confront them about it because when he goes into Sam's office, that's when Miss Wonderly has begun telling her story and she'll kill Miles soon enough. One thing doesn't change — both Sam Spades anxiously want the affair with Iva to be over. An interesting note about how Spade and Archer work in 1931: They shared an office in 1941 and were called private investigators. In 1931, each man has his own office and the sign on the outer office door refers to them as "Samuel Spade & Miles Archer: Private Operatives."
In most respects, the broad outlines of the story follows the tale most people know through the 1941 film. Many of the same lines are used, so they probably originated with Hammett, but they just don't get the same spin or aren't rewritten the way Huston did. Mostly, things get left out to make things go more quickly. We don't see Archer shot and killed and he doesn't tumble the way he does in 1941. Spade still receives the news in the dark of his bedroom, though it isn't filmed nearly as well as it was by Huston, and we don't see him call and
ask Effie to inform Iva. We only learn that she did that deed from the cops who confront Sam with that tidbit. Effie gets to score with some information of her own as well, telling Sam that Iva wasn't there when she got there, even if that is a red herring. For instance, the character of Wilmer doesn't appear until very late in the movie and doesn't get but a handful of lines, though he does kill Gutman offscreen as he does in the story which doesn't happen in the 1941 film. What's shocking about that is what a waste it is of the actor who plays Wilmer here — Dwight Frye, who in 1931 proves so memorable as Fritz in James Whale's Frankenstein and Renfield in Tod Browning's Dracula. Iva's increased role as a troublemaking sexpot went to an actress whose own life ended up as a bigger mystery than the one in The Maltese Falcon — Thelma Todd. In just 10 years, she appeared in an astounding 119 features and shorts, probably best known for her work with the Marx Brothers in Monkey Business and Horse Feathers. In 1935, she was found dead in her car, a victim of carbon monoxide poisoning but it was long rumored that she'd been murdered, especially by gangsters eager to force her and her boyfriend, director Roland West, out of ownership of their club.
As if most of the movie hadn't played as if it were the work of amateurs already, despite the changes here and there, it had mostly followed Hammett's story — until the ending drops it down another level of awfulness. Early in the film, when Spade visits the scene of Miles' murder, they toss in a scene where Spade stops briefly and speaks with a Chinese man and the conversation isn't mentioned again until the end when Sam reveals that the Chinese man witnessed Miles' murder and ID'd Miss Wonderly as the killer. First, it's downright remarkable to believe that Sam knows how to speak Chinese. Second, that means that almost from the beginning he knows that she killed his partner, yet he still plays along with her the whole time and, as he tells her, falls for her, though he does turn her in to the police. Then, as a final epilogue, Sam visits Ruth in prison and brings her a pack of cigarettes and tells her that thanks to breaking the case, he's been named the chief investigator for the District Attorney's office. As he leaves, he tells a prison matron, "I want you to be very nice to that girl in No. 10. Give her anything she wants. Good food, cigarettes and candy. You know what I mean. Send the bill to the District Attorney's office. I'll OK it." Thank goodness they let John Huston and Humphrey Bogart do Hammett's story right.
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Labels: 30s, B. Affleck, Bette, Bogart, Books, Browning, Fiction, Huston, John Ford, Marx Brothers, Musicals, Remakes, Silents, Whale
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Thursday, February 03, 2011
When you go from well-off to jobless
By Edward Copeland
One side of the economic meltdown that the media didn't cover very well (Who am I kidding? The media didn't cover any of it well.) was the plight of a certain segment of the newly unemployed, namely those making six-figure salaries and above who found themselves suddenly jobless. Sure, some Americans couldn't pay for prescriptions and groceries, but other victims weren't able to pay dues at country clubs and had to give up golf! Now, I may sound as if I'm mocking them, but the film that tells their story, The Company Men, does evoke some sympathy for its upper class characters occasionally, but it never leaves your mind that there were and remain people much worse off than these men lamenting the loss of expensive meals and fancy toys.
The Company Men marks the feature writing-directing debut of John Wells, best known for his television work as executive producer on such hits as ER and The West Wing, and the movie does have a bit of that efficient set-it-up and wrap-it-up flavor of those series about it.
The movie focuses on three executives at GTX, a giant transportation corporation: Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck), a 37-year-old v.p. account executive; Phil Woodward (Chris Cooper), a 30-year veteran of the company who started there when it was just a small shipbuilding operation and he was one of the builders; and Tommy Lee Jones as Gene McClary, one of the very top executives, but no longer the one who makes final decisions despite the fact he started GTX in the first place.
The film opens with the ultraconfident Bobby bouncing into work one morning, expecting to find a usual day only to feel some tension and a request to see a higher-ranking exec, Sally Wilcox (Maria Bello), right away. When he gets to the meeting room where she's waiting, he learns she's there to present him with his severance package — he's one of 200 getting the axe that day. They also are closing shipbuilding operations in two cities.
This news does not go over well with Gene when he returns from a trip where he's given blunt answers when asked about the outlook for GTX's future earnings prospects. When he's back in the Boston headquarters, he learns of these developments from a worried Phil, who fears he'll be on the chopping block soon and he's too old to start over. Gene demands to see Sally immediately and finds her in a meeting with other top executives, including the chairman and CEO and supposedly Gene's "best friend" James Salinger (Craig T. Nelson).
Salinger takes Gene out to talk privately and harangues him for making such a public scene, especially since he needs to accept that shipbuilding may have launched GTX, but it's a losing proposition now and they have to concentrate on their divisions that make money such as health care (how a transportation company expanded into having a health care arm seems odd and goes unexplained) to please shareholders. Gene feels betrayed, because he felt Salinger was his friend and waited purposely until he was out of town to make these moves.
Bobby doesn't take his firing well and acts with quite a bit of arrogance in the beginning when he's not immediately in the running for jobs with similar salaries and he's not ready to give up his lifestyle, until his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) basically forces him to face that reality. Early on, it's hard to have much sympathy for Bobby as he yells and whines with indignation about how he has an MBA. Later, when he lashes out at his son and tells him he's busy and to go play on his XBox, I almost had to stifle a laugh when his wife informs him that boy returned the video game machine because he knew they were having money problems. Hope he kept that receipt. How long had they had it? It felt like a scene got cut somewhere, but still...oh, the sacrifice.
Bobby has to make a bigger sacrifice than his son when he finally drops his pride and goes to work for his brother-in-law Jack at his small construction company. It's not the huge drop in pay and the manual labor that puts Bobby to the test, it's that Kevin Costner plays Jack, using the same awful New England accent he couldn't pull off in 13 Days and that still sucks now. Why does Costner insist on trying to do accents and, more importantly, why do directors let him ruin even small parts of their movies by letting him do it? It isn't as if Costner's status as s superstar remains what it once was, so surely they can no to him. Hell, since he doen't have that pull anymore, why are they hiring him in the first place, accent or no accent?
The usually reliable Cooper really gets the most thankless role (actually the second most thankless after Bello) in the film. From the moment Phil Woodward appears on screen, you can predict his entire story arc. Wells' dialogue telegraphs Phil's journey so obviously that Cooper really can't do much with his part and that's a shame for this great actor. He deserves so much better. He got more out of his single scene in Affleck's The Town than he gets in this entire movie.
Jones comes off best, since Gene's position differs from the other two men. When he inevitably gets his walking papers, he still owns a lot of stock options and can maintain his lifestyle to some extent, though they sort of gloss over the fact that he's having an affair with Bello's character and leaves his wife for her after he's fired (by Bello's character no less). He gets a couple of good speeches when he shows Affleck's character what the company was like in the beginning and when he admits that he got used to having expensive meals and flying on corporate jets.
Nelson has been cast as the villain of the piece, but he's a particularly one-dimensional villain whose suits might as well have been made out of cardboard, but then Wells' script doesn't try to go too deep on anything. Again, it goes back to the way his TV series were: They aimed neither for complexity nor gray areas and The Company Men doesn't make that attempt either. Slick and simple remains Wells' modus operandi in film as it does on series television.
To make matters worse, The Company Men even tries to tack on its version of a happy ending, or at least a promising one. The whole movie seems to undermine itself at every turn. It would have been an interesting idea to examine another side of the fallout of the economic crisis, but this movie doesn't present that story, at least not well.
Charles Ferguson's documentary on the financial collapse, Inside Job, ends up containing more information, more drama and more entertainment than The Company Men.
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Labels: 10s, B. Affleck, Chris Cooper, Costner, Maria Bello, Television, Tommy Lee Jones
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Thursday, January 20, 2011
Bullets fly in Beantown
By Edward Copeland
As an actor, Ben Affleck has proved very inconsistent throughout his career, but as a director, he's proving to be much more reliable as he shows in his second feature, The Town. While Affleck also casts himself as the lead and does have some weak moments in the emoting department, fortunately he's surrounded himself with an excellent ensemble to make up for his deficiencies.
The Town doesn't come off as well as Affleck's directorial debut Gone Baby Gone, starring his more talented (in terms of acting) brother Casey did, but it's still a highly involving crime drama, even if parts of it seem as if they were boosted in a heist from other movies.
Ben Affleck also took part in the writing, sharing screenwriting duties with Aaron Stockard and Peter Craig in adapting the novel Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan. (Affleck does have an Oscar for writing, if you recall, with Matt Damon the script for Good Will Hunting, though Damon acts better than he writes. I digress.)
The title refers to the Charlestown section of Boston, which has gained a reputation as the bank robbery capital of America, thanks to breeding generation after generation of gun-wielding thieves. Affleck plays Doug MacRay, the leader of a small but effective crew that has thwarted authorities for quite some time, getting under the skin of one particular FBI special agent, Adam Frawley, (Jon Hamm, who looks so out of place in a modern story).
As the film opens, Doug and his crew, including his borderline psychotic friend James Coughlin (Jeremy Renner, who gives a performance even better than his fine work in The Hurt Locker) are pulling off a bank job and because of the circumstances, end up having to take the bank manager (Rebecca Hall) hostage.
They later release the woman unharmed but some time later, Doug encounters her by chance in a laundromat. The crooks were all wearing masks and after some vague but probing questions, he realizes there's no way that she could recognize him. Unfortunately, Doug also find himself attracted to the woman, whose name he learns is Claire Keesey and she lives within blocks of him and the other robbers.
Needless to say, this presents problems for just about everyone involved, but in a film such as The Town, it really isn't fair to go into much plot detail for those who haven't seen it. Don't worry: It has plenty of other aspects worth discussing.
Affleck's direction keeps things taut when they need to be and moving when that's required. His staging of the climactic action scene plays like it's a smaller-scale version of the crooks versus cops gun battle in Michael Mann's Heat, but he does manage some nice touches elsewhere. It's hard to say who contributed what to the screenplay, but it's mostly good, though the dialogue does have some clunkers.
In his role as Doug, Affleck places himself as the center of the movie and while he doesn't give a bad performance he has surrounded himself with so many performers who deliver great ones, that he stands out, especially since he has the majority of the screen time. It's not as if he's incapable of delivering the goods, as he's shown in films such as State of Play and Hollywoodland, but I can't help but wonder if he spread himself too thin here and if he'd just wrote and directed The Town and someone else played Doug, it would be even better.
The more I see of Rebecca Hall, the more I like her. I thought that after Penélope Cruz, she was the best thing in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but she's really good here, though she gave her best 2010 performance in the too-little-seen Please Give.
As I mentioned earlier, the film's standout is Jeremy Renner's James. It's easy to overdo a psycho, especially when you are trying to throw a Boston accent on top of it, but he manages to avoid both traps and score on both counts. When he's on screen, you can't take your eyes off him and he gets most of the film's best speeches.
Jon Hamm does fine, though at times it does seem as if you are watching Don Draper, FBI Agent. It is good to see him paired with Titus Welliver though.
Chris Cooper turns in a great single scene as Doug's father who is languishing behind bars for crimes he has committed.
The other truly standout performance comes with a tinge of sadness. The late Pete Postlethwaite really brings it on as Fergie, the crime boss who the crew works for but hides behind his work at his flower shop at a cover. He's truly menacing and though Postlethwaite still has another film that will be his final screen appearance, this would have been a great swan song, especially after Inception which creepily seems now as if we were watching him on his real-life deathbed and he barely said anything audible.
The Town could have been tightened, but the great acting and solid action makes it enjoyable enough.
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Labels: 10s, B. Affleck, C. Affleck, Chris Cooper, Matt Damon, Michael Mann, Penélope Cruz, Woody
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Monday, September 21, 2009
A modern tale set in a time gone by
By Edward Copeland
Being a former journalist, even if I was never a reporter, sticking more with copy editing with a side order of criticism, it's always nice to see a film that focuses on a veteran reporter (Russell Crowe) as its hero, even as it acknowledges the financial problems of the industry, the constant corporate changeovers and the ignoring of the bread and butter of the operation, the newspaper itself, as it fumbles around in the Internet age.
However, those are just asides in State of Play, which really is a thriller about solving a mystery and the risks, especially in a place like Washington, of being too friendly with people you might have to cover.
The film is based on a British miniseries and directed by Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) from a screenplay by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy and Billy Ray (who wrote and directed an excellent film about journalism, Shattered Glass).
Crowe stars as Cal McAffrey, a shaggy journalist who drives bosses nuts but comes up with the goods when the chips are down. He immediately causes friction with a rookie reporter Della Frye whose blog is rising on the paper's attempt to cause some Web ripples (Rachel McAdams).
The paper's editor (Helen Mirren) tries to steer them both in the right direction as she copes with yet another new corporate owner. At the film's outset, McAffrey is investigating what appears to be a routine street drug shooting while Della's more gossipy column is working the apparent suicide by subway train of a congressional staffer of a Pennsylvania representative (Ben Affleck).
Not only was the late aide having an affair with the married Affleck, he is the good friend and former college roommate of McAffrey. Of course, nothing is quite what it seems. Rep. Stephen Collins (Affleck) had been vocally trying to expose a Blackwater-type private mercenary force and evidence points toward the affair story being leaked in an effort to silence him.
There are several twists along the way, so to divulge much more of the plot wouldn't be fair. Macdonald moves State of Play along at a very good pace, but I wish it had slowed down at times to ruminate over the many issues it passes fleetingly on the way. The film doesn't stop long to seriously look at the ethical conflict between Collins and McAffrey's friendship and McAffrey's duty to the story nor to the paper's duty itself to tell the truth and not protect corporate friends of the owners and cast ethical clouds on the entire paper.
Perhaps the saddest part of State of Play is knowing that it lives in somewhat of a fantasyland of the past where veteran reporters like McAffrey can actually tutor rookies like Della so they can learn the ropes. In the environment of today's newspaper industry, most of the experienced journalists with institutional memory are pushed into early buyouts and young reporters never gain from their insights, left to their own devices and overseen by editors too preoccupied to offer much professional guidance, further diminishing the product as a whole.
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Labels: 00s, B. Affleck, Mirren, Russell Crowe
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Friday, March 06, 2009
Chasing Chasing Amy
By Edward Copeland
I like Kevin Smith and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Even though I've only met him once, I liked him as a person. Despite the fact that he's made far more movies I've been disappointed in than I've liked, I still look forward to his films, silently rooting for him, hoping that this movie will be the one that brings back the filmmaker I admired in the first place. Unfortunately, Zack and Miri Make a Porno is not that movie.
In a strange way, Zack and Miri seems as if Smith is trying to make a Judd Apatow movie. He certainly has plenty of Apatow alums in the cast, but the film doesn't work as an Apatow homage any better than it does as a Kevin Smith film.
The plot is simple: Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks play the title characters, lifelong platonic friends who share an apartment and the bills. Unfortunately for them, they get far behind and have their electricity and water cut off. After a visit to their 10th high school reunion (which is really the film's funniest sequence, especially thanks to a cameo by Justin Long), Zack gets the bright idea of making a cheap porno film to help finance their continued existence.
Of course, it's a crazy idea. Making a porno to pay for the utilities on a crappy apartment while they continue to work at a low-paying jobs is absurd to say the least. However, I'd let that go if Smith's writing was sharp and funny like I know it can be, but Smith's script seems lazy here. It left me with a feeling of sadness instead of giving me lots of laughs.
I know Smith still has it in him, even if it has been 12 years since he moved to a new level with Chasing Amy, I still have faith in him. I fear he was scarred by the Jersey Girl experience and its Ben Affleck-J-Lo sideshow.
Perhaps it is time for Smith to stretch his skills to a different genre and steer clear of relationship movies for awhile, just to see what happens. I know you can do it, Kevin. Don't waste your time on films such as Zack and Miri. Your lack of enthusiasm is showing.
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Labels: 00s, Apatow, B. Affleck, Kevin Smith, Seth Rogen
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Friday, February 22, 2008
The best Malick film Malick never made
By Edward Copeland
I've never made it a secret that the films of Terrence Malick aren't my cup of tea. So when many reviews of Andrew Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford compared the film to Malick last fall, it dampened my enthusiasm for rushing out to see this 160 minute movie. That was a mistake, because now that I've caught up with it on DVD, I wish I could have seen it in a theater, not only because it is as beautiful as most Malick films, but because it's a near-great film with solid writing and acting that wears its length spectacularly well, something Malick films haven't done for me.
First and foremost, I have to cite the greatest asset of Jesse James: Roger Deakins' remarkable cinematography, for which he received an Oscar nomination alongside his separate nomination for No Country for Old Men.
This year's crop of cinematography nominees may be the strongest in the category I've seen in a long time. In addition to Deakins' nominations, there also is great work by Janusz Kaminski for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Seamus McGarvey for Atonement and Robert Elswit's magnificent work in the otherwise blah There Will Be Blood.
I think Elswit likely will win Sunday, but Deakins' work on Jesse James really deserves the prize, especially since Deakins now holds seven Oscar nominations without a win. I hope I'm wrong Sunday, because his work on The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford stands heads and shoulders above the others in this brutally strong field.
However, unlike your typical Malick feature, there is more than meets the eye in Jesse James. Director Dominik adapted the script from the novel by Ron Hansen, and he uses a free-flowing narrative, punctuated frequently by an omniscient yet unidentified narrator, to tell the story of the man who killed the famous outlaw.
As the first title character, Brad Pitt gives one of his best performances, an alternately charming and chilling turn that is as tightly coiled as Joe Pesci as Tommy in Goodfellas.
Casey Affleck does well as the title's other name as well, though the Academy's decision to place him in supporting is questionable at best, though not nearly one of its worst lead/supporting categorization mistakes. Affleck nicely mixes the naive and calculating parts of the young Robert Ford, who, as Jesse points out, is either a lot like James or merely wants to be the legend.
The rest of the ensemble does equally well, including Paul Schneider, Jeremy Renner and Sam Rockwell as various members of the James gang and Sam Shepard as Jesse's older brother Frank.
What makes The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford so compelling is its entire construction. For a film that runs 2 hours and 40 minutes, it never lags and its stylistic flourishes only enhance the tale, never distracting from the narrative itself.
Also, unlike most Westerns of the past few decades, the film's mission doesn't seem to include deconstructing the myths to say something larger about the genre. Instead, it just dazzles the eye, entrances the viewer and tells a fine, oft-told tale.
One final note about a great aspect of the film: In a time where more often than not, musical scores tend to stomp on the movies they serve, the music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is subtle, evocative and one of the finest movie scores I've heard in some time.
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Labels: 00s, B. Affleck, Brad Pitt, C. Affleck, Malick, Pesci, Sam Rockwell, Shepard, Zemeckis
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Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Everyone looks out his own window
By Edward Copeland
When Amy Ryan began her near clean sweep of the supporting actress awards for Gone Baby Gone, I was a little puzzled, since she is hardly a household name and the film itself seemed to have garnered little notice. Now that I've finally seen the film, I can see that Ryan's awards were more than justified and Ben Affleck's directing debut really hasn't been given the praise it richly deserves.
I feel ashamed of myself for not recognizing Ryan by name when she first started getting attention, since she plays Officer Beatrice Russell on the great HBO series The Wire (which I'm missing greatly, given that my evil cable company took HBO away from me and sent it to the digital ghetto). However, you won't find any trace of the hardworking single mom Beadie within the drug-addicted single mother of a kidnapping victim in Gone Baby Gone.
It's easy to see how Ryan's powerhouse work got notice, but the rest of her film and fellow actors deserve kudos as well. Adapted from the novel by Dennis Lehane, who also wrote the book Mystic River and is a writer on The Wire, Gone Baby Gone plays in some ways as if it's a sequel to Clint Eastwood's film, only Gone Baby Gone is much better.
Gone Baby Gone doesn't go on past the point where it shouldn't and, by and large, the Boston accents in Gone Baby Gone are done much better than in Mystic River.
Affleck taps his younger brother Casey as the lead here and it's not a case of nepotism run amok. Casey Affleck is quite good as Patrick Kenzie, a private investigator hired by the missing girl's aunt (Amy Madigan) (along with his girlfriend, played by Michele Monaghan) to help the police with their investigation.
Leading the investigation on the police side are too veteran detectives (Ed Harris and John Ashton) under the supervision of the police chief (Morgan Freeman), whose own child was lost long ago.
While it's hardly noteworthy to expect good work from Freeman, this is by far the best performance Harris has given in ages.
As a director, Ben Affleck moves the film along nicely, even though its complicated story would have been easy to muck up and end up confusing the viewer. Still, there is a reason Ryan has burst into the consciousness with her work here. She is superb.
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When Amy Ryan began her near clean sweep of the supporting actress awards for Gone Baby Gone, I was a little puzzled, since she is hardly a household name and the film itself seemed to have garnered little notice. Now that I've finally seen the film, I can see that Ryan's awards were more than justified and Ben Affleck's directing debut really hasn't been given the praise it richly deserves.
I feel ashamed of myself for not recognizing Ryan by name when she first started getting attention, since she plays Officer Beatrice Russell on the great HBO series The Wire (which I'm missing greatly, given that my evil cable company took HBO away from me and sent it to the digital ghetto). However, you won't find any trace of the hardworking single mom Beadie within the drug-addicted single mother of a kidnapping victim in Gone Baby Gone.
It's easy to see how Ryan's powerhouse work got notice, but the rest of her film and fellow actors deserve kudos as well. Adapted from the novel by Dennis Lehane, who also wrote the book Mystic River and is a writer on The Wire, Gone Baby Gone plays in some ways as if it's a sequel to Clint Eastwood's film, only Gone Baby Gone is much better.
Gone Baby Gone doesn't go on past the point where it shouldn't and, by and large, the Boston accents in Gone Baby Gone are done much better than in Mystic River.
Affleck taps his younger brother Casey as the lead here and it's not a case of nepotism run amok. Casey Affleck is quite good as Patrick Kenzie, a private investigator hired by the missing girl's aunt (Amy Madigan) (along with his girlfriend, played by Michele Monaghan) to help the police with their investigation.
Leading the investigation on the police side are too veteran detectives (Ed Harris and John Ashton) under the supervision of the police chief (Morgan Freeman), whose own child was lost long ago.
While it's hardly noteworthy to expect good work from Freeman, this is by far the best performance Harris has given in ages.
As a director, Ben Affleck moves the film along nicely, even though its complicated story would have been easy to muck up and end up confusing the viewer. Still, there is a reason Ryan has burst into the consciousness with her work here. She is superb.
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Labels: 00s, Amy Ryan, B. Affleck, C. Affleck, Eastwood, HBO, Morgan Freeman, The Wire
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd
He served a dark and a vengeful god.
What happened then — well, that's the play,
And he wouldn't want us to give it away,
Not Sweeney,
Not Sweeney Todd,
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
By Edward Copeland
I love Stephen Sondheim and Sweeney Todd is my favorite musical of his. I admit that I have great trepidation about what Tim Burton will do to it in his upcoming film version, that's why I chose this date to pay tribute to the 25th anniversary of the first U.S. airing of the television version of the original Broadway hit. I beg all of you who haven't seen this version to seek it out before Burton's version hits the big screen.
The Los Angeles production of the original Broadway tour was filmed for a defunct entity known as The Entertainment Channel, but I saw it when it aired on Showtime. There were cast differences from the Broadway production: George Hearn replaced Len Cariou in the title role, Cris Groenedaal took over the role of Anthony from Victor Garber (known to you kids as Sydney's father on TV's Alias) and Betsy Joslyn played Johanna instead of Sarah Rice. However, most of the other roles were played again by the Broadway cast, most importantly Angela Lansbury re-creating her triumphant Tony-winning turn as Mrs. Lovett, seen to the right with Ken Jennings, the show's original Tobias. If you are only familiar with Lansbury as crime-solving mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher on TV's Murder, She Wrote or as the malevolent manipulator Mrs. Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate, you owe it to yourself to watch Sweeney Todd. Lansbury sings, Lansbury dances and Lansbury wows. Her Mrs. Lovett is a hard act for anyone to follow.
Like a great black pit
And the vermin of the world
Inhabit it
And its morals aren't worth
What a pig can spit
And it goes by the name of London.
At the top of the hole
Sit the privileged few,
Making mock of the vermin
In the lower zoo,
Turning beauty into filth and greed.
For the uninitiated, Sweeney Todd is set in 1846 London where an escapee from Australian captivity has made his way back to London after 15 years with revenge on his mind. The television rendering of Harold
Prince's original Broadway staging was directed by Terry Hughes and begins with the same opening screech those familiar with the original cast recording will know well. Todd, whose real name is Benjamin Barker, was imprisoned by an evil and corrupt judge who had designs on Barker's wife. Now that he's escaped, Barker aka Sweeney Todd is determined to learn what has become of his wife and then-infant daughter as well as Judge Turpin. Helped by the young sailor Anthony, Todd finds his way to his old stomping grounds on Fleet Street, where his former barber shop remains vacant above Mrs. Lovett's meat pie store where she makes what Lovett herself calls "the worst pies in London." Lovett figures out who Todd is and lets him know what's transpired during his exile: his beloved wife poisoned herself following an attempted gang rape by Turpin and his friends and the judge now raises Barker's daughter Johanna as his own. Todd is understandably livid at the news, but is eager to figure out a way to start making money. Lovett brings him a surprise: She saved his barber utensils and Todd lovingly embraces his former tools, proclaiming that "his arm is complete again."Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett,
Tell you why:
Because in all of the whole human race Mrs Lovett,
There are two kinds of men and only two.
There's the one staying put
In his proper place
And the one with his foot
In the other one's face
Look at me, Mrs Lovett,
Look at you.
No, we all deserve to die,
Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett,
Tell you why.
Because the lives of the wicked should be
Made briefFor the rest of us, death
Will be a relief —
We all deserve to die!
What's so remarkable about Sweeney Todd, aside from Sondheim's miraculous score, is its ability to shift between so many tones, often within the same sequence. In one particularly brilliant musical setpiece, a
mournful medley of murder and romantic longing even has time for some dark-humored laughs within it. The book by Hugh Wheeler perfectly joins Sondheim's score to cross from musical comedy into musical tragedy to dark farce and back again. It even tosses in plenty of suspense and commentary about class struggles for good measure. Even the simple act of Sweeney wetting his shaving brush in a cup of water can prove ominous. Of course, most discussions of the show and the forthcoming film version reveal the dark twist at the heart of the show. I thought about trying not to discuss it in this piece, but since it will undoubtedly become known to those who don't already know, spoilers be damned. As Sweeney's revenge plot begins to pile up a side effect of corpses, Mrs. Lovett hits upon a bright idea to dispose of the bodies and to shore up her flailing meat pie business: Yes, Sweeney Todd is a musical that involves unwitting cannibalism and the number that introduces this dark-comic turn, "A Little Priest," is the Act I closer that will leave you laughing through much of the intermission if you see the show staged or on DVD.
Falling in love with the show as I did when I first saw the television production, I eventually got the original cast recording and was able to see the cuts made for the TV version. Nothing too bad, but the contest between Sweeney and the snake-oil salesman Pirelli is cut to one contest for TV instead of the three in the stage version. Pirelli is being played in Tim Burton's film by Sacha Baron Cohen of Borat fame. Though they knocked down the stories that Cohen couldn't sing the role and was allowed it to do it "rap style," it's another example of why I don't have much confidence in the upcoming film. I also noticed other minor cuts in the television version, such as one of the songs the evil Judge
Turpin gets. Still, the TV version is spectacular and is as close to seeing the original Broadway show as I'll ever get. George Hearn is great and though I've only heard Len Cariou's Tony-winning performance as Sweeney, I imagine he was just as good or better. My love of the musical runs so deep that it really concerns me what will happen in Burton's hands. Even though Johnny Depp is probably old enough to play Sweeney, he still looks younger than he is. Helena Bonham Carter just seems all wrong for Mrs. Lovett. Even more disconcerting is their acknowledgment that neither of them had much singing experience before beginning to make the film. That makes me nervous, since Sweeney Todd is one of Sondheim's most difficult scores and nearly the entire show is sung. It's probably the closest a Broadway musical has come to being an opera and I worry about how they will pull it off.Josh R has been fortunate enough to see both Broadway revivals of the show, so he can expound on how the Bob Gunton-Beth Fowler and Michael Cerveris-Patti LuPone versions stacked up. Of course, my concerns may be a bit paranoid. I've seen two productions of Sweeney Todd myself, one put on by college students and one by a professional community theater and while the casts of neither approached the image of Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett that I have in my head, both versions did the show well. Perhaps the material is strong enough that it's hard to sink it. Heck, Sweeney Todd even provided one of the best parts in Kevin Smith's otherwise limp Jersey Girl, when Ben Affleck and his young daughter perform a number from the show for an elementary school talent show, complete with blood and rightfully shocking the audience of children, parents and teachers. Maybe alcohol should be involved before I see Burton's film since, as Sweeney and Lovett advise in "A Little Priest," Everybody goes down well with beer. I'll reserve judgment, but I still recommend that everyone try to see the George Hearn-Angela Lansbury version, if for no other reason that if you are unfamiliar with the show, it will get you prepared for what's coming.
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Labels: B. Affleck, Depp, H. Prince, H.B. Carter, Kevin Smith, Lansbury, M. Cerveris, Musicals, Sondheim, Television, Theater Tribute, Tim Burton
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Monday, February 05, 2007
Lies, injustice and the Hollywood way
By Edward Copeland
One of the pleasures of waiting for DVD to see some movies (other than getting to avoid the inevitable chattering twits who attend movies in public as if they are in their living rooms) is the ability to be pleasantly surprised and that was my reaction once I finally saw Hollywoodland.
A speculative tale about whether or not the actor George Reeves really committed suicide back in 1959, Hollywoodland boasts impeccable technical credits, especially great cinematography by Jonathan Freeman, a solid screenplay by Paul Bernbaum and cast full of solid performances, including Ben Affleck in his best-ever work as Reeves.
When he got his Golden Globe nomination, I assumed the HFPA was once again playing their usual game of star courting, but Affleck is quite good as the struggling actor who'd kicked around Hollywood since his debut in Gone With the Wind and then found himself stuck in tights and a cape as TV's Superman just as his looks were beginning to fade but his ambitions hadn't.
Reeves really isn't the lead in Hollywoodland. That role belongs to Adrien Brody as low-rent private eye Louis Simo, whose detecting career parallels Reeve's acting one in a way. It's the best role Brody has managed to land since winning his Oscar for 2002's The Pianist.
On top of Affleck and Brody's good work there are winning turns by Diane Lane as Reeves' mistress who also happens to be the wife of a top MGM executive (Bob Hoskins, really good even though it's clear by now that the British actor really only has one type of American accent to call on.)
Hollywoodland also contains good performances by Lois Smith as Reeves' mother, Robin Tunney as his fiancee, Jeffrey DeMunn as his agent and Joe Spano as MGM's publicity enforcer.
Hollywoodland also marks the feature directing debut of Allen Coulter, who has helmed some of the best Sopranos episodes including "College," "The Knight in White Satin Armor" and "Irregular Around the Margins." Coulter shows real strength as a feature director, smoothly switching between Simo's investigation and flashbacks to Reeves' life.
Hollywoodland isn't a great film, but it certainly is a good one and sometimes good is enough.
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One of the pleasures of waiting for DVD to see some movies (other than getting to avoid the inevitable chattering twits who attend movies in public as if they are in their living rooms) is the ability to be pleasantly surprised and that was my reaction once I finally saw Hollywoodland.
A speculative tale about whether or not the actor George Reeves really committed suicide back in 1959, Hollywoodland boasts impeccable technical credits, especially great cinematography by Jonathan Freeman, a solid screenplay by Paul Bernbaum and cast full of solid performances, including Ben Affleck in his best-ever work as Reeves.
When he got his Golden Globe nomination, I assumed the HFPA was once again playing their usual game of star courting, but Affleck is quite good as the struggling actor who'd kicked around Hollywood since his debut in Gone With the Wind and then found himself stuck in tights and a cape as TV's Superman just as his looks were beginning to fade but his ambitions hadn't.
Reeves really isn't the lead in Hollywoodland. That role belongs to Adrien Brody as low-rent private eye Louis Simo, whose detecting career parallels Reeve's acting one in a way. It's the best role Brody has managed to land since winning his Oscar for 2002's The Pianist.
On top of Affleck and Brody's good work there are winning turns by Diane Lane as Reeves' mistress who also happens to be the wife of a top MGM executive (Bob Hoskins, really good even though it's clear by now that the British actor really only has one type of American accent to call on.)
Hollywoodland also contains good performances by Lois Smith as Reeves' mother, Robin Tunney as his fiancee, Jeffrey DeMunn as his agent and Joe Spano as MGM's publicity enforcer.
Hollywoodland also marks the feature directing debut of Allen Coulter, who has helmed some of the best Sopranos episodes including "College," "The Knight in White Satin Armor" and "Irregular Around the Margins." Coulter shows real strength as a feature director, smoothly switching between Simo's investigation and flashbacks to Reeves' life.
Hollywoodland isn't a great film, but it certainly is a good one and sometimes good is enough.
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Labels: 00s, B. Affleck, HBO, The Sopranos
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Tuesday, December 20, 2005
From the Vault: Kevin Smith
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AUG. 24, 2001
After five films (six if you count Scream 3), Jay and Silent Bob are retiring from the live-action realm with a cinematic swan song, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. No one seems more relieved at putting the New Jersey pals to rest that Kevin Smith, who created the two characters and plays Silent Bob. Now, Smith can concentrate on his real love — writing and directing — and leave the acting to others.
"I don't feel the need to be in movies if I'm not playing that character anymore, which is nice because then I can just sit behind the monitor and get really fat during production."
In the film, Jay and Silent Bob set out to stop production of a Miramax film adaptation of the comic book they inspired in the movie Chasing Amy. Though Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is being released by Dimension, a division of Miramax, the studio's parent company comes in for a lot of ribbing, even though Miramax gave Smith his start with Clerks in 1994.
While the business relationship still is strong, it soured slightly in 1999 when Miramax — under pressure from its parent Disney — dropped distribution of Smith's controversial religious comedy Dogma. When Harvey Weinstein, half of the sibling pair that founded Miramax, saw Smith's script for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, he asked good-naturedly what the studio had ever done to Smith.
"Remember that movie of ours that you dropped? This is payback."
The plot is a loose excuse for a wild road comedy full of nonsequiturs and inside jokes. After the accomplished Chasing Amy and the ambitious Dogma, Smith admits the new film hardly is a step forward.
"This is a quantum leap backward. We've not matured. We've just gotten so much worse. After (what we) went through on Dogma, it was just kind of nice to make joke after joke after joke."
The characters of Jay and Silent Bob evolved into something much larger than Smith's intention. He based the sex-obsessed Jay on the man who plays him, Jason Mewes, or, more accurately, what Mewes was like when Smith met him 12 years ago, when Mewes was in his early teens.
"We grew up in the same town. He was kind of a kid of local folklore. I got to know him through some mutual friends who brought him into our fold and then they abandoned him. I guess they lost interest in him and I kind of inherited him. He'd just show up at my house and knock on the door and say, 'You want to hang out?'"
Originally, Smith resisted, but Mewes won him over.
"He just kind of grows on you. He's got a huge heart, but he's just weird. The character is based on who he was about 14, 15. He's different now. He's a lot more mellow. When he was 14 or 15, he was like this little sonic boom with dirt on him."
Among the many Smith movie veterans returning for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Bob is Ben Affleck, who appeared in Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Dogma while making big-event features including Armageddon and Pearl Harbor.
Joining the Jay and Silent Bob family this time is Will Ferrell, who improvised a lot on the set. Affleck tried improvising in Mallrats, Smith recalled, but didn't get as much leeway with the script.
"The difference between Will Ferrell and Affleck improvising is that Will Ferrell is very funny. I'll give a person a lot of room if they can make me laugh and Will Ferrell always made me laugh."
Still, most of Ferrell's best ad-libs ended up on the cutting room floor because, Smith said, no matter how funny, they often slow things down. Another special newcomer on the set was Smith's now 2-year-old daughter, Harley Quinn, who plays an infant Silent Bob in the movie's opening scene.
"Directing her was bad. They say don't work with children and they are absolutely right. The kid who played Jay in that scene was really well-behaved and my kid was like screaming. 'You're supposed to be Silent Bob, not Screaming Bob.'"
While moving on to non-Jay and Silent Bob film projects appeals to Smith, he's still involved with another great love, comic books. He's writing a 12-part series of "The Green Arrow."
"For me, it's great. It's wonderful to kick back and write something like 'Green Arrow,' where you don't bring any of your own baggage to it. You're playing in someone else's sandbox, so to speak, and you don't have to worry about ... telling their back story. It's also really good exercise in writing something that isn't comedic."
The New York Post has reported that Smith's next project will be a smaller comedy-drama, close in tone to Chasing Amy, about Smith's experiences as a father. Affleck has been signed to the project and Smith hopes to reunite him with Chasing Amy co-stars Jason Lee and Joey Lauren Adams. Smith said he also hopes to make a film "based on the Gregory McDonald book Fletch Won, which is kind of a year one story of Fletch, how he first got the job on the paper." If the project comes together, Smith hopes to cast Lee as the young journalist.
While Smith admits Jay and Silent Bob might surface in an animated Clerks movie or in comic book form, he's determined to make this movie their last live-action outing.
"Rather than beat a dead horse or have them overstay their welcome, it's time to leave the party before we're the last guys there. We need to get out while the getting's good. Remember when people used to love Pauly Shore? Then one day, everyone hated Pauly Shore. I don't want to be Pauly Shore."
Still, Jay and Silent Bob have their ardent admirers, one of whom implored Smith as he left the interview room not to end their tales.
"It's not a door closing, it's a door opening."
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Labels: B. Affleck, H. Weinstein, Interview, Kevin Smith
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