Monday, January 16, 2012
It's about which master you've been serving
By Edward Copeland
I've never read a single novel by John le Carré and I remember when the TV miniseries Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy aired starring Alec Guinness, who was Obi-Wan to me at the time (as well as the blind butler from Murder By Death — I was starting sixth grade — sue me!), but I didn't see it. In college, I did see the movie adaptation of le Carré's novel The Russia House starring Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer, which I thought might be an aberration. I liked it quite a bit, but movies reared me to think spies meant James Bond. Now, that I've seen the outstanding new film version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (no commas please), I'm getting the impression that, like Rick and the waters in Casablanca, I was misinformed as to the nature of le Carré's novels. Looking at the film adaptations of his books, I wish I had time to read them now. I can't compare the new film to the TV miniseries or Gary Oldman's performance as George Smiley to Guinness', but I can say that Oldman and the new movie both are damn good.
Tomas Alfredson directed this version of le Carré's tale, marking the Swedish filmmaker's first English-language movie and his first feature since 2008's creepy and moving vampire film Let the Right One In, remade in the U.S. two years later as Let Me In.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy takes place in the early 1970s in the upper echelons of British intelligence (referred to as "The Circus.") The top man, known as Control (John Hurt, in an excellent performance), receives word that a Soviet operative in Budapest wants to switch sides so Control sends agent Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) to Hungary, but the operation goes awry and in the fallout, Control is forced to retire and so is Smiley. Control, already ailing, dies soon afterward. Word gets to Oliver Lacon (Simon McBurney), the civil servant in charge of British intelligence via Ricki Tarr, a discredited agent in hiding (Tom Hardy, unrecognizable when compared to his role in Warrior) that the Hungarian mission's objective truly had been to ferret out the truth about Control's suspicions that one of the top men in The Circus actually works for the Soviets as a mole.
Lacon approaches the retired Smiley and asks him to lead a secret probe to determine if the mole exists and, if so, who he is. Smiley enlists the help of a young, still-working agent, Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), and another retired intelligence official Mendel (Roger Lloyd-Pack). Their search of Control's flat uncovers the code names he had given to his suspects, based on the old rhyme, attached to photos taped to chess pieces. Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), who took Control's job as chief, was called Tinker. Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), now Alleline's deputy, was christened Tailor. His close allies Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds) and Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) were Soldier and Poorman, respectively. Smiley, whom Control also suspected, had been named Beggarman.
Bridget O'Connor wrote most of the screenplay until her death from cancer and it was completed by Peter Straughn. Through the taut direction by Alfredson and the carefully constructed screenplay that doesn't always play out in strictly chronological order and lacks major action sequences, Tinker Tailor drips with suspense, helped in no small part by the great ensemble assembled. If the film contains a weakness, it's that the four potential moles aren't developed well enough, particularly Hinds' character. Toby Jones acts his part very well, especially considering that they almost try too hard to make him look guilty. It's interesting to see Jones in a fictional role for a change after playing Karl Rove in W., Swifty Lazar in Frost/Nixon and being the best screen Truman Capote in Infamous. In addition to those already mentioned, there is a brief but memorable appearance by Kathy Burke as another operative who was purged. Burke just doesn't appear in enough movies, but her most memorable performance might be Queen Mary Tudor in Elizabeth opposite Cate Blanchett. If you look closely, you'll spot le Carré himself playing a drunk in a Christmas party scenes. The most amazing thing for viewers of Boardwalk Empire is the chance to hear Stephen Graham use his actual British accent in his role as Jerry Westerby, an intelligence officer monitoring the teletype the night of the Hungarian mission. His look also doesn't remind you remotely of Al Capone. Interestingly enough, one of the film's more important characters, Smiley's wife, never actually appears. The two performances that deserve the most praise are Hurt's brief work as Control, which frankly I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned much in awards talk. The MVP prize undoubtedly goes to Oldman's quiet, reserved work as Smiley.
Since Oldman took the film world by storm in 1986 in Sid & Nancy, he's made some bad movies and been over-the-top at times but he's also done a lot of great work yet his performances seem resistant to recognition from his peers. Granted, I haven't seen all of the top 2011 best actor contenders as of yet, but of what I have, Oldman belongs in that list. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy deserves more notice than it's been receiving as well.
Tweet
Labels: 10s, Blanchett, Boardwalk Empire, Books, Capote, Colin Firth, Connery, Fiction, Guinness, John Hurt, Oldman, Pfeiffer
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Friday, July 01, 2011
We gave them virtue, they want vice
there lived a very successful motion picture producer named Felix Farmer.
He owned three beautiful houses, he had two lovely children and he was married to a gorgeous movie star. The people who ran the studio where he worked loved and admired him because he had never made
a movie that had lost money. Then one day he produced the biggest most expensive motion picture
of his career…and it flopped. The people who ran the studio were very angry at Felix
because they lost millions of dollars…
and Felix lost his mind.
By Edward Copeland
We see that title crawl after brief credits run while Julie Andrews as actress Sally Miles plays Gillian West in her producer husband Felix Farmer's multimillion extravaganza Night Wind. That photo above doesn't do justice to how garish that set is as Sally as Gillian cavorts with life-size toys dancing and singing "Polly Wolly Doodle" (There are even singing balloons and a Jack in the Box). It has to be seen. Click here. You can believe from that scene alone that Night Wind truly stinks as much as they say it does, though how they could calculate on its opening weekend that it's "the lowest-grossing film of all time," seems a bit suspect. I would imagine films that never open would have lower grosses. Maybe the biggest money loser in relation to cost? Oh, who cares? We're not here to be serious or particularly realistic. We're here to pay tribute to the 30th anniversary of writer-director Blake Edwards' mad spoof of the movie business. Blessed with an unbelievably large and talented cast, S.O.B. isn't as sophisticated as Robert Altman's The Player would be a little more than a decade later and its satire isn't as sharp as Sidney Lumet's film of Paddy Chayefsky's take on the television industry was in Network a mere five years earlier, but it was and remains damn funny.
That crawl scrolls against the blue sky over Malibu beach where a man (Stiffe Tanney) jogs with his dog (Troubles). He suddenly suffers a heart attack and though he manages to crawl toward the deck of a large beachhouse and the dog barks up a storm, no one notices his emergency and he collapses. It sets the tone for an underlying theme that afflicts most of the film's characters: obliviousness, mostly stemming from self-absorption. As a result, a man drops dead on a beach with his dog barking loudly even though people keep coming and going on the deck a few feet above where a catatonic Felix Farmer (Richard Mulligan) sits among the trades reporting Night Wind's failure.
(A smaller headline in Variety reads N.Y. Critics Break 'Wind' — Edwards' humor doesn't always aim for the highbrow. Though from the descriptive crawl, you'd think that Felix is the film's main character. While S.O.B., which does not stand for what you think it does, revolves around him and his movie, the film truly stands as an ensemble piece. No character really serves as lead even though Andrews and William Holden as the film's director Tim Culley get top billing, all the other significant characters are listed alphabetically. In fact, Felix remains in his non-speaking state of depressed madness for a long time. When he does snap out of it and taks 44 minutes into the film, Mulligan at first does it in a way very reminiscent of reactions his character of Burt Campbell on television's Soap sometimes did.While S.O.B. retains its power to make me laugh decades after I first saw the movie, I have to admit that re-watching it for the first time in a long time, I found more problems than before, but not as an entertainment rather in how it chooses to take its shots at the always worthy target of movie studios. I first saw S.O.B. on cable when I was a teenager but as I've grown up, not only have my tastes grown more refined, so has my knowledge of how the film industry works. S.O.B. works on many comic levels, but this time the ludicrous nature of its story took me out of the movie at times. The crawl set up the basic premise, but it's more complicated than that. Even though Night Wind has opened to terrible reviews and
worse box office, Capitol Studios President David Blackman (Robert Vaughn) desperately tries to get his top executive Dick Benson (Larry Hagman, taking the relatively minor role when he was white hot as J.R. on Dallas, having just finished the season that resolved "Who Shot J.R.?") to talk to Felix so they can jerk the film out of theaters and do a major editing job on it which they can't do because of Farmer's ironclad contract that only allows him to make changes. Sure, there was a re-edited version of Leone's Once Upon a Time in America a few years later, but that wasn't a wide release. Blackman himself has been getting pressure from the chairman of the corporation that owns Capitol Studios, Harry Sandler, played by longtime dependable Hollywood character actor Paul Stewart whose first credited film role was the butler Raymond in Citizen Kane. Now, the studio and everyone involved in Night Wind had to know it was a turkey before it opened, so why didn't they try to get him to re-edit it before it opened? You can't tell me they didn't hold test screenings. He might have had a contract that stopped anyone else from making changes, but I doubt it required Capitol Studios to give it a wide release.While that part of the movie doesn't pass the credibility test, even for a farce, other aspects do. Sally and her team worry about damage to her career and Sally would like to exit the marriage. She gets conflicting advice from her attorney Herb (Robert Loggia), her press agent Ben Coogan (Robert Webber) and her agent Eva Brown (Shelley
Winters). While Loggia wants to help extricate her from the marriage, the agents advise against it. Eva in particular reminds her client that her image couldn't withstand a divorce or even a separation, especially now. "You know this town, sweetie. You can smoke dope and end up going steady with your Afghan and you're one of the gang, but you — you're Peter Pan," Eva tells her. Winters is a riot as is just about everyone in this sparkling cast and the cast makes the film overcome its weaknesses. There also are many hints of autobiography and inside jokes sprinkled throughout. Andrews never really played Peter Pan, but she did have that Mary Poppins/Maria von Trapp image. In real life, Edwards did cope with serious depression and supposedly studio interference on Darling Lili inspired S.O.B. Ironically, Hagman's mother Mary Martin originated the roles of both Peter Pan and Maria von Trapp when the characters made their stage musical debuts.The studio finally dispatches his good friend and the film's director Culley (Holden) to the beachhouse to keep watch on him and see if he can pull Farmer back to the real world. Culley is a hard-drinking womanizer. Culley, always on the lookout for young women to decorate his surroundings, picks up
two hitchhikers on the way, Lila and Babs (Jennifer Edwards, Blake's daughter; and Rosanna Arquette in a very early role). At Farmer's house, the servants and the man who mows the yard are so oblivious to what goes on around them that they don't notice when Felix heads to the garage, starts the Cadillac and closes the garage door again. The gardener (Bert Rosario) doesn't get an inkling until he finds a dead rat. When the gardener puts the mower up, he smells the carbon monoxide and sees Felix's red eyes staring at him through the car's rear window. "Not such a good idea to sit in here with the motor running," he tells Felix as he reaches inside to try to cut the engine. Instead, he shifts it into drive and the Caddy crashes through the back of the garage, down the beach and into the ocean, just in time for Culley, Lila and Babs to stare in disbelief.
Felix's attempt at suicide introduces us to the greatest asset that S.O.B. has — Robert Preston as physician to the stars, Dr. Irving Finegarten. Blake Edwards wrote Preston the part of Toddy for his next film, Victor/Victoria, and earned Preston his only Oscar nomination, but as great as he is there, I think his Irving Finegarten is even better. Once he joins the film, he enlivens every scene he's in. When Robert Webber's character Ben, though he works for Sally, starts feeling guilty and spends most of his time hanging out with Irving and Culley, a comic troika for the ages forms. Irving mildly sedates Felix and they sit around the bar. Ben has turned into a wreck. Irving suggests giving Ben a vitamin shot. As he removes bottle after bottle from his medical bag, Dr. Finegarten has second thoughts. "Come to think of it, why should I give you a vitamin shot? I'm the one with the hangover," Irving declares.
Before I forget, when Felix's car ended up in the ocean, it did attract police interest and they did discover the poor dead man and, after subduing the dog, retrieved the corpse who was identified as veteran character actor Burgess Webster. The dog escaped and continued to hang out on the beach. Irving didn't give Felix that strong a dose apparently because he wanders downstairs and that obliviousness theme continues as Ben follows him, trying to talk, not noticing as Felix sticks his head in the oven or scrounges successfully for rope and returns upstairs. Ben soon panics with the arrival of gossip columnist Polly Reed (Loretta Swit) at the front door. Everyone tries to ignore her, but then they can hear she's sneaking in the back. Irving whispers, "This reminds me of a scene in The Thing when a terrible monster is just on the other side of a door" which only sets Ben off more. Polly comes in cooing for Felix while he's upstairs trying to hang himself. The beam doen't hold and he crashes through the floor, landing on Polly below. She ends up in the hospital in traction with multiple injuries. Irving gives him a stronger dose this time and Culley sits beside him and gives him a speech that seems especially prophetic, knowing what fate awaits Holden so soon after the film's release. It's spooky, since we know that a little more than four months later, Holden would get drunk alone at home, fall, hit his head on the corner of a nightstand and bleed to death. This was his last film.
"Felix, for the last 40 years I've lived a life of dedicated debauchery. I've consumed enough booze to destroy a dozen healthy livers. I've filled my lungs with enough nicotine to poison the entire population of Orange County. I've engaged in sexual excesses that make Caligula look like a celibate monk. I have, in fact, conscientiously, day in and day out, for more years than you've been in this best of all possible worlds, tried to kill myself and I've never felt better in my life. So, if you're really going to end it all, I can show you at least a half-dozen better ways to do it."
This being Hollywood, everyone is sleeping with everyone else and cheating as one might expect. David Blackman's girlfriend Mavis (Marisa Berenson) also is seeing an up-and-coming young actor Sam Marshall (David Young) on the side. When Culley takes Lila to the store, they run into Sam who invites Culley to a party he's having in Malibu that night. Culley regretfully declines, but hits upon the idea that perhaps a party will lift Felix's spirits so Sam agrees to move the party there. It's really the key scene in the movie with most of the film's character's there. It reminds me of Blake Edwards' 1968 film The Party with Peter Sellers, which I never was that big a fan of, but it has that sort of feel with the wacky orgiastic vibe that occurs — only he could do a lot more in a R-rated 1981 film than a pre-rating system 1968 one. Lots of sex, drugs and punchlines a-plenty. Even the cops who came earlier when Felix's car ended up in the ocean, come back for the party (and one of them is Joe Penny, whom some might remember from TV's Riptide).
Also showing up at the party are studio exec Dick Benson (Hagman), Polly Reed's henpecked husband Willard (Craig Stevens), who is supposed to do the spying for his wife, and loads of hot young men and women eager to engage in scenes that would seem more at home in the "free love" era than the
beginning of the 1980s. Felix eventually awakens from Dr. Finegarten's magic medicine and as he walks, he's too out of it to remember that there's a hole in the bedroom floor that has been covered with a rug and he steps on it and glides rather easily to the party below. He does notice that one of the partying cops took off his holster and left his gun on the bar. Felix takes the gun and returns to the refuge beneath the rug, trying to point feel the barrel so while he's covered and he can shoot himself through the rug. Before he can, a topless young woman crawls under the rug and presumably
a different gun goes off because soon Felix has fired the gun in the air a couple of times until he appears, pants down in that Burt-esque moment I alluded to earlier shouting, "Woohoo. I've got it!" The next thing we know, Felix, who hasn't said a word and who we've only seen as slow-moving, glum and silent has transformed into a ball of energy. He bursts into a bedroom where Culley is enjoying the company of a young lady and bellows, "Sex, Culley! That's the answer. We'll give 'em a $40 million pornographic epic." Having been preoccupied at the time and not accustomed to seeing Felix up and around lately, Culley expresses a bit of understandable confusion. Felix explains that the times have passed them by. People don't want the goody-goody stuff they've fed them for years, so they'll re-shoot it. Gillian West's dream will no longer be of childhood good times but of repressed fantasies. The world wants sex. David Blackman, Dick Benson (wearing a cast from an injury he sustained at the party; it's a recurring gag that almost everyone ends up in a cast — Polly's husband Willard got hurt as well and ends up in the same hospital room), and two other execs (John Pleshette, John Lawlor) wait impatiently for Farmer. They begin to
think it's a put-on until they begin to hear his voice over the speakers singing "Polly Wolly Doodle" and describing the Night Wind that they know — "But we blew it!" Felix shouts through a megaphone as he appears from behind the Jack in the Box. "Because dying fathers and lying mothers are a dime a dozen these days. Home and family have become civilization's antiques along with the flag, Sunday school, Girl Scout cookies, C.B. de Mille and virginity," Felix tells them. "We gave them virtue, they want vice. We sold them schmaltz, they prefer sadomasochism. Instead of the American dream, it should have been the American wet dream." What's funny is that, to some extent, the situation has reversed in 30 years. Movies made for adults — and I don't mean porn, but subject matter — almost have become an endangered species. Films that earn an R because they aren't for the younger set seem to be a rare breed. Live Free or Die Hard mumbled Bruce
Willis' signature line as John McClane so it could get that all-important PG-13. The King's Speech never deserved an R for its single scene where Colin Firth unleashes a string of fucks, but when it started winning awards Harvey Weinstein cut that scene just to get a PG-13 so it would earn more money. Excuse me. Back to S.O.B. Felix explains his plan to re-shoot parts of Night Wind to change it from a woman's dream of childhood to her Freudian nightmare. Turn Gillian West into a nymphomaniac businesswoman. He just needs a few million for a re-shoot. Blackman doesn't seem to be listening, but he does pull out his pages for suggestions they have for cuts that can be made to the current version. "Cutting won't help," Felix teases. Blackman yells about how much he went overbudget and Farmer rightfully goes back at him saying he didn't go to his office and hold a gun to his head and demand more money. They approved the script and the budget. Blackman is firm and is ready to walk out — until Felix offers to buy Night Wind back. The execs whisper and then they agree to sell the movie back to Farmer. Apparently, Felix has been very good with his money, though he still has to do some asset shuffling to get the funds ready to shoot. Felix must fend off someone who isn't very happy with him right now: His wife. Several million dollars of that money that Felix put together to fund the Night Wind re-shoot rightfully belongs to Sally. Felix tries to explain his plan to her, including having her do a nude scene. "Peter Pan is dead. Long live Gillian West, nymphomaniac executive," he tells her. Sally seeks the advice of her attorney Herb and her agent Eva. Herb agrees that she has plenty of grounds to sue to try to get her money back but Eva, who admits she's always there to protect Sally's image, has to ask, "What if Felix is right?" Maybe it's not a bad idea for Sally to take the chance and go against her image and possibly get a lot of money out of the deal. If it doesn't work, she always can sue him for everything later. Sally reluctantly agrees that she'll film the revised Night Wind.
Of course, getting Sally to that point is easier said than done, even if she has agreed to do it. She's too nervous. Everyone wants to be there on the set to see what happens that day. Polly Reed makes them take her by ambulance but a guard that Felix has hired named Harold Harrigan (Ken Swofford) refuses to let her in. Blackman and his toadies show up in a golf cart and Harrigan tells them to shove off as well. Blackman tells
Harrigan he won't work in Hollywood again. Felix may have control of the set, but it does reside on Capitol Studio's lot, so Blackman does succeed in having Harrigan tossed off. When Ben hears that Polly lurks, he lets her in and the two ambulance attendants are forced to hold her upright to watch. In her dressing room, nothing Felix, Culley or anyone can say can convince her to do the scene. Thankfully, Dr. Irving and his bag of tricks are on the scene (play clip above) to help and an artificially high Sally is ready to film the scene. Culley escorts her back to the set. "You know you are sexually notorious," Sally tells Culley. "A semi-fraudulent reputation which I do everything I can to encourage," Culley admits. Sally asks why he does that. "Because it's the best way for an old man to compete in a young man's world," Cully replies. Polly waves at Sally, trying to get her attention. Sally finally recognizes her, then asks, "Did you come to see my boobies?"When S.O.B. opened, reviews varied, but it was hard to hear them above the noise about Julie Andrews baring her breasts in a film for the first time. That trumped everything else about the movie. It doesn't help that the way it happens in the movie-within-the-movie makes it all about Sally Miles baring her breasts. It's not as if it comes in a Gillian West love scene, nymphomaniac or not, but it just comes at the end of a new dark dream sequence (Jack in the Box is now Jock in the Box and a stalker). As Jock chases Gillian through a maze and she enters the devil's mouth, the music builds to a crescendo, she holds out her hand for Jock to stop and simply pulls down the front of her dress and unveils her breasts. (To see something completely bizarre, here is a YouTube clip where you can see a great deal of the sequence except it has been set to the Chris de Burgh song "Lady in Red." I recommend hitting mute and just looking at the images.) Everyone present applauds, including the ambulance attendants who drop Polly as a result. Sally smiles gratefully and covers herself, before collapsing. However, this is Hollywood and scheming usually is going on. Sally's personal secretary Gary (Stuart Margolin) never has been trustworthy but he's been talking to Eva behind Sally's back in hopes of getting a career of his own. Now that Capitol Studios has no part of Night Wind, all the buzz that has been building has made the corporate boss bug Blackman about why they don't have a piece of it in case it turns into a hit. As a result, the studio has been using Eva who has been dangling a job in front of Gary in exchange for him putting the idea in Sally's head that since she technically owns half the film, she should sell distribution rights to Capitol since Felix can't very well distribute it himself. Sally agrees to do it and a judge backs up her right to do it. Felix, however, doesn't learn of it until after he screens a final cut of it with Cully and the lights come up in the screening room to reveal Blackman and his toadies. Blackman shows him the legal documents which basically means Night Wind has been stolen from him. Since his original contract was voided, they can do what they want. Blackman asks what the running time is. When he's told 164 minutes, he says they'll have to cut that.
Felix drives like a maniac, first going to his other house looking for Sally, but she's gone somewhere in the Far East to visit some kind of swami. He does see his kids briefly who want to play with daddy and squirt him with a squirt gun, which he takes. He even plows a car through the kitchen of the Malibu home. Because he's been speeding and driving recklessly, police have been pursuing him, but somehow he's able to switch cars and escape. He drives to the office where the original negative is stored in a vault. When he gets in the building, a friendly voice surprises him: It's Harrigan. He's working security there now. Felix is too preoccupied for small talk. He goes to the office of a Mr. Lipschitz (Hamilton Camp) and makes him take him to the film at "gunpoint." As Felix leads Lipschitz and the reels to the lobby, the squirt gun aimed at Lipschitz's head, Harrigan tries to calm him since by then a lot of armed police have arrived. Some distraction makes Felix aim the gun toward the cops and he gets hit by a fusillade of bullets. Harrigan leans over the dying producer. "I'm sorry, Mr. Farmer," Harrigan says. "It's alright, Harrigan. It'll mean another $10 million at the box office," Farmer tells him before he dies.
At this point, the film divides half into Hollywood hypocrisy, half into the funniest part of the film as the three characters most disgusted by Felix's treatment band together on a bender: Culley, Irving and Ben. It begins at a bar where Sinatra's "All the Way" begins playing and Culley informs them that he just put $6 of Sinatra into the jukebox. Ben, having worked for Sally, who they feel stabbed Felix in the back, feels the worst and tries to convince Culley to beat the shit out of him in the hope it will make him feel better. It's in this scene that we learn that the S.O.B. of the title stands for Standard Operational Bullshit, according to Ben. Culley agrees, lamenting that there are "so few people in this town with a conscience." Meanwhile, the rest of the industry plans a huge memorial service where Sally plans to sing and they all will pretend they treated him decently. The drunken trio, who christen themselves The Three Muscatels at one point, all agree they won't take part in the sham, which will be presided over by the guru Sally met in the Far East (Larry Storch). Sall also will sing. The triumvirate decides that they are going to give Felix the memorial he deserves and set out to steal Felix's body from the funeral home. Apparently, this is based on a Hollywood legend that director Raoul Walsh stole John Barrymore's corpse after he died and propped him up to scare Errol Flynn, but what the fictional characters do with Felix is a bit more elaborate.
When they get to the funeral home, the first coffin they check is no one they know. The next contains the late character actor Burgess Webster. The third time turns out to be the charm and they find Felix. Feeling that Webster's death hasn't received the attention it deserved, when they remove Felix, they put Webster in
his coffin and the other guy in Webster's. Upstairs, the couple (Byron Kane, Virginia Gregg) that owns the funeral parlor salivate over how much business the Farmer funeral will bring them when they hear a noise downstairs. They find the empty coffin but locate the body in Webster's place and Webster in Farmer's. The husband is beside himself: Their cash cow is gone. His wife slams the lid on Farmer's coffin, now holding Webster. "Who's to know?" On the streets, after initial difficulty bending Felix into the car, they make Ben sit in the back with him because he's been having a bad night of bodily functions and as Irving points out Felix is the only one who won't mind. They stick some sunglasses on Felix and proceed to drive him back to Culley's where they drink and play cards with Felix as guest. It was funny for a time when I'd see the movie because from the years 1989-2000, the only actor in these scenes who was still alive was Richard Mulligan, who was playing the corpse. As they wonder what they should do with Felix, Culley fetches something from another room and places it on Felix's head. It's a Viking helmet for a Viking funeral.The next morning, the men take Felix out to sea on his boat to prepare for their salute. At the same time, the rest of the industry begins gathering on a soundstage at the Capitol Studio lot for Felix's funeral. The
occasion doesn't stop anyone from continuing their deals or their affairs. Blackman congratulates Sam Harris on his new role and whispers to Mavis that he better be worth it, not noticing that Sam's hand is up Mavis' skirt. Gary and Eva finalize their deal. All the people with various injuries wheel in. Sally tells Gary that she doesn't know if she'll be able to sing. "You have to — it's the only reason everybody came," Gary says. Her guru sits up on the stage looking as if he can barely stay awake. Finally, he's roused and stands to give his eulogy. Is it full of Eastern philosophy? Not hardly. It's as show bizzy as it can be. This is where some of the unreality takes over again. Felix was shot and killed before the film was released and still in the funeral home, yet the guru gives new box office reports on the revised Night Wind. Farmer also was supposed to have had a record of nothing but hits prior to the first version of Night Wind, but when the guru reads off the list of his film titles they all sound ridiculous. Here is a clip of the eulogy so you can see what I mean.
As Culley drives the boat, Irving and Ben sit on deck with Felix in the fisherman's seat, complete with rod and reel in hand. Ben wonders what happens if he should catch something. Back at the other memorial, Sally finally rises and sings "Oh Promise Me." Irving reads the inscription on the Viking helmet which reads "From the cast and crew of The Pagan Plunder." "I don't think I saw that one," Irving says. "Terrible reviews," Ben tells him. "Grossed a fortune." Once Culley feels they've gone far enough out, they load Felix into a little wooden craft, cover him in blankets, soak it with gasoline and then Irving lights a match and drops it and Culley pulls the boat away as it starts burning. "So long pal," Culley says as they watch Felix and the little boat burn. Back on the beach, Burgess Webster's dog can see the smoke and wags his tail. Then a final crawl scrolls across the screen.
in motion picture history and Sally won another Academy Award and the people who ran the studio made
a ton of money and they all lived happily ever after…
until the next movie!
S.O.B. isn't the finest Hollywood satire ever made, but it's likely to put a smile on your face thanks to its great cast, most especially Robert Preston who I really can't say enough about here.
Tweet
Labels: 80s, Altman, Blake Edwards, Chayefsky, Colin Firth, Erroll Flynn, H. Weinstein, Holden, Julie Andrews, K. Douglas, Leone, Lumet, Movie Tributes, R. Preston, Richard Mulligan, Shelley Winters, Sinatra, Walsh, Willis
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Monday, February 28, 2011
I'm a partner in an abusive relationship
By Edward Copeland
It's not easy for me to make this confession, especially to the masses around the world in cyberspace, but it's true. I have been involved in a relationship that has gone on now for more than 30 years. I've taken steps to sever my ties with it, because it's not healthy, but I keep crawling back, no matter how many times my partner abuses me. I can't even call my feelings love anymore. It's just habit, bordering on obsession, and because my partner was there for me during a few years of dark times, I can't sever ties completely, even though each year she treats me worse and worse. Her name is Oscar and after last night's debacle, I felt compelled to issue this plea for help.
I took a big step last year, when the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, under constant pressure from ABC and its parent company Disney kept making idiotic changes to the award to try to boost rating and attract a more youthful demographic. When they doubled the best picture nominees to 10 and, even worse, kicked the presentation of honorary awards, usually the broadcast's highlight, to a nontelevised dinner in November, as they tried to deny that film history began any earlier than the Reagan administration. Similarly stupid moves by the other awards I follow, the Tonys for Broadway and the Emmys for television, prompted me to write the post A pox on all your award shows. I swore I would no longer promote any of these awards. No predictions, surveys, etc. I've been pretty good at keeping my word.
However, that temptress known as Twitter sucked me in and actually created a more bearable way to watch the travesty. Since I'm bedridden anyway, I could watch the show at the same time I snarked to the world about the ceremonies as they went on. Honestly, the Twittering has become more satisfying than the shows themselves, which I had a bad feeling about when they announced that the hosts would be James Franco and Anne Hathaway. Huh? I started to get sucked in though when every critics' group and even the waiter and florists selected my choice for the best film of 2010, The Social Network, as best picture. I thought for the first time in a long time Oscar might actually pick my choice as best film as their best picture. Then that evil man known as Harvey Weinstein reared his head for the first time in a long time as his company released The King's Speech, which suddenly started scoring guild wins. First, it took the Producer's Guild Award, but they are flaky (they picked Little Miss Sunshine), so I wasn't concerned. Then, Tom Hooper (who I imagine most people still can't pick out of a lineup) won the Director's Guild Award for The King's Speech. As my friend Josh R said last night, his mother could have done a better job directing The King's Speech and she doesn't know how to program the VCR. It's worth noting that before this film, Hooper's work was almost entirely on television and TV directors make up a majority of DGA voters now. Weinstein, being the grade-A asshole that
he is, reportedly told Scott Rudin, one of the producers of The Social Network, that he can go ahead and win the critics' awards, he'll take the big one. When the Screen Actors Guild handed out its awards, The King's Speech won ensemble, which people keep mistakenly equating as a picture prize when it's an acting prize and when their history is that their ensemble prize has not gone on to win the Oscar more times than it has. (The count is now 9 to 8.) Since it is an acting prize, it should have lost based on Timothy Spall's awful performance as Churchill and casting Guy Pearce as Colin Firth's older brother when the actor, only seven years younger, looked as if he could be Firth's son in some scenes. Having never sold my soul to Satan, I have no idea how these deals work, but Weinstein has been getting away with it for a long time. Remember when he used his talent to push quality films such as Pulp Fiction and The Crying Game? What happened to that Harvey who now bullies and buys his way to victory with middlebrow mediocrities such as The King's Speech, a Harvey who has so little respect for the art that he is cutting one small scene of profanity where the stuttering royal repeats the "F" word so he can get a PG-13 rating and, presumably, bigger audiences and more money. Come on Satan, when are you coming for him to pay up for his deal with a suitably long sentence in Hell?Then came Oscar night. Resolved that Harvey would get his way, I didn't even put much though into predictions like I used to. I just didn't care anymore. I started to get excited though, despite the fact that the show itself was a bore. Category after category where I predicted The King's Speech, it kept losing. Could this be? The Social Network started winning. No, this was just an elaborate trick. The only solace I could take was that The King's Speech did not win the most Oscars. It tied with Inception with four wins, though all of that film's prizes were technical ones. The King's Speech took best picture, but it will be one of those forgotten winners, and the inexplicable director winner Tom Hooper will follow in the footsteps of winners Delbert Mann, John G. Avildsen and Michael Cimino and never be nominated again. Further, I fear the man who should have won, David Fincher, will now win at some point for a film that he won't deserve to win for. That's the way this abusive wench works.
Now on to the broadcast itself. I do have to give it some kudos. FINALLY, after years of my complaining, they muted the audience microphones during the In Memoriam segment so you didn't hear the audience applauding at different levels as if it were a contest for who was the most popular dead person. The show seemed to
have no structure, rhyme or reason. Anne Hathaway seemed eager to please but James Franco appeared stoned most of the time. I've suggested this before. Why do they need a host? Just have an announcer introduce presenters and hand out the awards. Has anyone interested in the Oscars ever decided to watch or not to watch based on who was hosting? Think how much time you'd save without a host. The Billy Crystal bit resurrecting Bob Hope seemed fairly pointless, as did that bit where they had characters from films appear to be singing songs (I forget the phrase already. I guess this is a common YouTube game. I believe a better name would be Timewaster). Speaking of songs, it's high time that that category go the way of title writing. There aren't that many (if any) original movie musicals being made any more and very few of the songs end up being integral to the films, instead being relegated to playing over the credits as you leave the theater. This category once had a point, just like when they had a reason to divide cinematography into color and black and white divisions. However, that day has long since passed. Kill it. Also, kill the ridiculous pre-show, which they expanded to 90 minutes this year for some reason. How about cutting that and staring the show earlier. Use the extra time to bring back the honorary awards, which have provided most of the best moments in recent years. The worst news was when they announced that ABC renewed their contract to carry the Oscars through 2020. All the changes they've forced on the Academy have been for the worse. They need to realize: NETWORK TELEVISION IS DEAD. They will never regain the ratings they had when there were limited viewing audiences. They need to stop trying to cater to youthful demographics and viewers who won't watch and to the movie geeks like me who will. They have to accept that the Oscars are niche programming. Honestly, I think the best solution is to have people such as me who actually give a damn about movies and film history produce the show and keep the clueless away. After a night like last night, I think I might have to go to a shelter for abused Oscar spouses. Think your ratings drop now? See what happens if you lose us. The Oscars are about movies, but quality? Reflecting the best No. They are a long ad for an industry, a trade show for its worst habits where sometimes, the deserving accidentally win. Film lovers can love film without taking this annual pummelling from this serially abuser.Tweet
Labels: Anne Hathaway, Awards, Colin Firth, Criticism, Disney, Fincher, Franco, H. Weinstein, Oscars, Pearce, Television
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Not so good grief
By Edward Copeland
No two people grieve exactly the same way. No book contains rules for proper mourning. When someone loses a spouse, a sibling or, most tragically, a child, outsiders can't judge if their behavior is normal or appropriate. That's not the case with movies on the subject such as Rabbit Hole or performers in them like Nicole Kidman. They're fair game, especially when everything about them rings false compared to countless cinematic examples that depicted grief well.
David Lindsay-Abaire adapted Rabbit Hole from his own Pulitzer Prize-winning play, which I have neither read nor seen but which won one of my favorite actresses, Cynthia Nixon, a Tony Award. Our faithful Broadway correspondent Josh R selected Nixon as one of his 10 best experiences in the 2006 New York theater season. Josh wrote:
As a mother grieving over the loss of a child, the luminous Ms. Nixon brought emotional credibility to a play that might otherwise have gotten bogged down in maudlin, movie-of-the-week style dramaturgy...the actress delivered an eloquent, astutely measured account of the manner in which emotional forbearance serves as a buffer against the unbearable sense of bewilderment that comes in trying to make sense of tragedy. Rather than resorting to histrionics, Nixon registered all the pain of her character’s acknowledgement of her suffering with delicate, nuanced strokes — in a performance that was all the more powerful for what remained unsaid.
Seeing how great Nixon can be in so many different roles, I almost can visualize her performance based on Josh's prose. Needless to say, the character of Becca which won Nixon her Tony probably bore little resemblance to the Becca that Nicole Kidman brings to the screen. Kidman's Becca comes off as an uptight control freak with a superiority complex who treats almost everyone who crosses her path cruelly and as if they are imposing on her time — and none of it has to do with sadness over the death of her son. She makes Mary Tyler Moore's character in Ordinary People look warm, open-hearted and loving by comparison.
Every choice Kidman makes as Becca turns out to be wrongheaded and misguided. You never get a sense that this is a woman devastated by the loss of her young son in an accident. She plays Becca more as if the death and its repercussions were more of an inconvenience for her and she treats everyone else in similar fashion with one exception. She starts stalking and then befriends Jason (Miles Teller), the teen who drove the car that struck and killed her son. At times, the scenes between Becca and Jason made me feel as if I were watching Birth 2. Her encounters with Jason are the only moments when she displays anything resembling humanity.
As a result, where a viewer should feel sympathy for Becca, instead you just want someone to slap her. Kidman doesn't play her as someone scarred by a tragedy, she plays Becca as someone you would walk across the street to avoid because she's such a stuck-up jerk. I went back and looked at some of the reviews of the original play in 2006 and nearly all the theater critics had high praise for its entire cast (which also included John Slattery and Tyne Daly) and the production itself, though The New York Times' Ben Brantley admitted that the play itself, "As beautifully observed as Rabbit Hole is, it never rises to the shock of greatness." The reviews also noted the tears the production evoked. In the film version with Kidman, let's just say there's not a wet eye in the house.
As I said, I've neither seen nor read Lindsay-Abaire's play but I have to believe that he changed it a lot for the screenplay because there are too many scenes in the movie that I can't imagine how they would have been depicted in a stage production. There's also the fact that the play had five characters where the movie adds significant new roles played by Sandra Oh, Giancarlo Esposito and Jon Tenney.
The remainder of the film's cast can be great in other works. Dianne Wiest as Becca's mom and Tammy Blanchard as her sister come off best, but Aaron Eckhart feels nearly as false as Kidman does. Some of the blame may rest on the shoulders of director John Cameron Mitchell, who keeps everything and everyone at an icy, removed distance and may have instructed his cast to follow his lead, yet Wiest, Blanchard and Oh find ways to breathe life into their characters, so I don't think that's the case.
Eckhart's role as Howie, Becca's deeply wounded husband, may be hampered since most of his scenes pair him with Kidman's ice queen. He does better when separated from her as in some scenes opposite Oh, but when he has to respond to Kidman's offputting performance, he seems flustered. It's particularly embarrassing when the teen driver Jason comes over to give Becca a comic (which gives the play and the film its title, though without any sort of deeper explanation) and he blows up at him being there and I was again reminded of Birth where Danny Huston goes after the boy. I suppose I should be grateful for small favors — at least it's Eckhart here and not Danny Huston.
Mitchell seems an unusual choice to direct the film, following his helming the adaptation of his fun, one-of-a-kind stage musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch and his attempt at making a mainstream porn film, Shortbus. Visually, he doesn't add much to Rabbit Hole and I'm not sure if he should be blamed for giving his cast bad direction or none at all.
As I wrote yesterday, when I reviewed another overrated film, Blue Valentine, one of the biggest headscratchers of this year's Oscar nominations is that the actors branch wasted two of its best actress slots on Michelle Williams and Kidman when there were so many worthier candidates out there. I truly have to believe members just filled in names based on what they heard or read and didn't watch Blue Valentine or Rabbit Hole.
As for Rabbit Hole in general, it's truly a shame because the list of great films about grieving stretches from the beginning of the medium to now. In 2009, you had a beautiful example with Colin Firth in A Single Man. Last year, I celebrated the 20th anniversary of another great example, Men Don't Leave. If you look specifically for a good example of a film about a couple affected by the loss of a child, take another look at 1988's The Accidental Tourist.
I could keep going on with examples of films that tackle the subject of grief better than Rabbit Hole does, but instead I'm just gonna mourn the talent wasted on this film and the time I lost watching it.
Tweet
Labels: 10s, Awards, Colin Firth, Cynthia Nixon, John Slattery, Michelle Williams, Nicole Kidman, Oscars, Theater, Wiest
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Friday, December 24, 2010
The "O" Word
By Josh R
I have one rule when it comes to reviewing films: I try not to use the “O” word. With one notable exception, I’ve stuck to my guns even when writing about films that I knew had some serious “O” love coming to them — whether my verdict was hot (Happy-Go-Lucky), cold (Rachel Getting Married), medium (Doubt) or a sub-arctic blast of untrammeled bile the likes of which could plunge North America into its next Ice Age (oh, Babel, the frosty times we’ve had.)
My reasons for this are threefold. Like Mr. Copeland, who uses the dreaded word more than I do but has always managed to keep it in its proper place, I’m not sure exactly what awards handicapping has to do with legitimate film criticism. You want odds, go to Vegas; a review should read like a review, not a scouting report. In the second place, reliance on The “O” word is an excuse for laziness; it’s easy to take the convenient shortcut of “So-and-so gives an Oscar-worthy performance!” rather than actually discussing what made a performance great — the latter requires not only effort and imagination, but a decent working vocabulary. For the record, none of the excellent contributors to this blog — fine writers and analysts — have ever been guilty of the sins described above. As for some of the critics whose opinions most often wind up as single-sentence blurbs in print ads, well…using the “O” word will definitely get your name in the paper.
Finally, to frame any discussion of a film’s merits within the context of “O” implies that The Academy Awards are the ultimate barometer of quality in the motion picture industry. Which is just silly. For the record, I actually like The Oscars — albeit on the same level that I enjoy Dancing with the Stars and Olympic figure skating — but to view them as the yardstick by which we should measure artistic success in the cinematic medium is kind of like viewing Wikipedia as the ultimate authority on global history and culture. Lily Tomlin once described The Oscars as “classic American kitsch,” and that’s an apt assessment — equal parts glitzy industry trade show and highly entertaining spectator sport, the proceedings are informed as much by politics, popularity and pettiness as the vagaries of subjective taste. They’re impossible to take seriously. For all those who maintain that The Oscars are everything that they purport to be, I’ll offer up this in response: You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.
As it happens, I have nothing against pigs — they make for some good eatin’ — and I’m not so scandalized by the fundamentally absurd nature of The Academy Awards that I can’t follow them obsessively once the politicking and pageantry kick into hyperdrive. Nor do I take my highfalutin ideals about film criticism quite so seriously that I can’t forsake them every now and again. When I bandied the “O” word like a verbal volleyball in my vivisection of La Vie en Rose, it was because I specifically wanted to address the manner in which certain folk were bashing one Oscar hopeful’s performance as a means of promoting the candidacy of another. I’m going to station the coveted statuette front-and-center once again in my discussion of The King’s Speech, because I’m really not sure how else to talk about it. As it happens, this stately biopic chronicling King George VI’s ascension to The Throne of England — a climb made rocky by virtue of the speech impediment he had to conquer en route — is a well-made, enjoyable film. It is also a film that feels as though it were conceived and executed for one purpose and one purpose alone — namely, to be nominated for (and win) Academy Awards. Some films are made for love, others still for money; it’s clear that some love went into The King’s Speech, but it’s not some little shoestring indie that was made without expectation or ulterior motive. Even when it achieves something greater than its aims — which, thanks to the resourcefulness of Colin Firth, it very often does — every frame seems to be flashing the words For Your Consideration.
The plot plays almost like an inversion of Shaw’s Pygmalion; when it was being pitched to studio execs, it was probably described (in Oscarspeak) as My Fair Lady turned inside out. Instead of the common flower girl being drilled in elocution so she can pass for royalty, in The King’s Speech, a Royal is taught to speak in such a way that he becomes more acceptable, as both a leader and figurehead, to the common man. In the tense, uncertain days leading up to WWII, Firth’s Duke of York (Bertie to his intimates) is second in line to the throne and a not-quite-ready-for-prime-time player in the theater of public relations. Lacking the polish and glamour of his brother Edward (Guy Pearce), he is hampered by a nasty stammer that rears its head at inopportune moments, making him a bit of a national laughingstock. Ironically, the dapper, microphone-ready Prince of Wales can barely hold a candle to his stammering sibling in the character department. As proof that image often trumps truth, it the conscientious, level-headed son — possessed of all the qualities necessary to shepherd his subjects through a period of war and strife — who is treated as an object of ridicule, while the feckless, wishy-washy Prince of Wales is a figure of adulation.
Egged on by his supportive wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), Prince Albert seeks out the services of the Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), whose methods prove as unconventional as his manner — he treats his new charge as he would any other patient, starting with his blunt refusal to address him as “Your Highness.” It’s an uneasy relationship that eventually develops into a bond of genuine trust and friendship — soon to become of vital importance to the nation when the heir apparent abdicates the throne in order to marry an American divorcee. In order for Prince Albert to assume the mantle of King George V, his must literally find his own voice — one unmarred by defect.
Defect is something which is not much in evidence in the film itself, and that’s very much by design. With golden goodies on the brain, director Tom Hooper and screenwriter David Seidler play things safe, safe, safe. To be fair, The King’s Speech is not the only film in the marketplace blatantly trolling for Oscar gold — that’s a characteristic shared, to varying degrees, by most of the films released in the waning months of the calendar year. If the syndrome feels more pronounced in this context, that’s a reflection of how few risks Hooper and Seidler have taken, stylistically or otherwise, and the extent to which their product adheres to the rules set forth by the Oscar playbook. It ticks off every box on the list (British accents, check…based on a true story, check… costume & art direction that are pure period porn, check…), and has been cast to the gills with the sort of performers whose very participation bespeaks Class with a capital C; blink-and-you-miss-them bit players include Derek Jacobi, Michael Gambon, Jennifer Ehle, Timothy Spall, Eve Best, Anthony Andrews and Claire Bloom. There is nothing unexpected or even particularly creative about the way the material’s been shaped; as lush as the design aspects of the film are, it’s fitting that the dominant color is brown. The filmmakers know exactly who their audience is, and The King’s Speech works on the level it’s supposed to — it has no personality, but it covers its bases.
A film that exists purely on the level of Oscarbait is not such a bad thing when it furnishes an opportunity for great actors to strut their stuff, and if The King’s Speech lacks something in terms of inspiration, that’s not a trait shared by the performances. After his deliciously over-the-top vamping in Broadway’s Exit the King, Rush adroitly shifts gears with his subtle, finely calibrated turn as the quietly charismatic speech therapist. Logue is someone who can stand toe-to-toe with both King and Court, but without raising his voice or going in for grandstanding; given the actor’s occasional penchant for scenery-chewing, it’s nice to see him pull in the reins and portray a character on a smaller, more human scale. The film also provides a refreshing change of pace for Bonham Carter, who’s spent most of the past decade studiously avoiding the type of period, literary-seeming roles on which her early reputation was based. It can’t be much fun for an actress to go through her career feeling like a Victorian dress-up doll; that said, her more recent efforts (primarily for her husband, Tim Burton, an unparalleled visual stylist who has never really seemed to grasp what constitutes good acting) have favored a style based in feverishly antic caricature, emphasizing the grotesque and with less-than-scintillating results. Commercial success aside, it’s not a style which showcases her talents to best advantage — and has produced more than its fair share of squirm-inducing moments, of the ilk that have sent other actresses on the prowl for good divorce lawyers (if there’s any better grounds for trial separation than Cutthroat Island and The Long Kiss Goodnight, it’s Alice in Wonderland and Sweeney Todd.) Here, Bonham Carter is back in Merchant Ivory mode, and delivers a fine, understated performance — one which actually allows her to display some backbone beneath the period fashions she models.
As fine as the entire cast is, The King’s Speech belongs — as well it should — to The King himself, and Colin Firth once again demonstrates that he is among the best, most indispensable actors working in films today. The thing that distinguishes Firth as a performer — as evidenced by his stellar work in projects as diverse as the BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice, Bridget Jones’ Diary and A Single Man — is the remarkable degree of emotional transparency he brings to characters who make it their business to keep their emotions in check. He doesn’t need to resort to showy effects to reveal what a character is thinking and feeling; he communicates it through the slightest of inflections and gestures, so that even while his countenance remains stoic, the inner life of the character is brought into full and glorious focus. I’m not a fan of strenuous acting; when I watch the tightly clenched whirrings and grindings of Daniel Day-Lewis, I often have the sensation of being able to feel the tension in his face and body, to say nothing of his vocal chords — apart from My Left Foot, it’s an approach that has always felt distinctly unnatural (there’s a school of thought that asserts that if it looks painful to do, it must be brilliant.) Firth lives on the opposite end of the spectrum — he achieves his effects so simply that you’re never conscious of any element of artifice; because you don’t catch him acting, everything he does seems to be rooted in truth. It’s why his work as the grieving professor in A Single Man had such devastating emotional impact; if The King’s Speech, staidly packaged little Oscar vehicle that it is, doesn’t quite allow him to go to those places, the actor still manages to give the impression of having created a characterization which feels completely fresh, unhindered in any way by the limitations of the material. Without him, The King’s Speech would be a nice, pleasant little film which would linger in memory about as long as your average morning cup of coffee. Because of what Firth brings to it, it exceeds its own ambitions.
Given the nature of this piece — and how many of my own rules I’ve broken in the process of writing it — it wouldn’t be fitting to let Mr. Firth off the hook without one mention of the “O” word. For anyone out there looking for a quick, blurb-able soundbite of the type I’ve grown to loathe, just this once I am willing to oblige. Colin Firth delivers an Oscar-worthy performance.
God, I feel dirty now.
Tweet
Labels: 10s, Colin Firth, Day-Lewis, Gambon, H.B. Carter, Merchant Ivory, Oscars, Pearce, Theater, Tim Burton
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Bridget Times Two
By J.D.
Before Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) was released in theaters, much was made of the casting of soft-spoken American (from Texas no less!) Renee Zellweger as the very British Bridget Jones. It was seen as almost heresy by fans of Helen Fielding’s very popular book of the same name. To almost everyone’s surprise, Zellweger pulled it off with a credible British accent and a real commitment to the role (she even put on weight).
Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger) is a sworn bachelorette. She has her family and friends but despite her defiantly single stance the biological clock is always ticking. Bridget finds herself looking for Mr. Right. She does fancy her roguish boss, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), but also finds herself strangely drawn to the repressed and distant Mark Darcy (Colin Firth).
Bridget is not some ultra-thin model (or “American stick insect” as she calls the glamorous New York City career girl that Daniel cheats on her with) type but a full-bodied woman who sometimes acts awkward in social situations, including showing up to a party dressed like some kind of Playboy bunny. Bridget is instantly relatable and immediately gets our sympathy. We care about what happens to her and become emotionally invested in her and her world. The film’s screenplay, co-written by Fielding and the usually reliable Richard Curtis (Love, Actually), offers all kinds of astute observations about single life and the pressure society and the media puts on us to find a mate and get married. Not to mention, the film is insanely quotable with many, many memorable bits of dialogue.
Renee Zellweger is willing to put herself out there, successfully embodying this British phenomenon. She is also willing to look silly and poke fun at herself. However, the way she is lit and the warm colors that surround her, highlight Zellweger’s luminescent, beautiful pink skin. Director Sharon Maguire champions her voluptuous physique and doesn’t hide how she looks. There are lingering shots of Bridget getting dressed, which is refreshing in this day and age. Zellweger is Bridget Jones and looking back at the film several years later, one would be hard pressed to think of anyone else in the role.
After being type cast as the meek nice guy in films like Notting Hill (1999) and Mickey Blue Eyes (1999), Hugh Grant was cast against type as a raunchy cad. It gave the actor a chance to poke fun at his own image and it gave his career a much-needed shot in the arm, allowing him to branch out and play more flawed characters, such as his wonderful turn in About a Boy (2002). At the time, Colin Firth was period piece guy. He shot to success as the thinking women’s sex symbol in A&E’s production of Pride and Prejudice (1995) and Bridget Jones firmly established him on the contemporary pop culture map. At first, Mark seems like a stuck up, cold fish but over the course of the film his true feelings for Bridget become apparent. Firth has an uncanny ability of conveying repressed, unrequited feelings. It’s all in his eyes, which are very expressive.
With the commercial and critical success of Bridget Jones’s Diary a sequel was inevitable. Helen Fielding, creator of the character, even wrote one but the problem became, how do you replicate the magic of the first film and yet make it different enough not to be just a retread of what came before? Renee Zellweger reprised Bridget in The Edge of Reason (2004) but was it worth the effort?
Bridget and Mark are still a couple in a happy relationship. However, as she writes in her diary, “What happens after you walk off into the sunset?” It is this nagging question that will cloud her judgment. Daniel Cleaver is now a TV personality and as rudely funny as ever. On his show he describes the Sistine Chapel as the “First example in history of poof interior designer gone bonkers.” Trouble arises when working class Bridget feels out of place in Mark’s affluent, upper class world. To make matters worse, she starts to feel pangs of jealousy towards one of Mark’s beautiful co-workers, Rebecca (Jacinda Barrett). Her gorgeous looks and casual familiarity with Mark makes Bridget nervous and jealous. How can she compete with a thinner, smarter, more attractive woman? This leads to issues such as marriage and children to raise their ugly heads and cause a rift and ultimately split-up Bridget and Mark.
The big problem with this film becomes apparent early on. In the first one we were laughing with Bridget. In this one we are now laughing at her. For example, she skydives for her morning TV show and lands in a muddy pigpen. The segment ends with a gratuitous shot of her dirty behind. The Edge of Reason also recycles many jokes from the first film. Mark and Daniel get into another knock-down, drag-out fight. The film also relies too much on physical humor. For example, Bridget falls off the roof of Mark’s flat. Finally, she falls off a ski lift. See a pattern developing? The film takes a gag and proceeds to beat it into the ground until it isn’t funny anymore.
The chemistry between Zellweger and Firth is still strong. They make a great couple and clearly have a good rapport. Zellweger gamely puts on the pounds again and certainly has a knack for physical and verbal comedy. But the film places too much emphasis on the former and not enough on the latter. However, Hugh Grant is a breath of fresh, smarmy air as the roguish Cleaver. He openly leers at any good-looking woman and casually insults people with his scathing wit. The film only comes to life when he’s on-screen.
Bridget Jones’s Diary is much more than just the quintessential single woman’s survival guide. It is a funny and engaging romantic comedy that champions a more realistic image of women. Bridget Jones is the photo negative of the Sex and the City women. She is not like them, with their perfect shoes and witty repartee. Bridget would be watching that show and not be on it. And this is part of the appeal of the film (and the book) to the average woman. That being said, The Edge of Reason is merely a pale imitation of the superior original.
Tweet
Labels: 00s, Colin Firth, Television
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Friday, July 16, 2010
Heartbreaking loss conveyed heartbreakingly well
By Edward Copeland
With the countless hours (probably closer to years or decades) of movies I’ve sat through, I believe I can say that I have never witnessed a more realistic depiction of grief than Colin Firth delivers in A Single Man — and that includes many great performances — but Firth may very well top them all. Every expression, every gesture he makes will evoke instant recognition in anyone who has lived through similar heartbreak, even if the specifics aren’t the same.
Firth always has struck a light, charming pose in most of his screen roles, but 2009 brought two great ones that seemed to break the actor out of his usual rut: A very impressive and brooding supporting turn in Easy Virtue and his Oscar-nominated role here in A Single Man as gay British college professor George Falconer who is teaching in Los Angeles in 1962 when his partner of 16 years, Jim, is killed in a car wreck.
It may seem as if I’m being a bit hyperbolic in my lead with my praise of Firth, but since I’ve watched his portrayal — and I’ve actually viewed it twice since I also listened to first-time director Tom Ford’s commentary — I have searched my movie memories for other memorable portrayals of grieving and while I can think of many great ones (I wrote of Jessica Lange in Men Don’t Leave not that long ago), I truly cannot think of another actor or actress who has created as accurate or moving a portrayal of personal loss as Firth. Simply put, he touches and he astounds.
A Single Man marks Ford’s directing debut (He also co-wrote this adaptation of the Christopher Isherwood novel with David Searce). Ford is best known for his work as a fashion designer and his first job helming a film shows the influence of that career on the way he chooses to depict a pivotal day in George’s life eight months after Jim’s death. After more than half a year of sleepwalking through life, George wakes up on that day in November 1962 determined to do and see things differently, mainly because he’s planning to see everything for the very last time.
The color scheme surrounding Firth is deliberately muted and washed out while what he sees springs to vivid and colorful life, something that is especially emphasized in a scene with one of his students (Nicholas Hoult, all grown up since playing the kid in About a Boy), Kenny, who takes an interest in George and walks with him and Kenny’s face literally changes to a more colorful hue before George’s eyes.
The one constant splash of color in George’s life is his best female friend Charley (Julianne Moore), another British expatriate living in Los Angeles. In their younger days, George and Charley were briefly lovers as George was still finding himself, but that part of their relationship meant more to Charley than George, since he could only fall in love with man. Charley can bring him comfort and fun, though she can enrage him as well as when she dares compare her husband leaving her after nine years to George’s loss of Jim (played in flashbacks by Matthew Goode) after 16. It almost goes without saying that Moore turns in her usual, excellent performance.
Another fine touch in the film is its score, provided by not one, but two composers, Abel Korzeniowski and Shigeru Umebayashi. Korzeniowski provides the more conventional aspects of the film’s music but Umebayashi, who has worked a lot with Wong Kar-Wai, provides additional, strings-heavy touches that are so evocative and beautiful that they sound as if they are flowing directly out of George’s bloodstream.
Still, A Single Man might not succeed without the strength of Firth’s brilliant performance. Some of Firth’s most amazing work comes early in the film when it flashes back to when he received the news of Jim’s death from one of Jim’s relatives (the voice on the phone, ironically, is Mad Men’s Jon Hamm, stuck in the ‘60s again) who, though he is performing a kindness, makes the blow worse by informing George that Jim’s parents didn’t want to call him and he isn’t welcome at the funeral. It’s a stinging reminder of what a homosexual’s life was like 50 years ago and in many ways, especially legally, remains today. Regardless of one’s sexuality or the time period, grief is universal and anyone who has experienced a blow like George does will relate.
Despite the fact that this is a film about mourning, there are occasional touches of humor, but in the end it’s the emotional wallop that Firth packs that makes A Single Man such a remarkable experience. For some, it may be too emotional and painful to watch, for others, it will just hold little interest. It’s a shame, because if they skip it, they will miss a spectacular example of screen acting.
Tweet
Labels: 00s, Colin Firth, J. Lange, Julianne Moore, Mad Men
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Monday, July 20, 2009
She has to talk loud: She's an American
By Edward Copeland
The dreary interiors of the English estate seem to belie the bouncy renditions of the period songs that permeate the soundtrack of Easy Virtue, the new film by Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) based on an early film by Alfred Hitchcock. (Just kidding: That's my Ben Lyons joke for today.)
Easy Virtue actually is based on an early play by Noel Coward and while there are many sly laughs, it's not as eager to please as some of his later stage efforts would be.
Elliott and Sheridan Jobbins adapted Coward's story of the stuffy Whittaker family disrupted by the arrival of their son (John Ben Barnes) with a bride Larita, a brash American race car driver (Jessica Biel).
No one is more outraged than the Whittaker family matriarch (Kristin Scott Thomas) who finds Larita totally unsuitable, though she harbors other ulterior motives for being against the match as well.
Colin Firth plays the family's patriarch and gives the film's finest performance as a lost soul, done in by his experiences during World War I. He wandered the world carousing until his wife found him and brought him home, where he now haunts the estate as if he's a ghost.
Thomas, as one would expect, turns in a fine performance as well but the real surprise is Biel who holds her own nicely with the other players.
Easy Virtue certainly turns out to be a watchable enterprise with some nice laughs even with its serious undercurrents, but the musical choices, while era appropriate, seem out of place with the mood of the film itself.
Tweet
Labels: 00s, Colin Firth, Kristin Scott Thomas
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
