Monday, September 16, 2013
From the Vault: JFK
BLOGGER'S NOTE: I'm re-posting this review, originally written when JFK opened in 1991, as part of The Oliver Stone Blogathon occurring through Oct. 6 at Seetimaar — Diary of a Movie Lover
Seldom has reviewing a film proved as problematic as Oliver Stone's JFK. So much has been written about what is — and isn't — accurate in this film that I went in desperately trying to view solely on a cinematic basis, ignoring the fact that it concerns that fateful November day in Dallas in 1963. That sort of objectivity ends up being impossible because JFK demands evaluation and analysis and obliterates any chance of passive viewing with its strange hybrid of thriller, murder mystery and documentary.
Kevin Costner plays the lead in Stone's story as New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who launched a full-fledged investigation into the conspiracy he believed left both John F. Kennedy and the country mortally wounded. "Fundamentally, people are suckers for the truth," Donald Sutherland's Deep Throat-type character tells Garrison at one point in the film. While it remains to be seen whether Stone's version contains more truth than the preposterous idea that Lee Harvey Oswald (played well by Gary Oldman, part of the film's gargantuan, excellent ensemble) acted alone, fascination with the assassination keeps this three-hour film compulsively watchable.
Problems plague the film other than the ones that spark so much debate. Despite allegations that the film comes off as homophobic (I see why that charge has been leveled) or exists as nothing more than propaganda (could be), it fares fairly well. Stone keeps the pace speeding along most of the time except for a middle section that lags. His editing and jump-cuts that mix real footage, re-creations and original material triumph, especially in the film's very good opening segments. The movie stumbles the most when it presents scenes of Garrison's domestic life with his wife Liz (a thankless task given to the usually reliable Sissy Spacek, saddled with dialogue along the lines of "I think you care more about John Kennedy than your own family!") It also doesn't help that Garrison's son (played by Stone's own 7-year-old son Sean) never ages though the film covers more than half a decade.
Other demerits include John Williams' score, which nearly overpowers important scenes such as Sutherland's magnetic spinning of key elements of the "conspiracy" so that it makes sense as he's sharing it, and, it should really go without saying, Costner himself. While he manages to be fairly consistent with his Southern accent, he still can't emote effectively. He's a star, not an actor. Much of the popular opinion about the real Garrison refers to him either as someone seeking publicity or a crackpot. Regardless, Costner can't convey his obsession or possibly unstable nature. In his overrated Dances With Wolves, his lack of acting skills presented a similar problem. Both JFK and Dances would have been better served if they'd cast a performer capable of portraying people losing control. Lt. Dunbar tries to commit suicide and then asks to be placed on the frontier, but Costner couldn't pull off that conflict any more convincingly than he pulls off Garrison's drive for the truth.
Thankfully, able supporting performers abound to pick up the slack, even if they appear for a single scene. Actors deserving particular praise include Ed Asner, Kevin Bacon, John Candy, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Joe Pesci, Sutherland and Tommy Lee Jones, who gives a good performance despite the possible perception of his character as an offensive stereotype. Structurally, the film weakens in its final act by climaxing with Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw (Jones). While this conclusion comes naturally to a film focused on Garrison, it seems anticlimactic to the film's real subject — dealing with the demons of the past. Stone's obsession with the Vietnam era equals Garrison's with Kennedy's murder. Methods separate Garrison's obsession from Stone's. Stone uses cinema as his rosary to drag the audience kicking and screaming into his personal confessional. With JFK, that's not altogether inappropriate. Even people born since the assassination grew up with the myths and the facts of Nov. 22, 1963, as part of their lives, though for most of the younger of us, Jim Garrison and his actual prosecution of Clay Shaw was something few of us knew about until Stone's movie.
Growing up though with the history of the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations ingrained in our brains shortened our attention span of shock when John Lennon, Reagan and Pope John Paul II encountered bullets in a period of just a few months. The explosion of the space shuttle Challenger seemed to affect us for only an hour or two instead of the lifelong effect JFK's assassination had on an earlier generation.
Personally, I don't know if I buy the revamped Garrison theory that Stone offers. I don't see how anyone can believe Oswald acted alone or all the shots came from behind — watching the Zapruder film enlarged on the big screen makes the "back and to the left" motion of Kennedy's head unmistakable. However, Stone can't quite pull off the idea that the reason Kennedy was killed was so the Vietnam War could happen.
In that respect, JFK plays like a murder trial where only the prosecution presents its case. I'm certainly no apologist for Oliver Stone and I think most of his films grow weaker on subsequent viewings. Indeed, his tendency to pass off fabrication as fact can be troubling when most viewers can't tell the difference. Reservations aside, JFK holds one's attention firmly and deserves a look.
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Labels: 90s, Costner, D. Sutherland, John Williams, Kevin Bacon, Lemmon, Matthau, Oldman, Oliver Stone, Pesci, Spacek, Tommy Lee Jones
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Monday, March 05, 2012
Just for a Smile
By VenetianBlond
Director Barry Levinson, just starting out as a filmmaker, turned his camera on a group of guys in their 20s who hang out in a diner. What he captured was part coming-of-age story, part Altmanesque conversation flood, and part elegy for times gone by. With an Oscar-nominated screenplay, he directed terrific performances from his cast, all of whom later became household names. Given all the high concept or high production (or both) fare that’s usually greenlit these days, it’s refreshing to see a good old-fashioned character study and wonder whatever happened to those guys in the diner.
It’s the holiday season of 1959, and during a party, Modell (Paul Reiser) pulls Boogie (Mickey Rourke) away to help with a situation. Fenwick (Kevin Bacon) is smashing out the basement windows and won’t quit. “It’s just for a smile,” he drunkenly says. But Boogie has the heft to convince him to stop and come back upstairs. Eventually they meander to their favorite hangout, the diner, joined by Shrevie (Daniel Stern) and Eddie (Steve Guttenberg). There, they can shoot the breeze, razz each other, brag and even declare their unending annoyance with each other.
They’re joined the next morning by Billy (Tim Daly), who‘s in town for Eddie’s wedding. There’s some question whether or not it actually will occur, because the girl in question must pass a football quiz or the nuptials are off. Billy’s got his own problems: After a one night stand with a good friend, she’s pregnant but won’t marry him. Boogie’s in debt to gangsters, Fenwick is perpetually drunk and Shrevie has no idea how to relate to his wife Beth (Ellen Barkin). It’s a coming-of-age story in that these guys must grow up and figure out how to deal with things, but they’re not 14 anymore.
Mickey Rourke, just off of Body Heat and on his way to Rumble Fish and The Pope of Greenwich Village, pulls a lot of the focus. Boogie is the alpha male without a doubt, even though he has a soft, high voice and works as a stylist in a beauty salon. His plan to make the money to pay off the debt is to gamble more — with his friends about what sexual exploits he can manage. They are more than happy to go along. Boogie has a strong sense of who he is, but he has no idea what to do with that knowledge. When he has an opportunity to rekindle things with Beth, whom he dated before she married Shrevie, he can’t go through with it. He tells her that she and Shrevie need to work out their “thing,” which he knows is right, but he doesn’t know how to find that “thing” for himself. Mickey Rourke already shows all the charm and danger in lethal combination that would become his stock in trade.
Levinson allowed a certain amount of improvisation on the set, and that allowed for some great work, particularly from Steve Guttenberg and Paul Reiser. Modell is constantly cadging from Eddie, whether it’s a ride home or the rest of his sandwich, and it makes Eddie immediately see red. “Just say the words!” he yells, trying to get Modell to admit he’s a moocher, but he won’t It’s a hilarious recognition of the fact that our best friends can be the ones who get on our last nerve.
Kevin Bacon, looking younger than all the rest, is a surprise as the alcoholic Fenwick, who’s the polar opposite of his Chip Diller in National Lampoon's Animal House. Levinson gives him a terrific scene in which he’s watching the college quiz show on TV and he knows all the answers. He’s got potential, but it’s lost in a sterile upbringing and a loss of focus. He decides to spend Christmas in his boxers in the Baby Jesus’ manger in front of the Catholic Church, and when his friends come to get him, he punches out all the Wise Men.
Diner doesn’t have a lot of narrative drive, because the characters don’t either. They have a certain amount of faith that things eventually will work out in the end, even if they don’t know how to help them along. What they do know is that they’ve had their best friends to either support them or distract them from their troubles — even if they eventually get married and their wives “will make you get all new friends.”
As in American Graffiti, Diner looked back at the 1950s as the end of an era and a turning point for the young people in America. But where American Graffiti had a sense of urgency, Diner takes a more contemplative bent. Shrevie can’t understand why his records get misplaced, and Beth can’t understand what the big deal is. In a tour de force monologue, Shrevie explains why Charlie Parker is not filed with the rock ‘n’ roll. It sounds silly, but Beth is devastated, and both characters see that they are talking past each other, but they can’t fix it. That’s what we can relate to, whether it’s 1959, or 1982, or now.
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Labels: 80s, Altman, B. Levinson, Barkin, Kevin Bacon, Mickey Rourke, Movie Tributes
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Tuesday, December 20, 2011
A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma
By Damian Arlyn
While some might be of the opinion that Oliver Stone’s most archetypal movie is Wall Street or Platoon, I happen to think the film which holds that particular distinction is JFK (which celebrates its 20th anniversary today). It is not necessarily his greatest movie, but it is his most significant in a number of ways. In a career littered with provocative, politically charged works, it has proved to be arguably his most controversial. It marked the beginning of a stylistic period in Stone’s filmmaking (a fast, in-your-face approach to storytelling which culminated in Stone’s outrageously anarchic Natural Born Killers). Finally, it was (and still seems to be) one of Stone’s most personal projects: the result of years of research, overwhelming passion and righteous indignation. Indeed, of all Stone’s protagonists, the man at the center of JFK (who is, somewhat ironically, not the titular character) serves as perhaps the best representative of the ideals and opinions of Oliver himself. In reality, the motives and actions of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (the only prosecutor ever to go to trial in the assassination of President Kennedy) are not entirely clear nor always seem purely honorable, but in the film, Garrison — wonderfully played by Kevin Costner — is a man on a crusade, a courageous hero of the highest intentions and noblest stature crying, “Let the truth be told though the heavens fall!” He is the director's alter ego, a lone wolf fighting the establishment in the name of truth, justice and, yes, the American way.
JFK was my first Oliver Stone picture. My dad took me to see it in the theater when I was a sophomore in high school and I was, as the expression goes, blown away by it. Incidentally, he was (and still is to some degree) a major expert on the Kennedy conspiracy, so he was able to lean over and tell me at various junctures "That's true" or "That's not true" which helped orient me in the somewhat overwhelming
deluge of faces, names, dates and theories with which I was being bludgeoned. My dad once owned the largest collection of books, magazines, videos and even vintage newspaper articles about that specific event which I have ever seen. After watching the film and concluding that there definitely was a conspiracy and a cover-up, I even read a few of them myself, including the screenplay to the film which contained a footnoted source for every piece of information that Stone wrote into the expository dialogue and/or imagery of the film. It gave me a whole new appreciation for a movie's potential to tell a story which, if not "true" or "historically accurate," is at least "factual." Eventually I became somewhat of an expert myself and years later, after getting married and moving to Dallas, I finally visited the sixth floor museum and Dealey Plaza (the latter of which, I was shocked to discover, is a very small, and intimately contained space). Now, however, having read multiple accounts from different writers arguing for both sides of the conspiracy debate — including this very compelling website run by Dave Reitzes, whose experience with the film is remarkably similar to my own — I have no idea what really happened on that day in Dallas (though I still think there is more to the story than we are being told). However, one thing that has not changed, is that JFK remains a seminal film in my development as a cinephile.
Much can be said about the movie's many stellar qualities, such as the performances from its immense cast (a dizzying collection of such familiar faces as Sissy Spacek, Joe Pesci, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Bacon, John Candy, Ed Asner, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Gary Oldman, Donald Sutherland, etc). In a nice bit of subversive casting, Stone even got the real Jim Garrison to portray Judge Earl Warren of the Warren Commission. Much could also be said about John Williams' suspenseful and emotional Oscar-nominated music score, but the main element of the film which captivated me upon my first viewing (and which I studied very carefully upon numerous subsequent viewings) was its visual aesthetic. In order to make a film which was heavy on talk into an arresting experience, Stone deftly employed various cinematic techniques that until that time had never been employed with such enthusiastic exuberance nor wild abandon in a historical epic.
His approach to shooting and editing the film was considered confusing and indulgent by some and incredibly powerful and innovative by others. I personally fell into the latter camp. Jumping back and forth (sometimes in a seemingly random manner) from authentic to recreated footage, from color to black-and-white and from 35 to 16mm, JFK creates such an apparently chaotic product that people didn't know what to make of it. The more one delves deeper into it though, the more one discovers that there is indeed "method in the madness." Stone's is a stream-of-consciousness approach to examining history, a process that makes no distinction between past and present, between what has happened and what is happening and, perhaps most controversially, between theory and fact. To Stone, history is in the eye of the beholder and he presents so many different perspectives, ideas and judgments that he was essentially, as film critic Roger Ebert proposed, fighting the official establishment myth by "weaving a counter-myth." Not surprisingly, Stone's effort garnered a great deal of criticism from various esteemed news sources. It did not help their case that they were attacking the film well before it had come out and anyone, including them, had even seen it, their zeal and hostility seemingly inspired more by fear of losing their privileged authoritative status than by supposed journalistic integrity and objectivity.
In spite of (or perhaps because of) JFK's notoriety, it was very well-received upon its release in December 1991. The film grossed more than $50 million worldwide, which was impressive considering that the film was more than three hours long, and ended up receiving eight Academy Award nominations, including best picture, best director and best supporting actor for Tommy Lee Jones. It ended up winning two of those awards for the experimental cinematography and editing. It also, much to Stone's delight no doubt, incited a whole media discussion about the Kennedy assassination. Much like the media circus that surrounded the release of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, all you could see and hear on the news for several months was talk of what actually occurred on Nov. 22, 1963. In point of fact, we probably will never know what occurred. As Pesci's nervous David Ferrie quotes Winston Churchill in the film, "It's a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." Still, perhaps whether we ever know the truth (or, to be more precise, know THAT we know the truth since we may already know it) isn't as important as that we never give up looking for it. Maybe the real message behind the film is that the pursuit of truth is more important then the possession of it.
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Labels: 90s, Costner, D. Sutherland, Ebert, John Williams, Kevin Bacon, Lemmon, Matthau, Mel Gibson, Movie Tributes, Oldman, Oliver Stone, Oscars, Pesci, Spacek, Tommy Lee Jones
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Friday, October 28, 2011
X's and evil
By Edward Copeland
I've never read a single X-Men comic book, but I loved the first two films, especially the second, though I thought the third was a miss and I skipped the Wolverine standalone movie. Of course, I doubt I'm alone in thinking that Magneto (as played by the marvelous Ian McKellen) wasn't a villain: He just argued for self-defense against those out to destroy mutants as opposed to the always conciliatory Professor X (Patrick Stewart). X-Men: First Class gives the series a welcome boost by going back and telling the story of how the group first started, when Magneto and Professor X were just young men named Charles and Erik and actually fought together.
What may be what I found most surprising about X-Men: First Class is that I think it's the first time I've enjoyed a performance by James McAvoy, who plays the young Charles Xavier who becomes Professor X. He displays a lightness and range that was missing in films such as The Last King of Scotland or Atonement. It's also fun to see the young Xavier as a partying college student in the early '60s using his telepathic powers to try to get laid as opposed to the serious man he will develop into as Professor X.
Michael Fassbender also does well as Erik Lehnsherr, the eventual Magneto, showing the World War II events that scarred him as a Jew and a tool of experimentation by the film's villain Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), who begins the film working with the Nazis but turns out to be a mutant himself intent on starting a nuclear war by engineering the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Bacon clearly enjoys chewing the scenery in his World War II scenes with his over-the-top German accent, but Shaw has some anti-aging abilities so when we meet him again in 1962 he speaks in his regular voice, which in a way might be one of the few points of shame in the otherwise other kicky ride.
Director Matthew Vaughn, who helmed Kick-Ass which got some favorable reviews but which I never saw, keeps X-Men: First Class moving at a good pace and handles both the action scenes and the quieter ones with equal aplomb.
The second biggest surprise for me was the character of Mystique. Not being familiar with her origin, I never realized that the blue shape shifter that Rebecca Romijn played in the original trilogy, began as Xavier's adopted sister and went by the name Raven. Even more startling, X-Men: First Class accomplishes something that none of the other films did: It makes her a sympathetic character, helped in no small part by having the young adult Mystique played by the talented Jennifer Lawrence, who is about as far removed from her Oscar-nominated role in Winter's Bone that you can imagine, but flexes more acting muscles in this movie than all the metal the two Magnetos have bent on film.
Others delivering fine performances include Oliver Platt as the only man in the CIA who believes in the mutant and their potential as a positive asset and Nicholas Hoult, who was so great as a kid in About a Boy and good in A Single Man, as a lab geek who turns out to be a mutant and turns himself into The Beast.
On the other hand, it can be a bit frightening to see January Jones as Sebastian Shaw's mutant partner in the 1960s, Emma Frost. The thought of Mad Men harridan Betty Draper Francis possessing special powers sends shivers down my spine.
The movie also has a priceless two-word cameo that comes when Charles and Erik travel the world recruiting mutants for their program. There's a single scene with the great Ray Wise as the secretary of state, but it's not enough. You can never give me enough Ray Wise.
While X-Men: First Class isn't as great as X-Men or X2: X-Men United, the movie provides a fun ride. My one major criticism is the explanation of the split between Professor X and Magneto and how Erik becomes the so-called "bad mutant." The explanation doesn't seem to fly.
In the other films, his explanation made sense to me since there were humans out to destroy or cure the mutants. Here, in the crucial moment that starts him on that path, it simply comes from the suggestion made by the Shaw character who he has hunted down for killing his mom and experimenting on him.
Other than that, X-Men: First Class turns out to be quite an enjoyable ride.
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Labels: 10s, Kevin Bacon, Mad Men, McAvoy, McKellen, Ray Wise, Sequels
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Friday, September 18, 2009
The light goes out
By Edward Copeland
I'm not going to pretend to be a regular, or even sporadic, viewer, of Guiding Light , but my mom is and my grandma was. At times in my life, I did. Summers as a child, bored afternoons as I waited to go work as a nighttime copy editor. Still, any drama that lasts a combined 72 years on radio and television deserves some notice when its time comes to an end, as the CBS soap opera will today. 72 years. That simply will never be equaled no matter how many times Law & Order refreshes its cast. Guiding Light began as a radio drama in 1937, at the beginning of FDR's second term. It began its television version in 1952 and kept the radio version
as well for the first six years. The first few years of the radio version featured the voice talents of none other than future Oscar winner and future voice of the possessed Linda Blair in The Exorcist, Mercedes McCambridge. The title came from the central character, a reverend who tried to advise and give strength to his town's citzens and he was voiced by Arthur Peterson (seen on left), who would be noticed 40 years later as The Major on Soap. Another of the radio voices belonged to Betty Lou Gerson, better known as Cruella De Vil. Guiding Light boasts an impressive lists of actors who either served time on the show as characters or appeared as guests, among them: Sandy Dennis, Christopher Walken, Barnard Hughes, Joseph Campanella, Blythe Danner, Kevin Bacon, Sherry Stringfield, Melina Kankaredes, Teresa Wright, Joan Bennett, Dick Cavett, James Coco, Dorothy Loudon,
Chita Rivera, Leslie Uggams, Tammy Grimes, Cindy Adams, Joan Collins, Philip Bosco, Jan Sterling, Allison Janney, Ruth Warrick (before All My Children), Chris Sarandon, Ed Begley Sr., Jesse L. Martin, Taye Diggs, Sorrell Booke, Everett McGill (Big Ed of Twin Peaks), Giancarlo Esposito and Adolph Caesar. The B-52s even dropped by once. Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton acted on the show from 1952-1962. James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson played a couple and when they left were replaced by Billy Dee Williams and Ruby Dee. Both of the Sopranos' neighbors the Cusamanos, Robert LuPone and Saundra Santiago, appeared at different times, though Santiago had the far more significant role as vindictive mobster Carmen Santos who, at last word, was still lying in a coma. She was deliciously bad, though you always had to blame her for killing off the great character of Ben (Hunt Block), which may have been one of the show's final, fatal missteps. The late Larry Gates had a long run as oil patriarch H.B. Lewis after a long career that included the films In the Heat of the Night, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Some Came
Running and the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Really, whether or not you ever watched any daytime drama, and if you don't soon you may not get the chance, because it's a dying breed in the expanded television universe, two paycheck households being the norm and the ratings of the survivors not justifying their costs, they are an amazing achievement. Some time they are bad, then they rebound. Some display some of the best television acting you'll see. Some also display the most awful amateurish acting you'll witness. However, when you consider they are on year-round for decades, the quality control is pretty remarkable. Some prime time shows have a hard time coming up with 22 good episodes in a season and run out of steam after a few seasons. Soap operas jump the shark, rise again, jump the shark again and repeat the whole cycle over and over again. That was the certainly the case with Guiding Light, at least with the times I watched. It
had one of the best daytime villains (and actors) ever in the late Michael Zaslow as the nefarious Roger Thorpe. As with any good villain, he was thought dead and came back but he was a bit different that he was never a cartoony bad guy as some soap villains become. As dastardly as he could be, he also was defiantly human. You could hate him, but at times you could understand and even sympathize with him without the character doing a complete 180 from where he started. He was even part of a landmark soap storyline of the 1970s when his wife Holly (Maureen Garrett) accused him of marital rape. Zaslow was far from the only great actor/character to grace the show. Justin Deas will be on until today's last episode as blue collar good guy with rough edges Buzz Cooper who originally arrived as a Vietnam vet who had faked his death in that war. Between Guiding Light, As the World Turns and the canceled Santa Barbara, Deas has been the recipient of six Daytime Emmy Awards. Of course, one of the most fabled of all the show's characters is Reva (Kim Zimmer), herself the winner of four Emmys despite being stuck in some of the show's
most ridiculous storylines. She was cloned. She had amnesia and became Amish after spending life in an island nation as its princess and having a secret child. After "dying," she came back as a ghost. There was a time traveling storyline, a period when she was suddenly psychic. She went through menopause and then years later became pregnant. It's a credit to Zimmer that she managed to keep Reva having any credibility at all. One of the best performances I ever witnessed on the show (which earned an Emmy) was Cynthia Watros as Annie, a nurse who became a woman scorned when her husband's former wife (Reva) came back from the dead and she slowly transformed into a double-barrelled psycho. It wasn't an abrupt change and included addiction to pills and drink that precipitated her fall but Watros was so great I often wonder why we don't see her in other venues. The character was so great, Annie even went so far as to kidnap a policewoman from another town and have plastic surgery to look like her to insinuate herself back into Springfield anonymously. Unfortunately, the face change meant no Watros. While soaps are often thought of mostly for the romance and trial and tribulations, not enough is made of their humor and Guiding Light was often very good at it, especially during the years Nola Reardon (Lisa Brown) was around with her crazy fantasies. So, even if you've never watched a soap and never plan to, raise a toast today to the passing of Guiding Light. The Bauers, the Spauldings, the Shaynes, the Coopers, the Lewises and the Reardons (are any of them left?) will live on in memories and an unaired Springfield after today and 72 years is one helluva broadcasting achievement. Replacing the show? A new version of Let's Make a Deal hosted by Wayne Brady. Now, that's depressing.Tweet
Labels: J.E. Jones, Joan Bennett, Kevin Bacon, Law and Order, TV Tribute, Walken
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Tuesday, June 12, 2007
This Time, The Accent's on Action
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of the Action Heroine Blog-a-thon being coordinated by Nathaniel R. at The Film Experience Blog.
By Odienator
Meryl Streep is many things: She is to accents what Lon Chaney was to faces. She is the most nominated actress in Oscar history. She is equally at home in comedy or drama, and she's sometimes too mannered in both. She was not, however, anybody's idea of an action hero. Both Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton had cornered the market when The River Wild came along, so casting Meryl as the action heroine was a bit of stunt casting akin to asking Kate Hepburn to beat someone's ass with nunchucks. Imagine Bette Davis flying through the air while a huge explosion went off behind her, followed by her doing a somersault while holding the two guns she'll use to blow away the villain mid flip. As she lands, she'll look at the bullet ridden body of her nemesis, shake her head and say "Peter, Peter, Peter!" This seemed less preposterous than casting Meryl Streep as an action heroine.
Director Curtis Hanson has been known for making odd casting choices that somehow paid off. Before he put Kim Basinger in L.A. Confidential and after he put freaky French femme fou Isabelle Huppert in The Bedroom Window, Hanson cast Streep as Gail, the feisty mom who takes her son river rafting for his 10th birthday. Her former life as a river guide, coupled with her missing Deliverance when it was in theaters, gives her the false notion this is a good idea. She is joined by her workaholic husband, Tom (David Straithairn), who originally turned down her invitation. Their family bonding adventure turns into a nightmare when she runs afoul of Wade (Kevin Bacon) and Terry (John C. Reilly), two thieves who have stolen a large sum of money.
When Wade falls overboard and nearly drowns, Tom saves his bacon. Wade repays him by kidnapping Gail and her kid, forcing her to help the thieves escape with the stolen loot. To succeed, Gail must navigate through a treacherous rapids section known as the Gauntlet, a stretch of water as violent and terrible as the Clint Eastwood movie that shares its name.
Once the action kicks in, Streep silences any doubt that she can hang with the Big Girls. With her slightly dieseled arms, she paddles through the Gauntlet assisted by Robert Elswit's cin-tog and Jerry Goldsmith's score. Though the outcome is never in doubt, seeing Streep in an action sequence apparently doing her own stunts adds a level of suspense and excitement to the proceedings. Even though the film takes some of the action out of the hands of its heroine, there is still enough to make Streep credible. She also gets to handle a gun, something every action heroine from Pam Grier on down should have the opportunity to do in her film.
Perhaps the flimsiness of the plot prohibited Hanson from casting a known action film actress in the role. One look at Weaver or Hamilton and you knew they'd immediately ram an oar into the villain's orifice. While they may have been better at outrunning aliens and cyborgs turned politicians, Streep was more masterful at handling the shadings of family tension that make up the majority of The River Wild. Watch how her subtle, girly reactions to the younger Wade's flirtations turn into outright hatred of the character when he puts her family in danger.
The one thing Gail has in common with her sisters in action, Ripley and Sarah Connor, is using her maternal instinct as the catalyst to kick ass. This notion seems quaint nowadays, with younger characters such as Lara Croft and Keira Knightley's babe from that Disney Ride movie putting a boot to booty just for the thrill of it all. Gail doesn't get into as many fights or set pieces as her contemporaries, but the character does enough to be allowed entry into the Women in Action Blog-a-thon.
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Labels: 90s, Bette, Blog-a-thons, Eastwood, John C. Reilly, K. Hepburn, Keira Knightley, Kevin Bacon, Sigourney Weaver, Streep
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Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Chris Penn (1965-2006)
Chris Penn (often credited as Christopher) seemed to live in the shadow of his more acclaimed acting brother Sean (though to Chris' credit he never exhibited a lack of a sense of humor, married Madonna or starred in I Am Sam. Still, despite his young death (some sources say he was 40, others 43) and unfulfilled potential, it's worth looking back at some of Chris Penn's most memorable performances.
Footloose (1984): Penn was the crucial element in what may be the film's best sequence as Kevin Bacon tries to teach Penn's geeky teen how to dance as "Let's Hear It for the Boy" plays on the soundtrack.
The Wild Life (1984): Many dismissed Penn's character of Tom Drake as a lesser attempt to equal brother Sean's brilliant Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. While both films boasted a script by Cameron Crowe, The Wild Life is nowhere near as good as the other film, but Penn brings a lot of fun nuances to Tom Drake.
Reservoir Dogs (1992): Nice Guy Eddie arguably is the best work Chris Penn ever put on screen, handling Quentin Tarantino's dialogue with ease and excellence, especially in the scene where he doubts the accusation that the late Mr. Blond (Michael Madsen) was the rat.
Short Cuts (1993): Part of Robert Altman's strong ensemble in this blending of Raymond Carver short stories, Penn is quietly powerful as the husband of Jennifer Jason Leigh, a phone sex worker. When Penn's character does snap, it seems both unexpected and completely preordained at the same time.
Penn made other movies I saw (Pale Rider, Rumble Fish, True Romance), but he didn't really register in them for me. These are the four performances that stand out for me. It's a shame we won't see more and that his career never really took off.
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Labels: Altman, J.J. Leigh, Kevin Bacon, Obituary, Sean Penn, Tarantino
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