Monday, May 20, 2013
Prison of My Dreams
By Edward Copeland
As I snap the cuffs on Will Smith's wrists, I try to look stern and sympathetic simultaneously. "I take no pleasure in having to do this, Mr. Smith, but it's for your own good as well as the good of the public. Hopefully, your stay will be a short one." I'm taking Smith to serve his sentence in the Copeland Penitentiary for Bad Film Ideas. The actor received a summary conviction with the recent announcement of his interest of remaking Sam Peckinpah's classic Western The Wild Bunch. We had no choice. Trying to do a new version of such a revered film would be bad enough, but when you read the details that explain it would be a modern version involving the DEA and drug cartels, it sounds as if it's only stealing the title. We couldn't risk this debacle-in-development from getting to pre-production. Smith needed to be jailed until he regained his senses.
Now, if Smith breaks quickly, his sentence should be short since this idea didn't originate with him. Warner Bros. has toyed with the idea of a remake for more than a decade with various names such as the late director Tony Scott and stars such as Tom Cruise mentioned. If it were possible to put an entire studio into permanent solitary confinement, I would do it. Johnny Depp, pictured above being taken the prison to serve his time, had a longer time behind bars when he announced his intention to make a new version of The Thin Man and to take on William Powell's trademark role of Nick Charles. Thankfully, that talk disappeared once we locked up Depp for awhile and he hasn't mentioned it since. It's great that Depp loves The Thin Man — but the original remains and people should watch it. (If only the prison existed before Gus Van Sant got his cuckoo idea of doing a shot-by-shot remake of Hitchcock's Psycho in color.)
Look at the case of something that happened before the Copeland Penitentiary opened when Russell Brand remade Arthur with Brand in the Dudley Moore role and Helen Mirren taking over for John Gielgud. It sounded like a bad idea on paper, looked more horrendous when commercials and trailers appeared and received mostly bad reviews. (I did enjoy that the original in 1981 grossed more than the remake's budget which flopped badly.) What disturbed me was that the original Arthur never received a DVD release in the proper ratio and when the remake came out, they released a Blu-ray that forced you to get it with its awful sequel Arthur 2: On the Rocks.
Therein lies the dangers of remakes of great films. With technology constantly changing and money always an issue, at some point they'll start leaving us with the fresher versions, assuming that younger audiences won't know or care to see the classics. I'd try to talk them into how much money they'd save if they just re-released older films to theaters without having to spend all that money on new movies, but they won't go for it. Besides, making movies cost WAY too much to make and see today and the best stuff gets made on television anyway.
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Labels: 10s, Cruise, Depp, Gielgud, Hitchcock, Mirren, Peckinpah, Remakes, T. Scott, Television, Van Sant, W. Smith, William Powell
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Saturday, November 26, 2011
Citizen Insane
By J.D.
The Mosquito Coast (1986) is one of Harrison Ford’s most fascinating performances and it came at a time when he was able to use his box office clout from the lucrative Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises to push more challenging films through the Hollywood system. This certainly applies to this film, released 25 years ago today, which focuses on a brilliant inventor who decides that Western society has become too corrupt and materialistic and moves his family to the jungles of Central America where he attempts to manipulate a small village into his idea of a civilized society. Not exactly the most accessible project, but Ford and director Peter Weir, hot off their successful collaboration on Witness (1985), teamed up again on The Mosquito Coast, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Paul Theroux.
The film examines a man obsessed with imposing his will on others to the degree that he exhibits self-destructive tendencies. What better person to realize this than Paul Schrader who was brought on to write the screenplay. He knows a thing or two about these types of protagonists as evident with Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980), both of which he wrote. The Mosquito Coast also allowed Weir to continue his fascination with strangers in a strange land, which he had explored previously in The Year of Living Dangerously (1983) and Witness. So, the trifecta of Ford, Schrader and Weir was an inspired one, but the end result was too extreme for mainstream audiences and the film was a box office flop and received mixed reviews.
Charlie Fox (River Phoenix) narrates the film after the events depicted in the film. He is a young, teenage boy who clearly idolized his father: “I grew up with the belief that the world belonged to him and that everything he said was true.” Allie Fox (Harrison Ford) is a brash and brilliant inventor. Right from the first shot, he expresses his disappointment with what America has become as he tells Charlie, “Look around you. How did America get this way?…This place is a toilet.” Weir cuts to a shot of Allie and his son driving down a street dominated by fast food restaurants, their large signs almost completely obscuring several trees and a grassy hill as the visuals only serve to prove Allie’s point and will be eerily relevant towards the end of the film.
Allie continues his rant as if he were channeling Travis Bickle’s disgust for society from Taxi Driver: “The whole damn country is turning into a dope-taking, door-locking, ulcerated danger zone of rabid scavengers, criminal millionaires and moral snakes.” Amazingly, these words come out of a film released during the height of the supposedly “Greed is good,” Ronald Reagan-era 1980s in America when the country’s economy was booming. However, these sentiments also apply to our current situation with the war in Iraq, the Enron scandal, 9/11, and the collapse of the global economy. Allie is disgusted by what America has become and is “sick of dealing with people who want things I’ve already rejected.” Ford delivers this angry monologue with just the right amount of self-righteous indignation.
The first inkling that Allie is losing touch with reality comes when he agrees to make a cooling system for a nearby farmer. Not only is he late with the device, but it isn’t what the man wanted. Ford is brilliant as he shows how Allie takes a rejection and deflects it, ignoring his mistake as a shortcoming of the farmer. This incident only confirms his beliefs. The farmer’s parting shot is probably the best observation about Allie: “A know-it-all who’s sometimes right.” After observing some poor migrant workers, Allie begins to think about how valuable ice and his cooling system would be in the jungle where it's always oppressively hot. He laments that these workers left the jungle to work basically as slaves for the farmer and muses about the courage it would take to leave civilization and live in the jungle.
So, Allie uproots his family — wife (Helen Mirren), two sons and two daughters — and heads for the jungles of Belize. En route, he and his family cross paths with the Rev. Gurney Spellgood (Andre Gregory) and his family. Spellgood is a man who will play a prominent role in their lives. Allie has little time for Spellgood and religion, referring to The Bible as “God’s owner’s handbook.” He is even able to quote Scripture back to Spellgood. Like Allie, Spellgood is zealous in his beliefs, they just happen to be based in religion, not science.
As soon as Allie and his family arrive, Weir immerses us in this strange new world with an audio-visual assault on our senses with local music and the hustle and bustle of the port city. Allie buys a small town and the next day, he and his family take a boat there. Weir shows a long shot of their journey along a curvy river that goes deep into the jungle and one can’t help but think of Willard’s river journey in Apocalypse Now (1979), only Allie is Colonel Kurtz ready to go native and impose his will on the locals. The river journey features some beautiful cinematography courtesy of Weir’s regular cinematographer John Seale. The vibrant greens of the lush jungle jump out at you and are in sharp contrast to the brown dirt that populates the jungle floor. As he did with Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and The Year of Living Dangerously, Weir has a real knack for plunging us in the film’s setting, so much so that it almost becomes like another character. The Mosquito Coast is no different as we see how harsh the environment is, from the intense sun to the monsoon-like rain. This inhospitability is juxtaposed with the beauty of the trees and the serene river that winds through the jungle.
Allie puts his family and the natives to work, clearing the land and gathering resources so they can build his utopia. At times, he seems to do so through sheer force of will. Everything seems to be going smoothly until Spellgood shows up and tries to win back the hearts and minds of the townsfolk only to have Allie spurn him yet again, much to the pastor’s chagrin. The confrontation serves as a prelude to future conflict between these two headstrong men.
Harrison Ford delivers one of his best performances as he shows us the method to Allie’s madness. He is a charismatic despot of sorts. In a way, many of his diatribes about the wasteful nature of America are right on point. It’s his solution to its ills that don’t always make sense. Ford commits fully to the role without a shred of vanity. He’s not afraid to play an unlikable character and approaches Allie Fox as someone who thinks that they aren’t crazy even though it is pretty obvious that he has a very skewed perspective on things. Ford nails the zeal of Allie’s beliefs but still is able to make him somewhat relatable thanks to his natural charisma. It’s a role that calls for the kind of physicality that Ford excels at as we see Allie building the town with his own hands. He is so good at the physical aspects of acting — hence all the action roles he’s played in his career — and Allie is no different. More importantly, Ford shows how Allie’s megalomaniacal tendencies gradually consume him. It is small things, at first, such as the way he belittles one of his sons for complaining about having to rough it in the jungle.
Weir does a good job ratcheting up the tension during a sequence where three armed mercenaries arrive and Allie has to come up with a way to get them to leave. It is where Allie’s madness actually works to his advantage — but at a horrible price — as he'll allow the destruction of everything he worked so hard to build in order to get rid of the mercenaries. Eventually, Allie’s epic vision becomes incredibly myopic as he alienates his own family. The actors that play the family members all excel, from Helen Mirren as the nurturing mother to River Phoenix as the loyal son. Initially, they all believe unconditionally in what Allie is doing, but they gradually come to question his methods. Allie pushes these decent people to their breaking points.
Producer Jerome Hellman read Paul Theroux’s novel in 1982 and bought the film rights with his own money shortly after it was published. He felt that a great film was possible if the right people were involved, but he also had his reservations and in the film's production notes, admitted that he “didn’t fully appreciate how out of the ordinary the Establishment would consider this.” He soon hired screenwriter Paul Schrader to adapt the book and a first draft was developed in 1983. That same year, Hellman approached Peter Weir to direct based on films such as Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Year of Living Dangerously. Hellman said, “the thematic harmony between Peter’s previous work and The Mosquito Coast was striking, but I was also impressed with the humanism in his work.”
After reading the first draft of the script, Weir met with Hellman and Schrader in Sydney, Australia, where they spent a week discussing every aspect. Once he felt that it could be made into a film, Weir agreed to direct. Hellman then brought him to the United States and showed him the book’s New England locations. The producer also arranged a meeting between Weir and Theroux, but the director was apprehensive because he had a bad experience with a novelist on one of his earlier films. Fortunately, the two men got along and Theroux encouraged Weir to make the film his own. Hellman and Weir then spent two years trying to get a studio interested in making The Mosquito Coast but with little success. According to the Daily News, Hellman remembered that they were turned down all over Hollywood, “most places three or four times.”
In early 1984, they realized that due to the seasonal demands of the plot, they would have to delay principal photography for another year. However, Weir was chomping at the bit to direct a film and he received an offer to direct Witness. During the making of that film, he developed a close working relationship with Ford. Jack Nicholson also became interested in taking on the role of Allie Fox but when the deal fell through, Hellman and Weir agreed that Ford would be perfect to play the character. Ford was drawn to the role because it was so different from anything he had done. As he stated in the film's production notes: “I was aware that there was opportunity here for more complicated characterization and because the character is so verbal and effusive, it goes against the kind of characters for which I’m best known.” Ford also wanted “the edgy feeling of the book still to be preserved. We didn’t want to abandon the balls of it because it’s not necessary for him (Allie) to be entirely likable as long as the audience can understand what he’s about.”
After Witness became a big hit, almost every studio wanted to make The Mosquito Coast but Hellman, burned out from shopping the film around and getting rejected repeatedly, wanted to find independent financing. He met with producer Saul Zaentz to ask for advice and to read the script. He did and was so taken with it that he offered to have his company finance, present and supervise the film's distribution.
Seeing as how most of the film is set in the jungle, it was crucial that Hellman and Weir find the right location. They considered Costa Rica, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico and Hawaii before picking Belize, which had everything they needed —mountains, ocean, jungle and rivers — all within an hour radius of Belize City. It also was an English language country whose political situation was stable. While filming in the jungle, the cast and crew endured cuts and bruises, mosquito bites and heavy sunburn with large snakes common on the set. Ford found the shoot long and humid. It was more exhausting for him mentally than physically because of “the complexity of the role and the endless process of sorting out and reappraising where we were at,” he told the Daily News. Weir drew inspiration for the visual look of The Mosquito Coast from a bulletin board he had on location that was adorned with postcards, pages from magazines, a pressed flower, a match box, and so on. “It’s a question of texture, a kind of mosaic of inspirations,” he said in an interview with American Film magazine. Weir felt that it was important to film the construction of the town Allie owns in continuity, so three versions were created. Each was a little more advanced than the one before. As the crew moved from one set to another, the construction crew would do additional work on the previous set. This allowed Weir to film in days what would’ve taken many months to do.
In some respects, one could see The Mosquito Coast as a commentary on the extreme nature of the cult of personality as both Allie and Spellgood are prime examples of people who believe that their vision of society is the right one. At first, Allie’s vision is quite seductive and seems to work but as time goes on and outside forces threaten it, the cracks begin to show. Weir takes an unflinching look at the extremes of science and religion and this apparently turned off audiences and critics alike. It is time for this film to be rediscovered and recognized as one of his more thought-provoking efforts made within the system by a movie star with enough clout to make it happen.
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Labels: 80s, Books, Fiction, Harrison Ford, Mirren, Movie Tributes, Nicholson, River Phoenix, Schrader, Star Wars
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Sunday, July 17, 2011
He did more than just think funny things
By Edward Copeland
Thirty years ago, we were visiting my aunt and uncle when one night my older cousin came home raving about a hysterical movie that he and his date had seen called Arthur and how good this Dudley Moore was in the title role. Why he didn't know who Moore was before that, I can't rationally explain. I certainly knew who he was. Not only from two years earlier in Blake Edwards' sex farce 10 but for his amusing supporting turn in 1978's Foul Play with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. Admittedly, I was unaware of his decades of British work with the satirical troupe Beyond the Fringe or his frequent comic pairings with Peter Cook. However, when Arthur opened on this date 30 years ago, it launched Moore into the stratosphere in the U.S. thanks to his brilliant comic turn, a great supporting cast led first and foremost by the incomparable Sir John Gielgud and a Grade A script by writer and first-time director Steve Gordon. Despite the best efforts to suppress the original gem for this year's remake which thankfully bombed, the real Arthur survives and perhaps finally will get the proper DVD release the movie always has been denied.
Arthur Bach (Moore) may look like an adult, but he's really a child trapped in a man's body and having one helluva time with it. He's a wealthy playboy devoted to fun and leisure and leaving many an empty bottle in his wake across Manhattan. In the film's very first scene, his chauffeur Bitterman stops the Rolls by two streetwalkers for his drunken boss who asks if "the more
attractive" of the two would please step forward. Realizing that's not the best approach, even when you are paying, Arthur amends his query to ask the one who finds him more attractive to step forward. Dressed in red spandex pants, the hooker Gloria (very recognizable character actress Anne De Salvo) steps up to the car and asks Arthur what he wants. "VD. I'm really into penicillin," he laughs. She gets in any way as the inebriated heir continues to crack jokes and laugh. When she asks him what he does for a living, Arthur tells her, "I race cars, play tennis and fondle women, but I have weekends off and I AM my own boss." At one point, he just starts laughing for no apparent reason. Gloria asks what's so funny. "Sometimes I just think funny things," he responds. Arthur will say a lot of funny things as will the other members of the cast and we'll learn we're not just laughing at someone doing a drunk act — if it's been a while since you've seen the 1981 film, you might be surprised to see how relatively little time Arthur spends soused in the movie and when he's on a bender, something has usually set him off or he's inoculating himself ahead of time for an event he's dreading. There's a serious reason behind it that actually makes Arthur slightly deeper than your average comedy. I'll get to all that later, first I have to take a break to vent about unnecessary remakes and how they actually can be dangerous in this era.I must get this rant off my chest about the Arthur remake that came out earlier this year with Russell Brand taking Moore's role and John Gielgud's Oscar-winning valet Hobson getting a sex change and becoming Arthur's nanny Hobson in the form of Oscar winner Helen Mirren. I did not see the remake. I live by the principle that if the original movie was really good or great, I will not see a remake of it. There's no point other than filmmakers
bereft of original ideas looking to steal what worked in the past and, inevitably, doing a piss-poor job of it. When I first heard that they were remaking Arthur, I thought it sounded like a bad idea. Once commercials started appearing, it looked much worse than even I imagined. It didn't help that they had Brand going around semi-criticizing the original in a way that only proved he couldn't have seen it (or wasn't sober at that time if he did). Since the character of Arthur does drink to excess and Brand is a recovering addict in real life, he made a big point about changes in the remake as if the original were pro-alcoholism. “It was very important that we established a context where the alcohol was humbling,” Brand said in an interview. “In 2011, you also need to see a resolution to his vice. I was happy to see how it was rendered.” The only times Dudley Moore's Arthur Bach gets drunk is when he's miserable or frightened. Once he meets Linda (Liza Minnelli) and falls in love or when he worries about Hobson's health and becomes his caretaker for a change, his drinking ceases. His drinking wasn't a vice: It was an anesthetic to ease his pain about being forced into marriage with a woman he not only didn't love but didn't like much either with the cost of refusing to wed her being the loss of his fortune.What's most despicable in this case is that it sort of proves my fears of why remakes are dangerous. With the constant development of new technologies, Hollywood won't keep transferring every film ever made to the latest format. They will stick to the most recent versions with the most recognizable stars. When I started plotting out tributes to do this year at the end of 2010, I knew that the 30th anniversary of Arthur would be one of them. Upon investigation, I was shocked to find that it was NEVER released on DVD in its proper aspect ratio. All versions were cropped instead of the 1.85:1 in which it was shot. (At the time of the remake's release, the original along with its horrid 1988 sequel Arthur 2: On the Rocks were released together on a single Blu-ray disc in widescreen without any special features which even the cropped DVDs had.) I also try to collect screenshots from the web ahead of time, so I know if there is anything I'll have to grab from the DVD. Surprisingly, very few shots from the actual 1981 movie are out there. Mostly, there are poster or publicity stills. Even more frightening, if you try to do an advanced search where you specifically omit the name "Russell Brand," you still end up getting more art related to the remake than the original anyway. Now someone tell me I have nothing to fear from Johnny Depp's ego thinking it needs to play Nick Charles in a remake of The Thin Man. If they start trying to pretend that a 1981 film doesn't exist, what do you think they'll do with one made in 1934? Think they released that no-frills Blu-ray where they handcuffed it to its terrible sequel by accident or so they can say, "Nobody bought it" and then let it die? It's more ridiculous when you realize what a gigantic hit the original Arthur was and what a colossal flop the remake turned out to be.
Back to the real Arthur. We'll pick up where we left off with Arthur on his "date" with Gloria. Part of the genius of Steve Gordon's screenplay was how deftly it intertwined plentiful laughs and exposition at the same time. Arthur takes Gloria to dinner at The Plaza. Needless to say, when she walks in first, the maitre'd (Dillon Evans) is ready to throw the hooker out — until he sees she's with "Mr. Bach" and then he's all manners. The other haughty patrons express shock, but few of them stand to inherit $750 million someday so the maitre'd isn't
too concerned. On their way to Arthur's regular table, Arthur spots his Uncle Peter (Maurice Copeland, no relation) and Aunt Pearl (Justine Johnston). He goes on to introduce the hooker as "Princess Gloria," telling them she hails from a tiny country. "It's terribly small, tiny little country," he breathes on Aunt Pearl to her disgust. "Rhode Island could beat the crap out of it in a war. That's how small it is." Uncle Peter finally steps in saying what he does know is that Arthur is terribly drunk and perhaps they should see him when he's sober. "Grow up Arthur, you'll make a fine adult," his uncle tells him. "That's easy for you to say. You don't have 50 pair of short pants hanging in your closet," Arthur responds as Gloria leadx him to their table. Without being aware of what he just asked, Arthur prods Gloria to tell him about herself. "You mean why I'm a hooker?" she replies. She goes on to reveal that her mother died when she was 6 and her father raped her when she was 12. "So you had six relatively good years," Arthur slurs. "Sorry. My father screwed me too." That's how he introduces the film's main plot point and why Arthur drinks. His father and grandmother keep pressuring him to marry a young heiress named Susan Johnson, but Arthur wants no part of it. He holds on to the silly notion that he'll get married for love.The next morning, when Gloria wakes up with Arthur in his bedroom that looks more suited for a child, complete with an elaborate train set behind his bed, we meet the most important person in Arthur's life: his butler/manservant/valet Hobson (Gielgud, who most deservedly took home the Oscar for best supporting actor). We first see him as elevators door open to reveal him bearing a tray of breakfast sustenance. Having just awakened, Arthur's embracing Gloria and we hear Hobson intone, "Please stop that." He steps further into the room and informs Arthur, "I've taken the liberty of anticipating your condition. I have brought you orange juice, coffee, and aspirins. Or do you need to throw up?" Gloria registers surprise at the sudden appearance of this British gentleman who hands her a robe and asks her to put it on, adding that she has breakfast waiting for her on the patio. "Say goodbye to Gloria, Arthur," Hobson instructs him and Arthur does as he says. Later, Arthur sits in a chair reading part of the newspaper while Hobson stands next to him reading another. It's a scene that contains several classic moments and, thankfully, YouTube had the clip.
Now Arthur's bathtub is much like his bedroom: Elaborate with an intercom system and a stereo (From the photo of the remake the bigger budget seems to have bought a smaller tub with fewer frills). Hobson reminds him that he must meet with his father in his office, so he gets prepped. Once they arrive and wait in the outer lobby, Arthur's jitters are on full display. He tells Hobson how he hates it there. "Of course you hate it. People work here," Hobson replies, before ordering Arthur to lean back in his chair and sit up straight. The receptionist announces that Arthur's father will see him now. He wants to take Hobson, but the receptionist says that his father said for Arthur to come in alone. After Arthur has left, an
exec in the lobby (Paul Gleason) picks up the courtesy phone and says to Hobson, "He gets all that money. Pays his family back by being a stinkin' drunk. It's enough to make ya sick." Hobson smiles. "I really wouldn't know, sir. I'm just a servant. On the other hand, go screw yourself." In his father's office, Arthur makes a beeline for the bar. His father, Stanford Bach (Thomas Barbour), flips through newspaper clips, noting how his drunken playboy status has made great fodder for the tabloids. He calls his son weak. "I despise your weakness," his father tells him. Arthur reiterates what he says he's told his father "a thousand times." He's not going to marry Susan Johnson. His father tries to sell him on it, insisting that he wants it, his grandmother wants it and Burt Johnson wants it. "Burt Johnson — he's a criminal!" Arthur exclaims in reference to Susan's father. Stanford Bach says they all are criminals in their own way and he admires Arthur, in a way, for sticking to his principles, but from this moment on — he's cut off. "From you? From grandmother? The rest of the family?" Arthur gulps. His father shakes his head. "You mean from —" Arthur can't even say the word. "The money Arthur," his father says. Suddenly, Arthur has a change of heart about Susan, finding positive qualities about her. Stanford shakes his son's hand. "Congratulations Arthur. You're gonna be a very wealthy man for the rest of your life," he tells him. "It's all I've ever wanted to be."Most of the pieces for Gordon's simple yet great screenplay are in place but the final part comes into play after Arthur's meeting with his father when he and Hobson go shopping at Bergdorf Goodman. Arthur goes on a spiteful spending spree, ordering three dozen of a particular shirt then telling Hobson, "I hate my father." "Buy four dozen," Hobson advises and Arthur increases the order. Then Arthur spots her (Liza
Minnelli). She's wearing a red hat and bright yellow slicker with a bag draped over her shoulder — and she steals a necktie and stuffs it in the bag. Arthur asks Hobson if he saw that. "It's the perfect crime — women don't wear ties. Some women do so it's not the perfect crime, but it's a good crime," Arthur comments. He then sees that the store's security guard has begun to follow her. Despite Hobson questioning why they should care, Arthur follows her out to the street where the guard confronts her, accusing her of stealing a tie. She gets confrontational, wanting to know the guard's name and asking the people in the crowd to get her a cop. Arthur steps in and says he thinks he can straighten this out. The guard of course knows who he is. He tells the guard he told her to pick out a tie and he'd put on his bill at the cashier. Arthur even asks to see it which the woman shows to him. Arthur says it's lovely and plants a big kiss on her lips. He tells the guard to have the cashier add the tie to his bill and he just keeps following the woman, whose name he learns is Linda. She can't figure out who the tall British gentleman stalking them is. When Arthur tells her he's not married, she gives him her phone number. "Thank you for a memorable afternoon," Hobson tells her. "Usually one must go to a bowling alley to meet a woman of your stature." Arthur lets Bitterman drive her home while he and Hobson continue shopping. Now the romance, albeit thwarted, at the center of Arthur may be between Arthur and Linda, but when you get right down to it, the film's most important relationship exists between Arthur and Hobson. The reason Arthur drinks has little to do with him being an overgrown kid out to have a good time but much to do with
the lousy childhood he had. The movie never even alludes to what happened to Arthur's mother, but in one of the film's quieter and sweeter scenes, when he's showing Linda his favorite horse, she comments how great it must have been to be around the horses and the rest of the estate when he was growing up. Arthur admits he wasn't home a lot because he always was at a boarding school — and he got kicked out of 10 prep schools because he was a bad kid. "You weren't bad. You just wanted to come home," Linda tells him. She's right — and the main reason for that was Hobson, who treated Arthur more like a son than Stanford Bach did. Sure, Hobson and Arthur have a teasing relationship, but Hobson always has been Arthur's protector. While the rapport between Moore and Gielgud provides many of the movie's biggest laughs, it also supplies the film with much of its emotional underpinnings and heart. You can tell from looks that Gielgud gives early in the film (or the TV ads showing Mirren's Hobson in the remake) that Hobson isn't well and he's trying to prepare Arthur for life when he's no longer there.At first, Hobson isn't the wise oracle you might take him for, at least when it comes to Arthur's feelings toward Linda. When Arthur asks Bitterman where Hobson is and the driver says he's tired, Arthur notes that he's been tired a lot lately. Arthur goes to Hobson's room out of concern for his surrogate father and also to vent because he's feeling crappy, having just told Linda about his engagement to Susan. First, Hobson tries to
allay Arthur's fears about his health by doing his usual hammy fake dying scene, but Arthur isn't in the mood. He tells Hobson about his admission to Linda and the old valet, assuming they still are playing their usual verbal games responds, "I don't know why. A little tart like that could save you a fortune in prostitutes." Arthur gets livid, yelling at Hobson never to speak about Linda in that way again and asking why he has to be such a snob before storming out. It actually causes Hobson to sit up in bed when Arthur returns to the room, saying that's the first time he's yelled at him in his life. "Perhaps you're growing up," Hobson suggests. Despite Arthur standing up for Linda as he did, it still isn't enough to convince Hobson yet that Arthur's feelings really represent love for Linda and not just resistance to marrying Susan. Arthur's mood does not change though. Hobson accompanies him to one of his favorite getaways — some high-speed spins around the racetrack — but Bach remains as morose as ever when he climbs out of his car, complaining to Hobson that, "I could love somebody. I never got to love anybody. I'm a failure in everything I do." Hobson asks Arthur to remove his racing helmet, then his goggles, and holds them both under one arm as he repeatedly slaps him on both cheeks with one hand.
And incidentally, I love you. (Hobson puts his arm around Arthur and they walk off together.) Marry Susan, Arthur. Poor drunks do not find love, Arthur. Poor drunks have very few teeth, they urinate outdoors,
they freeze to death in summer. I can't bear to think of you that way."
Hobson may have advised Arthur to marry Susan, but he has plans of his own. He soon shows up at Linda's apartment with a dress and the time and address for Arthur and Susan's engagement party. Linda can see that the old man is sick, but she realizes he's doing this because he cares for Arthur. He tells her he still recognizes when "a gentleman is in love." She does have to ask though if Arthur sent him. "Arthur would never be involved in something as devious as this," Hobson insists. Linda tells Hobson that Arthur has a really good friend in him. "You really look out for him, don't you?" she says. "It's a job I highly recommend," Hobson
responds. He has another bad coughing spell as he's leaving and she asks if he's seen a doctor. "Yes — and he has seen me." Soon, Hobson does end up hospitalized and his role and Arthur's are reversed as Arthur sees to his care, completely re-doing his hospital room, bringing him catered meals against doctor's orders ("I'm not going to let his last meal be jello.") and moving in himself. He also brings him a plethora of gifts from basketballs and toy trains to a cowboy hat, which Hobson insists he remove if he should die suddenly. After Arthur stays up most of the night when Hobson has a bad one, Hobson tells him in the morning that he looks awful. "That's because you've never seen me sober," Arthur tells him. At one point as he grows weaker, Hobson confides to Arthur that he can do anything he wants. Arthur asks what he means. "Figure it out." The pairing of Gielgud and Moore was brilliant casting on someone's part and, as I wrote before, Gielgud deserved that Oscar win. Moore also deserved his nomination for best actor, but he faced a tougher field that consisted of Warren Beatty in Reds, sentimental favorite and winner Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond, Burt Lancaster in Atlantic City and Paul Newman in Absence of Malice.Watching it again, you have to commend whoever took a chance on Steve Gordon and let him make his directing debut on Arthur when it was only the second screenplay he'd written. The first, The One and Only starring Henry Winkler and directed by Carl Reiner, wasn't bad, but couldn't prepare anyone for how good Arthur would be. The remainder of Gordon's resume consisted of limited sitcom writing on shows such as Barney Miller and Chico and the Man and as creator/head writer of a short-lived 1976 comedy called The Practice starring Danny Thomas. Sadly, after the success of Arthur, including an Oscar nomination and a Writers Guild award for original screenplay, Gordon died in 1982 of heart failure at the age of 44.
Arthur wouldn't feel that out of place if it had been made decades earlier than 1981 except for some language and sexual innuendo. Classic comic scene follows classic comic scene, great actors both of stature and solid character work fill most every role and it
follows the tried-and-true rule of the best comedies by running around 90 minutes. (The remake and the original's own awful sequel both end up 10 minutes shy of the two hour mark.) The infectious, bouncy score by Burt Bacharach blends perfectly with the laughs and tugs on the heart when needed, though the instrumental music was overshadowed by the film's popular and award-winning theme song. The cinematography by Fred Schuler (who also filmed The King of Comedy) makes Manhattan look beautiful and glistening, something you didn't see too often in films of the late '70s and early '80s. I've praised the exquisite work of Moore and Gielgud, but some of the others deserve their due. Admittedly, I've always felt that Liza Minnelli was the weak link as Linda, but seeing it again, I enjoyed her performance more than I have in the past and it's probably the most likable she's been on screen. Of course, this was before her body was made mostly of plastic, rivets and wax. Even better is the late Barney Martin (probably best known now as Morty Seinfeld on Seinfeld) as Linda's unemployed father who gets more upset than she does at times when it looks as if she's lost her chance at love with a multimillionaire. Martin's far from the only familiar face that shows up. 
Jill Eikenberry, long before L.A. Law, gets the somewhat thankless task of playing Susan, Arthur's unwanted fiancée, who always denies the evidence of what's in front of her — namely that Arthur isn't attracted to her in the least. She's blind to the clue of his drunken playboy antics that perhaps she shouldn't be anxious for this marriage. She does come from her own fortune after all. The restaurant scene where Arthur forces himself to propose turns out to be another hilarious keeper as he shows up blotto — he couldn't go through with it otherwise — and tosses out a seemingly endless line of nonsequiturs. (My personal favorite: "Do you have any objection to naming a child Vladimir? Even a girl?") Susan never runs out of patience, insisting to Arthur that "a real woman could stop you from drinking" to which he replies, "It'd have to be a real BIG woman." While Susan may be a forgiving sort, the same cannot be said for her father Bert Johnson, a tough self-made millionaire who likes to intimidate and, though he wants Arthur to marry his daughter, he doesn't trust him or like his drinking. Played
by another great character actor, Stephen Elliott, veteran of countless TV appearances as well as films such as The Hospital and Beverly Hills Cop as the police chief. Bert sets up a meeting with Arthur to make it clear that he won't put up with his nonsense. Arthur offers him a drink, though he's in Bert's house, but Bert informs him that no one in his family drinks. "I don't drink because drinking affects your decision-making," Bert tells Arthur. "You may be right. I can't decide," Arthur replies. On a feature on the DVD, which must have been made before anyone even dreamed of a laserdisc let alone a DVD, the late Gordon talks about how during the sequence, which takes place in Bert's study in front of the head of a moose he killed while hunting, Dudley Moore kept improvising so many funny things that he ended up with 12 takes where each one was just as funny as the last and he wished someday he could run all of them in a row. Bert makes a point of telling Arthur — with a smile no less — how he killed a man when he was 11 who was trying to steal food from his family. "Well, when you're 11 you probably don't even know there's a law against that," a drunken and nervous Arthur replies.
Sir John Gielgud wasn't the only actor with "prestige" in Arthur. Also a delight is Geraldine Fitzgerald, the Irish-born actress whose film career dated back to the 1930s (She earned a supporting actress Oscar nomination for 1939's Wuthering Heights), though she moved to the U.S. early and became an American citizen during World War II to be in solidarity with her adopted country, and earned the title of a British Lady when she wed Sir Edward Lindsay-Hogg 4th Bt., which means he held an inherited title of baronetcy from one of the U.K.'s isles. Fitzgerald turns in a doozy of a performance as Arthur's grandmother, who he calls Martha, and who is keeper of the Bach family fortune. She can be naughty, as when she tells Arthur, "Every time you get an erection it makes the papers" or asks him, "Is it wonderful to be promiscuous?" However, she might seem old and dotty, but that doesn't mean she isn't ruthless as she insists that Arthur marry Susan, reminding him that he's too old to be poor. "You're a scary old broad, Martha," he tells his grandmother. She's also one of the few with the guts to stand up to Bert Johnson in the film's climax, slapping him and threatening him with the words, "Don't screw with me."
I wanted to make sure to include a good shot of Ted Ross as the chauffeur Bitterman. He didn't get a lot to do, giving a performance that was mostly reacting to what was going on around him. He wasn't close to Arthur the way Hobson was, but he had a similar dynamic where he could be exasperated by his boss, but he wouldn't want to work for anyone else. Ross deserves some recognition not just for his performance because
he also belongs to the sadly long list of people associated with Arthur who have died in the 30 years since it was released. I already discussed the early and untimely death of writer-director Steve Gordon, but of the performers in major roles in the film we have lost Dudley Moore, John Gielgud, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Stephen Elliott, Ted Ross, Barney Martin and Thomas Barbour. Even though they only had single brief scenes, even Paul Gleason, Lou Jacobi who plays a florist, Richard Hamilton who plays a drunk in a bar who listens to Arthur's story and Lawrence Tierney who plays a diner customer sitting next to Arthur when he proposes to Linda. Of the major characters and notable appearances, only Liza Minnelli, Jill Eikenberry and Anne De Salvo remain. Even Executive Producer Charles H. Joffe and Peter Allen, one of the four people who took home an Oscar for contributing to the song "Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do") have passed on. (Allen only got any credit because on a completely separate occasion, he'd coined the phrase "caught between the moon and New York City" when his airplane was circling awaiting approval to land.)Three decades after it first seemed to spring out of nowhere, Arthur remains a well-crafted, well-acted piece of film entertainment. After the disastrous remake's huge flop and the original's years of neglect (probably partially due to its origination as an Orion release, making it another unfortunate orphan of that defunct studio), the movie deserves proper preservation and presentation for those who wish to see it again at home, either as a rental or as part of their home library. If they need another reason, do it as a record of what may be Dudley Moore's finest work. Sadly, he never made another film that came close to equaling Arthur in terms of quality or using his talent to great effect.
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Labels: 80s, Blake Edwards, C. Reiner, Depp, Gielgud, H. Fonda, Lancaster, Liza, Mirren, Movie Tributes, Newman, Oscars, Remakes, Seinfeld, Sequels, Television, W. Beatty
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Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Retired and Extremely Dangerous
By VenetianBlond
Willis, Freeman, Malkovich, Mirren, Cox. Throw in a Borgnine and a bit of Dreyfuss, and you've got a cast worth watching. RED (Retired and Extremely Dangerous) marketed its lineup heavily, and for good reason. These international treasures hopefully will not abandon making high art, but it's grand to watch them having a great time.
The implication, of course, is that RED is not high art, but neither does it attempt to be. It's an action comedy with the above heavyweights as ex-CIA, MI-6, and KGB agents forced to come out of retirement and fight for their lives as they try to unravel why they need to fight for their lives. Mary-Louise Parker is dragged unwillingly (at first) on the grand adventure and Karl Urban is the current CIA agent charged with bringing the senior team down.
Urban and his boss, played by Rebecca Pidgeon, are directed in a completely different manner than our heroes. They play it entirely straight, as if they were in a Bourne movie. It makes the contrast with the bonhomie of the others, who have already seen everything that can be seen and have made it out the other side, that much funnier.
RED plays as if it's self aware. It namechecks the action tropes — thousands and thousands of rounds fired with casings littering the ground, characters appearing miraculously in the right place at the right time, the Russian is named Ivan (although I briefly flashed back to the line in The Wire, "Boris. Why always Boris?"), and the revelation early in the film of a terminal disease leading to a later noble act of sacrifice. But there's another layer there as well, including a visual Sergio Leone reference, and a musical James Bond one. Malkovich says at one point, "I remember the Secret Service being tougher," a possible shoutout to In the Line of Fire and a contemporary of the retirees, Clint Eastwood.
Other than noticing that the French Quarter of New Orleans was completely abandoned in broad daylight (spring for some extras, will you) I was more than willing to go along on this ride. Willis and Urban get to dust it up, and I utterly loved that the giant guns were in the lovely hands of Helen Mirren. Malkovich is mostly nuts or partially lucid, depending upon how hard you squint.
Practically the entire plot is a MacGuffin, but when you've got John Malkovich running screaming down the street with explosives and a Flava Flav clock around his neck, as well as one of the most perfectly applied and exquisitely timed FUs in film, who needs it?
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Labels: 10s, Borgnine, Eastwood, Leone, Malkovich, Mirren, Morgan Freeman, The Wire, Willis
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Wednesday, June 30, 2010
How many make up a literary marriage?
By Edward Copeland
More often than not, biopics of writers or artists turn out to be unbearable bores, mainly because trying to cinematically convey the creative process proves very hard. Thankfully, this doesn't hinder The Last Station which covers the final days in the life of Leo Tolstoy (marvelously played by Oscar nominee Christopher Plummer) because the film isn't concerned with his writing but rather the battle between his wife of 48 years (Oscar nominee Helen Mirren) and a disciple (Paul Giamatti) over whether the inheritance of his works and his late-in-life views should be given over to the Russian people and the world or to his heirs as his wife believes they are due.
As the author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina grew into old age, he began to develop ideas that took on an almost cult-like following: no private property; looking down on sexual relationships; and passive resistance. They focused on the teachings of Jesus Christ, but more as a human and less as the son of God and were thought by many to be a form of Christian anarchists. The followers of this philosophy even adopted the name of Tolstoyans, the most prominent one being his longtime friend and promoter Vladimir Chertkov (Giamatti) who regularly installs secretaries in Tolstoy's estate to keep watch over the activities of Countess Sofya (Mirren), whom he views as a threat to the movement's future because of her desire to protect her family's legacy and she sees her husband's late-in-life philosophical turn as a lot of bunk.
When both Mirren and Plummer received deserved Oscar nominations, she as lead, he as supporting, many complained that he was as much a lead as she was, but now that I've seen the film, the truth is the both really are supporting to the true main character of The Last Station, Valentin (James McAvoy), the latest secretary whose eyes all activities are seen through. I haven't been impressed much with McAvoy in his career so far in films such as The Last King of Scotland or Atonement, but this is the first time I thought he actually turned in a good performance.
Though Valentin begins his job as Chertkov's latest plant, instructed to keep a diary of every move Countess Sofya makes and every word she utters in order to the protect the Tolstoyans, it doesn't take long for the virginal would-be writer to develop sympathy for the entire Tolstoy family (even to the point that Sofya gives him a diary to perform the same task for her). What really turns Valentin around are his dealings with the renowned writer himself and his crush and eventual surrender of his celibacy vow to Tolstoy's daughter Masha (Kerry Condon).
Written and directed by Michael Hoffman from the novel by Jay Parini, The Last Station is a little gem of fine acting and interesting ideas. The entire cast plays at the top of their game. So often, material of this sort can be so obsessed with the details of the period that any drama gets lost, but The Last Station doesn't make this mistake, presenting flesh-and-blood characters instead of museum pieces and lively interplay instead of stolid exposition. When he's nervous, he sneezes and there's a great scene of shock when he meets Tolstoy and the master writer asks how the young man's own writing is going.
Plummer turns in an absolutely joyous performance as Tolstoy, funny, stubborn and indignant. Even though his new philosophy has cast a suspicious eye on sexual relations, he finds it surprising that his new secretary Valentin is truly such a celibate and recounts past sexual escapades, admitting that Tolstoy himself is far from the best Tolstoyan.
Mirren's great as always as the high-strung Sofya. It's easy to see how some could perceive her actions as meddling, but her exasperation at outsiders who meddle with her family and the love of her life make it clear who is in the right and she's brilliant.
Giamatti also adds to the film, though at times, even though Chertkov is merely a true believer, he does come off too much as a devilish villain, especially when he lies to prevent Sofya from seeing her husband as his health is on the decline.
The Last Station ended up being a pleasant surprise for me. I expected to find fine performances when I started watching, but the fact that the film was a compelling and held my interest as much as it did was an unexpected reward.
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Labels: 00s, Giamatti, McAvoy, Mirren, Oscars, Plummer
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Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Vomit, excrement and political subtext for good measure
Alexei Sayle, Alexei Sayle’s Stuff (1988)
By Iain Stott
And The Iron Lady and vomit are never very far away from the text and subtext of Peter Greenaway’s 1989 masterwork. The former of which, along with copious amounts of excrement, nudity, bullying, torture, and cannibalism ensured that the British iconoclast’s film had a tough time with the world’s classifiers and censors. In particular, America’s MPAA, who slapped it with an X rating which, if it had been accepted, would have near as dammit crippled its commercial potential. Instead, it was decided to distribute the film unrated (albeit, with a cautionary note). However, no matter how many buttons Greenaway pushes, there’s very little in the film that one couldn’t see today, 20 years later, on the anniversary of its U.S. opening, in some celebrity reality TV show or other, in which various C list celebs, has-beens, would-bes, and never will-bes demean themselves horribly in the hopes of gaining enough publicity to prolong their ailing (and never more than mediocre) careers for another year or two.
And whilst the public’s tolerance for bodily functions and torture may have changed somewhat over the past two decades, the consumerism, capitalism, and general political climate of the society that Greenaway here satirizes mercilessly has not, unfortunately, despite global financial crisis, changed a great deal at all. Thatcher, Reagan, and Bush may be long gone, but their “greed is good” legacy lives on. And so, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is as sadly relevant today as it has ever been.
The film opens with a scene of scatological horror, which introduces us to The Thief of the title, an excellent-as-ever Michael Gambon, whom we first encounter as he is force-feeding dog excrement to a debtor, whose naked, shit-smeared torso he proceeds to piss on. The scene introduces us to a number of the film’s main themes: humiliation, bullying, food, helplessness, inaction, and bodily functions. And all the while this stomach-churning action occurs, ironically, in the car park of a swanky French restaurant, Le Hollandais; the head chef of which is The Cook of the title (Richard Bohringer).
As the action moves inside of the restaurant, which we soon learn that The Thief has recently acquired, the tone of the evening becomes decidedly more relaxed and jovial if no less menacing. The Thief holds court over his goons and other hangers-on, as fine wines and food are consumed (mostly unappreciatively) in sumptuous surroundings. He discusses food and etiquette, upon which he is often corrected, quite foolhardily, by his Wife (a brave Helen Mirren). And it is with her, as she exchanges furtive glances with a bookish chap at a neighbouring table, who is set to become Her Lover (Alan Howard), that the main action of the film commences.
It is lust at first sight. An interrupted and ever so tentative tryst in the ladies’ lavatory soon leads to ever more adventurous encounters. Aided by The Cook and his staff, over the course of a week or so, the two lovers sneak off to the kitchen between courses for a liberating grope or two. But inevitably this suicidal behaviour could only ever end one way. And so, when The Thief discovers of the infidelitous behaviour of His Wife, who subsequently goes into hiding with Her Lover, he proves that he will stop at nothing to gain vengeance, vowing, impetuously and unthinkingly, to kill and eat his love rival.
A spot of child torture later – a scene that will have the majority of viewers wincing, gagging, and cowering from the screen — and he has his man. And, with torture being his thing, and his having a distinct dislike for all things intellectual, he is soon shoving pages from the Lover’s favourite book (about The French Revolution) down the “Jew’s” throat, eventually and painfully snuffing out his life. But, His Wife herself is soon concocting her own sweet revenge. And… well that would be telling, but suffice to say that it will certainly prove to be rather apt.
Now, from all that, the political allegory should be quite clear, or at least reasonably so: The Thief is Thatcher, although pretty much any political leader or ruling party would fit, no matter what foot they kick with. He leads with an iron fist, mercilessly ignoring the wants, wishes, and needs of those around him; with
bourgeois conventions doing a decent job of covering, for the most part, his capitalistic thuggery. He takes what he wants and disposes, messily, of everything that he doesn’t. The Wife, on the other hand, represents the British people (or any people really). She dabbles with and increasingly embraces the left-wing ideologies introduced to her by Her Lover. Ideologies attacked mercilessly by The Thief in much the same way as Thatcher waged her unfathomable war against the trade unions during her tortuous and seemingly endless tenure as Prime Minister. The Lover is representative of the intellectual left, the idealists, the would-be revolutionaries. His courting of the Wife is supported by The Cook, who is representative of the opposition, of (old) Labour. When The Thief crushes the Lover, The Cook aids the Wife in her revenge, essentially enacting a revolution.
But, this being a Peter Greenaway film, the real pleasure is to be found away from the subtext, away from the human and the political. Formally, it is a quite exquisite piece. The images, divorced from their grubby context, have a grand abstract power and playful, seductive exuberance. The camera pans and tracks elegantly from room to room, with each one having its own colour scheme. The neon blue of the car park gives way to the seductive, calming green of the kitchens, which in turn leads to the blood red of the decidedly opulently draped dining room, before finally reaching the clinical white of the toilets. With each room impeccably laid out with consummately detailed production design. Jean-Paul Gaultier’s fantastic costumes, which mirror the clothing worn by the Officers of the St. George Militia of Haarlem, who appear in the Frans Hals painting that sits prominently in the dining room, mirroring the action below, change colour as their wearers move from one room to the next. All the while, the action is underscored by Michael Nyman’s ethereally seductive reworking of his 1985 composition, Memorial.
And that, I think, is what gives the film its lasting appeal, what makes it such a unique experience – the juxtaposing of the elegant with the inelegant, the saintly with the sordid, and the immaculate with the soiled. Quite simply, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is a masterpiece.
Iain Stott is an aesthete cum dropout with a fine art background who, when not living his life vicariously through the work of great (and not so great) artists, can be found blogging at The One-Line Review.
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Labels: 80s, 90s, Gambon, Mirren, Movie Tributes
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Monday, September 21, 2009
A modern tale set in a time gone by
By Edward Copeland
Being a former journalist, even if I was never a reporter, sticking more with copy editing with a side order of criticism, it's always nice to see a film that focuses on a veteran reporter (Russell Crowe) as its hero, even as it acknowledges the financial problems of the industry, the constant corporate changeovers and the ignoring of the bread and butter of the operation, the newspaper itself, as it fumbles around in the Internet age.
However, those are just asides in State of Play, which really is a thriller about solving a mystery and the risks, especially in a place like Washington, of being too friendly with people you might have to cover.
The film is based on a British miniseries and directed by Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) from a screenplay by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy and Billy Ray (who wrote and directed an excellent film about journalism, Shattered Glass).
Crowe stars as Cal McAffrey, a shaggy journalist who drives bosses nuts but comes up with the goods when the chips are down. He immediately causes friction with a rookie reporter Della Frye whose blog is rising on the paper's attempt to cause some Web ripples (Rachel McAdams).
The paper's editor (Helen Mirren) tries to steer them both in the right direction as she copes with yet another new corporate owner. At the film's outset, McAffrey is investigating what appears to be a routine street drug shooting while Della's more gossipy column is working the apparent suicide by subway train of a congressional staffer of a Pennsylvania representative (Ben Affleck).
Not only was the late aide having an affair with the married Affleck, he is the good friend and former college roommate of McAffrey. Of course, nothing is quite what it seems. Rep. Stephen Collins (Affleck) had been vocally trying to expose a Blackwater-type private mercenary force and evidence points toward the affair story being leaked in an effort to silence him.
There are several twists along the way, so to divulge much more of the plot wouldn't be fair. Macdonald moves State of Play along at a very good pace, but I wish it had slowed down at times to ruminate over the many issues it passes fleetingly on the way. The film doesn't stop long to seriously look at the ethical conflict between Collins and McAffrey's friendship and McAffrey's duty to the story nor to the paper's duty itself to tell the truth and not protect corporate friends of the owners and cast ethical clouds on the entire paper.
Perhaps the saddest part of State of Play is knowing that it lives in somewhat of a fantasyland of the past where veteran reporters like McAffrey can actually tutor rookies like Della so they can learn the ropes. In the environment of today's newspaper industry, most of the experienced journalists with institutional memory are pushed into early buyouts and young reporters never gain from their insights, left to their own devices and overseen by editors too preoccupied to offer much professional guidance, further diminishing the product as a whole.
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Labels: 00s, B. Affleck, Mirren, Russell Crowe
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Thursday, February 14, 2008
Let the costume do the acting
By Edward Copeland
I liked Cate Blanchett's performance in Elizabeth better than I liked the movie itself. I was somewhat surprised that she managed to snag an Oscar nomination for Elizabeth: The Golden Age, given the tepid reviews and box office. Now that I've seen it, while I think it might be more fun than its predecessor and Blanchett is fine, it's still more a case of great costume design and art direction than it is great filmmaking.
One thing that I think hurts Shekhar Kapur's film is the bountiful number of projects about Elizabeth I over the past decade or so, especially the recent HBO miniseries Elizabeth I with the great Helen Mirren.
Kapur's film is campier than his first one, but there really isn't a lot in the way of characterization to offer his cast, be it Clive Owen as Walter Raleigh or Blanchett herself who, quite literally, often blends into the background. She pulls off seeming like an older version of the woman she played so well in 1998, but the entire film ends up being of limited effect.
Blanchett probably deserved the Oscar nomination more than Angelina Jolie in A Mighty Heart, but I still think there were other, better choices out there.
As eye candy, Elizabeth: The Golden Age has its moments, but as a film, it's a nonentity.
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I liked Cate Blanchett's performance in Elizabeth better than I liked the movie itself. I was somewhat surprised that she managed to snag an Oscar nomination for Elizabeth: The Golden Age, given the tepid reviews and box office. Now that I've seen it, while I think it might be more fun than its predecessor and Blanchett is fine, it's still more a case of great costume design and art direction than it is great filmmaking.
One thing that I think hurts Shekhar Kapur's film is the bountiful number of projects about Elizabeth I over the past decade or so, especially the recent HBO miniseries Elizabeth I with the great Helen Mirren.
Kapur's film is campier than his first one, but there really isn't a lot in the way of characterization to offer his cast, be it Clive Owen as Walter Raleigh or Blanchett herself who, quite literally, often blends into the background. She pulls off seeming like an older version of the woman she played so well in 1998, but the entire film ends up being of limited effect.
Blanchett probably deserved the Oscar nomination more than Angelina Jolie in A Mighty Heart, but I still think there were other, better choices out there.
As eye candy, Elizabeth: The Golden Age has its moments, but as a film, it's a nonentity.
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Labels: 00s, Blanchett, Clive Owen, HBO, Jolie, Mirren, Sequels
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Friday, October 13, 2006
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown
By Edward Copeland
When newly elected British Prime Minister Tony Blair prepares to meet Queen Elizabeth for the first time, he's informed by one of the royal servants about how to behave in her majesty's "presence." The presence that dominates Stephen Frears' The Queen belongs to Helen Mirren who, in a career already filled with great performances, may have topped them all as England's current monarch dealing with the fallout of Princess Diana's death. Her upbringing taught her to be reserved and her belief that Di's funeral and mourning should be a private matter and not "a fairground attraction" provides for a sharp, witty and surprisingly touching look at the friction between centuries of tradition and the forward march of time and change.
Michael Sheen plays Blair and he bears a startling resemblance to the real prime minister who, as the first British prime minister from the Labor Party in Britain in 18 years, finds one of his first tasks unexpectedly being to coax the queen into the modern age and get her to recognize how Diana's death affected her subjects, who only knew the public Diana and not the real woman whom the royals had more than mixed feelings about. (An offscreen Princess Margaret remarks that Diana is proving more annoying in death than she did in life).
As the days drag on after Di's death and the royals stay out of the public eye on their Scottish estate in Balmoral, Blair asks if anyone can "save these people from themselves." It's a difficult task as his wife Cherie (a great turn by Helen McCrory) notes that the monarchy is populated by emotionally retarded freeloaders and perhaps it's time to let the institution fade away.
Peter Morgan's excellent screenplay finds many more layers than you'd expect to find. The film begins as if it's going to be a sharp satirical poke in the eye of the monarchy, but as it moves on, it manages to plumb unexpected depths, digging beneath both Elizabeth's stoic reserve and chronicling Blair's evolution of thought toward the royals from one of exasperation to one of surprising sympathy and understanding for the queen's inability to emote to the satisfaction of a grieving public.
While Sheen and Mirren certainly stand out among the solid cast, fine performances also come from James Cromwell as the stiff Prince Philip, unable to understand all the fuss, the aforementioned McCrory and a hysterical Sylvia Syms as the doddering Queen Mum, who can't believe it when they decide to use the plans she's made for her own funeral as the template for Diana's.
The Queen, for me at least, also turns out to be Frears' best movie ever. While I've liked much of his work (The Grifters, Dangerous Liaisons), his movies always seemed to be lacking something for me, usually an emotional component, but The Queen delivers it in droves. When Di died, the media overkill eventually became like nails on a chalkboard to me so I was surprised by how much the film managed to move me with its recounting of Di's death. Frears manages to effortlessly slide the film between its cynical and sentimental sides and directs with a scope and fluidity I've not seen from him before.
Still, The Queen belongs to Mirren, who won an Emmy earlier this year for playing the first Queen Elizabeth and should prove to be a strong contender to take the Oscar for playing the second. Mirren doesn't try to do a straight impression of a well-known figure like Elizabeth II, but she does resemble her.
Even when the film appears to be mocking the foibles of the royal family, Mirren never does. The strength of her performance equals the stoicism of the royals themselves and while there may come a day when the monarchy fades away, this performance should prove to be one for the ages.
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