Monday, September 30, 2013
What a ride: Bye bye 'Bad' Part I
that STILL has yet to watch Breaking Bad in its entirety, close this story now.
By Edward Copeland
Kept you waiting there too long my love.
All that time without a word
Didn't know you'd think that I'd forget
Or I'd regret the special love I have for you —
My Baby Blue.
Perfection. I don’t intend (and never planned) to spend much of this farewell to Breaking Bad discussing its finale, but it happens too seldom that a movie or a final episode wraps with the absolute spot-on song. The Crying Game did it with Lyle Lovett singing “Stand By Your Man.” The Sopranos often accomplished it with specific episodes such as using The Eurythmics’ “I Saved the World Today” at the end of the second season’s “Knight in White Satin Armor” episode. Breaking Bad killed last night with some Badfinger — and how often do you read words along those lines?
We first met Walter Hartwell White, his family and associates (or, if you prefer, eventual victims/collateral damage) on Jan. 20, 2008. Viewers anyway. As for the time period of the show, the first scene or that first episode, I’d be a fool to venture a definitive guess. I start this piece with that date because it places the series damn close to the beginning of the 2008 calendar year. In the years since Vince Gilligan’s brilliant creation graced our TV screens, five full years of movies opened in the U.S. and ⅔ of a sixth. In that time, some great films crossed my path. Many I anticipate being favorites for the rest of my days: WALL-E, (500) Days of Summer and The Social Network, to name but three. As much as I love those movies and many others released in that time, I say without hyperbole that none equaled the quality or satisfied me as much as the five seasons of Breaking Bad.
For me to make such a declaration might come off as one more person jumping on the "what an amazing time we live in for quality TV" bandwagon. As someone who from a young age loved movies to such a degree that I sometimes attended new ones just to see something, admitting this amazes even me. On some level, early on in this sea change, it felt as if I not only had cheated on my wife but become a serial adulterer as well. In my childhood days of movie love, I also watched way too much TV, but I admittedly held the medium in disdain as a whole, an attitude that, despite the shows I loved and recognized as great, didn’t change until Hill Street Blues arrived. However, I can’t deny the transfer of my affection as to which medium satisfies, engages and gives me that natural high once exclusive to the best of cinema or, in those all-too-brief years I could attend, superb New York theater productions, most consistently now. It’s not that top-notch movies no longer get made, but experiencing sublime new films occurs far less frequently than in years past. (Perhaps a mere coincidence, but the most recent year that I’d cite as overflowing with works reaching higher heights happens to be 1999 — the same year The Sopranos premiered, marking the unofficial start of this era.) Granted, television and other outlets such as Netflix expanded the number of places available for programming exponentially, television as a whole still produces plenty of time-wasting crap. However, on a percentage basis, the total of fictional TV series produced that rank among the greatest in TV history probably hits a higher number than great films reach out of each year's crop of new movies.
Close readers of my movie posts know that when I compile lists of all-time favorite films, as I did last year, I require that a movie be at least 10 years old before it reaches eligibility for inclusion. With that requirement for film, it probably appears inconsistent on my part to declare Breaking Bad the greatest drama to air on television when it just concluded last night. However, I don’t feel like a hypocrite making this proclamation. When I saw any of the 62 episodes of Breaking Bad for the first time, never once did I feel afterward as if it had just been an “OK” episode. Obviously, some soared higher than others, but none ranked as so-so. I can’t say that about any other series. As much as I love The Sopranos, David Chase’s baby churned out some clunkers. The Wire almost matched Breaking Bad's achievement, but HBO prevented this by giving it a truncated fifth season that forced David Simon and gang to rush the ending in a way that made the final year unsatisfying following its brilliant fourth. Deadwood gets an incomplete, once again thanks to HBO, for not allowing David Milch to complete his five season vision. I recently re-read the one time I wrote about Breaking Bad, sometime in the middle of its third season, and though I didn't hail it to the extent I do now, the impending signs show in my protective nature toward the series since this came
when it had a smaller, loyal cadre of fans such as myself who almost wanted to keep it our little secret. As the series moved forward, what amazed me — something that amazes me anytime it happens — was Breaking Bad’s ability to get better and better from season to season. That rarely occurs on any show, no matter how good. Programs might achieve a level of quality and maintain it, but rarely do any continue to top themselves. The Wire did that for its first four seasons but, as I wrote above, that stopped when HBO shorted them by three episodes in its final season. Breaking Bad not only grew better, it continued to experiment with its storytelling techniques right up to its final episodes. In this last batch of eight alone, we had “Rabid Dog” (written and directed by Sam Catlin) that begins with Walt, gun in hand, searching his gasoline-soaked house for an angry Jesse, whose car remains in the driveway while he can't be found. Then, well into the episode, we pick up where the previous episode ended with Jesse dousing the White residence with the flammable liquid and learn that Hank had tailed him and stopped Pinkman in the act and convinced the angry young man that the enemy of his enemy might be his friend. Then, in the episode “Ozymandias” (written by Moira Walley-Beckett, directed by Rian Johnson), the amazing first scene (following the pre-title card teaser scene) at To’hajiilee following the lopsided shootout between Uncle Jack, Todd and their Neo-Nazi gang versus Hank and Gomez, lasts an amazing 13½ riveting minutes. The credits don’t run until after the second commercial break, more than 20 minutes into the episode. Throughout the series, despite being on a commercial network, Breaking Bad never shied away from long scenes (and kudos to AMC for allowing them to do so) such as Skyler and Walt’s rehearsal in season 4’s “Bullet Points” (written by Walley-Beckett, directed by Colin Bucksey) for telling Hank and Marie about Walt’s “gambling problem” and how that gave them the money to buy the car wash. The dramas on pay cable that lack commercials seldom provide scenes of that notable length. Fear of the short attention span. With as many channels as exist, I say fuck those fidgety fools. Cater to those who appreciate these scenes when done as well as Breaking Bad did them. That writing surpassed most everything else on TV most of the time and as usual at the Emmys, where I consider it a fluke if someone or something deserving wins, Breaking Bad received no nominations for writing until the two it earned this year (and lost). On Talking Bad following the finale, Anna Gunn compared each new script’s arrival to Christmas morning — and she also worked on Deadwood with a master wordsmith like David Milch. Looking again at the initial moments of Breaking Bad, now viewed with the knowledge of everything to come, it establishes much about Walter White even though it occurred before Heisenberg made any official appearance. Watch this clip of our introduction to both Walt and Breaking Bad and see what I mean.
From the beginning, all the elements of Walt’s delusions had planted their roots in his head: the denial of criminality, his conviction that his family justified all his actions (which, compared to what events transpire later, seem rather minor moral transgressions now). One thing I wondered: Did Hank hang on to that gas mask somewhere in DEA evidence? It had Walt's fingerprints on it since he flung it away bare-handed. If Jesse told Schrader where they began cooking, hard evidence for a case existed and things might have turned out differently. Oh, well. No use crying over spilled brother-in-laws at this point. Dipping in and out of the AMC marathon preceding the finale and watching and re-watching episodes over the years (because, among the other outstanding attributes of Breaking Bad, the show belongs on the list of the most compulsively re-watchable television series in history), I always look for the exact moment when Heisenberg truly dominated Walter White’s personality because while I’m not in any way excusing Walt’s actions the way the deranged Team Walt types do, obviously this man suffers from a split personality disorder. You spot it in the season 2 episode where they hold the celebration party over Walt's cancer news and he keeps pouring tequila into Walt Jr.'s cup until Hank tries to put a stop to it, prompting a confrontation that mirrors in many ways Hank and Walt's after Hank deduced his alter ego. It also contains dialogue where Walt apologizes in the morning, saying, "I don't know who that was yesterday. It wasn't me." What caused that split, we don’t really know. We know that Walt’s dad died of Huntington’s disease when White was young and Skyler alluded to the way “he was raised” when he resisted accepting the Schwartzes’ help paying for his cancer treatments in the early days and he has no apparent relationship with his mother. Frankly, I praise creator Vince Gilligan for not taking that easy way out and trying to explain the cause of Walter White’s madness. I find it more interesting when creators don’t try to explain what made their monsters. I didn’t need to know that young Hannibal Lecter saw his parents killed by particularly ghoulish Nazis in World War II who ate his parents. Hannibal's character remains more interesting without some traumatic back story to explain what turned him into the serial killer he became. Since I brought up
those Team Walt members, while I can't conceive how anyone still defends him, I understand how people sympathized with Walter White at first and it took different actions and moments in the series for individual viewers to accept the fact that no classification fit Walter White other than that of a monster. In the beginning, the series made it easy to feel for Walt and cheer him on. When he took action on the asshole teens mocking Walt Jr. for his cerebral palsy, who didn't think those punks deserved it? While an excessive act, when he fried the car battery of the asshole who stole his parking space, who hasn't fantasized about getting even on someone like that? Even when Walt's acts got more serious, you sided with him, such as when he bawled, sobbing "I'm sorry" repeatedly as he killed Krazy-8. Even the moment most cite as the breaking point as Walt watches Jane die plays as open to interpretation. He looks like a deer in the headlights, uncertain of what to do as much as someone who sees the advantage of letting this woman in the process of extorting him expire. The credit for that ambiguity belongs to the brilliance of Bryan Cranston's performance. However, once you get to that final season 4 reveal of the Lily of the Valley plant, I don't see how anyone defended Walt after that, if they hadn't stopped already. As Hank said at the end, Walt was the smartest guy he ever met, so why couldn't he devise a way to either save himself or kill Gus that didn't involve poisoning a child?
With all that said, Walt, while not redeemed, did rightfully regain some sympathy in the home stretch — surrendering his precious ill-gotten gains in a fruitless plea for Hank’s life, trying to clear Skyler of culpability, ultimately freeing Jesse and, most importantly, admitting that all his evil deeds had nothing to do with providing for his family but were because he enjoyed them, they made him feel alive. Heisenberg probably left that drink unfinished at the New Hampshire bar, but I think the old Walter White returned. The people he harmed deserved it and the scare he put in Elliot and Gretchen Schwartz merely a fake-out to ensure they did what he wanted with the money. He didn’t break good at the end, but he tied up loose ends and then allowed himself to die side by side with his true love — the blue meth he created that rocked the drug-addicted world.
Alas, my physical limitations prevent me from giving the series the farewell I envisioned in a single tribute, so I must break this into parts as much remains to be discussed — I’ve yet to touch upon the magnificent array of acting talent, brilliant direction and tons of other issues so, while Breaking Bad’s story has ended, this one has not. So, regretfully, as I collapse, I must say…
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Labels: Breaking Bad, Cranston, David Chase, David Simon, Deadwood, Hannibal Lecter, HBO, Milch, Netflix, The Sopranos, The Wire, Theater, TV Tribute
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Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Different ways of playing 'Cards'
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post contains spoilers for the three segment British miniseries House of Cards from the 1990s starring Ian Richardson and this year's 13-episode U.S. version made for Netflix, produced by David Fincher and starring Kevin Spacey. If you plan to watch either version and haven't yet, read no further.
By Edward Copeland
After giving people time to watch the American version of House of Cards and with its availability on DVD and Blu-ray for those without access to Netflix Instant, I thought enough time had transpired to discuss both the new version as well as the original BBC miniseries, whose first part premiered in 1990. Prior to watching the David Fincher-produced D.C.-set House of Cards with Kevin Spacey playing the wily lead, I felt I needed to see the British version to see how well the differences translated. (Obviously, Britain's parliamentary system of government works quite differently from our legislative branch — which, in its current state, doesn't work at all, but House of Cards exists in the land of make-believe. I lacked either the time or the energy given personal matters to attempt to read the novel by Michael Dobbs that spawned the BBC miniseries.)
Though the new version pads out its story to 13 roughly one-hour episodes while the first of the three British House of Cards miniseries told mostly the same story in four episodes of approximately the same length, the U.S. take does hit many of the same plot points except when it comes to the ending, but the makers of the U.S. House of Cards envision it as a continuing series. (I needn't have watched the second and third BBC miniseries, To Play the King and The Final Cut, since the stories in those sequels aren't covered in the first season of the U.S. House of Cards.) Both versions of the political chicanery, whether set here or across the pond, offer solid entertainment and mostly solid performances, though the U.S. House of Cards wins out in terms of production values. Unfortunately, when it comes to the battle of FUs (Francis Urquhart in the U.K., Francis Underwood in the U.S.), the late Ian Richardson wins hands down. Spacey proves capable as usual for the most part, but he burdens himself with an off-and-on Southern drawl that's wholly unnecessary and, at times, a major distraction. When Richardson's Urquhart speaks to the viewer in his well-mannered, upper-crust tone, it always works. When Spacey's Underwood attempts to pull it off while simultaneously putting on a generic son of the South voice for his South Carolina representative, at times it comes off as too cutesy by half.
Despite the differences in forms of government, both House of Cards begin with essentially the same kernel of a motivation for our two Francises. In the 1990 BBC version, Urquhart has served faithfully as an MP of the Conservative Party, functioning as their Chief Whip under Margaret Thatcher's reign as prime minister. In its fictionalized view of history, Thatcher's loss of support has led to her resignation and while the Conservatives look bound to keep a weakened majority hold of the British government, Urquhart expects
the new prime minister, Hal Collinridge (David Lyon, whose death at 72 was announced today), to appoint him to a long-sought Cabinet position and remove him from his duties as whip. Instead, with the slimmer majority, Collinridge decides not to shake up the Cabinet and an angry Urquhart starts maneuvering many people to get his revenge and build his own rise to power. In the 2013 U.S. take on the tale, Underwood long has held the title of Democratic Whip in the House, now the Majority Whip as a new Democratic president (not Barack Obama), Garrett Walker (Michael Gill), takes office. but Walker reneges on a promise to pick Underwood as his secretary of state. This begins Underwood's convoluted maneuvering. One problem that separates the two versions comes down to logic. You see why Urquhart longs to become the prime minister himself, but if you know U.S. history, it seems downright silly for Underwood to leap through all the hoops and commit all the deeds he does just to end up as vice president. When George H.W. Bush won the presidency, he was the first sitting vice president to manage the victory in his own right since Martin Van Buren. Unless Underwood plans to kill off Walker in a subsequent season of the U.S. House of Cards, why does he see that as a plausible path to the Oval Office?
What delineates our two Francises (the U.S. version only uses the FU joke once as its expected, vulgar stand-in by some of Underwood's opponents while the BBC call Urquhart FU frequently and affectionately by both friends and foes to his face without a hit of a double meaning) most distinctly comes from the difference in the way Spacey acts the words by Beau Willmon and his writing staff and Richardson's delivery of Andrew Davies' dialogue. Almost everyone appears to be on to what Frank Underwood conspires to do at all times, even if his machinations win in the end since Spacey doesn't take much of an effort to hide his moves from those he attempts to manipulate. In contrast, it takes some time for people to catch on to the lengths that Francis Urquhart will go to to accomplish his means thanks to Richardson's performance, which he keeps close to his vest. Both versions rely on the conceit that the Francises speak in asides to the television viewer about what they think and plan, only Spacey talks to audiences in the same basic tone as most of the other characters. Richardson confides to us, letting us in on secrets that others aren't aware of and it makes his performance much richer and, given the late actor's training, provides Francis Urquhart with an almost Shakespearean air. Urquhart picks off opponents with a variety of means and accomplishes most of this without leaving any fingerprints. The game plan in the U.S. House of Cards differs slightly as no list of vice presidential contenders stand in Underwood's way, but they do match in terms of subject matter. Urquhart must sink health and education ministers while those two issues become legislative hurdles that play a part in Underwood's climb.
Both House of Cards include two main women in the lives of their protagonists: their wives and young reporters who become the pols' lovers as well as their tool to help advance their plots. The idea of the female journalist follows fairly closely in both versions (except where they end up in the first installment and the level of their naïveté). In the BBC, the young reporter Mattie Storin (Susannah Harker) takes a long time (too long for her sake) to catch on to Urquhart's true nature and their illicit romance takes on a somewhat twisted father figure complex where the young Mattie tends to call the much older Francis "Daddy" during their dalliances. In the U.S. version, the young woman journalist Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara) contains a much more ambitious nature and she uses Underwood as much as he uses her. Both Mattie and Zoe do make colleagues jealous with their scoops and end up booted from their newspapers, only the U.S. version updates for technological changes and makes Zoe's success come via instant blog posts and finds her gaining new employment with an online political publication. Probably due to the way Mattie is written, Harker comes off as a weaker actress than Mara, who has a more fully developed character. The bigger difference presents itself in the portrayal
of the political wives. Elizabeth Urquhart (Diane Fletcher) truly serves as her husband's partner-in-crime. She knows of his affair with Mattie (and other women in the later installments) but approves wholeheartedly because she knows that letting him have his extracurricular activity with Mattie only serves the couple's ultimate goal and doesn't pose a threat to her position. Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) begins that way early in the U.S. House of Cards, but as the series develops she exhibits jealousy. showing up at Zoe's apartment, interfering with part of Underwood's legislative agenda and even leaving D.C. to renew an affair with a former lover, a famous photographer (Ben Daniels). Presumably, the part required beefing up in order to get someone of Wright's caliber to agree to accept it in the first place. Claire also gets her own sideline with story strands involving the charitable foundation that she runs whereas Elizabeth Urquhart basically serves as Francis' adornment at party and sounding board at home but little else.Both versions equip our FUs with henchmen named Stamper to help him carry out the more unseemly parts of his schemes, though the portrayals as well as the job titles come off quite differently in each country. In England, Urquhart's underling, Tim Stamper, comes across as quite a weasel in the hands of actor Colin
Jeavons. Tim Stamper functions as the Assistant Whip for the Conservatives in the House of Commons until Urquhart succeeds at ascending to the position of prime minister and Stamper moves up to Chief Whip. Later, unhappily, Urquhart moves him to the post party chairman. The British Stamper not only gets his hands dirty with delight, he also overflows with ambition himself and it costs him in the end (part of which may have been necessitated by Jeavons' decision to retire from acting after completing the second installment, To Play the King). The American Stamper gets a new first name — Doug — and does show signs of conscience even while he performs Underwood's errands. Doug Stamper serves as the House Majority Whip's chief of staff and holds no elected position. Michael Kelly, who most people will recognize him from many roles on television and in film, doesn't get down and dirty with the same glee that Jeavons does, but Kelly creates a different persona and plays him well. Odds are, depending how many seasons House of Cards continues, Doug Stamper either will turn on his boss or become a liability to him.
The one area besides production design where the U.S. House of Cards bests the British original comes from the actor who portrays Underwood's actual victim and how the U.S. version fleshes out his character in the first place. Before I began this piece, I issued a spoiler warning, but the U.S. House of Cards doesn't make it a secret that Underwood's deviousness takes a lethal turn, thanks to some of its promotional posters, and the very first sequence of the series gives viewers that impression by showing Underwood putting an injured dog out of its misery with his bare hands but making it clear that he isn't doing it to be merciful. In the British take, even though the first installment only consists of four 1-hour installments, it doesn't
let the audience know that Urquhart's manipulations include murder. In the BBC version, the first life that Urquhart literally takes with his own hand belongs to Roger O'Neill (Miles Anderson), the P.R. consultant for the Conservative Party whom Urquhart gets to use his girlfriend, Penny Guy (Alphonsia Emmanuel), to seduce Foreign Secretary Patrick Woolton (Malcolm Tierney), one of Urquhart's competitors for the prime minister post. Unfortunately, O'Neill loves Penny as much as he loves cocaine and when she dumps him when she realizes O'Neill used her, O'Neill becomes a wild card that Urquhart can't trust. To make sure nothing comes out that damages FU's plan and reveals his role in the Woolton revelation, Urquhart spikes O'Neill's coke supply with rat poison, assuring Mattie who figures out he did it that he was just putting O'Neill out of his misery.
Overall, the American ensemble beats the British one. Granted, the U.S. version provides nine extra hours to fill with juicy parts for actors to the BBC's mere four, so the original lacks the room to develop many characters in depth so it's easy to see how Ian Richardson steals the show. Kevin Spacey, in addition to his aforementioned accent problem, shares time with a lot of great performers in parts large and small. On top of those mentioned already, Sebastian Arcelus, Reg E. Cathey, Kathleen Chalfant, Nathan Darrow, Sandrine Holt, Boris McGiver, Larry Pine, Al Sapienza, Constance Zimmer and Gerald McRaney all put in appearances. We also get three actors familiar to Treme fans in parts of various scope: Mahershala Ali, Lance E. Nichols and Dan Ziskie. The M.V.P. of the entire cast though turns out to be Corey Stoll, so great as Hemingway in
Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, as the U.S. equivalent of Roger O'Neill. Instead of a P.R. guy, Stoll plays Pennsylvania Rep. Peter Russo, a divorced father of two with a penchant for drugs, booze and sex, despite his deep feelings for and relationship with his chief of staff Christina Gallagher (Kristen Connolly). For those who only know Stoll from Midnight in Paris, he'll be unrecognizable. In the short number of episodes though, he takes Russo through the largest journey of any character in the series, battling to sobriety and attempting to believe in himself, unaware of his status as a pawn in Underwood's game (both Underwoods, actually), until it's too late. Stoll makes Russo the only character that the audience develops any sympathy for at all. Though Russo behaves badly, his mistakes all flow from his personal weaknesses. He doesn't do things maliciously the way that Underwood and other characters do. When he commits wrongs, it's because he can't control himself. Underwood always stays in control, even if unexpected events force him to improvise. You feel bad for Russo when he can't
stand up for himself and acts against his own interests and those of his constituents, just to be Underwood's toady and pay him back for covering up an incident when he got caught drunk with a prostitute. You get a sense of where this comes from a in a couple of brief scenes involving Russo and his hospitalized mother (a great Phyllis Somerville) that gives you insight into Russo and makes you feel sorry for the man at the same time it provides some wickedly dark humor. When he begins to turn himself around, you develop a rooting interest for him to succeed (even though having seen the U.K. version first, I figured what fate awaited Russo, though the U.S. changes the manner of his inevitable death at Underwood's hands slightly differently). Though the U.S. House of Cards contains a lot of great acting, no one comes close to turning in a performance as wonderful as Stoll's and no character gets as much development and detail as Rep. Peter Russo.Since the British House of Cards only ran four hours, it had a sole director, Paul Seed, and writer, Andrew Davies. Davies and Seed returned to the same roles on the second installment, To Play the King, but Seed's directing work consists almost entirely of British television. Davies wrote the third and final part, The Final Cut, but Mike Vardy took over helming duties. Similarly, his directing work stayed restricted to British TV. Davies' writing extends to film including the screenplays for Circle of Friends, Emma, The Tailor of Panama, Bridget Jones's Diary, the 2008 feature of Brideshead Revisited and the 2011 version of The Three Musketeers directed by Paul W.S. Anderson.
While Beau Willmon had a hand in writing most of the U.S. episodes, he also had a staff of writers who either contributed or turned in their own episodes. On the directing side, Fincher started the series off by directing the first two episodes while James Foley directed the most at 4 episodes and Allen Coulter, Carl Franklin, Charles McDougall and Joel Schumacher helmed two each.
In the final assessment, the U.S. House of Cards moves fairly well except at times when it feels as if it stuffed itself with too many character and plot strands and an episode set at Underwood's reunion at The Citadel that, while OK, feels and plays like filler. The U.K. House of Cards comes off as far more efficient, even if most of the characters aside from Richardson's Urquhart prove far less compelling. In the second and third parts, they do at least give him actual adversaries, which make things slightly more interesting, but in the end all the British House of Cards episodes always belong to the great Richardson and his rich and delicious
performance. One really bizarre viewing experience for me came from the miniseries — which aired in 1990, 1995 and 1996 — incorporating Margaret Thatcher's fictional death. She died in the miniseries as I watched it before she died in real life earlier this year. Part of the subtext is that Francis Urquhart wants to break Thatcher's record for serving as prime minister longer in the post-WW2 era. One other thing that makes the British version slightly better than the American take is that the first installment ends with a great cliffhanger mystery that plays out over the course of the next two parts. The new House of Cards leaves us with reporters hot on Underwood's trail about Russo's "suicide," but it doesn't come off nearly as intriguing as the British version. I'm also curious where the U.S. version goes next. It obviously can't follow the storyline of the British To Play the King since we don't have a constitutional monarch and a newly sworn in Vice President Underwood wouldn't run into conflict with a recently crowned king. Presumably, that tension will present itself with his new boss, President Walker. It's a shame that Ian Richardson isn't with us anymore and that the third British House of Cards installment resolved the Francis Urquhart character. It might have been fun to see U.S. President Francis Underwood face off against British Prime Minister Francis Urquhart. I'd probably root for Urquhart, if only because he doesn't have that corny and awful Southern accent.Tweet
Labels: 10s, 90s, Books, Fiction, Fincher, Hemingway, Netflix, Robin Wright, Shakespeare, Spacey, Television, Treme, Woody
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Thursday, March 22, 2012
"What do they want from me? After all, I’m only an actor."
By Roscoe
Hendrik Höfgen sets a new standard for protesting too much with the above line from István Szabó's film Mephisto, which celebrates the 30th anniversary of its U.S. release today. Höfgen, unforgettably embodied by Klaus Maria Brandauer, is an actor who finds himself living in, to put it politely, interesting times — 1930s Germany. Szabó's film, based on the novel by Klaus Mann, details Höfgen's career trajectory from provincial Hamburg star and Communist Party member to his final status as the most prominent actor in Nazi Germany, the darling of the Fascist elite. To do this, he, not surprisingly, has to do a lot of skillful maneuvering and charming and flattering, to say nothing of soul-selling.
Höfgen is first seen in his dressing room, screaming with rage and frustration at the wild ovation a visiting star performer is getting from her audience. In what turns out to be the first of many scenes involving Höfgen gazing into a mirror, he manages to pull himself together, going from abject misery to a teeth-baring defiance. He soon is complimenting the star on her performance (which he didn't see) and fishes for compliments from her, asking her to speak a little louder so that everyone can hear her high estimation of his talent.
Soon, the political climate of the era is laid out for us, with Höfgen's communist leanings and involvement in a Revolutionary Theater getting particular attention. The Nazis get some mention, but aren't taken particularly seriously until the terrible day when Hitler is elected chancellor, and everything is turned upside down. Höfgen's communist past suddenly is a liability as he finds some old enemies in high places. He makes the most of an even more highly placed acquaintance, who is the mistress of the Nazi Field Marshal (played by Rolf Hoppe, the character clearly based on Hermann Goering), and is able to get himself cast as Mephisto in a revival of Goethe's Faust. The Field Marshal is very taken
with Höfgen's performance, and Höfgen's career is saved. He's soon the Nazis' go-to spokesman on cultural matters, spouting their platforms on German art with an actorly polish that is supposed to make the ideology more palatable. It isn't all roses, though, as Höfgen soon finds that there's more to pleasing Nazis than repeating their platitudes on High Culture. He eventually is the manager and star of the German National Theater, and has to deal with Nazi interference on personnel and cultural issues. Certain Jewish staff has to be dispensed with, and most serious works are not acceptable to the regime on political grounds. Höfgen’s production of Hamlet, based on the uncomfortable lecture he delivers, looks to be Shakespeare re-imagined in the Nazi mold, with Hamlet as a bold and resolute hero, a prince of the North. And, based on the final moment of the film, the Nazis seem to have bigger plans for Hendrik.
It should be mentioned that Mann's novel Mephisto was based on the career of the German actor Gustav Gründgens, best known today as the derby-hatted master criminal Schranker in Fritz Lang's M. Gründgens was Mann's brother-in-law, and had a career trajectory similar to Höfgen’s, running the German National Theater in Berlin during the war, with Goering's backing.
So how does Mephisto the film hold up, 30 years on? Remarkably well, I'd say. Szabó brings the film to life with a good deal of energy and style, favoring tight close-ups of his excellent cast. I’m very taken with the film’s multiple Mephistos — ranging from Höfgen’s own two performances of the role (one before and one after the Nazi takeover) to the group of costumed Mephistos who appear at Höfgen’s wedding late in the film, leading the entire party in a celebratory dance. To be fair, the film's 144
minute length can feel a bit prolonged in places, but for a viewer willing to hang in and do the work, there are real rewards. The success of the film must depend largely on casting Höfgen properly, and there's no denying that Szabó hit a bull’s-eye with Klaus Maria Brandauer. Brandauer’s performance is a marvel, a real tour de force, a blowout display of overacting, underacting, and everything in between. He’s able to negotiate the character’s shifting allegiances and sell-outs large and small with what looks like ease. Not the least of the Mephistophelean bargains in the film is the one Brandauer makes with the audience — as bad as he gets, he’s always fascinating to watch as he veers from extreme egotism to extreme self-loathing. He's as electrifying now as he was in 1982. He gets excellent support from the rest of the cast, with special notice going to Karin Boyd as Juliette, Höfgen's Afro-German mistress and dance instructor, probably the only character in the film who really knows and loves him for what he really is. Their scenes together really crackle.The film, alas, seems to have dropped off the map, strangely so since it picked up a best screenplay prize at the Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for best foreign language film, the only film from Hungary to do so. The DVD is out of print, and no longer available via Netflix. A real shame. This film deserves a lot better.
Roscoe blogs at Roscoe Writes. He graduated from the film program at CUNY’s Brooklyn College, and lives in NYC with his husband.
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Labels: 80s, Books, Fiction, Foreign, Lang, Movie Tributes, Netflix, Oscars, Shakespeare
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Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Men swarm around me like moths to a flame and if their wings get singed, I can't be blamed
By Edward Copeland
It has been a long journey for me to be able to watch and write about Josef von Sternberg's 1930 classic The Blue Angel, and I refer to the version made in German, not in English. I had tried to rent it several times on DVD through different services but the region-free disc always flaked out at the same spot. I finally watched it on Netflix streaming (as I was ending that option before I switched to DVD only and Netflix customers know that happened in September) and was able to see the entire film. Then it was just a matter of finding the time to write about it, but other projects kept getting in the way and The Blue Angel deserves more than a quickie. It's sat around about half done for months, but with a new year, I thought I should get this out of the way, especially when I noticed that the English version got wide release in the U.S. 81 years ago today. Figured that had to be a sign.
My journey to see The Blue Angel proved difficult, but it actually ended up being a breeze compared to what happened to both versions of the landmark film over the many decades since both premiered in 1930, albeit in separate parts of the world.
Why The Blue Angel gained its status as a pivotal point in film history can be attributed to several reasons, such as:
The differences in the two versions of The Blue Angel extend beyond just the language the actors in which the actors speak. When it premiered in Germany on the night of March 31, 1930, it ran 106 minutes. The raves (in addition to being able to see the as-yet-unreleased English-language version) prompted the U.S. studio Paramount to lure both von Sternberg and Dietrich, who by then were lovers, to the U.S. They made and released Morocco, which earned Dietrich the only Oscar nomination of her career for best actress, before The Blue Angel had its U.S. debut. When the English version was released in December 1930, it only ran 99 minutes, as filmed. The German version didn't play in the U.S. until 1947 and to emphasize Dietrich at the expense of Jannings' lead character (and the story itself), the film was cut to 90 minutes. It wasn't until 2001 that a new German language print, made from original negative material, restored it to 106 minutes and was re-released. Ironically, for many decades, the English-language version became considered lost until a print was discovered in a German film archive, restored and shown in 2009.
With that brief primer on the movie's history out of the way, now I can dive in to talking about the film itself which I'm glad to say stands up very well given that it's nearly 82 years old. Granted, The Blue Angel definitely shows signs of belonging to that awkward phase where silent filmmakers and performers adjusted techniques to the new sound era, but for the most part the movie and its cast clears that hurdle rather easily. Jannings stars as Professor Immanuel Rath, a strict disciplinarian as an English teacher at a boarding school in his small German town. His students mock him mercilessly (a favorite nickname is Professor Unrath, ratshit in English) but he holds a stellar reputation in the port city. (I love how in foreign
language films, even from way back, when they update the translations of the subtitles, they put in the profanities.) He doesn't earn much respect from his live-in maid either, who offers little sympathy when Rath awakes one morning to discover his lone companion, a pet bird, dead in its cage. "It pretty much stopped singing," the housekeeper (Ilse Fürstenberg) tells the professor. Though Rath maintains the community's regard, sometimes it's easy to see how he becomes an object of ridicule for his classless pupils or others, such as when he blows his nose and emits a comically absurd honking sound. Still, he tries to teach these callow lads, on one day specifically about Shakespeare's Hamlet. The students ignore him most days, but on this day, he discovers their fascination with postcards which he confiscates bearing photos of Lola Lola (Dietrich), the bawdy performer at the German version of a speakeasy which gives the film its title, The Blue Angel. Lola's images transfix Rath. He even blows on one of the cards and imagines that the feathers on her dress move. After interrogating one of his students, Angst (Rolf Müller) — whom the other students routinely harass because he doesn't frequent the club — Rath learns of the club's location and decides to venture to it himself since The Blue Angel and its performers such as Lola Lola debase the morals of his pupils.
Backstage at The Blue Angel that night, several of Rath's pupils flirt hopelessly with Lola Lola, who plays with them until her turn comes to perform. She immediately commands the stage as well as the establishment, singing to the enthralled, lascivious men in the audience, "Guys, tonight I'm going to pick someone/I'm fed up with the young ones." As Rath stumbles his way inside The Blue Angel, he's so nervous that he gets himself caught in the mesh curtains that separate the main room of the club from its entrance. Rath might have convinced himself that he came to lecture her on moral failings, but it's Lola herself that's enticed Rath on this journey, and as she struts around the stage in stockings and garters, that isn't what's on Rath's mind. He remains enraptured as she croons "Naughty Lola," with lyrics such as "If any of you guys get too near/I'll kick you in the ribs/And punch you in the ear." The students spot their professor and flee backstage, but not before Rath spots one of them. Rath begins searching the rooms backstage trying to find the pupils, encountering a
sad and disturbing-looking clown (Reinhold Bernt) who will be a recurring figure throughout the film. He ends up in the dressing room as Lola enters wondering why a man is in there. Rath tells her that she and this club are "corrupting my pupils." Lola brushes this off and begins to undress before Rath, leading him to begin to stumble toward the doorway, being an impediment to those trying to come in and out. Lola sees he's shy and climbs a staircase and Rath stands there, uncertain of what to do next when suddenly panties land in his hands from above. As Rath stands hapless, Kiepert (Kurt Gerron), a magician and manager of the troupe of performers appearing at The Blue Angel, enters yelling at the female performers, though he's protective of Lola until he learns who Rath is and tries to show him that he's important. He sends Lola back out on stage as Kiepert pastes on a mustache to prepare for his magic act. Rath lays into him for letting his pupils attend performances at the club. Before Kiepert can even deny such a thing, Rath spots one of this students and chases him out of the club. Things don't go so well later for the pupil Angst. (Could he be named any more appropriately?) As he sleeps in his bed, shadows approach on his bedroom wall, shapes somewhat reminiscent of Murnau's Nosferatu. Some of the other students start slapping and beating him repeatedly for telling Rath about The Blue Angel.
While it's easy to see the allure of Dietrich and how her star was born out of this film, Jannings proved he could be just as powerful with words as he was in his silent classics, even if some of his emoting continued to play as large as it did in those days when they
didn't have dialogue. Rath, a character created in the novel Professor Unrat by Heinrich Mann, manages to be a sympathetic creation in Jannings' hands even though he doesn't take any paths to make the professor that way. He's overly proud and expects too much of others. A plaque in his apartment reads DO RIGHT AND FEAR NO MAN. He isn't above being physical with his pupils, slapping cigarettes out of their mouths. When the school's director (Eduard V. Winterstein) warns him that he "risks his future on that kind of woman," Rath ignores him, telling him, "She is my future wife." Of course, when Rath actually proposes to Lola, she laughs at him, though she ends up marrying him anyway. Watching Jannings' degradation as he goes from esteemed professor to a man making money selling those postcards of Lola Lola, now his wife, to eventually becoming a clown in Kiepert's act and a cuckold as Lola seeks affection elsewhere telling him sometimes, "What choice do I have? That's the way I was made." 
The lowest point comes when after five years on the road, all of them get booked to play The Blue Angel again, which to Rath's objection, they promote as the professor's return to the town. Not surprisingly, it attracts a sellout crowd. Rath barely seems human anymore. The professor who once taught Shakespeare, now is just a fool, and not even Lear's. When he takes the stage with the magician, he gets hung up in curtains, mirroring his initial entrance to The Blue Angel. When he tries to speak, intelligible words no longer come out. Kiepert makes a mockery of Rath on stage until a group of men, including Lola's lover, rescue him. Later, Kiepert promises that he will make it up to him. It leads to a quiet and sad dénouement. The influence of the German expressionists shine throughout von Sternberg's direction, though he makes great use of the addition of sound as well. For instance, when Rath makes his return down the alley to the club, he adds the unmistakable sound of a cat in heat. While Dietrich definitely makes a magnetic debut (even if it came out second), Jannings brings the heart and magic to The Blue Angel (at least the German version).
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Labels: 30s, Emil Jannings, Foreign, Marlene, Murnau, Netflix, Oscars, Ray Top 100, Shakespeare, von Sternberg
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Tuesday, August 16, 2011
My Missing Picture Nominees: Sons and Lovers (1960)
By Edward Copeland
Before I begin discussing the 1960 best picture nominee Sons and Lovers, based on the famed D.H. Lawrence novel and which earned acclaimed Oscar-winning cinematographer Jack Cardiff his only nomination as a director, I'd like to use this occasion to point out yet another reason any true film lover should dump their streaming only Netflix option in favor of DVDs only. Sons and Lovers is one of the few Oscar nominees for best picture that I've never been able to see, but Netflix only carries it on streaming so I've been trying to watch any titles they have only on streaming before I switch to DVDs only. Cardiff filmed Sons and Lovers in luscious black-and-white CinemaScope (actually his d.p., the equally famous and lauded Freddie Francis was the cinematographer on the film). While you will see the opening and closing credits in the intended aspect ratio, the film in between will be cropped and squeezed for no good reason. Other streaming titles are shown in CinmaScope from beginning to end. Another strike against Netflix streaming. You won't get that on the DVD unless it's a DVD that only offers fullscreen.
As you might expect, a film being directed by Jack Cardiff, the brilliant d.p. behind the look of the Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger classics A Matter of Life and Death aka Stairway to Heaven, Black Narcissus (for which he won the Oscar for cinematography) and The Red Shoes. He also shot Under Capricorn for Hitchcock, The African Queen for Huston, War and Peace for King Vidor (earning another Oscar nomination) and garnered his final cinematography nomination for Joshua Logan's Fanny in 1961. Believe it or not, he even served as d.p. on Rambo: First Blood Part II. The Academy saw fit to give him an honorary Oscar for his long career of exceptional work at the ceremony held in 2001.
Freddie Francis, his d.p. for Sons and Lovers, took home the Oscar for his work on the film. Despite a long list of impressive work, Francis was only nominated for the Oscar one other time — for Glory — and he won. Some of Francis' other films included Scorsese's version of Cape Fear and, his final film, David Lynch's The Straight Story. Also on Cardiff's crew as an assistant director was Peter Yates, who would go on to direct films as diverse as Bullitt and Breaking Away.
I wish I could say that I've read the D.H. Lawrence novel upon which the film is based, but the title itself makes it obvious that the adaptation by Gavin Lambert (who co-wrote Nicholas Ray's films Bigger Than Life and Bitter Victory) and T.E.B. Clarke (Oscar-winning writer of The Lavender Hill Mob) has taken some big liberties from the book. I mean the title indicates multiple sons, but aside from one brief scene that kills off Arthur (Sean Barrett), son of Walter and Gertrude Morel (the great Trevor Howard and Wendy Hiller, by far the film's greatest asset beyond its look and design), a couple of scenes with their son William (William Lucas), who lives in London, the film revolves around their son Paul (Dean Stockwell).
According to summaries of the novel online, Lawrence's book begins with a focus on the turbulent marriage of Walter, a working class miner in Nottingham, England, with a penchant for liquor and Gertrude, who develops unhealthy attachments to her sons. William still moves to London in the book, but is the eldest son and Gertrude's favorite, though he takes ill and dies. Arthur is an afterthought in the book and they also have a sister named Annie who doesn't exist in the film at all. None of the children follow dad into the mines. A near-death experience for Paul (in the novel, not the film) makes Gertrude transfer her obsession to him. Aspiring to be an artist, he gets a chance to move to London when a patron (Ernest Thesiger, who played Dr. Pretorious in 1935's Bride of Frankenstein) sees promise in Paul's work, but Paul abandons his chance to leave when he witness an incident of his drunken father mistreating his mother and stays, fearful of what his lout of a dad could do to his mom.
His mother also subtly and not so subtly interferes with Paul's romances, first with the overly pious Miriam (Heather Sears), who teases the poor lad unmercifully. and later with the married but separated suffragette Clara (Mary Ure) he meets when he takes a job at a sewing factory. (His boss is played by Donald Pleasence). While Miriam runs frigid, Clara burns hot and Paul eats her up, much to the disdain of Clara's cheating husband and his possessive mother.
Howard was nominated as best actor, though he's really supporting and deserved a nomination there. Ure was nominated as supporting actress. Hiller didn't get remembered at all, which is a shame. Given the five films up for best picture in 1960, they all were going to finish a distant second to Billy Wilder's The Apartment. John Wayne's starring in and directing The Alamo automatically lands in fifth. The middle three are tightly bunched, but I believe I'd rank Elmer Gantry second, then The Sundowners, and place Sons and Lovers fourth.
What finally brings Sons and Lovers down that low, despite its gorgeous look and design and mostly superb acting, is Dean Stockwell, who sticks out like a dandelion in a bouquet of roses. Amidst all this British authenticity, including filming on many locations that D.H. Lawrence actually traversed, Stockwell just doesn't belong. His accent isn't horrible, but he's so recognizable as an American (he was born in Hollywood and began acting as a child in the 1940s after all), you know that he wasn't spawned by Trevor Howard and Wendy Hiller. Supposedly, one of the producers, American Jerry Wald, insisted on casting an American in hopes of better U.S. box office. Stockwell can be a great actor but when you think of all the marvelous actors in the right age range circulating in the U.K at that time, what a boneheaded move. Imagine if this film had starred an O'Toole or a Finney or a Caine or a Richard Harris or an Oliver Reed or an Alan Bates or a Laurence Harvey. It could have saved the movie.
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Labels: 60s, Archers, Books, Caine, Dean Stockwell, Fiction, Finney, Hitchcock, Huston, Lynch, N. Ray, Netflix, O'Toole, Oscars, Pleasence, Scorsese, T. Howard, W. Hiller, Wayne, Wilder
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Thursday, July 14, 2011
Dear Netflix:
By Edward Copeland
By now, everyone I'm certain has heard about Netflix's plan to separate its unlimited streaming and its DVD-by=mail rental plans into separate subscriptions meaning that if you are a subscriber who would like to keep them both, your price is going to rise since henceforth you'll be paying for two subscriptions added together to make one larger price. Of course, what it's really about is that Netflix hopes to get all its customers to go the streaming route so it can eventually dump the DVD-by-mail side of their business — the side that made it the success story it is today — so they can lose the expense of postage. A CNET story Wednesday said that as many as 41 percent of Netflix subscribers are expected to cancel over the move.
Most of the complaints I have been reading and hearing concern the price hike, obviously coming from customers such as myself who would want both options of actual DVDs and the occasional use of streaming if I have time and am willing to try to watch something on my laptop, even though that has had mixed results in terms of quality. However, there are several other issues that Netflix should consider before committing corporate suicide, starting with the fact that they will be discriminating against disabled people and others on fixed incomes such as myself. Surely, Netflix doesn't want some kindly attorneys somewhere to work up a case pro bono showing how it could violate the Americans With Disabilities Act, do they?
On the off chance that some readers haven't seen the email sent to subscribers, I thought I'd reprint that first. It reads as follows:
We are separating unlimited DVDs by mail and unlimited streaming into two separate plans to better reflect the costs of each. Now our members have a choice: a streaming only plan, a DVD only plan, or both.
Your current membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs will be split into 2 distinct plans:
Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month
Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs, 2 out at-a-time (no streaming) for $11.99 a month
Your price for getting both of these plans will be $19.98 a month ($7.99 + $11.99). You don't need to do anything to continue your memberships for both unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs.
These prices will start for charges on or after September 1, 2011.
You can easily change or cancel your unlimited streaming plan, unlimited DVD plan, or both, by going to the Plan Change page in Your Account.
We realize you have many choices for home entertainment, and we thank you for your business. As always, if you have questions, please feel free to call us at 1-888-357-1516.
–The Netflix Team
If you've read me for long, you know that I have primary progressive multiple sclerosis and because of a greedy and inattentive doctor, a bedsore no one noticed soon enough and an understaffed, incompetent hospital, I ended up bedridden more than three years ago. As a result, I'm on Social Security Disability (for which I've never received a cost-of-living increase, though the assholes making six-figure salaries in Congress made sure to give themselves one each year) and what little savings I had (including my 401k) are quickly dwindling away. My sole expenses are health and medical related, Netflix and lottery tickets if the jackpot tops $50 million.
As you probably can guess, my life is my laptop, which is breathing its last breaths I fear and I can't afford to buy a new one, though I've heard talk that some friends I haven't seen or talked to in a long time have pooled their resources and are getting me a new one soon. That makes me very happy, but I'm digressing. The thing is that when I do use the streaming option, I can only do it on my laptop, which is fine in a pinch, but I generally don't like to watch movies on that small a screen. I also don't have the money to buy the equipment that would allow the streaming to go into my TV and, since I can't get out of bed without the help of other people and a Hoyer lift, I couldn't connect such equipment if I could afford it. My aging parents are my caregivers and more than 30 years since our first one, the VCR still stymies them.
Several times when I have used the streaming, the movie or program I'm watching has stopped and had to rebuffer as if I'm on an old dialup connection instead of my cable company's WiFi. It did it once when a movie only had 10 minutes left to go and it took 30 minutes on the phone with Netflix and a fix that involved starting some other program to get the movie going again. Stress aggravates the symptoms of M.S., so you want me to sign up for a streaming option full of kinks that doesn't work all the time that I'd be forced to watch on a small screen with inferior sound?
It was bad enough when you started getting DVDs of new releases about a month after they came out and stripped of all their special features. I assume you're hoping the bulk of your customer base hasn't read all the stories about how more and more studios and TV networks are talking about refusing to let you have their product at all. Is Showtime sticking by its guns? Is it safe to assume you will never be offering Dexter Season 5? (It also prompted the creation of HBO GO.)
That leads us to another problem with your proposal. Your DVD library has items that your streaming library doesn't and vice-versa. So if you pick one of the options (or can't afford both) you are losing a lot of titles. Also, the streaming library titles usually come with expiration dates that you don't announce until a few days before they disappear. If you don't happen to have the time to watch that title then, you are just out of luck.
In the end, this is the same story we see repeated over and over again in all sorts of industries, especially ones related to technology or entertainment. Format changes ("Beta? No good now. Need VHS." "Video? It's all DVD now." But they don't record? "Now they do." after a pause "To heck with DVD recorders, it's all DVRs now. You don't really need those DVDs now either, get Blu-ray." What should I do with all these laserdiscs?) and upgrades happen constantly (Consider Facebook's motto: "If it's not broke, break it") and if you are unfortunate enough not to be able to buy each new one, your equipment becomes obsolete. What all of you wizards fail to realize is that this country still hasn't recovered from the deep economic hole that Wall Street and the last administration dug and that the average American still hasn't emerged from the mounds of dirt that we were covered by in the process, so you're really pricing yourself out of existence. If it comes down to a choice between the DVD only plan, the streaming only plan or having enough money to fill your gas tank to get to your job (if you are lucky enough to have one) so you can pay your bills, Netflix will be the one who loses in the end. I see your corporation is being managed as well as our government. Remember, there are other choices.
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Saturday, April 16, 2011
Three years, same spot
By Edward Copeland
I debated writing this for quite some time, mainly because I feared it would come off sounding as "woe is me" whining and who the hell wants to read that? However, with the circumstances of the past couple of months healthwise, I felt I might as well jot my thoughts down to explain to readers and virtual friends what has been going on.
As regular readers know, I have primary progressive multiple sclerosis. I also happen to be bedridden, though the M.S. really didn't cause that. A combination of an incompetent and greedy urologist and a hospital that didn't listen to me and begin physical therapy immediately despite my pleas of fear of losing what limited use of my legs I had when I was placed there for treatment of a severe bedsore that developed in a matter of days as a result of the botched surgery by the quack urologist.
Anyway, just wanted the background out of the way. Today is my birthday, the third I'm spending in this bed, in this room, without the use of my legs. The first year happened to be the one when I turned 40. As Eliot said, April is the cruelest month and it has been my personal history (and, to some extent, the history of the world) that many sad and bad things happen in the month of April.
Five years ago today was the last time I spoke to a dear friend of mine who died unexpectedly 11 days later. My beloved corgi Leland died two years ago April 29 and for most of the last year of her life, I wasn't really able to pet her. Going way back, for my 17th birthday my parents gave me one of their cars as a present. That car was soon totaled when someone rear-ended me. April 12, 1994, was the day my grandmother died. Though I was fortunate not to know anyone who perished, I lived in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, when Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building. April also was when Columbine happened (and my cousin and his family happened to live in Littleton, Colo., though his kids were little). More from April: Lincoln was assassinated. So was MLK. Hitler was born. Today also marks the fourth anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre. This week also will denote the first anniversary of the BP oil spill that wrecked the Gulf.
I didn't intend to get carried away and turn this into April's worst hits (on the plus side, I've always liked that I was exactly 80 years younger to the day as Charlie Chaplin). What I originally intended to write about here was to talk about what's going on with me now. One of the general side effects associated with M.S. is fatigue and I've been feeling it more and more, to the point that it's hard for me to stay awake during the day. My doctor prescribed me Adderall, but even with that I find myself nodding off. I can't write as quickly as I used to and, except for a couple of faithful contributors such as VenetianBlond, Squish and, most especially, Ivan G. Shreve, Jr. and J.D. (who have gone above and beyond the call of duty) and guest writers such as Sheila O'Malley, Paul Kraly and Adam Zanzie, I haven't had a lot of help in picking up the slack from my slowed output.
I always like to try to have something new up Monday through Friday, but those days seem long gone. It's taking me too long to get things done. Mildred Pierce took up a lot of my time and let's just say Elizabeth Taylor picked the worst possible time on the worst possible day on the worst possible week to die. It happened to be a day when my caregiver comes in the morning for bathing and other things and, despite my Adderall, I kept dozing until 1 p.m. in the afternoon. By the time I finally was awake enough to start, it took me more than four hours to write her appreciation. The following day, I slept until 11 a.m., got up for about an hour and a half until my parents found me asleep at the computer, and then slept again until 5 p.m. I woke up at 3:30 p.m. the day Sidney Lumet died. At least he only took a little more than an hour and a half to write, but there weren't eight marriages to work in.
With long-term projects and the aforementioned Mildred Pierce and a constant influx of HBO documentaries, my Netflix movies tend to gather dust. Then, if I do get to watch them and even like one (such as Easy A) I'm too wiped to write about it. I just don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep the blog going. I know the days of daily content are over. There are other matters involving a crooked doctor trying to scam me that I won't go into as well as watching the continuing physical deterioration of my aging parents that just adds to my general April ennui and depression over all things, especially the prospect that the blog could be nearing its final moments and my purpose for perpetuation with it. To make matters worse, my laptop keeps acting screwier and screwier and if something happens to it, there won't be money to fix or replace it.
Sorry for such a bummer of a post, but I felt I should vent for myself and should let the blogosphere know in the event ECOF suddenly fell silent. I will keep trying to produce as much as I can (A new post is complete for Monday) and I hope my contributors and guest writers will keep delivering their quality content as well, for which I am very grateful. I hope I will be able to do recaps of the second season of Treme, less haphazardly than I did the first, but I face two challenges: my fatigue and the addition of Jon Seda to the cast. Blech.
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Labels: Chaplin, Jennifer, Liz, Lumet, Misc., Netflix, Treme
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Saturday, January 01, 2011
Haven't we all chased an elusive purple-haired girl?
By Edward Copeland
After an interminable wait in my Netflix queue, finally I've caught up with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Give me well-written young romances with the right dose of cynicism and a healthy injection of ingenuity and I'm a sucker almost every time. Scott Pilgrim, where have you been all my life? Oh yeah, I think you were inside my head (minus the video game element).
It's always exciting when something you had no previous knowledge of or any expectations for turns out to be as much fun as Scott Pilgrim. Granted, I wouldn't have suspected it before its initial theatrical release until I heard the enthusiasm it engendered in some reviewers, so I wasn't going in completely blind when it finally landed in my DVD player. Still, that only raised the expectations pole it had to vault to please picky old me and it clears that bar by a mile.
Films such as this or my favorite 2009 film, (500) Days of Summer, or Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (which also starred Michael Cera) couldn't be more different, yet somehow they land on a similar groove within my brain and tend to enthrall me from beginning to end, even if Scott Pilgrim isn't quite in their league.
Each of these three very dissimilar films have their own strengths and with Scott Pilgrim, it's the film's strong ensemble of actors. It starts at the top with Cera as the title character who remains, since his days on the late, great television comedy Arrested Development, the best young straight man in the business today and includes a plethora of young talent such as Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers, the would-be object of his affections; Alison Pill, Mark Webber and Johnny Simmons as the members of Scott's rock band Sex Bob-Omb ("We are here to make you think about death and get sad and stuff"); Anna Kendrick, so good in last year's Up in the Air, as Scott's sister; Ellen Wong as Knives Chau, Scott's 17-year-old sweetheart; and the best of the acting Culkins, Kieran, as Scott's gay roommate Wallace. Those names are just scratching the surface of the acting talent embedded in this film.
Michael Bacall & director Edgar Wright adapted the film from Bryan Lee O'Malley's series of graphics novels, which I've never read. Set in Toronto, the plot in a nutshell concerns Scott, still smarting after being dumped by his ex Natalie (Brie Larson), a successful rock star in her own right who now goes by the name Envy, and hooks up with the cute high schooler Knives, despite their five-year age gap. Then he sees her.
She is Ramona, covered with those purple-dyed locks and disinterested in Scott completely at first. Somehow, his goofy charm along with an Amazon delivery pays off and Ramona actually agrees to date him, even though he hasn't worked up the courage to break up with Knives. Of course, any romance has its complications and in this case, it's that Ramona's most recent ex has formed The League of Evil Exes (seven total) and Scott must face off against them all if he hopes to win his new beloved's heart.
Admittedly, for me at least, some of the video-game inspired fights provide the movie's least interesting parts, but what surrounds them is so fun and inventive, that it hardly matters and many of those are good anyway. I especially like Scott's victory over the ex (Brandon Routh) who gets psychic superpowers from his status as a vegan.
The casting of most of the exes (and some other uncredited cameos) add to the exuberant feeling the film left me with by its finish and, to its credit, its more layered than you'd expect with the characters admitting their own wrongs in order to move on. If I have a big criticism, it's that the film has a lot of tiny information box gags that are very hard to read not only because I saw it on TV but because they appear so fleetingly.
Co-writer/director Wright, who helmed the endlessly watchable comic zombie flick Shaun of the Dead, keeps the movie motoring along, so much so that I was so caught up in it that I was surprised how long it was when it ended. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World might not be high art, but it's pure joy.
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Labels: 10s, Michael Cera, Netflix, Television
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Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Twisted sister
By Edward Copeland
Granted, I'm late to the literary turned cinematic phenomenon that follows the adventures of bad girl hacker Lisbeth Salander. I've not read any of the books and I just got around to watching The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as my DVD player took its last breaths. Thankfully, I was able to finish the film on Netflix Instant. Unfortunately, I was just as bored watching it on my laptop as I was on my TV. Admittedly, Noomi Rapace proves quite interesting in the title role, but the film itself tells a terribly muddled tale that drags on far too long and, though I'm far from a squeamish viewer, many scenes reeked to me of little more than torture porn.
Of course, it takes awhile for the two main stories to intersect. The main thread concerns Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), an investigative reporter for a magazine, who gets sued for criminal libel by the subject of one of his pieces when the corruption he accuses him of proves to be faked. He's facing a prison sentence. Salander's involvement is limited to investigating the claims for a mysterious company and she comes to the conclusion that Blomkvist was set up.
That's enough story for me, but that's sidelined as a rich industrialist hires Blomkvist to investigate who killed a favorite niece of his decades ago before Blomkvist has to report for prison. Blomkvist catches someone hacking into his account and traces it back to Lisbeth, who decides to help his investigation.
Along the way, Salander is sexually brutalized by a parole officer and gets sadistic revenge on hin. When the mystery is "solved" we learn the killer is a particularly sadistic rapist who tortures his victims (and was raised and traied by a similarly sadistic rapist who also was a Nazi). There just is an element of sickness running through the entire film that's too unsettling to work as entertainment, especially since the mystery itself is so boring. Then, when it reaches the conclusion, it turns out that it isn't the resolution.
I started to get horror flashbacks to Scent of a Woman, where once you were relieved that you'd reached the end of that nightmare, it had to go wrap up the Chris O'Donnell school storyline that everyone had forgotten about and furthermore, no one cared if it got resolved. I just knew they'd have to get back to Blomkvist being set up, but fortunately they did that rather quickly.
Still, Rapace does somehow cut an interesting character amidst all the perversion and ho-hum plotting. I wonder if the rest of the trilogy gets better, or at least shorter, and what's attracting David Fincher to it. Didn't he already make his penance for Seven with Zodiac? Why does he want to go backward?
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Labels: 10s, Fincher, Foreign, Netflix
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Arthur Penn: Target
By Edward Copeland
Finally, after having to get discs from two far-flung Netflix shipping facilities, one DVD which turned out to be defective, I've finally been able to see Arthur Penn's Target and complete my journey through his feature films. I'm fairly certain, except for directors who only made one film, this makes Penn the only director with totals in the double digits that I've seen each of their feature films. I think I just lack one Kubrick and one Scorsese, but they are only others who come close. Anyway, that's beside the point. Let's talk about 1985's Target.
Much like Dead of Winter which Penn would make two years later, Target serves more as a pure genre piece than Penn usually made, though this time it's the action thriller. Also like Dead of Winter, it's fairly enjoyable as long as you don't think too hard about the plot. It also marks the third and final time that Penn and Gene Hackman worked together.
Walter Lloyd (Hackman) works at a lumberyard in Texas with his devoted wife Donna (Gayle Hunnicutt) and his estranged son Chris (Matt Dillon). Donna is preparing to go on a tourism package visit to Paris and she asks her men to try to bridge their gaps while she's gone. They will, but in a totally unexpected way. Soon after she's gone, Walter gets a call informing him that Donna has disappeared from the tour group.
We don't start getting the full story until the Lloyd men get to Paris and a man approaches Walter with proof he has his wife but Walter quickly spots a man about to open fire on him and moves the kidnapper in front of him, steals his ID and tells bystanders to get a doctor, the man's had a heart attack. You see, Walter isn't your average lumberyard worker: He's a retired CIA agent and Donna has been kidnapped for some reason by someone who wants to see him which may or may not be related to the people who keep trying to kill him.
Of course, he slowly has to let his son in on the truth of his past life, including the fact that Chris Lloyd is not his real name (He should know that's the actor on Taxi, but surely I jest). Basically, the rest of the film turns into one long combination of a mystery and a chase and Penn moves it along at a brisk pace even if it's pretty obvious early on who the bad guy is if the reason behind the whole affair remains murky.
One thing that is disappointing, and this may be due to the DVD transfer, is that it seems to have come from a very faded, bad print so that the color scheme bears a startling resemblance to old 1970s television series. Given the difficulties I had obtaining a copy of the movie in the first place, I suspect that this is probably the story and it didn't really look this bad in its original 1985 release.
In a way though, it's kind of sad. Though Target turned out fine as did Dead of Winter, Penn was trying so many exciting things when he really launched his film directing career with abandoned in the 1960s, that I feel viewers were robbed of other unmade masterpieces. Perhaps too many disappointments or too much meddling by others led Penn to prefer the theater or like many, he just couldn't get projects off the ground. Whatever the story, it seems as if there should be a longer list of Arthur Penn features than there are.
So, now I have finally completed my Arthur Penn journey. Though I have seen a lot of his films that I hadn't seen before, I still ended up holding the same films of his as my favorites as I did before I became a completist. Ranking the top 4, I'd go in this order: Bonnie and Clyde, Little Big Man, Alice's Restaurant and Four Friends.
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Labels: 80s, Arthur Penn, Hackman, Kubrick, Netflix, Scorsese
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