Friday, August 26, 2011
Anhedonia
By Edward Copeland
Most film aficionados know that Anhedonia was Woody Allen's original choice for the title of Annie Hall. This isn't to imply that the British comedy (and I use the term comedy loosely) Swinging With the Finkels, which played across the U.K. last year and receives a limited U.S. release beginning today, approaches Allen's masterwork in terms of quality but simply that the definition of anhedonia fits Swinging With the Finkels rather well. For those unfamiliar with its meaning, anhedonia is the clinical term for the inability to experience pleasure and trust me, you won't be deriving anything pleasing from this movie that apes all the greater films writer-director-star Martin Freeman obviously loves but doesn't comes close to eliciting even a smile with its cinematic kleptomania.
Freeman, who recently portrayed Dr. Watson in the well-received television miniseries Sherlock Holmes and will star as Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's two-film adaptation of The Hobbit, must hold a special place in his heart for Woody Allen's best films because he certainly tries to imitate them in Swinging With the Finkels. He divides the film with black-and-white-title cards à la Hannah and Her Sisters (even if Woody himself was taking that from Ingmar Bergman's Scenes From a Marriage), there are elements reminiscent of Husbands and Wives and he even goes so far as to film a scene where a couple shares a romantic moment on a park bench against a beautiful sky, only in color instead of black-and-white as in Manhattan. Newman does show that he's doesn't steal from a single filmmaker — he swipes from Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally as well (though he's taking more from Nora Ephron's script than Reiner's direction).
Perusing Newman's credits as a writer-director, it would appear that he's also recycling himself because in 2008 he wrote and directed a film called Sex With the Finkels, only it had an entirely different cast though the plot sounds the same and includes characters with the same names such as "Toe Jam Man." If at first you don't succeed, fail, fail again I suppose.
Newman stars in Swinging With the Finkels as Alvin Finkel, (He even had to have a name similar to Allen's character of Alvy from Annie Hall? Oh boy.) who after nine years of marriage with his wife Ellie (Mandy Moore) finds that the spark has seemed to have gone out. Alvin's best friend Peter (Jonathan Silverman) and his wife Janet (Melissa George) are going through similar problems, though they've been wed longer and the introduction of their children into their relationship have dimmed their flame.
The two couples raised several questions for me, namely how Brit Alvin ended up with both an American wife and an American best friend who has a thriving dental practice in London. I assume Janet is supposed to be British though George herself is Australian. There also is the issue of age disparities. Flashbacks imply that Alvin and Ellie met at college and once a picture of Alvin's hairstyle at that time is dated as 1994 (when in real life Mandy Moore would have been 10.) The film never goes to the trouble of saying how old anyone is supposed to be but the 27-year-old Moore is supposed to be in her ninth year of marriage to the 38-year-old Newman whose best friend is the 45-year-old Silverman? Of course, if anything else in the movie worked my mind wouldn't have started wandering to silly details such as these.
Using the black-and-white title cards, most of the film plays as blackout sketches, so there isn't any chance for character development on anyone's part. As a result, the viewer has no vested interested in what happens to either marriage. The movie also can't settle on what type of comedy it wants to be. Occasionally, it aims for more sophisticated types of humor, then it will try to get laughs off drinks with naughty names. When Alvin and Ellie make the decision to interview couples to see if spouse swapping will revitalize their marriage, we get the expected series of silly couples. The only things all the different humor styles have in common is that as scripted by Newman, they all land with a thud. It makes you grateful at times that the musical score by Mark Thomas steps on so much of the dialogue, sparing you from at least some of the bad jokes.
The absolute worst moments come when the film tries to step into material that might be too lowbrow for the American Pie movies. A guest at a New Year's Eve party mistakes cat food for a dip and, when he learns what it is, continues to eat it. Janet carries on a conversation with Ellie while lactating and saving her breast milk into bottles. She asks Ellie if she would like a taste and proceeds to drink some herself.
The movie's low point though has to come when Alvin goes to the airport to pick up Ellie's grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Winters (Jerry Stiller and Beverley Klein). Ellie thinks that she'll be alone long enough to experiment with self-gratification through vegetables. Guess who arrives home sooner than expected! If you think I'm being too hard on Swinging With the Finkels and visualizing Jerry Stiller getting hit in the nuts with a lubricated cucumber makes you laugh, maybe this is your type of film.
For me, after enduring what has to be one of the longest 85 minute periods of my life watching Swinging With the Finkels, I just felt like bellowing the mantra of Stiller's character Frank Costanza from Seinfeld: SERENITY NOW!
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Labels: 10s, Books, Ingmar Bergman, Peter Jackson, R. Reiner, Seinfeld, Television, Woody
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Monday, April 11, 2011
Chickens, coloraturas & class
By Edward Copeland
Having watched Todd Haynes' phenomenal five-part miniseries adaptation of Mildred Pierce twice (and in the case of some scenes, multiple times), now that it has completed its first run on HBO and I've finished recapping it, I felt like writing on its strengths and weaknesses and relations to James M. Cain's original novel one last time without worrying that I might be spoiling anything. No one should be reading this if they haven't watched it all, but I hope a lot of you have because I'd like to provoke a debate and discussion on some issues that I haven't settled on myself.
I'm not going to repeat the differences between the novel, the miniseries and the 1945 film or my initial praise for its technical aspects that I discussed in my preview/review the preceded the airing of the first episode. I might repeat things I mentioned in passing in the recaps of Parts One and Two, Part Three and Parts Four and Five simply because it slipped my mind that I've said it before.
Instead of diving into the deeper questions and ideas about Mildred Pierce, I first want one last chance to virtually raise a glass to its remarkable cast, headed by the phenomenal Kate Winslet, simply the best actress of her generation giving one of her best performances in a relatively young career filled with brilliant performances dating back to the first time we took notice of her in Peter Jackson's 1994 film Heavenly Creatures. At 35, she has one Oscar and a total of six nominations. When Meryl Streep was that age, she had two Oscars but one less nomination. If Winslet's career lasts as long as Streep's, could she tie or break the record for most nominations for an actress that Streep extends with each new one?
Specifically as it pertains to Winslet's performance in Mildred Pierce, she's a wonder. Perhaps part of what makes her so strong in this role is that she's never had the chance to develop a character over this long a time period as she did with the five-plus hours of the miniseries. As I mentioned frequently in the recaps, Winslet excelled, as you would expect, in the emotional moments of her character when she broke out in anger, tears or indignation, but her most powerful work came from her silences. As I wrote in the recap of the final part, the number of changes of expressions her face goes through when she discovers her daughter Veda (Evan Rachel Wood) nude in the bed of her husband Monty (Guy Pearce) when she already was in a panic to find her to save her business was simply amazing. Joan Crawford might have won the Oscar for her Mildred in Michael Curtiz's 1945 film, but it's no contest as to who created the finer portrait and it's not just because the miniseries sticks closer to James M. Cain novel than the 1945 film did.
As great as Winslet is, whoever cast this miniseries really deserves some kind of an award of his or her own for there really wasn't a weak link from the major characters all the way down to those who appear in a scene or two. The quality of the performances almost became an element of production design, immersing the viewer in the story's universe completely and realistically. No one seemed out of time or out of place and they all worked beautifully to bring director Todd Haynes' vision and the script he wrote with Jon Raymond to vivid life. It's interesting that in telling a story of a very specific time in America, three of the most important characters — Mildred, Monty and Bert — were played by two actors born in England and one in Ireland. Guy Pearce hit all
the right notes as the charming Monty and, watching Mildred Pierce the second time, I actually came to feel sorry for his character, especially after he weds Mildred. He certainly was wrong to be banging her daughter, but the second time through I never had the impression that he was out to take Mildred for a ride or that he particularly enjoyed being her kept man and Mildred did treat him badly once Veda came back. Brian F. O'Byrne also is quite good as Bert. O'Byrne's most notable work has been on the stage with most of his film and television roles being small ones, but he really does make Bert a more sympathetic character as the series goes along considering when we meet him he's an adulterer who leaves his wife and two young daughters for another woman. By the end, he's the most purely positive portrayal of a male character in the story.
This post could go on forever listing all of the great cast members such as Melissa Leo's fine work as Lucy, Mare Winningham's as Ida and all the brief appearances such as Brenda Wehle as Mrs. Turner at the employment agency, Hope Davis as Mrs. Forrester/Lenhardt and two of my personal favorites: the great scenes given to Veda's eventual music instructors: the incomparable Richard Easton as Mr. Hannen and Ronald Guttman as conductor Carlo Treviso, who gives Mildred that highly entertaining speech explaining that while Veda is a one-of-a-kind talent she's also a one-of-a-kind monster and Mildred's seems sensible so why would she want Veda back to wreak havoc in her life? To me, the biggest surprise was James LeGros as Wally Bergan. Hadn't seen LeGros in quite some time, but I remembered him best from his days as a long-haired regular of
indie films of the late 1980s and '90s such as Near Dark, Drugstore Cowboy and Living in Oblivion as well as other Haynes' films such as Safe. I think the last time I remember seeing him was in one of those bad, later season episodes of Roseanne. To see him again, not only giving what may be his best performance ever but transformed into a middle-age man with a receding hairline and a distinct, protruding pot belly he's not afraid to show, he was amazing. Wally Bergan oozes sleaze and is a smarmy rogue that Mildred knows is capable of backstabbing, yet through LeGros' performance you can see the oddball charm that he has, usually displayed through humor, that makes it so easy to take advantage of people who know his history well. Then, Mildred has the same weakness when it comes to Veda and Wally was Veda's eager partner in scamming the Forresters out of money over the fake pregnancy. As for LeGros, the physical transformation still knocks me out. If I didn't see his name in the credits, I don't know if I'd have recognized him immediately. That's why I thought I'd put a photo of him from Living in Oblivion next to one in Mildred Pierce just to compare.
Which brings us to our pair of Vedas. The remarkable Morgan Turner who took the part from age 11-14 in Parts One through Three and Evan Rachel Wood who played her in Parts Four and Five from 17 to 20. Wood was good, but at times I felt she was a bit too mannered, while the amazing Turner didn't seem to make a misstep, perfectly balancing the part of Veda that was still just a normal kid and her rotten side. When Turner's Veda would be manipulative, she didn't forecast it as much as Wood did as in the scene where she tells Mildred she kept the "pregnancy" from her because she couldn't bear to disappoint her. She was so easy to see through whereas the young Turner played it much smoother and actually held her own better in her one-on-one confrontation scenes with Winslet than the more experienced Wood did. I'm eager to see what comes of this young actress, who just turns 12 later this month.
Without a doubt, the Mildred Pierce miniseries is the finest work produced by director Todd Haynes so far. It seems as if he must have planned every aspect of it much like those blueprints for homes on Bert Pierce's den wall. His repeated use of similar motifs, such as Mildred behind the wheel of a car at emotional low points, to often viewing people through window, Veda especially through the screens of windows and doors. What I loved the most actually goes to the script he wrote with Raymond, allowing scenes to play them out with lots of monologues or duets, that linger to really get the viewer involved.
Haynes also recognized that perhaps his greatest visual asset in his arsenal happened to be Kate Winslet's face. It was especially evident in the final part where Guy Pearce delivered most of Monty's monologue while the camera stayed on Winslet's Mildred, but he took that approach before. Often, he'd choose to have our eyes look elsewhere while dialogue went on offscreen. I also admired his respect for the audience in figuring out what year it was. Only twice (at the beginnings of Parts One and Four) does he put an onscreen notice of time and location. Through the rest of the series, he leaves it to the viewer to be smart enough to figure out by radio speeches and election talk concerning Hoover and FDR or the repeal of Prohibition what year we'd reached.
I also have to wonder if young Morgan Turner is just naturally a great young actress or if Haynes nurtured her to get that amazing a performance out of her.
The climax comes and plays out so quickly in the miniseries that some of the details might have been lost on viewers who haven't read the novel, whose ending is slightly different. When Mildred finds Veda with Monty
and snaps and starts choking her, Veda fakes that it affects her singing voice by reverting to the voice she had before Treviso trained her to sing like a woman. One of the jokes that gets lost by most people is that Veda is said to have originally had a singing voice like a man. Since all of the male characters created by Cain are flawed or worse, to say the least, I thought it was funny that Veda was the worst man of all. The reason she fakes it, of course, is because she's thinking so fast that she sees it as a way to scam her way out of her Pleasant Cigarette contract and then get the more lucrative Consolidated Foods deal, which Mr. Hobey said had no expiration date, and find her way in New York. The one part of the novel that the miniseries completely omits is that Mildred, feeling guilty for depriving her daughter of her livelihood, takes her back in with her and Bert. Veda then suddenly leaves one day and Mildred puts it all together and the ending with her and Bert is the same. In the novel, there also isn't a welcome home party for Bert and Mildred from Reno. Ida's betrayal remains a full one and Lucy gets obsessed with an affair Ike is having and they lose touch.While Cain's novel certainly isn't a crime novel in the same vein as his books Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice, when you get down to it, Veda really is a grifter at heart and it's more evident in the book and, upon second viewing of the miniseries, that she gets her scheming instincts from Mildred. She doesn't do it for personal gain as her daughter does, but to get what she wants in her personal life, most often related to Veda. The second time around, I found Mildred to be less sympathetic at times as I did the first. For example, take the bizarre political conversation she has with Monty while they are taking a drive where she seems to be ready to vote for FDR, but reluctantly, hoping he will balance the budget (something Hoover tried with disastrous results that deepened the Depression) and showing contempt for people asking for help because of the economy.
While it's never broached in any of the adaptations, I wonder exactly when Veda and Monty began their sexual relationship. They were discussing his sex life openly when she was 14, when did it actually begin? Did it happen before she was older? Was a degree of pedophilia involved? While Veda already was a handful when her sister was still there, would Mildred's obsession with her have grown so out of control if Ray had lived? Did Mildred drive Bert away in the first place? The Bert Pierce who comes back seems like such a decent fellow, what drove him into the arms of Maggie Biederhof in the first place? Though there was a faked pregnancy, with all the sex going on in Haynes' highly sexualized version, how did no one get knocked up? Let's start a discussion about the best limited series for television that I've seen in ages. One last thought: I've been reading Stephen Sondheim's Finishing the Hat, which is a compendium of his lyrics through 1984with notes and comments about the shows as well as self-criticism, and I just finished the chapter on Gypsy. It made me think how funny it would have been if Veda had had Mama Rose as her mother instead of Mildred. Imagine that.
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Labels: 10s, Books, Crawford, Curtiz, E.R. Wood, Fiction, HBO, Melissa Leo, Nonfiction, Oscars, Pearce, Peter Jackson, Sondheim, Streep, Television, Winslet
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Monday, January 25, 2010
A life cut short
By Edward Copeland
I imagine, though we are several years removed from the Lord of the Rings movies, there remain enough obsessed Hobbitologists out there who may likely throw a hissy fit when I claim that Peter Jackson creates more stunning and remarkable imagery in his adaptation of The Lovely Bones than he did in 760 hours of the Rings trilogy.
Based on Alice Sebold's best seller, which I admittedly have not read, could easily turn treacly or depressing in its tale of a murdered 14-year-old girl (a terrific performance by Saoirse Ronan) witnessing how the lives of her family, friends and even killer progress as she wanders in a nether region she must navigate before she moves on to heaven.
Set in 1973, the period details are quite good, and not in that CGI-overkill way they were in Jackson's bloated, misguided remake of King Kong. It even includes Michael Imperioli playing a police detective with a hairstyle that makes me believe he had to have filmed this right around the time he was making the short-lived TV series Life on Mars.
The opening section of The Lovely Bones plays as an average slice-of-life about the Salmon family and it may be some of the best scenes connecting with day-to-day people that Jackson has filmed since way back in Heavenly Creatures. Oldest daughter Susie (Ronan) proves to be the family's life force, even though there is still mom and dad (Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg) and a younger sister and brother (Rose McIver, Christian Thomas Ashdale). There also is the great Susan Sarandon as the hard-drinking, chain-smoking grandmother who believes in living like a free spirit in a neverending quest to deny her real age.
Ronan proves that her Oscar-nominated work as the young Briony in Atonement was no fluke. Most of the weight of The Lovely Bones falls upon her young shoulders and she carries it with aplomb, first as a smart teen with bursting creativity and a strong crush on a boy at school and then later as an apparition, wanting to help her family heal and to see her killer punished.
The man who kills Susie is played with the appropriate amount of banality and creepiness by Stanley Tucci, though I have to admit that his eventual demise has to be one of the most ludicrous since Kubrick let Nicholson's Jack Torrance freeze to death in the maze in The Shining. Having not read Sebold's novel, I have no idea if this is a departure from the book.
Still, it's a minor criticism for an otherwise impressive film. Jackson produces impressive sequences of all shapes and sizes, from a simple sequence showing the loss of passion in a marriage over time to the fantastical imagery of giant ships in bottles crashing against the shores in Susie's limbo as her father is breaking down at home.
Having not read the novel, I didn't know quite what to expect from The Lovely Bones, fearing it might be maudlin or depressing, but instead I found it to be a worthwhile experience that held my interest from beginning to end.
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Labels: 00s, Kubrick, Nicholson, Peter Jackson, Susan Sarandon, Tucci, Wahlberg
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Monday, April 07, 2008
Made it, Ann. Top of the world!
By Edward Copeland
Seventy five years ago today, King Kong stomped onto movie screens for the first time. He's been back many times since in sequels and in two remakes, but the Merian C. Cooper/Ernest B. Schoedsack original remains the best.
It's a well-worn cliché that the journey trumps the destination in importance and that certainly proved to be the case with King Kong. If you went into the film blind, you might have no idea as to the story's direction. There's the one and only filmmaker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) with his "reputation for recklessness" setting out to film some sort of adventure on the fly on a mysterious, unchartered island. The only problem: He needs a female lead. Denham would be happy to ditch the romantic element, but you know those damn critics and audiences: You have to have a woman. The film drops hints here and there that the island may offer something bigger than just an exotic location. Denham acknowledges that he knows that something is "holding that island in the grip of fear. Something no white man has ever seen." Of course, because of Denham's reputation, no reputable agent will sacrifice a client to him, but thankfully (for Denham anyway) he stumbles upon the struggling Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) and talks her into enlisting in his voyage. He even gives her screen tests for gowns and shrieks while they sail and we get a preview of that scream, that delicious scream.
Of course, the all-male crew on the ship resent having a dame aboard as only men in a 1930s film could, but that doesn't stop Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) from falling for Ann in a way only Hollywood's Golden Age would allow: Basically, give them one scene together of friction, then have them declare their love for each other. When Jack pours out his feelings for Ann, she says, "But Jack, you hate women!" "But you ain't women," he replies. When you really get deep into it, in many ways the later relationship that blooms between Kong and Ann might be more realistic and better developed. One thing I noticed this time (thanks to a DVD commentary by special effects legend Ray Harryhausen and visual effects wizard Ken Rolston) that never caught my attention before: Aside from the opening credits, Max Steiner's memorable score doesn't even begin until the ship arrives in the fog outside Skull Island.
Harryhausen makes a couple of other cogent points that should have occurred to me before: 1) If the natives built a wall big enough to keep Kong out, why did they add a gate big enough for him to come through? and 2) What happened to all the native women that had been sacrificed to Kong prior to Ann? Did he eat them? When Kong makes his first appearance, the stop-action movements bear a bit of a resemblance to the first shots of the Abominable Snowman coming over the mountain in the TV classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Sure, sometimes the scale misses the mark a bit in the effects (such as when the Loch Ness-type dinosaur flings bodies around), but I'd trade these primitive effects over bloated CGI anyday. In their running commentary (which really ranks as one of the best DVD commentaries I've heard and includes bits of archival interviews with Cooper and Wray), Harryhausen and Rolston express wonder at the magic conjured with the limited abilities of 1933 Hollywood. Rolston goes so far as to call King Kong the Jurassic Park of that generation (though I'd come up with a better movie example than that). "Everything today is reinventing the wheel," Harryhausen says. "And they are making it worse," Rolston replies. He's right.
As Harryhausen points out, the more they strive for realism, the more mundane movies become. They should strive to take us to another world such as the strange universe of Skull Island with its giant apes and still-living dinosaurs. The horrible 1976 remake and
Peter Jackson's bloated 2005 do-over both missed the magic of the 1933 version. The other night, the 1976 version aired on AMC and I caught parts of it, reminding me of how truly bad it was. It only had two things I thought improved on the other versions: It bothered to show how they actually transferred Kong on a ship back to New York and its equivalent of the Denham character (Charles Grodin) got what he deserved). Actually, one other plus to the 1976 version (I write this solely as a present for Josh R): The 1976 animatronic Kong had more realistic facial expressions
than Jessica Lange. Of course, if Kong had put his foot down with Armstrong, it would have deprived us of one of the classic closing lines in movie history. That's something else that the original doesn't get enough credit for: Its screenplay by James Creelman and Ruth Rose holds up much better than you'd expect in an action fantasy of this type. Just listen to the throwaway lines as jaded New York theatergoers crowd in to see Denham's show paying the then-outrageous ticket price of $20. I also love the little touches, such as when Kong breaks free of his arm restraints and then slowly and methodically undoes his other chains instead of just tearing them out in a fury. "A film is like an ink blot," Harryhausen says at another point in his DVD commentary. "It tells you more about the person watching it than the film itself." This proves most especially true about the 1933 King Kong, which deserves the title of the eighth wonder of the world, if only for finding pathos in a foot-and-a-half tall rubber puppet.Tweet
Labels: 30s, Grodin, J. Lange, Movie Tributes, Peter Jackson, Remakes
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Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Superman develops double vision
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is in conjunction with the Double Feature Blog-a-Thon being coordinated at The Broken Projector.
By David Gaffen
One of the more notable results of the rise of DVD technology was the proliferation of “alternate” versions of film releases — that long-buried cut of one classic or another that supposedly was a better, more fully realized take on the film the average moviegoer saw in first release. This existed prior to the advent of DVDs — Francis Ford Coppola notably tinkered with The Godfather for years and years, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released in two forms as well — but the memory available on DVDs made this practice all the more popular. Several versions of Blade Runner have appeared since, and Peter Jackson intentionally released longer cuts of the Lord of the Rings films that did not detract from, nor diminish, the original moviegoing experience, but instead deepened the viewer’s appreciation of the work.
One legendary production that was said to exist in a different (and presumably better) form was Superman II, parts of which were filmed simultaneously with the Richard Donner-helmed Superman of 1978. Donner was fired before the second film was completed due to disputes with the producers and Richard Lester, director of A Hard Day’s Night, was brought in to complete the work. Most recently, Donner’s version — cobbling together never-seen before footage, along with a lot of what appeared in Superman II's theatrical release, appeared on DVD as the “true” version of what the film should have looked like.
It should have remained buried. While it’s unfair on some levels to handicap Donner’s take — some of what appears were first takes that feature inconsistent hair styling (Christopher Reeve’s Clark Kent jumps from a messy 'do to the usual slicked-over-haircut in one scene) — what Lester did with the film actually improves upon Donner’s blueprint, and a blueprint is what it mostly is.
That isn’t to say Lester’s version is perfect. It’s too jokey in parts, notably during the long sequence where the villains use their super-breath to blow most of New York into a ditch (Donner’s original take mostly excises the doofus roller-skater), and the Donner version ties in better with the conclusion of the first film (where General Zod and Co. seemed like an unnecessary detour).
However, the playfulness of Lester helps the film in its greatest deviance from what Donner had intended. Originally, Lois Lane, played by Margot Kidder, confronts Clark Kent about his identity in the office at the film’s outset — by falling from a Daily Planet window, only to have Clark respond by zipping down the elevator shaft (as Superman, naturally), and using his breath to buoy a falling Lois into hitting an awning, depositing her on top of a fruit stand. This take strains credulity — too many people on a crowded New York street should have (and did) see Lois seemingly fall from a great height onto to slow down when nearing the street.
That scene, along with the reveal of Superman’s identity by Lois, are the greatest flaws in the “new” version; Lois fools Clark into revealing he’s Superman by firing a bullet at him, which he doesn’t react to. Of course, the gun contains blanks, but surely, Superman would have noted this without being felled by so silly a ruse.
By contrast, the parallel scenes in the 1980 release (though it didn't open in the U.S. until 1981) are two of the strongest in the series — both because they deepen the relationship between Lois and Clark and better showcase Reeve’s gift for physical comedy. The Niagara Falls sequence, where Lois intentionally hurls herself into the raging river, followed by Clark’s sly manner in rescuing her (using heat vision to break a tree branch for her, for instance), is handled in a more deft fashion. In addition, the subsequent reveal because of Clark’s clumsy pratfall into the fire (which may or may not have been intentional, subconsciously), is handled with grace and dignity, because it intertwines their feelings with his concern about protecting his true identity.
Marlon Brando reappears as Jor-El in the Donner version as well (a lawsuit filed by Brando caused producers to dump him from the second film), but his presence wasn’t missed in the original version. By then Brando’s acting had become mostly hammy gestures, and in fact, his absence adds to the poignancy of Clark’s helplessness when he returns — on foot — to the Fortress of Solitude to try to regain his identity.
The Donner version also restores the original manner in which the villains were released from the Phantom Zone — through the explosion in space of one of the nuclear bombs triggered by Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor at the end of the first film. That was changed to include the Paris sequence, which doesn’t work nearly as well — particularly because whatever bomb they had put together just doesn’t match the potential destruction of a nuclear warhead.
A stated earlier, Lester’s penchant for jokiness — mostly shown in the New York destruction and some of the Southern hijinks involving the sheriff played by Clifton James, and his bumbling deputy — seems to come across as a bit much, although that indulgence did not overwhelm the film because of the existence of Donner’s earlier work. This was not so with the third film, also directed by Lester, which begins with an extended, pointless slapstick sequence, along with the mere presence of Richard Pryor, shoehorned into the film based on his box-office popularity at the time. Superman III should have killed the series; it unfortunately did not (and we’re not going to address the putrid fourth film).
That isn’t to say Donner’s version isn’t interesting — it is — but it often feels truncated, even allowing for the fact that it was never truly finished, and some of the footage involved was clearly not ready for release. Still, in the end, the producers made the right decision, as the finished product was far superior.
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Labels: 80s, Blog-a-thons, Brando, Coppola, Hackman, Peter Jackson, Sequels
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Saturday, April 08, 2006
Lean was so much better when he was lean
By Edward Copeland
The legend has it that David Lean was so scarred by Pauline Kael's brutal take on his 1970 movie Ryan's Daughter that it kept him out of the director's chair for more than a decade, until he returned with 1984's A Passage to India. Alas, Kael's review was not included in her collection For Keeps, so I've never read it in all its glory and her only comment in 5001 Nights at the Movies is that it is "Gush made respectable by millions of dollars tastefully wasted." I don't know if the legend is true, but having recently watched Ryan's Daughter for the first time, I have to think that Kael did Lean and audiences a favor because as he became epic obsessed, his greatness diminished, especially when compared to his earlier, smaller and brilliant films.
Something happens when great filmmakers get the bloat bug and it's a shame that more can't go back to small after they've gone gargantuan (Peter Jackson, I'm looking in your general direction). Don't get me wrong — I love Lawrence of Arabia — but for me, that's the only one of his big pictures that really works (though A Passage to India is passable enough). Even Lawrence lags in the second half, but Bridge on the River Kwai doesn't hold up well and I found Doctor Zhivago damn near interminable aside from Rod Steiger's great performance.
However, I'm here to discuss Ryan's Daughter which is the biggest epic crime committed by Lean — forcing a simple (though dull) tale of a love triangle into a three-hour format because by 1970, that's the only thing he knew how to do. There also is a side diversion into early IRA stuff, but it seems present only to pad out the running time which was padded as it was. Robert Mitchum suffers through a less-than-convincing Irish accent as his new bride (Sarah Miles) suddenly decides to take up with a British soldier, prompting a Scarlet Letter-ish outcry from the townfolk, who also blame her for ratting out an IRA soldier.
As one would expect, the film is pretty — including many shots of raindrops falling off leaves during a love scene that Terrence Malick would love — but pretty images alone do not a good movie make. The real embarrassment of the film is the Oscar-winning performance by John Mills as the village idiot which may well be the worst Oscar-winning performance I've ever seen — and that says a lot. Hidden somewhat beneath makeup, Mills' character basically has two expressions: fear and glee, though I guess you could argue that is one more expression than Charlize Theron could muster under her Monster makeup, thought at least Theron had the help of being able to speak. This all seems so tragic to me when you look back at Lean's early filmography, which holds up so much better than what he made once the epic bug bit him.
1942: Co-directed with Noel Coward, In Which We Serve is a dramatic and touching story of a British naval ship with some haunting images that I don't dare spoil for those who haven't seen it.
1945: Lean produced the fluffy Blithe Spirit, which is worth watching if only for Margaret Rutherford's absolutely brilliant comic performance.
That same year, Lean directed the absolutely sublime romantic classic Brief Encounter whose influence has resonated through the ages in forms as diverse as the play turned movie Same Time, Next Year and the schlock novel turned movie The Bridges of Madison County. It also features great performances by Trevor Howard and the now nearly forgotten Celia Johnson.
1946: Lean made the first of his two great Dickens' adaptations, Great Expectations, and for my money it remains the best film version of a Charles Dickens novel ever put on screen. It also contains a John Mills performance worth praising as Pip. (Mills also gave a memorable early performance in In Which We Serve).
1948: Lean scored another win with Dickens, this time with Oliver Twist. Despite the usual criticism of the Fagin character that accompanies all versions of this tale, Alec Guinness is positively brilliant in the role.
Admittedly, I haven't seen his works between 1949 and 1954, but in 1955 he made the bittersweet Summertime with Katharine Hepburn as a spinster finding romance in Venice — and after that, it was epics all the way and I think, aside from Lawrence of Arabia, film lovers are the ones who suffered the most by his conversion to the HUGE. I picked on Peter Jackson earlier about this, but I think it could be applied to Martin Scorsese and others as well. Imagine if Scorsese stepped back from his epic phase and went back to a smaller type of film that made his reputation in the first place. I don't know if The Departed will be that film — but I can hope.
As far as Ryan's Daughter goes, if you haven't seen it, despite the deluxe 2-DVD treatment it has recently received, save your time.
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Labels: 70s, Dickens, Guinness, K. Hepburn, Kael, Lean, Malick, Mitchum, Peter Jackson, Scorsese, T. Howard
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Saturday, February 04, 2006
Is predictability always a problem?
By Edward Copeland
Commenting on my discussion of A History of Violence and Thumbsucker, Josh R. suggested that he always knew where both of the films basically were headed and that it lessened the experience for him. While I fully understand his point — I've criticized many a movie because I was way ahead of them in terms of story trajectory — it seemed to me that you can't expect every single film to be a new direction. What I liked about those two films were not that they surprised me, but that their paths were handled with such confidence by the writers and directors and fleshed out so superbly by the casts, it didn't matter. To me, it's when movies are deficient in the creative areas, that predictably becomes a detriment.
In an earlier discussion on movie plot twists, Dave wondered if critics place too high an emphasis on seeing something new because they've seen so many movies, they are more impatient than most. I think both types of movies can be great if done well enough. My two favorite fiction films of 2005 are a study in that contrast. A History of Violence seems fairly preordained in its direction, but the acting and taut storytelling more than made up for it for me. On the other hand, I was never certain where The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada was taking me, but its confidence held me in such thrall that I relaxed and let the movie guide me to its final destination.
Of course, remakes inevitably are going to be predictable and aside from my bias against them when they are new versions of films that were great to begin with, you don't hear too many complaints when Peter Jackson remakes King Kong that it involves finding a big ape on an island, taking him to New York and having him plunge to his death off a tall building. The complaints come from other factors such as length.
There are so many films that could be discussed on these terms that I decided to start the conversation with the easiest way I know how: looking back at my top films from 1982-2004.
Tootsie, even after countless viewings, still has the ability to surprise me. I think it belongs in the category of films where you aren't quite certain what's going to happen and you don't care. Sure — you have to expect that Michael Dorsey's deception will eventually be discovered, but how and when is not clear.
If you had read the novel of Terms of Endearment before seeing it, you would have known where that film was heading — though Jack Nicholson's Garrett Breedlove would have been a surprise. I hadn't, though no one put too much effort into keeping the late-movie twist much of a secret — how many times did you see the clip of Shirley MacLaine demanding that nurses give her daughter her shot? I think it probably falls more into the category of a film whose writing and performances are so superior that it wouldn't matter if you knew where it was going or not.
Amadeus is another example where if you'd seen or read the original play, you'd have a good idea where the movie was going, but I hadn't done either and being only 15 at the time, was rather limited in my knowledge of Mozart's life. I'm not sure it really falls into either category — it's just a great moviegoing experience — period.
Going in, it's likely you would know that a movie character steps off the screen in The Purple Rose of Cairo. Still, all the things that happen after that are a delight right up until the bittersweet ending. Ahh — how I long for the day when Woody Allen didn't repeat himself.
Hannah and Her Sisters has so many characters and story strands going, that it is definitely a journey movie. I defy anyone seeing that for the first time to be able to guess every turn of the story or its denouement.
Broadcast News is also all about the journey for me. I remember at the time that my mom was upset that Holly Hunter's character didn't end up with Albert Brooks, but to have a film that ostensibly sets up a romantic triangle and then has the courage to have none of the characters hook up at the end — that was great.
1988 brings my first favorite film that clearly is pretty obvious where it's going to end — Die Hard. I mean, would anyone really think that Bruce Willis wasn't going to prevail by the end? The individual details aren't clear, but this is a movie as a great thrill ride. It's not remotely about surprises or unexpected turns — it's just flat-out great.
Do the Right Thing though is definitely about the journey. With its large ensemble cast and the way the story plays, it's clear there will be some kind of racial explosion by movie's end, but there really is no way of knowing exactly how that will play out. It builds a suspense that definitely places it in the journey category.
Goodfellas is another example of a film based on a book I hadn't read. For me, this was not only my top film of 1990 — it's on my 10 best list of all time. Watching this movie is like going to film school in less than three hours — it emphasizes nearly every aspect of filmmaking. It's so great that for me it soars above either category.
The animated Beauty and the Beast is most decidedly a movie that you know the ending of in advance, but it doesn't dilute the magic in the slightest. The animation was astounding (remember when non-CGI animation used to have the ability to amaze?), the songs were brilliant (for the most part) and it not only pleased kids, but adults as well.
The Crying Game is about nothing if not surprise. With the countless twists — not just the big one — you are never quite sure where Neil Jordan is taking you, but he is so assured, that it doesn't matter. It's definitely a journey.
Schindler's List is more of an odd duck. You know going in that a movie about the Holocaust is going to include a lot of death. Really, this is more of a character study and not about the plot.
Then there is Pulp Fiction with its scrambled structure that makes it absolutely impossible to chart its course before it charts it for you. It's really a movie about both the journey and the destination.
Since Crumb is a documentary, I don't think it really needs to be considered in these terms.
Lone Star though is another large cast canvas that while ostensibly framed as a murder mystery, really cares more about character. It's all about the journey.
L.A. Confidential in its own way is similar to Lone Star in that respect, but it keeps you off balance. When one of the three major characters get killed and another character is revealed as the chief villain, it makes you question whether or not the other leads will survive until the last reel.
Gods and Monsters is another film that's more character study than either of the other.
American Beauty is a film that you can be way ahead of. It's also a movie that for me, has grown weaker on repeated viewings. At some point, I imagine I'll give in and drop it down a notch or two for 1999 and give the prize to Fight Club, which I really had no idea where it was headed even though the major twist had been spoiled before I saw it. My No. 3 film for 1999, The Straight Story, is another film that's definitely about the journey — and on a tractor no less.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon just enthralled me. I don't think I was ever concerned that much with its story — I was too busy watching with awe.
With Memento, I never knew where it was going — even though it was heading backward. That's quite an achievement.
Talk to Her also seems to be more about the journey — I'm seeing a pattern here. Maybe I am guilty of favoring the unexpected.
Lost in Translation is another film that seems more about character and journey than story.
2004 is one of the most disappointing years for me in quite some time. Back when I rated things on a 4-star scale, I failed to find any movie that year that I'd have bestowed a perfect score on. My top two films, Hotel Rwanda and Maria Full of Grace, were sort of a little bit of each. Rwanda was more of a Schindler's List-like character study while Maria, while certainly telling a story that I'd never seen before, also seemed sort to have a sort of predestined direction.
So what do you think? Is one type of film better than the other — or does predictability only become a factor when the rest of the movie has shortcomings?
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TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Commenting on my discussion of A History of Violence and Thumbsucker, Josh R. suggested that he always knew where both of the films basically were headed and that it lessened the experience for him. While I fully understand his point — I've criticized many a movie because I was way ahead of them in terms of story trajectory — it seemed to me that you can't expect every single film to be a new direction. What I liked about those two films were not that they surprised me, but that their paths were handled with such confidence by the writers and directors and fleshed out so superbly by the casts, it didn't matter. To me, it's when movies are deficient in the creative areas, that predictably becomes a detriment.
In an earlier discussion on movie plot twists, Dave wondered if critics place too high an emphasis on seeing something new because they've seen so many movies, they are more impatient than most. I think both types of movies can be great if done well enough. My two favorite fiction films of 2005 are a study in that contrast. A History of Violence seems fairly preordained in its direction, but the acting and taut storytelling more than made up for it for me. On the other hand, I was never certain where The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada was taking me, but its confidence held me in such thrall that I relaxed and let the movie guide me to its final destination.
Of course, remakes inevitably are going to be predictable and aside from my bias against them when they are new versions of films that were great to begin with, you don't hear too many complaints when Peter Jackson remakes King Kong that it involves finding a big ape on an island, taking him to New York and having him plunge to his death off a tall building. The complaints come from other factors such as length.
There are so many films that could be discussed on these terms that I decided to start the conversation with the easiest way I know how: looking back at my top films from 1982-2004.
Tootsie, even after countless viewings, still has the ability to surprise me. I think it belongs in the category of films where you aren't quite certain what's going to happen and you don't care. Sure — you have to expect that Michael Dorsey's deception will eventually be discovered, but how and when is not clear.
If you had read the novel of Terms of Endearment before seeing it, you would have known where that film was heading — though Jack Nicholson's Garrett Breedlove would have been a surprise. I hadn't, though no one put too much effort into keeping the late-movie twist much of a secret — how many times did you see the clip of Shirley MacLaine demanding that nurses give her daughter her shot? I think it probably falls more into the category of a film whose writing and performances are so superior that it wouldn't matter if you knew where it was going or not.
Amadeus is another example where if you'd seen or read the original play, you'd have a good idea where the movie was going, but I hadn't done either and being only 15 at the time, was rather limited in my knowledge of Mozart's life. I'm not sure it really falls into either category — it's just a great moviegoing experience — period.
Going in, it's likely you would know that a movie character steps off the screen in The Purple Rose of Cairo. Still, all the things that happen after that are a delight right up until the bittersweet ending. Ahh — how I long for the day when Woody Allen didn't repeat himself.
Hannah and Her Sisters has so many characters and story strands going, that it is definitely a journey movie. I defy anyone seeing that for the first time to be able to guess every turn of the story or its denouement.
Broadcast News is also all about the journey for me. I remember at the time that my mom was upset that Holly Hunter's character didn't end up with Albert Brooks, but to have a film that ostensibly sets up a romantic triangle and then has the courage to have none of the characters hook up at the end — that was great.
1988 brings my first favorite film that clearly is pretty obvious where it's going to end — Die Hard. I mean, would anyone really think that Bruce Willis wasn't going to prevail by the end? The individual details aren't clear, but this is a movie as a great thrill ride. It's not remotely about surprises or unexpected turns — it's just flat-out great.
Do the Right Thing though is definitely about the journey. With its large ensemble cast and the way the story plays, it's clear there will be some kind of racial explosion by movie's end, but there really is no way of knowing exactly how that will play out. It builds a suspense that definitely places it in the journey category.
Goodfellas is another example of a film based on a book I hadn't read. For me, this was not only my top film of 1990 — it's on my 10 best list of all time. Watching this movie is like going to film school in less than three hours — it emphasizes nearly every aspect of filmmaking. It's so great that for me it soars above either category.
The animated Beauty and the Beast is most decidedly a movie that you know the ending of in advance, but it doesn't dilute the magic in the slightest. The animation was astounding (remember when non-CGI animation used to have the ability to amaze?), the songs were brilliant (for the most part) and it not only pleased kids, but adults as well.
The Crying Game is about nothing if not surprise. With the countless twists — not just the big one — you are never quite sure where Neil Jordan is taking you, but he is so assured, that it doesn't matter. It's definitely a journey.
Schindler's List is more of an odd duck. You know going in that a movie about the Holocaust is going to include a lot of death. Really, this is more of a character study and not about the plot.
Then there is Pulp Fiction with its scrambled structure that makes it absolutely impossible to chart its course before it charts it for you. It's really a movie about both the journey and the destination.
Since Crumb is a documentary, I don't think it really needs to be considered in these terms.
Lone Star though is another large cast canvas that while ostensibly framed as a murder mystery, really cares more about character. It's all about the journey.
L.A. Confidential in its own way is similar to Lone Star in that respect, but it keeps you off balance. When one of the three major characters get killed and another character is revealed as the chief villain, it makes you question whether or not the other leads will survive until the last reel.
Gods and Monsters is another film that's more character study than either of the other.
American Beauty is a film that you can be way ahead of. It's also a movie that for me, has grown weaker on repeated viewings. At some point, I imagine I'll give in and drop it down a notch or two for 1999 and give the prize to Fight Club, which I really had no idea where it was headed even though the major twist had been spoiled before I saw it. My No. 3 film for 1999, The Straight Story, is another film that's definitely about the journey — and on a tractor no less.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon just enthralled me. I don't think I was ever concerned that much with its story — I was too busy watching with awe.
With Memento, I never knew where it was going — even though it was heading backward. That's quite an achievement.
Talk to Her also seems to be more about the journey — I'm seeing a pattern here. Maybe I am guilty of favoring the unexpected.
Lost in Translation is another film that seems more about character and journey than story.
2004 is one of the most disappointing years for me in quite some time. Back when I rated things on a 4-star scale, I failed to find any movie that year that I'd have bestowed a perfect score on. My top two films, Hotel Rwanda and Maria Full of Grace, were sort of a little bit of each. Rwanda was more of a Schindler's List-like character study while Maria, while certainly telling a story that I'd never seen before, also seemed sort to have a sort of predestined direction.
So what do you think? Is one type of film better than the other — or does predictability only become a factor when the rest of the movie has shortcomings?
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Labels: Albert Brooks, Holly Hunter, MacLaine, Nicholson, Peter Jackson, Woody
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Friday, January 27, 2006
King Loooooooooooooooong
By Edward Copeland
Great special effects alone does not a good movie make. This is most decidedly the case with Peter Jackson's bloated remake of King Kong. As a general rule, I try to avoid remakes of good and great films on principle, but with the mostly positive reviews of King Kong, I finally relented and watched it. I should have stuck by my initial thoughts.
That's not to say there isn't a lot to admire in Jackson's film — as one would expect, the technical work is outstanding — but the 3 hour running time is absolutely ridiculous. I'm sure it might be possible to make a 3 hour thrill ride, but not when the main attraction of the ride doesn't show up until after an hour and 10 minutes of exposition.
Some critics have tried to make the comparison that Jackson's choice not to show us the great ape until more than an hour into the movie is akin to Steven Spielberg holding off on showing us the shark in Jaws. Setting aside the fact that the delay in showing the shark had more to do with technical problems than a plan, there are two important differences: 1) the shark is always a presence, even if you don't see it and 2) the surrounding story and characters are so involving in Jaws that it doesn't matter.
Unlike the Hobbitologists out there who believe that Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy was some kind of holy sign sent to humans in the form of three way-too-long movies, I wasn't a big fan of the films. I thought the first installment was good, but not great and I didn't care much for parts two and three, even while I admired parts of all the films.
It seems that getting away with three blockbusters in a row than ran more than three hours went to Jackson's head — because there is no reason King Kong needs to be this long. The great 1933 version told the whole story in barely more than 90 minutes — and it's still the best version. In fact, if it weren't for the great effects and outstanding art direction and cinematography, I can't say that Jackson's version is that substantially better than the 1976 remake.
I remember standing in line to see the 1976 version — I was 7 years old and had not yet developed my anti-remake philosophy — and though I eventually realized its lameness, it did have some things that were superior to Jackson's version. While Naomi Watts is a huge improvement on Jessica Lange, I can't say that Adrien Brody and Jack Black are really better than Jeff Bridges and Charles Grodin were in their similar 1976 roles.
In fact, Watts is probably the best non-effect in this movie. You have to suffer from a one-scene romance between her and Brody that really belongs in a movie of the 1930s, but thankfully Watts' Ann Darrow really seems to grow to care for the giant ape — and who can blame her? Kong has more charisma and depth than Brody's character does.
While there are some great action sequences, I found that even some of the effects looked phonier than they should — especially the dinosaur stampede on the island. (Sidenote: a friend of mine pointed out than in all the versions of this story, it's odd that everyone goes crazy about the giant ape but no one seems compelled to mention that there is an island that has living dinosaurs on it.)
Another thing that I think was a little better in the 1976 version is that it at least included scenes that showed Kong on the ship sailing back to New York. Jackson's version cheats — we see Kong passed out and captured, but there is nothing to indicate how they get him on the ship or if anything happens on the ship. The next scene has us back in New York for Kong's Broadway debut, though I'm sure Jackson probably has those scenes in the can for the inevitable extended 4-hour DVD version.
Don't get me wrong — I don't think the 1976 version was good either. In fact, the most memorable thing to come out of that version for me was a Colorform play kit that I wish I still had, if only to have a tangible, iconic version of the World Trade Center I could hold in my hands now.
Even though Jackson's film has made a lot of money, it's considered a financial disappointment in the United States. Hopefully, Jackson has learned a lesson — a movie doesn't have to be long just because you can get away with making it long.
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TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Great special effects alone does not a good movie make. This is most decidedly the case with Peter Jackson's bloated remake of King Kong. As a general rule, I try to avoid remakes of good and great films on principle, but with the mostly positive reviews of King Kong, I finally relented and watched it. I should have stuck by my initial thoughts.
That's not to say there isn't a lot to admire in Jackson's film — as one would expect, the technical work is outstanding — but the 3 hour running time is absolutely ridiculous. I'm sure it might be possible to make a 3 hour thrill ride, but not when the main attraction of the ride doesn't show up until after an hour and 10 minutes of exposition.
Some critics have tried to make the comparison that Jackson's choice not to show us the great ape until more than an hour into the movie is akin to Steven Spielberg holding off on showing us the shark in Jaws. Setting aside the fact that the delay in showing the shark had more to do with technical problems than a plan, there are two important differences: 1) the shark is always a presence, even if you don't see it and 2) the surrounding story and characters are so involving in Jaws that it doesn't matter.
Unlike the Hobbitologists out there who believe that Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy was some kind of holy sign sent to humans in the form of three way-too-long movies, I wasn't a big fan of the films. I thought the first installment was good, but not great and I didn't care much for parts two and three, even while I admired parts of all the films.
It seems that getting away with three blockbusters in a row than ran more than three hours went to Jackson's head — because there is no reason King Kong needs to be this long. The great 1933 version told the whole story in barely more than 90 minutes — and it's still the best version. In fact, if it weren't for the great effects and outstanding art direction and cinematography, I can't say that Jackson's version is that substantially better than the 1976 remake.
I remember standing in line to see the 1976 version — I was 7 years old and had not yet developed my anti-remake philosophy — and though I eventually realized its lameness, it did have some things that were superior to Jackson's version. While Naomi Watts is a huge improvement on Jessica Lange, I can't say that Adrien Brody and Jack Black are really better than Jeff Bridges and Charles Grodin were in their similar 1976 roles.
In fact, Watts is probably the best non-effect in this movie. You have to suffer from a one-scene romance between her and Brody that really belongs in a movie of the 1930s, but thankfully Watts' Ann Darrow really seems to grow to care for the giant ape — and who can blame her? Kong has more charisma and depth than Brody's character does.
While there are some great action sequences, I found that even some of the effects looked phonier than they should — especially the dinosaur stampede on the island. (Sidenote: a friend of mine pointed out than in all the versions of this story, it's odd that everyone goes crazy about the giant ape but no one seems compelled to mention that there is an island that has living dinosaurs on it.)
Another thing that I think was a little better in the 1976 version is that it at least included scenes that showed Kong on the ship sailing back to New York. Jackson's version cheats — we see Kong passed out and captured, but there is nothing to indicate how they get him on the ship or if anything happens on the ship. The next scene has us back in New York for Kong's Broadway debut, though I'm sure Jackson probably has those scenes in the can for the inevitable extended 4-hour DVD version.
Don't get me wrong — I don't think the 1976 version was good either. In fact, the most memorable thing to come out of that version for me was a Colorform play kit that I wish I still had, if only to have a tangible, iconic version of the World Trade Center I could hold in my hands now.
Even though Jackson's film has made a lot of money, it's considered a financial disappointment in the United States. Hopefully, Jackson has learned a lesson — a movie doesn't have to be long just because you can get away with making it long.
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Labels: 00s, Grodin, J. Lange, Jeff Bridges, Naomi Watts, Peter Jackson, Remakes, Spielberg
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