Past their sell-by date

I revisited two so-called comedies over the last day or so and despite some positive points, neither has weathered terribly well despite being blessed with adept leads.  The problem with both is the scatter-gun approach to the humour with some hits but rather more misses and some skirting with very bad taste.

Better Off Dead (1985):  I could barely remember this one but saw fit to watch it again since it stars John Cusack -- never less than watchable -- in his sixth movie outing (aged 19 playing a very believable 17-year old high school student).  It was the first film outing from director-writer-animator Savage Steve Holland who has not had much of a subsequent big screen career and is purportedly the semi-autobiographical telling of how he reacted to being dumped by his girlfriend for a big-headed jock, as is the Cusack character here.  There follows feeble attempts at suicide, attempts at out-jocking the jock in a skiing contest (egged on by best friend Curtis "Booger" Armstrong, surely one of the least salubrious comic actors of the period), his burgeoning romance with a French exchange student staying with some unbelievably obnoxious neighbours, and an idiotic running joke of being pursued by a lethal paperboy who is looking to collect his owing two dollars.  To add insult to injury his parents are played by David Ogden Stiers and an annoyingly idiotic Kim Darby, neither of whom can be pleased to have these roles on their filmographies.  However Cusack just about makes the movie watchable, if as I had already discovered unmemorable.

Where's Poppa (1970):  This one has rather more going for it as directed by Carl Reiner with George Segal playing a oedipally-repressed lawyer living at home with his gaga mother played by cult-lady Ruth Gordon.  This casting keeps the excesses of the story from completely overwhelming the tale, but there are too many lapses into questionable humour which includes a gang of blacks in Central Park who continually mug and otherwise humiliate Segal's married brother (including forcing him to rape an undercover-as-a-female male cop!)  Segal, always an unlikely movie star, had a very good run of roles and was definitely A-list in the late sixties/early seventies, but has made far less of an impact over the last few decades.  Yet he is an able performer and one can almost feel sorry forhim as he attempts to do what is best for his horrible mother and still look for love with neurotic nurse Trish van Devere, watching his precarious grip on reality and sanity gradually fall apart.  The title refers to Gordon's constant asking after her long dead husband and is dealt with both in the final ending of the movie and also with the alternate ending available on the DVD.   It's worth a watch if only because no one would dare film this story in the same way today. 

Tags: Flawed comedies, John Cusack, George Segal, Ruth Gordon, bad taste

Prix de beaute (1930)

I think I am about to commit some movie heresy which I may regret later.  For many years after initially viewing the German silents "Pandora's Box" and "Diary of a Lost Girl", both directed by G. W. Pabst, I belonged to the club which believed that Louise Brooks was not only one of the great iconic screen presences but that it was the moviegoer's loss when on her return to Hollywood after making the above film in France her career crashed.  Theory has it that she upset too many people after swanning off to Europe when her U.S. career was just taking off and that no one was willing to give her the same star treatment that she found abroad.  Certainly the subsequent American films made before her retirement in 1936 are all pretty rubbishy.

Anyhow I had previously sought out her earlier film roles to check out what was indeed her indelible image and had even seen this movie previously.  However on second viewing, I found it little more than a disappointment.  Conceived by screen legends Pabst and Rene Clair (but not directed by either), it started life as a silent, but then had sound added.  Since Brooks did not speak French, her voice is dubbed here, so to describe the movie as her first sound film and last starring role is somewhat misleading.  It's also known as "Miss Europe" and is the tale of a working-class gal who submits her photo to the newspaper where she works and is subsequently voted Miss France and then Miss Europe, much to the horror of her equally bourgeoise boyfriend.  Her head is turned by all the glamour and attention, but she gives it all up for love; however, having tasted the high life she is nothing more than miserable in their drab apartment and boring life.  So she hightails it off again with this time tragic results.

Perhaps if this movie had stayed as a silent, it would not have destroyed my previous fascination with the actress, but all the soulful looks in the world just do not cut the mustard here.  Brutally this part could have been played by just about any halfway good-looking actress and even here Brooks' own distinctive look does not quite hold the eye.  I think what I am now saying is that while I will always treasure the German silent roles, I can not bring myself to believe that her fading from the cinema screen was any sort of tragedy.  In a way it's best that she did, since like dying young, these few appearances have assured her a kind of movie immortality.

Tags: Louise Brooks, Prix de Beaute

The Rains Came (1939)

I'm still on my golden oldies kick and there is an embarrassment of riches to choose from today since my recent viewing has also included John Ford's masterful "The Prisoner of Shark Island" and a couple of early Lubitsch silents which I'd not seen before.  However since the young and very beautiful Tyrone Power always bowls me over, the above film wins pride of place.

Made in that magic year of 1939 when so many other classic films made their appearance, this one is a lavish studio production from20th Century Fox (not a major player in those days) set in the years when India was emerging from its colonial yoke.  Power plays a turbaned high-caste dedicated doctor whom the childless maharani, the very wonderful Maria Ouspenskaya, has chosen to succeed her rule after her husband's death.  Into the palace comes visiting Lady Esketh, played by the then "Queen of Hollywood" Myrna Loy, a spoiled and immoral socialite and her pathetically useless husband Nigel Bruce.  She also meets up with an old lover and equally dissolute remittance man George Brent, but has her cap set for the dashing Power who seems to successfully resist her siren charms.

And then the rains came!  Flood, destruction, epidemics -- all thrillingly pictured and there is nothing like disaster to bring out a 30's heroine latent nobility, as Loy assists in the hospital in every menial way and finally wins Power's love.  But it's too late for a fallen woman and theirs is a love that can not be consummated -- very 30s that!  The film was remade in colour in 1955 as "The Rains of Ranchipur" with Lana Turner and Richard Burton in the leads, but I'll take this black and white beauty any day.  Burton may have been the stronger actor, but in the gorgeous stakes, he doesn't stand a chance again the young Tyrone -- and that's good enough for me.

Ping again

Tags: The Rains Came, Trone Power, Myrna Loy, ping

The Pride of the Yankees (1942)

This rather romaticized biopic of baseball legend Lou Gehrig has long been considered a template for sports movies and one of the best about baseball in general.  Even if one is uninterested in the American sport of the 1930s, one can still enjoy this film for Gary Cooper's give-it-all performance in the lead.

The magic of cinema (or the appeal of Cooper's persona) allows the viewer to overlook the fact that the actor was 41 when the movie was made and is therefore a wee bit too old to play Gehrig as a Columbia University student of 20 or so.  One forgives the moviemakers this conceit by the sincerity and simple charm of his acting.  The backstory is that he is the child of poor immigrants who has always loved the sport but agrees to go to university to fulfil his mother's dream of his becoming an engineer like dear old Uncle Otto.  He leaves to play ball and earn the necessary money for a good hospital when she becomes ill and for sometime is in cahoots with his dad to keep this deceit from her.  How she finally comes 'round to his choice is part of the film's would-be cuteness.

We then watch his rise through over 2100 consecutive games before being struck with the neurolgical disease which now bears his name.  In the meantime we meet his wife-to-be endearingly played by the late Teresa Wright, his sportswriter pal Walter Brennan, another originally skeptical writer played by Dan Duryea, plus the real Babe Ruth and other well-known players of the period.  The film was nominated for 11 Oscars, but only received one for editing.  From sixty-odd years' perspective, one can see that the movie is somewhat fatally padded out to reach its running length of well over two hours including a totally unnecessary night club scene featuring a pair of ballroom dancers which seems to go on forever.  However, all this fades into a small quibble when one is moved by the grace of Cooper's final speech before leaving the ballfield forever; despite his imminent death, he deems himself the luckiest man in the world and one feels lucky as well to have known him.

Disappeared!

Tags: The Pride of the Yankees, Gary Cooper, baseball movies, ping-bloody-pong

It's Golden Oldie Time!

After viewing two 2008 films in the last week, I felt it time to go back to my first love -- films from cinema's golden past, especially since I've a lot on my mind of late and it helps being taken back to a simpler and more charming world.  Of course I thoroughly enjoyed the two recent movies reviewed below, but neither was able to take me outside myself in the same way.  So what have I seen?

The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936):  This British film is a Korda production based on an H.G. Wells book and stars Roland Young, ever associated with Topper, in one of his few non-Hollywood roles of the period.  One of the  all powerful gods in the sky feels that mankind should be given more powers and decides to experiment on one meek draper's assistant.  When Young finds that he can make the material world do his bidding, but not the emotional world, everyone wants a piece of him -- whether for limitless material wealth or for unthought-out do-gooding.  Everyone wants to be the one to advise him or use him and everyone ultimately wants to protect their own interests.  It's a lovely fantasy as the meek man strives to please himself, but in the end realises that it is folly to try to improve upon what is and that disaster is just a mad wish away.

The Good Earth (1937):  I believe that this was the last prestige production from Irving Thalberg before his death and is based on an epic novel by Pearl Buck.  Of course no one saw any big problem with assorted Hollywood actors playing Chinese peasants, but character actor Paul Muni and Austrian Luise Rainer (winning her second best actress Oscar for the second year in a row) give it their best shot.  I suppose this casting is just about preferable to seeing Katharine Hepburn play Chinese in "Dragon Seed" a few years later.  On many levels the movie is an overlong pot-boiler of emotions but it's all so professionally put together that the viewer suspends disbelief as one is taken through starvation, revolution, folly, and plagues of locusts.  They absolutely don't make them like this anymore!

I Married a Witch (1942): This is another completely appealing fantasy from director Rene Clair and is short enough and charming enough to entrance.  Would-be State Governor Frederic March, the descendant of New England witch hunters, is about to be married to bossy Susan Hayward, when a lightning strike frees the ghosts of Veronica Lake and Cecil Kellaway from the tree where they were entombed some 270 years before after being burned for witchcraft.  Now neither March nor Lake are normally associated with light comic roles, but they work well together here, while her tipsy father Kellaway is dead set on revenge but can't quite remember all the necessary spells to stop their growing attraction.  Some nice special effects as well (but not quite as nifty as those in the Roland Young film above). 

If things are getting on top of you, there is definitely something to be said for looking for an escape in the fantasies of the past.

Tags: Golden Oldies

The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)

Short of preview showings, I seldom drag myself to the cinema to watch new releases.  However the long-promised pairing of martial arts superstars Jackie Chan and Jet Li was sufficient lure in this instance.  While the fight choreography by the fabled Woo-Ping Yuen was everything I could hope for (with neither of them getting the upper hand against each other), I couldn't help but despair at the American mindset that feels that Asian stars must be paired with American ones to appeal.  The American in this instance isn't even a well-known one, but a youngster called Michael Angarano who certainly does not deserve to be in such exalted company.

After some bullying and violence in his Boston neighbourhood, he is magically transported back to ancient China where he is fated to restore the Monkey King back to life by returning the staff that he has brought with him.  He encounters Chan's drunken fighter, Li in the dual role of the Monkey King and a monk, a succulent local lass seeking revenge, the evil Jade Lord, and a witch reminiscent of the bride with white hair.  Despite a number of scenes in subtitled Mandarin, most of the dialogue is in English which remains something of an effort for the two main leads and the audience.  Further disbelief occurs when the youngster seems to become a kung fu adept in a matter of days under Chan's tutelage.

Despite these quibbles, I did enjoy the film.  The American writer and director obviously have a reverential soft spot for the genre and the fight scenes were pretty spectacular.  Both Chan (also playing an aged pawnbroker in the Boston scenes) and Li were excellent.  Li seemed to be particularly enjoying himself -- not something we see often -- with the Monkey King antics, although I could have done without the scene where he pissed on Chan as the latter prayed for water!  All of the remaining Chinese cast and technical staff were fine as well.  It's just a shame that the lustre of this long-awaited pairing was slightly dimmed by the emphasis on the nerdy youngster whose story it was.

Tags: The Forbidden Kingdom, Jackie Chan, Jet Li

WALL-E (2008)

I was privileged to attend a preview of this latest Pixar film which has received nearly universal critical acclaim -- all thoroughly deserved.  However watching the movie in a mixed audience loaded with youngsters, I couldn't help wondering if this is a film that adults will find enchanting while kiddies couldn't care less.  The young lad sitting in front of me seemed to be spending his time playing video games on his mobile (if I'd been his parent, I would have confiscated it for the duration), while the group of girls to my left went out in the middle of the movie to purportedly buy sweets and didn't return until the near end.  I sincerely doubt that any of these kids was as enchanted with the film as Michael and I were.  Still given Pixar's track record the movie will almost certainly do well at the box office and on DVD, but I somehow don't see it becoming a movie which youngsters will watch and rewatch.

That is not to say that the film isn't absolutely brilliant and on so many levels probably the best animation ever to emerge from the studio.  Apart from ambient sound and carefully selected music, the first half of the movie is virtually silent.  Our eponymous hero is the last automated trash compactor left on a deserted and barren planet earth, but he is not just an empty machine.  He decorates his "home" with items salvaged from the trash and yearns for love and company, inspired by a clip from "Hello Dolly" which he watches over and over.  Into his world comes a robot probe from a space colony, a sleek white and destructive female called EVE, who has been sent to establish whether there are any signs warranting a return to the abandoned planet.  When she is taken back into her mother ship, WALL-E stows away and the final adventure begins.

When inordinate amounts of rubbish caused by the high powered marketing of an all-present corporation called Buy 'n Large resulted in earth being abandoned, life continued on a huge space ship where every need and desire was pandered to by the corporate masters, to the extent that humans grew fat and lazy and more or less lost their bone structure and mobility.  So here we have the gist of the tale -- it's a scathing indictment against our misuse of the planet and our own susceptibility to mega-marketing.  That the growing love between our two robots and the chaos they create manages to reverse 700 years of indolence is the film's message of hope.

With no dependence on celebrity voicing or cute little songs or furry animals (the only other survivor on earth is a cockroach), this is just pure and simply imaginative and amazing animation.  The movie is also loaded with cinematic references to other films, especially "2001", which again will appeal to the critics and to the adults in the audience but which will almost certainly pass right over the heads of the younger viewers.  It's a pity that the young boy sitting in front of me seemed to think that his game-player was better entertainment.  When he grows up, he might think differently.

WALL-E, Pixar

 

 

 

Sweet Movie (1974)

You all have heard of my famous "little list" of movies that I want to see but have so far missed.  However, sometimes when I catch up with a film, I can't recall why I listed it in the first place or why I wanted to see it.  This movie is a case in point and has something to offend just about everyone!  It scandalously premiered at Cannes and nearly killed off the careers of its director and main leads.  The director is the Yugloslav Dusan Makavejev (although this film was made in Canada, the Netherlands, and other western Eurpoean countries and is largely in English).  I had  (some many years ago) seen his previous film "W.R:Mysteries of the Organism" (1971) and hadn't really cottoned to it.  Both films are inspired by the writings of sex therapist Wilhelm Reich which is probably not the best starting point for any sort of coherent narrative.

This film is split between the stories of two women.  The first Carol Laure is "Miss Canada" and wins a virginity contest (!) to become the wife of a multi-billionaire with a golden penis and an aversion to actual physical contact.  When she is appalled by his desire to only pee on her, a musclebound black packs her in a suitcase and dispatches her to Paris where she is deflowered on the Eiffel Tower by an ex-Mr. B. Bardot.  She then is taken catatonic to a commune in Vienna where she and the audience are "treated" (NOT the right word) to an explosion of bodily fluids: vomiting, urinating, defecating, you name it.  She ends up as a naked model bathing and masturbating in melted chocolate for an advertisement to promote the product.

The other woman is a Polish barge captain on the Amsterdam canals in a vessel named "Survival" with a vast papier-mache head of Karl Marx on the prow.  The barge is full of sweets and beds of sugar which she uses to entice children (cue paedophile sex -- off-screen) and a sailor fugitive from the Potemkin.  All of these she manages to kill  before their beginning to return to life at the end of the film, suggesting that "it's only a movie" and that life IS really sweet.

Tucked in the middle of all this is some black and white documentary footage of the discovery of the mass graves at the Katyn Massacre.

As I said at the start, there is something to upset every viewer -- in my case I can't bear to watch on-screen vomiting in any movie -- but being offensive seems scant justification for making a film.  Yes, it is a definite curiosity, but not one that I can recommend to you in good conscience.

Tags: Sweet Movie, Dusan Makavejev, movies to offend, my little list

The Wicker Man (2006)

This was set to be the shortest review ever on my blog: one word - "Why? "- as in whatever possessed the people behind this film to think that they could improve upon the original 1973 movie by remaking it or even "reimagining" it?  To describe it as a failure is being too kind to failures in general; it is nothing short of an abomination.

Although the original film from a screenplay by dramatist Anthony Shaffer has itself been chopped about since its creation and only recently can be more or less seen in the form originally intended, it remains a landmark of British moviemaking, not just as a horror film but as one commenting on the continuing power of the old religions -- beautifully shot and beautifully scored.  Writer-director Neil LeBute, somewhat of a misogynist one feels, has relocated the story to an island in the Puget Sound inhabited by a weird matriarchal society headed by Ellen Burstyn and including untrustworthy, witchy females like Ruth Conroy, Molly Parker, and Leelee Sobieski.  The leader of the pagan community in the original film was Christopher Lee who brought rather more gravitas to the role.  However the biggest mistake was casting Nicolas Cage in the lead -- although I believe this remake was largely his doing.  Whereas Edward Woodward in the original was the perfect potential sacifice, being both a virgin and a devout Christian, Cage probably could not picture himself in either of these categories and comes across as a loudmouth and insensitive lout.  Also missing are the signs of oldtime customs and ritual, to say nothing about the very memorable Britt Eckland character.

 I can think of only one reason for this movie existing.  Perhaps it will inspire viewers to discover the original and absolutely brilliant 1973 movie if they do not know it already, while anyone who is familiar with it will share my disgust at the effrontery of Cage's and LeBute's remake.

Tags: The Wicker Man, abominable remakes

You'll Never Get Rich (1941)

When one thinks about Fred Astaire's film dance partners apart from Ginger Rogers, Rita Hayworth is not a name that immediately springs to mind, yet they were successfully paired in this lightweight concoction and re-teamed for "You Were Never Lovelier" a year later.

One needs to remember that Hayworth started her career as a dancer and was on the cusp of her reincarnation as a glamorpuss when she made this movie.  She and Astaire actually look great together and have remarkable chemistry and despite the rather stupid story, Hayworth also holds her own as both an actress and a light comedienne.  There's little to recommend the plot which has producer Robert Benchley -- far from as amusing as he could be -- using choreographer Astaire as a cover against his various dalliances and his suspicious wife.  Through a series of unlikely events, Astaire ends up in the army and spends most of his time in the guardhouse, only being let out to help "let's put on a show".  If you can forgive some of the idiotic supporting performances, especially a fellow who likes to "double-talk", the movie remains worthwhile for the lead coupling and Cole Porter's (minor) musical score.  One of his tunes (Since I Kissed my Baby Goodbye) was actually Oscar-nominated, despite the fact that it was from a guardhouse scene and performed by a number of black musicians from the 4 Tones and the Delta Rhythm Boys, including Chico Hamilton (all uncredited).  The irony is that the U.S. army was totally segregated in those days and there are no other black faces at this particular training camp.

One last word on Astaire: choosing between him and "The Irishman" (Kelly) doesn't quite fall into the Buster Keaton vs. Charlie Chaplin dichotomy, since I like them both.  If I had to choose, I would probably go for Astaire for his sheer elegance.  I must reluctantly admit, however, that he does tend to look at his feet (a la Ruby Keeler) much of the time and lacks Kelly's virility, but his inventiveness, exuberance, and the way he made all of his partners look good endures.  He even makes a minor film like this one remain watchable.

Tags: Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth

How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989)

I vaguely recalled my previous viewing of this movie some many years ago, but when I found a freebie DVD from a while back gathering dust, I decided that my recollection was hazy indeed.  While it is generally billed as a comedy, it is really something of a satire on consumer consumption and how the ad-men increasingly control our wants, needs, and life.  However there is a very bitter and black streak under the preposterous premise.

Written and directed by erstwhile actor Bruce Robinson, it is his follow-on film from British cult fave "Withnail and I" (1987), the semi-autobiographical tale of the drunken japes of two unemployed actors, which brought Richard E. Grant his subsequent career.  Grant takes the lead here again as a disillusioned advertising executive unable to come up with a good ploy to sell a new pimple cream.  As he begins to crack under the stress with increasingly outlandish behaviour, much to the concern of his lovely wife (Rachel Ward), they notice that a boil has erupted on his neck.  This quickly develops into the "head" of the title;  it talks advertising jargon, and soon takes over from Grant's original declining head.  For trivia addicts I should note that the boil is voiced by Robinson.  The new-headed Grant is the consumer's nightmare as he seeks initially to make boils and pimples glamourous and to ultimately, one feels, seek world dominance.  All in all this is a pretty far-out concept for a movie and it did little to further Robinson's career which continues to limp along.  However as the "Withnail" creator, he will always hold a hallowed place in many a student's heart. 

Tags: Bruce Robinson, Withnail and I, Richard E. Grant

Alone in the Dark (2005)

I think I upset a few people at last year's FrightFest where director Uwe Boll made a personal appearance (and surprisingly went down a treat) by walking out of the second of his two dire movies shown there.  I count myself amongst the hundreds of film fans who think that Boll is as rotten a director as Ed Wood, but with bigger budgets and without Wood's naive (and somehow charming) awfulness.

This film is not to be confused with the rather jolly 1982 movie of the same title where a group of loonies including Jack Palance, Donald Pleasence, and Martin Landau take over the asylum.  In fact I would be hard-pressed to even attempt to tell you what this dismal farrago was about.  Based on an Atari video game of the same title, it joins most other game adaptations by being full of slam-bam action sequences without any discernible story.  This film is so heavily reliant on background material both in printed titles at the beginning and by subsequent voiceover, that there is the potential for any number of interesting developments, none of which are given to the viewer here.  It's all something about a lost tribe of Indians who unleashed the powers of darkness and about some latter-day mad scientist who recreated these spirits in orphaned children.  As one does.

Christian Slater, who used to have a career, makes a noble stab at mouthing the pathetic dialogue and showing his muscles as a psychic researcher.  Stephen Dorff, who similarly once was a reliable lead actor, adds absolutely nothing as the head of the government's swat team.  And Tara Reed makes the most unbelievable archaeologist ever -- nearly on a par with Denise Richards' Bond rocket scientist.  As these three battle CGI monsters against any understandable logic, the casual viewer can only put his head in his hands and wonder what the heck is going on and who the heck gave this hack the bucks to inflict this horror upon us.

Tags: Alone in the Dark, Uwe Boll, Christian Slater