Edward Copeland on Film...and more

Ian Abercrombie (1934-2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 03:15:00 +0000

Why is this man eating a Snickers bar with a knife and fork? You'll have to ask Tom Gammill & Max Pross who wrote the 1994 episode of Seinfeld "The Pledge Drive" that had Elaine's mercurial boss Mr Pitt do such a thing. Mr. Pitt was just one of a multitude of TV and movie roles played by the British character actor Ian Abercrombie, who died Thursday at the age of 77.

Most of Abercrombie's early work was on the British stage. He made his American stage debut in a production of Stalag 17 with Jason Robards. He made his television debut on an episode of Burke's Law in 1965 and his uncredited film debut the same year in Von Ryan's Express. In fact, all his early film work went uncredited — including some big movies such as Star, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, The Molly Maguires and Young Frankenstein. His first credited film role didn't come until 1978's Sextette, Mae West's final film co-starring Tony Curtis, Ringo Starr, Alice Cooper, Regis Philbin and Keith Moon, among many others.

During those 13 years of uncredited film work, Abercrombie did get credit (most of the time) for his many television series on shows such as Dragnet, Get Smart, Columbo, Barnaby Jones, Cannon and The Six Million Dollar Man.

While Abercrombie did do film work, television became his focus. Of his post-1978 feature films, the most notable ones include The Prisoner of Zenda with Peter Sellers, The Ice Pirates, The Public Eye with Joe Pesci, Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness, Addams Family Values, Steven Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park II, David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE and the voice of Ambrose in last year's Rango.

When it came to TV, you could see or hear Abercrombie almost anywhere. Highlights of his post-1978 work (not counting Mr. Pitt) included: The original Battlestar Galactica, Quincy, M.E., Knots Landing, Happy Days, Fantasy Island, Three's Company, the soap Santa Barbara, L.A. Law, Moonlighting, playing himself on the "Fate" episode of "It's Garry Shandling's Show.", Murder, She Wrote, Dynasty, Twin Peaks, Northern Exposure, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Nip/Tuck, Desperate Housewives and How I Met Your Mother.

Abercrombie still was working on his final two roles at the time of his death: Playing Professor Crumbs on Wizards of Waverly Place and providing the voice for Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious on the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

RIP Mr. Abercrombie.

I'd rather be lucky than smart

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
More than two years after it was announced that Michael Mann would direct the pilot for a possible new HBO series written by Deadwood mastermind David Milch and starring two-time Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman (Kramer Vs. Kramer, Rain Man) and three-time Oscar nominee Nick Nolte (The Prince of Tides, Affliction, Warrior), that series — Luck — makes its official debut Sunday on HBO at 9 p.m. EST/PST, 8 p.m. CST. The premiere episode of Luck's nine-episode inaugural season actually debuted in December following the second season finale of Boardwalk Empire. Mann and Milch both serve as two of the series’ executive producers and Hoffman bears the title of producer as well. Thanks to my good friends of HBO, I've seen all nine episodes of Luck and will be able to post full-fledged recaps the moment each episode has finished airing. For now, I offer this brief, spoiler-free preview of the series that I've found to be a nice addition to the HBO family of dramas. Having that unmistakable rhythm of Milchian language resonating in my ears again certainly pleases me. On top of that, Luck captures the excitement of horse racing, particularly in a Mann-directed/Milch-written sequence in the premiere, like nothing I've seen before. As someone who enjoyed going to the track (even being clueless as far as handicapping horses goes), watching Luck made me miss being able to go. With only its brief run of nine episodes as a barometer, the show's forecast looks good with its future chance at greatness hovering around 75%. Luck isn't there yet. It's no Deadwood — but few things are. More importantly, it's no John From Cincinnati either. As I write this, the first two episodes are the only installments I've watched more than once but, unless I missed others, viewers will get through all nine episodes with only a single utterance of cocksucker.

What makes that racing sequence in the Luck premiere mimic the experience of a real race parallels the premise of this new drama. The race gets shown from the various perspectives of those involved in horse racing and Luck tells those sides outside of race scenes as well. Its large cast encompasses owners, trainers, jockeys at different points in their careers, jockeys' agents, track veterinarians and the serious gamblers — and those just include regulars. The world David Milch has created also will cross paths with other track officials and employees. In their own ways, the horses develop distinct personalities as well. While scenes occur away from the fictionalized Santa Anita Park that serves as the focal point of the series, all stories lead back there in some way. As for that race sequence, much of the credit for it has to fall to Michael Mann's direction and the editing team of Michael Brown, Hank Corwin and Kelley Dixon. The cutting of that race should earn the pilot next year's Emmy in that category now.

Mann steered two of the '80s most influential crime dramas to the airwaves — Miami Vice and Crime Story — though he hasn't produced for television since the short-lived Robbery Homicide Division in the 2002-2003 season and he last directed for TV when he helmed the 1989 telefilm L.A. Takedown. It's not that Mann has been loafing — he's directed and/or produced several feature films including Heat, The Insider, Ali, The Aviator and Hancock. The Insider brought Mann three Oscar nominations for producing, directing and co-writing the film. He also was nominated for producing The Aviator.

Milch created Luck, which marks his first new work to air since John From Cincinnati. He wrote a pilot for a series called Last of the Ninth in 2009, but no one picked it up. Milch forever holds a place in the hearts of quality television fans as the maestro behind the prematurely ended Deadwood, whose two two-hour wrap-up movies never came to be. Milch has received an astounding 24 Emmy nominations for writing or producing for Deadwood, Hill Street Blues, Murder One and NYPD Blue. He won four Emmys, two for writing NYPD Blue episodes and one as a producer of that series when it won outstanding drama. He earned his fourth Emmy (actually his first) for writing a Hill Street Blues episode.

In addition to Mann and Milch serving as executive producers and Hoffman as producer, Luck's behind-the-scenes producing team also includes Carolyn Strauss (Game of Thrones, Treme) as executive producer; Henry J. Brochtein (The Sopranos, where he also directed) as co-executive producer; and Eric Roth (Oscar-winning screenwriter of Forrest Gump and Oscar-nominated writer of The Insider, Munich and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) as co-executive producer.

Hoffman is the series' ostensible lead, though Luck boasts 13 regulars in its opening credits who all get screen time as well as many recurring characters. In fact, in the premiere, some of the other character get more scenes than Hoffman's character, Chester "Ace" Bernstein. We meet Bernstein first as he leaves federal prison after serving three years. The audience won't learn why Ace, a wealthy man who has spent his life operating around gambling enterprises and organized crime, ended up incarcerated in the first episode other than the fact he took the fall for other people. While imprisoned, he spent $2 million to buy an Irish race horse, using his faithful driver/bodyguard Gus "The Greek" Demitriou (Dennis Farina, star of Mann's Crime Story) as a front, acting as the thoroughbred's owner. One of Luck's strongest assets proves to be that chemistry between Hoffman and Farina, especially in the duo's late-night bull sessions in the hotel suite that Bernstein calls home. They board the horse, named Pint of Plain, at Santa Anita, the race track located in Arcadia, Calif., about 14 miles northeast of downtown L.A. Bernstein's motivation for picking Santa Anita turns out to have two purposes. The first figures in with long-term plans he's had to purchase the track and add casino gambling while getting even with some of his shady business associates, played by guest star Alan Rosenberg in the premiere who's joined in later episodes by Ted Levine and Sir Michael Gambon, returning to a character closer to his Thief in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover than Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films. The second reason resides closer to Ace's heart. Santa Anita serves as the home track for a talented and temperamental Peruvian-born trainer, Turo Escalante (John Ortiz).

In my eyes, Escalante — and Ortiz — could prove to be the breakout character and actor on Luck. Ortiz's name may not be as recognizable as Hoffman, Nolte or even Farina, but he's worked with some big name American directors since making his film debut in Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way in 1993. He also appeared in Ron Howard's Ransom, Steven Spielberg's Amistad and Ridley Scott's American Gangster. Luck's premiere doesn't mark Ortiz's first time being directed by Mann either — he acted in the 2006 film adaptation of Miami Vice as well as Public Enemies. Ortiz also executive produced and repeated his stage role in Philip Seymour Hoffman's directing debut, Jack Goes Boating. The play originated as an off-Broadway production by the theater troupe LAByrinth, where Ortiz served as co-artistic director. It's impressive, but if Luck succeeds, Turo Escalante will be the vehicle that launches Ortiz's career to the next level. Not only does Ortiz give a phenomenal performance, but Escalante, by far, shows himself to be the most fascinating part of the series as well as the character that interacts with more of the other players than anyone else, including the track's head veterinarian Jo Carter (Jill Hennessy), who turns out to be Turo's secret girlfriend. As with everything created and written by David Milch, he implies key things as much as he verbalizes them. Viewers will get the distinct impression that Escalante may be covered in infinite layers that could be peeled and examined in future seasons. In the meantime, Turo will be there, lashing out at jockeys for not following his instructions on how to run a horse during a race — even if the horse won anyway or acting as if he's a polite servant to a new horse's owner. Ortiz, as the best performers on a Milch show must know how to do, is as adept at making Escalante funny as frightening and even touching when needed.

Nick Nolte, whose stardom took flight on television in the 1976 miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man, returns to the medium for the first time since for Luck — just days after receiving his third Oscar nomination (his first as a supporting actor) in Warrior. As Walter Smith, the grizzled veteran horse trainer-turned-owner from Kentucky, Nolte's role on Luck plays as a supporting one as well. In fact, he's absent from one of the nine episodes. Called "The Old Man" by many at the track, Smith shares something in common with Ace Bernstein: the first episode plants seeds of a mystery surrounding his story. In Walter's case, it has nothing to do with a prison sentence, but questions concerning the origin of his "big horse," Gettn'up Morning, that will be resolved rather quickly though the issue will hover over Smith and Gettn'up Morning through the show's short season. Walter also has an important decision to make about the horse — picking the jockey who will ride Gettn'up Morning once he's ready. The two main contenders are his exercise girl, Irish lass Rosie Shanahan (Kerry Condon), who longs to be a jockey, and Ronnie Jenkins (real-life National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens), who used to be a great but has moved into a universe of drink and drugs. Condon should be familiar to longtime viewers of HBO dramas from her role as Octavia on Rome or to moviegoers as Tolstoy's daughter in The Last Station. While acting isn't Stevens' first career, Luck isn't his first role. He played the famous 1930s and '40s jockey George Woolf (who happened to be based out of Santa Anita) in Seabiscuit.

Trying to keep Ronnie Jenkins sober and secure him the mount on Gettn'up Morning is his stuttering agent Joey Rathburn (Richard Kind) who also represents an apprentice jockey at the track, Leon Micheaux (Tom Payne), also known as Bug, the name given to most beginning jockeys because the asterisk by their names in racing forms resembles an insect. Joey's career as an agent isn't going well and we get hints that his personal life has crumbled into disarray as well. Leon hails from Louisiana and has problems maintaining the weight he needs to qualify for races. He also doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut — so he manages to keep pissing off Escalante, much to Joey's annoyance. Leon also has a mutual attraction with a certain red-haired girl — who may become a professional competitor down the road. Kind's a familiar face from film and television including his regular role on Spin City, his recurring role as Larry's cousin Andy on Curb Your Enthusiasm and as troubled Uncle Arthur in the Coens' great A Serious Man. Leon may be from Louisiana but Payne hails from England and most of his credits so far come from British TV. Payne's best-known work in the U.S. may be the film Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.

The final quartet of regulars belongs to a syndicate, but it's not the kind of syndicate that's crossing your mind. It's just the name given to a group of serious gamblers who pool their money so they can make bigger bets that cover more options and, hopefully, reap big benefits such as the more than $2 million payout that would go to someone lucky enough to correctly handicap the races involved in the Pick Six contest in Luck's premiere. The four men make for a colorful group, to say the least. The unofficial ringleader, Marcus Becker (Kevin Dunn), suffers from a variety of health conditions that force him to use a wheelchair and take frequent hits of oxygen from the tank attached to it. He's rude to everyone and seems as if he were born in a cranky mood. The true brain of the group belongs to Jerry Boyle (Jason Gedrick), who possesses a true gift for picking the right horses. Unfortunately, he likes to gamble all the time so anything he wins at the track he's liable to lose that night playing poker at a casino — and when Jerry gets tapped out, he becomes easy prey for a track security guard (Peter Appel), who works as a loan shark on the side. Marcus calls Jerry a degenerate, but the two of them have a special relationship that's almost like a father and son or two close brothers. The other two members of the group truly are misfits and you have to wonder how Marcus has let them hang around. The first is Renzo Calagari (Ritchie Coster), who lives on disability checks that he takes straight to the track. The newest member that Renzo has recruited is Lonnie McHinery (Ian Hart), a man who never gets the point of what's going on and has stumbled upon a bankroll supposedly from two women who are paying him to be their personal gigolo. Dunn has been a familiar face in lots of movies and TV shows since the mid-1980s. Even though he didn't have any scenes with Nolte, he also appeared in Warrior. Gedrick has appeared in a lot of television series either as a guest or in shows that didn't last long. He was the murder defendant in the first season of Murder One and one of the police officers in Boomtown, the NBC series that started out great until they mucked with its premise and destroyed it. Coster and Hart, like Payne, are Englishmen playing Americans. Name any crime procedural on TV and Coster has more than likely played a role on it. On the big screen, his films include Let Me In, The Dark Knight and American Gangster. Early in his career, Hart took on the role of John Lennon in two films in a row: The Hours and the Times and Backbeat. He's also made four films with director Neil Jordan including The End of the Affair, where Hart was especially good as a private detective with problems of his own.

Even with such a short season, Luck — already full of award winners and nominees in front of and behind the camera — attracted even more for recurring guest roles including Oscar nominees Joan Allen and Bruce Davison and Oscar winner Mercedes Ruehl. There's also guest appearances by Barry Shabaka Henley, Jurgen Prochnow and W. Earl Brown (Deadwood's Dan Dority).

When the credits roll for the first time on Luck, in case you don't recognize the song playing beneath the images and artists' names, it's a trimmed version of "Splitting the Atom" by Massive Attack. Below are the lyrics, the show uses. Click here and you can see the video on YouTube for the complete song. Every listing of the lyrics (including the captions) insists that the band sings "eternited leave." I find no evidence of such a word as "eternited" and almost changed it automatically to eternal, assuming it was a misprint but apparently songwriters Robert Del Naja and Damon Albarn invented a word for their song.

The baby was born, nettles and ferns
The evening it chokes, the candle, it burns
This disguise covers bitter lies
Repeating the joke, the meaning it dies

It's easy, don't let it go
Don't lose it

The bankers have bailed, the mighty retreat
The pleasure it fails at the end of the week
You take it or leave or what you receive
To what you receive is eternited leave

It's easy, don't let it go
It's easy, don't let it go
It's easy, don't let it go
Don't lose it
As readers who have followed any of my previous series recaps know, my format has evolved. The first show I covered was the great fourth season of The Wire, but I basically just regurgitated what happened with a little criticism tossed in. I didn't go crazy and learn all I could about Baltimore.

My recaps for the first seasons of Treme and Boardwalk Empire pretty much followed the same pattern until I noted historical moments on Boardwalk Empire I suspected casual viewers wouldn't get, so I added explanatory links. For the second season of Treme, I started seeking explanations to references that I didn't get and each recap became like a puzzle, adding the context of real New Orleans events, info on the music — I even began to learn the geography of that city without ever having been there. When the second season of Boardwalk Empire premiered, I beefed up those recaps as well, not only on historical points and characters but even the origins of words and phrases.

Now, I start the nine-episode run of Luck. The recaps will evolve as I write them, but I suspect that if you didn't know the ins and outs of horse racing and betting before the show premiered and parts of the series leave you in the dark, I'll do my best to help fill in those gaps as I learn as well. The first recap ended up in two parts, but that had to do with exposition I believe. I do have to say it's probably a good thing that AMC didn't think me worthy enough to receive Breaking Bad screeners or I probably would know how to make crystal meth.

Luck premieres on HBO Sunday at 9 p.m. EST/PST, 8 p.m. CST with each of the subsequent eight episodes in the nine-episode first season airing at the same time.

Most freeborn things would submit to anything for a salary

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
Sometimes I feel like Burgess Meredith at the end of the classic Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough at Last" when he decides being the last man on earth is a small price to pay if that means he'll finally get to catch up on his reading — then he drops his glasses, breaking the spectacles while trying to find them. Fortunately, I'm neither the last man on earth nor, despite my many health problems, do I have bad sight. However, I've never allowed myself enough time to read every book or writer that I've wanted to or should have. One author on that list happens to be Charlotte Brontë. Amazingly, I've never even seen any of the more than two dozen adaptations of Jane Eyre that have been made for movies or TV dating back to 1910 until the 2011 version. Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and starring Mia Wasikowska in the title role and the busy Michael Fassbender as Rochester, I can't possibly speak with authority about how it compares with previous incarnations but I can say that this Jane Eyre had me engrossed from the start and wishing I'd read that novel at some point.

What I find funny is that though I've never read Jane Eyre or seen a depiction of the novel, I did see John Duigan's 1993 film of Wide Sargasso Sea, based on Jean Rhys' 1966 novel that imagined the story of Rochester's first wife in the West Indies. At the time I saw it, when the movie finished an audience member commented, "Now it leads to Jane Eyre" so though I really didn't know the story of Jane Eyre, I knew who was in the attic and started that fire.

Enough of that. We should be discussing this sumptuous movie itself, which landed a single Oscar nomination yesterday for Michael O'Connor's costumes. Quite deserving but cases could have been made for the art direction by Will Hughes-Jones, Karl Probert and Tina Jones; the cinematography of Adriano Goldman; and, most especially, Dario Marianelli's luscious and magnificent score.

That only takes into account the tech categories. This marks Fukunaga's fifth film as a director, but I haven't even heard of the other four, let alone seen them, but he does a helluva job with a great cast, particularly Jamie Bell as St. John Rivers, Amelia Clarkson as the young Jane, Sally Hawkins as the spiteful Mrs. Reed, Imogen Poots as Miss Ingram and Dame Judi Dench as Mrs. Fairfax.

Then there are the two leads. I haven't seen Shame or A Dangerous Method yet, but based on Jane Eyre and even X-Men: First-Class, Michael Fassbender probably deserved an Oscar nomination for best actor just for his body of work in 2011. He fills Rochester with the requisite amounts of mystery and romance, longing and guilt.

Finally and best of all we have Mia Wasikowska's work as Jane. This actress seldom disappoints even if her movies do (such as The Kids Are All Right and Alice in Wonderland) or get little notice (That Evening Sun). Jane Eyre provides her finest role yet. She's smart and willful, yet understandably guarded. Wasikowska deserved consideration, but I can't imagine that nominations aren't coming her way eventually.

Jane Eyre might seem to most people like territory that has been plowed before and often. I know that's true by the numbers but I also recognize a very good film when I see one and this Jane Eyre qualifies.

"There will either be dialogue or there will be a coup"

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
One year ago today, answering the call put out by fellow fed-up Egyptians on social media, thousands of that country's citizens from a broad spectrum of classes and jobs descended on Cairo's Tahrir Square to demonstrate against the 30-year reign of President Hosni Mubarak. Young Egyptian-American journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who attended Duke University in the U.S. and came from a family of famous Egyptian journalists, felt he had to return to his homeland to cover what promised to be a momentous event. The documentary team that followed Kouddous produced In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt's Unfinished Revolution, which premieres tonight on HBO2.

The short documentary opens by contrasting images of videos of brutal interrogations by Egyptian police with a television interview with Mubarak where he claims that the Egyptian people have the freedom to speak as well as newspapers at the same time he admits he employs harsh punishment as the law allows.

Kouddous, who lives in the U.S., works as a correspondent and producer for the American radio and TV program Democracy Now!, which airs on more than 800 radio and TV stations. The Kouddous name carries real caché in Egyptian journalism going back several generations. Sharif's grandfather's videotaped arrest in January 2011 is considered one of the key events that precipitated the uprising. It was his grandfather's 11th arrest during Mubarak's rule. So much for free speech and newspapers.

The documentary, directed by multiple Emmy winners Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill whose most recent project for HBO was Wartorn: 1861-2010, incorporates footage from other sources as well the original material filmed following Kouddous.

The first night of the Tahrir Square protests, Mubarak's forces cracked down hard, even using rifles with green laser sights at night to shoot demonstrators. In all 848 Egyptians were killed, but they couldn't be driven from the square. Some scenes amaze as they break up streets and sidewalks to create rocks to throw back at police and military.

What In Tahrir Square brings out the regular news coverage in 2011 didn't was the access that Kouddous could gain just by his name and the facts that he'd report that led to the breaking point such as the fact that the average Egyptian lives on less than $2 a day while being fully aware of the government corruption and how most of the foreign aid Egypt received ended up in Mubarak's personal coffers.

Because of the Kouddous' prominence. Sharif wasn't part of a family living on $2 a day when he lived in Egypt. The young reporter describes Egypt as a "stratified society" where class plays a large role so he's fascinated when he's in the middle of the Tahrir Square protests to be mingling with people he never would have met while growing up — something he saw a positive vision for a future Egypt.

When Mubarak gives his third address during the protests, Egyptians anticipated that he was about to announce his resignation. Instead, he promised some vague reforms but didn't plan to go anywhere. The crowds went wild — holding their shoes in the air in protest and making plans to march on the presidential palace and the state-run television center. On the eighteenth day of the protests, the country's vice president went on TV to announce that Mubarak was stepping down and the military — which had earlier ceased following orders to fire on demonstrators — would rule a transition government until free elections could be set.

A funny moment comes after the announcement about Mubarak when a jubilant member of the Muslim Brotherhood cheers to Kouddous, "Allah by himself brought down Mubarak." When the man moves past, Kouddous shakes his head and says, "No. We did."

What In Tahrir Square lacks is anything to show that everything ended happily the moment Mubarak stepped down. They don't even include words on the screen at the short documentary's end indicating the recent troubles in Egypt as its citizens have grown impatient with the transition to a form of democracy and still live under military rule. The film also fails to set the scene of fall of the Tunisian leader that preceded Tahrir Square or mention the spread of the Arab Spring into other countries in the region.

Still, those faults don't sink In Tahrir Square as a whole. It premieres tonight on HBO2 at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, 7 p.m. Central.

The Trier of strife

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
As Lars von Trier's Melancholia opens, I thought for a moment that the DVD I was watching wasn't his movie but some sort of mashup of images merging von Trier's film, Terrence Malick's more cosmological portions of The Tree of Life and perhaps a little Return of the Jedi thrown in for good measure. (How else do you explain scenes of Kirsten Dunst cavorting beneath a dark hood and sending lightning bolts from her fingers unless it's an homage to Emperor Palpatine?) As for Lars von Trier himself, Melancholia provides more evidence that this emperor has no clothes or, at best, covers his privates with a fig leaf occasionally.

I haven't seen the complete Lars von Trier filmography. I haven't even disliked all of his films I've seen (I did like Dancer in the Dark) and someday I actually would like to watch The Kingdom. I also admit that the idea behind The Five Obstructions intrigues me, since it's not a traditional remake and Martin Scorsese plans to take part in a new version of the experiment.

Now that I've said a few nice things about von Trier, let's get to my problems with the Danish director: Must he make most things such a chore? It's miraculous Emily Watson delivered such a good performance in the teeth-gnashing Breaking the Waves. I think the course for my cinematic relationship with von Trier was set the first time I saw a work by him — Zentropa. My good friend Matt Zoller Seitz summed up that film best when he said he kept expecting Max von Sydow's voicover to start intoning, "You are getting very sleepy" because that's the overriding way Zentropa affected me. It only lacked the image of a swaying pocket watch to put me in a hypnotic trance, but not in the good way some films can but like professional tricksters do where afterward you recall absolutely nothing that transpired.

Last year, von Trier gave us Melancholia, which has been on an awards and nominations spree since the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, hailed by those who confuse piss-poor screenplays lacking the depth of '80s TV perfume commercials as profound, and believe half-baked ideas and cookie-cutter metaphors are insightful. Melancholia reaps rewards from the type of critical reviews that drive me up the wall. While it's true that all opinions about movies are subjective, so no one's positive or negative take on a film can be wrong, these types of assessments put that truism to the test. When boiled down, these write-ups scream, "I have no idea what [insert film here] is about — it must be genius." When you read between those laudatory lines, you detect the whiff of people not being truthful for fear they'll be ridiculed by the intelligentsia if they don't lionize movies such as Melancholia.

Melancholia revolves around two sisters — Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). The film divides itself in two halves, one devoted to each sibling. Part I is titled "Justine" and details the reception being thrown for her and new husband Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) at the mansion belonging to Claire and her husband John (Kiefer Sutherland).

Many consume too much liquor and say things they shouldn't. All sorts of strangeness seems to be transpiring. Justine's boss (Stellan Skarsgård) interrupts the beginning of the reception to try to get all the guests to think of a tagline for his ad campaign. Justine keeps making excuses to disappear and notices a bright star in the sky which John, a noted astronomer, identifies as Antares — only the star eventually vanishes. John explains it's because the "rogue planet" Melancholia has passed in front of it, but he doesn't get around to explaining that to Justine until Part II so her mood just gets worse. One of the many things that amuses me about the pomposity of Melancholia stems from the notion that a new planet would be discovered by astronomers on Earth and they'd name it Melancholia. That's simply because whenever people on Earth find new planets and label them, they always give them cheery names such as Melancholia. I assume it resides in the small Woeisme galaxy that also includes the planets Anhedonia, Fullofhimself and Onemoodysonofabitch.

At least the wedding reception half of the movie includes the two most welcome presences in the film: John Hurt as Justine's sloshed father Dexter and Charlotte Rampling as her bitter, divorced mother Gaby who makes a speech about why she didn't attend the wedding because of her opposition to the institution of marriage. Her character eventually locks herself in a bathroom (perhaps hoping that no one noticed she agreed to appear in the movie) alienating hosts John and Claire because the reception's strict scheduling requires cutting the cake at a certain time. John knocks on the door and pleads with Gaby to come downstairs to view the slicing of the dessert. "When Justine took her first crap on the potty, I wasn't there. When she had her first sexual intercourse, I wasn't there. So give me a break, please, with all your fucking rituals," Gaby tells John through the door.

All of the chaos, much of which Justine causes herself, prompts the wedding planner, played by director/iconoclast Udo Kier, to declare, "She ruined my wedding! I will not look at her!" Besides being badly written, this section reminded me of two vastly superior films. Toward the beginning, the sculpted trees arranged in rows in front of the mansion brought to mind Alain Resnais' incomparable classic Last Year at Marienbad, in which I've been immersed of late in preparation for an upcoming tribute. The second, and more generalized, similarity belongs to a very good work by one of von Trier's fellow Dogme 95 practitioners, Thomas Vinterberg's 1998 film The Celebration. What happened to Vinterberg anyway?

In Part II, titled "Claire," Justine has sunk deep into depression, presumably because she assumed that she was the sole lead of the movie and now her sister has taken over. Claire, who in Part I was annoying and a bit high maintenance about the details of a wedding reception (Justine didn't even throw the bouquet fast enough for her schedule, so Claire took it from her and tossed it herself), now has become obsessed with this rogue planet Melancholia. John assures her that while Melancholia now can be seen by the naked eye, it will pass Earth safely and she needn't fear collision. Claire isn't convinced and fears for the lives of John, Justine and her son Leo (Cameron Spurr). It's an interesting coincidence that two films released in 2011 — this and Another Earth — should both have Earth-like planets appear in the sky out of nowhere, except Another Earth, with a budget of less than $200,000 and no major stars versus Melancholia's $9 million budget and well-known cast, told a better, more moving story and grossed almost exactly half what Melancholia has in the U.S.

John keeps on a brave face for his wife, but he has his concerns as well. Justine thinks that the possibility of the end of the world sounds sort of cool. The two sisters have one exchange of dialogue so ridiculous that I actually laughed out loud at it because it reminded me of the scene in Woody Allen's Love and Death between Woody's Boris and Diane Keaton's Sonja the night before he's going to fight a duel. Boris confesses his love as they discuss death and God, but somehow the talk keeps coming back to closeups of Woody rambling about the harvest and various forms of wheat. "The crops, the grains. Fields of rippling wheat. Wheat. All there is in life is wheat.…Oh, wheat! Lots of wheat! Fields of wheat. A tremendous amount of wheat!…Yellow wheat. Red wheat. Wheat with feathers. Cream of wheat."

I couldn't believe that someone actually put down the Melancholia exchange between Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg in IMDb's memorable quotes section.

JUSTINE: The earth is evil. We don't need to grieve for it.
CLAIRE: What?
JUSTINE: Nobody will miss it.
CLAIRE: But where would Leo grow?
JUSTINE: All I know is, life on earth is evil.
CLAIRE: Then maybe life somewhere else.
JUSTINE: But there isn't.
CLAIRE: How do you know?
JUSTINE: Because I know things.
CLAIRE: Oh yes, you always imagined you did.
JUSTINE: I know we're alone.
CLAIRE: I don't think you know that at all.
JUSTINE: 678. The bean lottery. Nobody guessed the amount of beans in the bottle.
CLAIRE: No, that's right.
JUSTINE: But I know. 678.
CLAIRE:Well, perhaps. But what does that prove?
JUSTINE: That I know things. And when I say we're alone, we're alone. Life is only on earth, and not for long.

What differentiates the sequence in Love and Death from the one in Melancholia though (besides the humor that is) is that Allen's 1975 spoof of Russian literature actually has more significant things to say on the big philosophical issues than Melancholia does. The comedy holds deeper thoughts in its hilarious head than the emptiness of the Melancholia vacuum. Trust me: Rent Love and Death instead of this von Trier time-waster. You'll be better off.

Idealism, disillusionment go hand in hand

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
After watching Ryan Gosling transform himself into one bundle of tics after another in torturous dramas such as Blue Valentine and lame attempts at quirky comedy such as Lars and the Real Girl, what a tremendous relief to see Gosling once again deliver a great, relaxed performance and do it in the best American political drama in years.

The Ides of March marks George Clooney's fourth time in the director's chair (Leatherheads slipped my mind and I never saw it). Clooney, as he did in the superior Good Night, and Good Luck., also takes a supporting role and co-wrote the screenplay with Grant Heslov. Beau Willmon, who wrote the play Farragut North, upon which The Ides of March is based, also contributed to the movie's script.

Gosling stars as Stephen Meyers, an idealistic 30-year-old campaign adviser to Gov. Mike Morris (Clooney) who is closing in on the Democratic presidential nomination. Stephen shows real talent for what he does, but he's still young enough that he'll only work for politicians in whom he really believes. Meyers hasn't worked in the game long enough to develop a pragmatic, cynical shell like Morris' campaign director Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) or Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti), the man running Morris' last real rival for the nomination, Sen. Pullman, ahead of the crucial Ohio primary.

Someone says to Stephen at one point something similar to a moment from the great fourth season of the HBO series The Wire. The chief of staff for Baltimore's recently defeated mayor has a drink with the campaign adviser of the man who won the office as they watch him go back on a pledge on the bar's TV. The ex-chief of staff tells the adviser, "They always disappoint you in the end."

For those who haven't seen The Ides of March yet, I'll let you learn on your own in what way Clooney's seemingly perfect candidate doesn't live up to Stephen's standards and what choices he makes as a result, though other twists complicate Stephen's decision.

I haven't had the chance to see Drive yet, but this film demonstrates a return to form by Gosling, who I feared would be lost forever in a realm that confused mechanized existential angst with actual acting. Gosling produces some terrific moments of perfect stillness where he doesn't even need dialogue to convey Stephen's thoughts as opposed to Blue Valentine where you wanted to strap his limbs to a table so he'd stop being so fidgety.

Of the four jobs that Clooney performs on The Ides of March, his efficient direction with some interesting shots (including a great closing one) probably ranks on top. He's good as the governor, but it's the type of role he can do in his sleep.

The rest of the cast performs as well as you'd expect them to do. In fact, Hoffman and Giamatti could have swapped roles and the movie wouldn't have skipped a beat. Both actors play these types so often and brilliantly, it isn't as if either will spring surprises. Marisa Tomei gets some nice moments as a New York Times reporter. Evan Rachel Wood fits nicely as an intern on the campaign whose father happens to chair the DNC. Jeffrey Wright doesn't get enough to do as an ambitious senator dangling his delegates in front of both contenders and Jennifer Ehle gets completely wasted as the governor's wife.

The Ides of March belongs to Gosling, Clooney's direction and the screenplay in the end. We've had many good political satires in recent memory, but I can't recall the last time someone produced a good political drama as a feature. The Adjustment Bureau was good, but it had that Philip K. Dick element that took it out of the realm of the realistic, so I don't think it counts. The best recent one might have been about Italian politics, Il divo.

The Ides of March doesn't quite rise to the level of the greatest political dramas or thrillers such as The Candidate, the original Manchurian Candidate or The Last Hurrah, but it's the best in quite some time. If The Ides of March has no other legacy, at least it has returned Ryan Gosling to a career in acting,

That line blurs flurther

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
Each year brings documentaries that take an entirely new approach to nonfiction films. In recent years, we've seen that in films such as Waltz With Bashir and Chicago 10 or the questionable merging of fact and fiction in Exit Through the Gift Shop. In 2011, the documentary that takes a new approach to nonfiction filmmaking is The Arbor, which tells the story of the late British playwright Andrea Dunbar and her children. Director Clio Barnard takes a theatrical approach to a chronicle of a playwright and her family by interviewing the surviving figures of the story but then re-enacting the events and having performers lip-synch their words. The approach gives the viewer an odd, unsettling feeling, but it also captivates in its own strange way.

Born in 1961, Andrea Dunbar grew up in the bleak world of the housing project known as The Arbor in West Yorkshire, England, where she indulged in a life full of alcoholism, promiscuity and early creative success, penning the first of her semi-autobiographical plays set in that area at 15 as a school project. Titled The Arbor, the play didn't receive a staged production until 1980, by which time she'd completed a second play, perhaps her best known since it became a movie, Rita, Sue and Bob Too! That play was staged as part of The Young Artists Festival at the Royal Court in London in 1982. Film and television director Alan Clarke was taken by the play so much that he asked Dunbar to turn it into a screenplay, which she did, and Clarke's film version premiered in 1987. Dunbar's third and final play, Shirley, debuted the year prior to that. By 1990, Dunbar was dead, the victim of a brain hemorrhage.

Before Andrea Dunbar turned 23, she had completed three other productions — two daughters and a son by three different men — and it's the legacy of Dunbar's troubled life that she left on these children, particularly her oldest daughter, Lorraine. Lorraine's father is a Pakistani man and her mixed-raced heritage doesn't go over well in the largely racist housing project.

This story would be merely sad and tragic if not for the unique method of presentation that first-time director Barnard employs. Sometimes, it can be quite eyecatching as the actress mouthing Lorraine's story of fire that began in her and her sister Lisa's bedroom tells the story while the visuals re-creates the incident. In addition to having performers act out interview subjects' testimony, Barnard also includes scenes of actors reading sections from Dunbar's plays as well.

By the time The Arbor (the documentary, not Dunbar's play) ends though, the film feels as if it is little more than its gimmick. Outside of the U.K., Andrea Dunbar isn't a particularly well-known playwright and the story of her short life and what happens to her daughter Lorraine certainly is sad, but it isn't one that seems unique enough to warrant a documentary. If it weren't for Barnard's unusual approach to the material, I don't see much reason for The Arbor's existence.

How do you solve a problem like J. Edgar?

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
After watching J. Edgar, I prepared to write my usual review, assessing the film overall for its direction, writing, performances and other technical qualities, but something kept sticking in my mind, preventing me from focusing on those aspects. My brain kept drifting back to a different question, one that has puzzled me in many movies for a long time but that reared its ugly head — literally — once again as I watched J. Edgar. Why in the 21st century, with all of the advancements that have been made in visual effects, does old age makeup still turn up so often looking so laughably bad as it does? It does such a disservice to the performers trying to act beneath the horrible messes slapped upon their visages. How can you concentrate on the performances of Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer and Naomi Watts in their characters' later years when their faces have been marred by such silly appliances? It doesn't always hurt — Jennifer Connelly won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind despite the awful makeup that covered her at the end of that movie (or, more recently, Kate Winslet's awful aging in The Reader). What's more mystifying is when you look back at a film such as Arthur Penn's Little Big Man in 1970 and how great the old-age makeup on Dustin Hoffman was in that film. Enough on that subject. With that off my chest, I believe I'm ready to discuss the rest of J. Edgar now, truly a mixed bag of a movie if ever there were one.

John Edgar Hoover served as the first director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an agency whose creation he spearheaded in 1935 after leading its predecessor, the Bureau of Investigation, since 1924. Between the two bureaus, Hoover held the top job for nearly 50 years and in eight presidential administrations from Coolidge to Nixon. Hoover truly defined what it meant to be a man of contradictions. He led the way in modernizing many crucial techniques in criminal investigations such as fingerprinting and forensics but also frequently stepped outside the law to amass information on perceived enemies, either to himself or the country. His private life contained its own secrets, namely his close, perhaps gay, relationship with top assistant Clyde Tolson. At least as the movie portrays it, Hoover's paranoia about being gay stemmed from his mother, who once told him, "I would rather have a dead son than a daffodil for a son."

To compress a life full full of such huge historical events alongside the inner life of a man would be a challenge for any screenwriter and any director. While Dustin Lance Black (Oscar-winning writer of Milk) and two-time Oscar-winning director Clint Eastwood give it the old college try in J. Edgar, the sheer weight of all those years and all that material crushes them, leaving the film somewhat rudderless despite good performances.

Black's screenplay structures Hoover's life around the premise of a 1960s era Hoover (well-played by Leonardo DiCaprio, even beneath the hideous makeup) dictating his version of the events of his life to the first of several young agents, embellishing as he did in real life how much credit he deserved for various FBI triumphs. He practically claims to have shot and killed John Dillinger outside the movie theater himself, though he omits how in a pique he punished the agent who actually ended the '30s era bank robber's crime spree. Hoover, so closed-up and concerned about how he was perceived, would be a difficult role for any actor to pull off, so I don't think everyone realizes what a great job DiCaprio accomplishes here outside of those few rare moments of faint tenderness he allows himself to share with Clyde Tolson (equally well-played by Armie Hammer, so good as the Winklevoss twins in David Fincher's brilliant The Social Network.)

Because so much happened in U.S. history between 1924 and 1972, it would be damn near impossible to hit on everything that Hoover touched so the film concentrates on Communist radicals in the U.S. following the Russian Revolution, the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby and the war on the criminals such as Dillinger in the 1930s. It also hits upon Hoover's efforts to form the FBI in the first place.

The uncertainty of his relationship with Tolson gives the film some heart. There's one scene where after a dinner together when the two men ride off together, Hoover nervously places his hand on Tolson's that's reminiscent of scenes in Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Lover and Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence.

Some of the more unsavory sides of Hoover's nature get short shrift such as his plans to sabotage Martin Luther King with stories of infidelity and Communist associates thinking it will get King to refuse his Nobel Peace Prize. He gets one scene with Robert Kennedy (Jeffrey Donovan) where he shows him evidence of sexual excess he has on his brother but nothing more comes of it until he hears of JFK's assassination, call his brother and tells him the president has been shot and hangs up.

Judi Dench and Naomi Watts turn in solid performances as the two important women in Hoover's life. Dench plays his mother whom Hoover lived with until her death and you see where most of his psychological blocks formed. Watts gives a subtle turn as Helen Gandy, Hoover's lifelong secretary who has as little interest in men or a family life as Hoover does in women. The film also shows her shredding Hoover's secret files upon his death while Nixon's men search frantically for them.

Aside for the dreadful makeup, J. Edgar looks exquisite in terms of cinematography, costumes and production design. Eastwood does his best trying to keep the film moving as it bounces between the various time periods, but the flaws with J. Edgar run deeper. The film lacks a compass, moral or otherwise, and desperately needs a point of view about Hoover. Imagine if this were an Oliver Stone film. Granted, his one brief touch on Hoover in Nixon had Bob Hoskins portraying him French-kissing Wilson Cruz as a pool boy, but that film itself was a surprisingly well-rounded look at Nixon himself.

J. Edgar, while DiCaprio turns in a very good performance in spite of the constraints, doesn't present a well-rounded Hoover. Everything the film has to say about the man seems drawn from quick pencil sketches on a napkin. DiCaprio manages to bring a depth to Hoover that the screenplay itself doesn't supply. In fact, based on the script's portrait, J. Edgar Hoover comes off as a smart but paranoid Forrest Gump who happened to be present at many of the key moments of the U.S. in the 20th century. Someone as consequential and important as he was, for both good and ill, needed a treatment that went beyond a Cliff's note version.

"Life's a mess, dude — but we're all just doing the best we can"

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
When perusing year-end award nominations for films that escaped my notice, often the result can prove disappointing (as in the case of Sundance Grand Prize winner Like Crazy). Other times, they turn out to be gems such as Terri, which lost that Sundance prize to Like Crazy, but whose script by Patrick de Witt from a story by Azazel Jacobs and de Witt has been nominated for best first screenplay by the Independent Spirit Awards — and deservedly so.

In a way, Terri resembles a superior, off-kilter version of the largely forgotten (and flawed) 1995 film Angus about an overweight teen's struggles in life and school. While Angus tended to be more conventional in its approach as the title character dreamed of the class beauty, had a gawky friend and lived with his single mom (Kathy Bates) and colorful grandfather (George C. Scott), Terri's approach couldn't be more different. Terri Thompson (Jacob Wysocki) is 15 and lives with his Uncle James (Creed Bratton of The Office) since his parents abandoned him and attends school wearing pajamas.

Life at home isn't easy. Uncle James' health tends to rise and fall, so Terri cares for him as often as the other way around. At school, his attire targets him for even more razzing than usual but it also catches the attention of the high school's unusual principal, Mr. Fitzgerald (another great John C. Reilly turn), who schedules Terri to have regular Monday meetings with him. Soon, Terri realizes that Fitzgerald sets these conferences with many of the school's outcasts, yelling at them sometimes — though he admits to Terri he just does that for the benefit of his secretary, Mrs. Harnish (Mary Anne McGarry).

The odd relationship that develops between Terri and Mr. Fitzgerald drives Terri, thanks to de Witt's great screenplay and Wysocki's performance. He and Reilly create a great rhythm between them, one that takes on a third measure when another of the school's outcasts, Chad Markson (Bridger Zadina), latches on to Terri.

Also giving a fine performance and becoming part of this unusual circle is Olivia Croicchia (Denis Leary's daughter Katy on Rescue Me) as Heather Miles, a precocious girl caught in a sex act during home ec and then ridiculed throughout school.

Describing Terri in details that come off too vivid would be doing a disservice to work as delicately wonderful as this. It isn't a matter of ruining twists by revealing spoilers — simply, I wish people to experience Terri for themselves, knowing as little as possible, the way I did.

Jacobs shows himself to be quite deft as a director by never hitting the wrong tone in this dramedy or trying to force laughs or pathos onto a scene. His cast helps him accomplish most of this, particularly Wysocki in his breakout role and the always reliable Reilly.

Terri belongs to that group of films that's likely to disappear eventually. It shouldn't — movies this special shouldn't vanish once the glare of awards season has passed, especially when only the smaller prize-givers noticed it in the first place.

It's about which master you've been serving

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
I've never read a single novel by John le Carré and I remember when the TV miniseries Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy aired starring Alec Guinness, who was Obi-Wan to me at the time (as well as the blind butler from Murder By Death — I was starting sixth grade — sue me!), but I didn't see it. In college, I did see the movie adaptation of le Carré's novel The Russia House starring Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer, which I thought might be an aberration. I liked it quite a bit, but movies reared me to think spies meant James Bond. Now, that I've seen the outstanding new film version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (no commas please), I'm getting the impression that, like Rick and the waters in Casablanca, I was misinformed as to the nature of le Carré's novels. Looking at the film adaptations of his books, I wish I had time to read them now. I can't compare the new film to the TV miniseries or Gary Oldman's performance as George Smiley to Guinness', but I can say that Oldman and the new movie both are damn good.

Tomas Alfredson directed this version of le Carré's tale, marking the Swedish filmmaker's first English-language movie and his first feature since 2008's creepy and moving vampire film Let the Right One In, remade in the U.S. two years later as Let Me In.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy takes place in the early 1970s in the upper echelons of British intelligence (referred to as "The Circus.") The top man, known as Control (John Hurt, in an excellent performance), receives word that a Soviet operative in Budapest wants to switch sides so Control sends agent Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) to Hungary, but the operation goes awry and in the fallout, Control is forced to retire and so is Smiley. Control, already ailing, dies soon afterward. Word gets to Oliver Lacon (Simon McBurney), the civil servant in charge of British intelligence via Ricki Tarr, a discredited agent in hiding (Tom Hardy, unrecognizable when compared to his role in Warrior) that the Hungarian mission's objective truly had been to ferret out the truth about Control's suspicions that one of the top men in The Circus actually works for the Soviets as a mole.

Lacon approaches the retired Smiley and asks him to lead a secret probe to determine if the mole exists and, if so, who he is. Smiley enlists the help of a young, still-working agent, Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), and another retired intelligence official Mendel (Roger Lloyd-Pack). Their search of Control's flat uncovers the code names he had given to his suspects, based on the old rhyme, attached to photos taped to chess pieces. Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), who took Control's job as chief, was called Tinker. Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), now Alleline's deputy, was christened Tailor. His close allies Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds) and Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) were Soldier and Poorman, respectively. Smiley, whom Control also suspected, had been named Beggarman.

Bridget O'Connor wrote most of the screenplay until her death from cancer and it was completed by Peter Straughn. Through the taut direction by Alfredson and the carefully constructed screenplay that doesn't always play out in strictly chronological order and lacks major action sequences, Tinker Tailor drips with suspense, helped in no small part by the great ensemble assembled. If the film contains a weakness, it's that the four potential moles aren't developed well enough, particularly Hinds' character. Toby Jones acts his part very well, especially considering that they almost try too hard to make him look guilty. It's interesting to see Jones in a fictional role for a change after playing Karl Rove in W., Swifty Lazar in Frost/Nixon and being the best screen Truman Capote in Infamous. In addition to those already mentioned, there is a brief but memorable appearance by Kathy Burke as another operative who was purged. Burke just doesn't appear in enough movies, but her most memorable performance might be Queen Mary Tudor in Elizabeth opposite Cate Blanchett. If you look closely, you'll spot le Carré himself playing a drunk in a Christmas party scenes. The most amazing thing for viewers of Boardwalk Empire is the chance to hear Stephen Graham use his actual British accent in his role as Jerry Westerby, an intelligence officer monitoring the teletype the night of the Hungarian mission. His look also doesn't remind you remotely of Al Capone. Interestingly enough, one of the film's more important characters, Smiley's wife, never actually appears. The two performances that deserve the most praise are Hurt's brief work as Control, which frankly I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned much in awards talk. The MVP prize undoubtedly goes to Oldman's quiet, reserved work as Smiley.

Since Oldman took the film world by storm in 1986 in Sid & Nancy, he's made some bad movies and been over-the-top at times but he's also done a lot of great work yet his performances seem resistant to recognition from his peers. Granted, I haven't seen all of the top 2011 best actor contenders as of yet, but of what I have, Oldman belongs in that list. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy deserves more notice than it's been receiving as well.

Adapt or die

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
Brad Pitt, as far as I'm concerned, always has received a bit of a bum rap as an actor. Granted, he doesn't have the breadth of abilities of others in his generation such as Edward Norton or Philip Seymour Hoffman (who actually co-stars with him here in Moneyball), but when Pitt gets a role that falls into his narrower range such as in Fight Club or The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, he truly excels. In fact, the older Pitt gets, the more his talent grows and there hasn't been a better example yet than his performance as Billy Beane in Moneyball where he delivers his best work yet. It also doesn't hurt that he's working from an incredibly strong script by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin.

Zaillian and Sorkin's screenplay, with a story by Stan Chervin, was adapted from Michael Lewis' book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. While there have been many films about baseball and several I've liked a lot, Moneyball may revolve around the game, but it doesn't resemble other baseball movies though it manages to be just as compelling — if not more so — than other sports movies where the climax involves a Big Game. Bennett Miller helms Moneyball, his first film since his feature debut, Capote, six years ago. While I liked Capote well enough, Moneyball represents a quantum leap forward in quality for Miller.

Billy Beane works as the general manager of the Oakland A's and the movie begins when the team faced off against the New York Yankees in the October 2011 American League Championship Series. At the time, the A's boasted some talented up-and-coming players such as Johnny Damon and Jason Giambi and Oakland almost pulls off the win, but the Yankees prevail. Figures on the screen put the disparity between the teams in very stark terms: It isn't really the Yankees vs. the A's, it's $114,457,768 vs. $39,722,689. Teams with smaller payrolls just can't compete (especially once the season ends and the Yankees poach Damon and Giambi from the A's). As one sports radio talk show host comments, "It's like we're a farm system for the New York Yankees." I don't follow baseball, but that is a ridiculous disparity. It's much like the political system has become following the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.

Beane, once a promising player himself, pleads to the Athletics' owner for more money to try to level the playing field with the richer teams, but the owner balks. During a meeting with Cleveland Indians General Manager Mark Shapiro (Reed Diamond) to obtain replacements for his lost stars, Beane gets shot down at every turn by what he can afford. While he's there, he notices a young man (Jonah Hill) whispering advice that appears to be taken. Beane zeroes in on the guy and learns his name is Peter Brand. Brand advocates a different approach to team building. Instead of chasing star players who cost a fortune and may or may not deliver championships, Brand proposes following a statistical formula based on which players get on base most often, usually at lower salaries.

Oakland's veteran baseball scouts and his manager Art Howe (Hoffman) resist this new system and it falls flat at first as Howe continues to use the players the way he always has, ignoring Beane's suggestions. Finally, Beane makes moves that force his Howe to give his new player acquisitions to get game time. Eventually, the new method reaps rewards and the A's go on an incredible and historic winning streak. Even if you aren't a baseball fan, it's difficult not to feel the excitement when a home run comes at a crucial time.

The only criticism I had with Moneyball is that it dips a bit too often into flashbacks to Beane's life as a promising baseball player coming out of high school (It doesn't help that the actor playing the younger Beane doesn't look that much like Pitt). They could have made all the same points they make in those scenes in less time and without so much repetition and shortened the film's 133-minute running time. However, that's a minor complaint against an otherwise solid film.

Pretty much from top to bottom, the cast excels, including brief appearances by Robin Wright as Beane's ex-wife and Arliss Howard as the head of the Boston Red Sox. Hoffman turns in a fine performance as always, but he lays back since this isn't his movie and makes no scene-stealing attempts. Hill gets to show he's capable of playing a role unlike anything he's played before. He's been fine in most of the comedies in which he's appeared, most from the Judd Apatow Factory such as Funny People, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Superbad and Knocked Up, even if the movies' quality varied, but it's nice to see him given the opportunity to portray a completely different type of character and do it well.

Combining the screenplay and Pitt's best-ever performance proves ultimately to be the winning formula that makes Moneyball so compelling. Pitt (who also was a producer) never strikes a false note and the film rarely does either. Even though Moneyball tells a true story, I didn't know what happened in 2002 so the ending came as a genuine surprise, yet one that felt wholly appropriate — and not the way a fictional script would choose to finish its tale. That's another reason Moneyball belongs on the list of 2011's best films.

“That’s S-A-N…F-O-R-D…period.”

noreply@blogger.com (Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
In 1968, despite never having watched an episode, television producer Norman Lear purchased the rights to Till Death Us Do Part, a landmark U.K. sitcom that featured an unapologetic bigot as its main character. Lear was convinced that such a show could catch hold on the American side of the pond, and after two pilots were turned down by all three major networks he succeeded with All in the Family, which premiered on CBS in January 1971. The program would come to revolutionize television comedy in the U.S., eventually (after a slow start) leaping to the No. 1 position in the Nielsen ratings.

Lear and his partner Bud Yorkin, who produced All in the Family through their company Tandem Productions, decided to follow up Family’s success by adapting another sitcom that had a British pedigree; Steptoe and Son, a series about a father-and-son team of “rag and bone” (junk) merchants, had been a favorite of U.K. audiences since 1962 and both men were certain that the show could accommodate the viewing habits of U.S. viewers. Yorkin, with the help of veteran TV scribe Aaron Ruben, put together two separate pilots in mid-1971; one that starred Lee Tracy and Aldo Ray as the American versions of the Steptoes, the other with Barnard Hughes and Paul Sorvino as père et fils. It was only after seeing stand-up comedian Redd Foxx in his scene-stealing role as a junk dealer in Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) that Yorkin and Ruben realized changing the ethnicity of the main characters to African-American was the way to go with their adaptation…and with that, the stage was set for the premiere of Sanford and Son 40 years ago on this date.

Redd Foxx’s birth name was John Elroy Sanford — and that surname was soon adopted as the same handle of the television character that would make the actor-comedian famous (the “Fred” was a tribute to Foxx’s older brother). Not that Redd Foxx was an unknown in show business; it’s just that he was more popular among black audiences as a familiar fixture in the 1940s and 1950s on the “Chitlin’ Circuit” (a nickname given to some famed black nightclubs of that era) in addition to recording a series of ribald (rated XXX for the times) “party” albums in the 1960s. At age 48, Foxx would be playing a 65-year-old widowed junk dealer but could no doubt be convincing due to his years of hard living (booze, cigarettes and drugs). Yorkin observed of the Man Who Would Be Sanford: “He was gray, and the way he walked on the show was pretty much the way he walked in real life. He had beaten himself up too much.” The role of Redd’s 30-year-old television son — to be dubbed Lamont Sanford — went to 24-year-old Demond Wilson, a young actor whose résumé included both Broadway and off-Broadway productions and who had made a favorable impression on Lear when Wilson guest-starred on an episode of All in the Family as one of two burglars (the other played by Cleavon Little, who had been approached originally by Yorkin to appear on the series but wound up recommending Foxx instead) ransacking the Bunker house. With the cast in place, Yorkin worked on a third pilot with Foxx and Wilson and after CBS President Fred Silverman passed on the show (a situation he once said was “one of the stupidest things I did at CBS”), it was snapped up by NBC executives Herb Schlosser and Mort Werner, who scheduled Sanford and Son as a mid-season replacement for The D.A. in January 1972.

At 9114 S. Central Ave., in the Watts section of Los Angeles, Fred G. Sanford and his son Lamont operate a combination junk/salvage/second-hand antiques store, and often struggle to make ends meet. Though both men ostensibly are partners in the business, Lamont did most of the work — driving the company’s pickup and doing the heavy lifting while father Fred functions as the “coordinator” of their inventory. Fred is, in many ways, the more childlike of the duo, often shirking his duties (like many adolescents) in favor of watching TV (his preferences lean to soap operas, game shows and Godzilla movies), playing cards and/or checkers and just generally goofing off. When called on his goldbricking by Lamont, Fred would complain about his “arthur-itis” (holding one hand up in a claw-like motion) and when that failed, would fake a heart attack at the drop of a hat, clutching his chest and hollering out “You hear that, Elizabeth? I’m comin’ to join you, honey!” (Elizabeth was Fred’s late wife.) Fred also possessed an irascible nature that often threatened to cleave the strong family ties between he and his son. He refers to Lamont as “you big dummy” and would raise his fist frequently to ask threateningly: “How would you like one ‘cross your lips?”

The stormy relationship between Fred and Lamont in the early years of Sanford and Son parallels that of its British counterpart (not surprisingly, since many of its scripts were retooled versions of the U.K. originals). Despite their incessant bickering, both father and son demonstrate real affection for one another and both could be out-and-out schemers when it came to the junk business. This gradually was phased out in later seasons, as Fred became more of a Ralph Kramden-like plotter determined to find ways to make a quick and easy buck, and Lamont morphed into a more level-headed individual patiently trying to get his dad to be more open-minded and accepting of people’s cultural differences. For Fred Sanford also was, in the tradition of his white All in the Family counterpart Archie Bunker, an unrepentant bigot, whose contempt for other races, sexes and creeds — whites, Latinos, Asians, women and even gays — knew no bounds and, as such, his prejudicial views frequently caused son Lamont endless headaches.

However, there was a subtly subversive characteristic in Fred Sanford’s detrimental make-up: Sanford and Son, like All in the Family, may have satirized prejudice by lampooning its bigoted main character and emphasized its absurdity by making certain those individuals suffered the consequences of their backward thinking, but it often seemed as if Fred got off a little easier than Archie. Bunker would be challenged by other characters on his offensive remarks but with Sanford, not so much. The “lessons” that Family placed special emphasis on weekly weren’t always in full force on Sanford. It seemed to eschew topicality in favor of what author Paul Mavis calls “guilt-free racial humor.” Re-visiting episodes of Sanford and Son reveals that much of the show’s insult-based comedy is most assuredly un-P.C., and if anyone attempted to offer up a series cultivating such a freedom of expression to a network today, they would most definitely be on the receiving end of a media backlash, despite the groundbreaking nature of the show’s portrayal of an integrated neighborhood in the 1970s. Fred and Lamont may have resided in lower-income environs but they shared the same square-foot yardage with Jews, Latinos (Gregory Sierra’s Julio Fuentes) and Asians (Pat Morita’s Ah Chew).

To emphasize how pioneering Sanford and Son was in its five years on the air, film critic Gene Siskel once wrote, “What All in the Family did for the Caucasian race in our nation with television, Sanford and Son did for African Americans. It is one of the two most noted and significant African-American sitcoms since the invention of television.” I don’t know which other sitcom Siskel references, but even though Sanford was awarded recognition by many scholars for its innovations, a second look at the series reveals that it was in many ways an updated Amos ‘n’ Andy for the 1970s. The lead character of Fred Sanford, with his endless conniving and scheming, wasn’t too far removed from George “Kingfish” Stevens, and Fred’s nemesis on the show, sister-in-law “Aunt Esther” Anderson (LaWanda Page), was a direct descendant of Kingfish’s shrewish spouse Sapphire. Many of Fred’s pals on the show — Melvin (Slappy White), Bubba (Don Bexley), Leroy (Leroy Daniels), “Skillet” (Ernest Mayhand), etc. — could all be members-in-good-standing “of that great fraternity, the Mystic Knights of the Sea.” Fred’s best buddy, the eternally befuddled Grady Wilson (Whitman Mayo), was interchangeable as both the show’s resident Andrew H. Brown and the Mystic Knights’ slow-witted janitor, Lightnin’. The minstrelsy of Sanford could be attributed to the fact that the series, like the earlier A&A, was written mostly by white comedy scribes, including a young Garry Shandling before he turned to standup comedy, (a sore point with star Redd Foxx, who fiercely lobbied for more black writers and directors on the show) but when you also take into consideration that Foxx was an Amos ‘n’ Andy fan (he often waved away that series’ controversial nature by simply arguing that “funny is funny”) the comparison isn’t perhaps all that coincidental.

Sanford and Son’s premiere in 1972 gave NBC a solid hit on its Friday night schedule (long considered by industry wags to be a “death sentence”); it finished as the sixth-rated TV series in the Nielsen ratings in its first short season and for three seasons after that, was second only to All in the Family in viewership. Foxx’s instant celebrity from the sitcom eventually led to his dissatisfaction with what he was being paid for his role (he started out at $7,500 an episode, the same salary that Carroll O’Connor started out with on Family) and midway during the 1973-74 season, he walked off the show in protest. To explain Foxx's departure, the show introduced a storyline where Fred was away in his native St. Louis attending a cousin’s funeral and Grady had been put in charge of the business (and Lamont) in his absence. When Sanford’s ratings remained consistent despite its missing star, however, Foxx returned to the fold. While the show continued its ratings dominance for a time afterward, the seams already were starting to show; the plots got a bit sillier (Sanford fell back on the same gambit that was prevalent on The Lucy Show, making each outing a “guest star of the week”) and more outlandish. Foxx’s longtime cocaine addiction didn’t do him any favors, and co-star Wilson also developed a substance abuse problem (as well as numerous disagreements with the show’s production staff). Occasionally, the sitcom indulged in a bit of self-reflexive almost meta-humor as in an episode when Fred enters a Redd Foxx look-a-like contest and plays both parts. The best example was the fifth season episode "Steinberg and Son" when Fred and Lamont discover a new TV sitcom appears to be based on their life, except all the characters are Jewish. They file suit, but then Fred sees it as his chance for stardom and gives tips to the actor play the Jewish Fred Sanford (Lou Jacobi) on how to react to the Aunt Esther equivalent. John Larroquette plays the Jewish Lamont. Robert Guillaume appears as Fred and Lamont's lawyer. The final inside joke comes when it turns out the show was written by a cousin of Rollo's and they asks the young African-American man why he didn't make the characters black, but he says no one would buy that. It's one of the more clever later episodes. In its final season, Sanford and Son was ranked No. 27 in the ratings, still respectable for a renewal, but by that time Foxx had been lured away to ABC for more money and a comedy-variety hour bearing his name. Demond Wilson couldn’t come to terms with Sanford’s producers so he called it quits as well. The result was a spin-off series (the show’s second; its first was a program starring the Whitman Mayo character, Grady, in 1975-76) entitled The Sanford Arms that starred Teddy Wilson as Phil Wheeler, who buys the rooming house next door that Fred and Lamont rented out to boarders for supplemental income. Sanford returnees who made appearances included Mayo, and Bexley. (Eight episodes were filmed, but the series was canceled after four.)

Foxx’s ABC effort may have lasted longer (four months) than Sanford Arms but since the comedian remained out of work, he returned to NBC in March 1980 to try and halt the network’s slide into third place with a revival of his hit '70s series re-titled Sanford (no “and Son” because Demond Wilson wasn’t interested; the Lamont character was sent up north to work on the Alaskan Pipeline). Fred Sanford was just as cranky as ever but he had a new partner in the junk business (the go-to thespian for rednecks, Dennis Burkley) and a new girlfriend (Marguerite Ray) whose wealthy family detested him. (The whereabouts of Fred’s old girlfriend on Son, Donna “The Barracuda” Harris — played by actress Lynn Hamilton — went unexplained.) Lamont’s best friend from the previous series, Rollo Larson (Nathaniel Taylor), was now a regular on the show and the characters of Aunt Esther, Grady and Officers “Smitty” (Hal Williams) & “Hoppy” (Howard Platt) turned up from time to time as well but without Demond Wilson’s participation, the series fizzled after two attempts (both of its seasons were as mid-season replacements). Foxx would go on to two other attempts to re-create the sitcom magic of Sanford and Son, notably with The Royal Family in 1991. Midway through this Eddie Murphy-produced sitcom (which paired Foxx with co-star Della Reese), Redd suffered a heart attack while filming an episode. Sadly, the cast and crew mistakenly thought he was gagging it up with his old Sanford “Comin’-to-join-ya-Elizabeth” routine. (When they figured out it was no joke, it came too late to save the comedian’s life.)

One of the longest-lasting legacies of Sanford and Son takes less than a minute. Composed by Quincy Jones, the series' theme (its official title is "The Streetbeater") has such an infectious beat that even people who have never seen an episode of the sitcom can likely make a good attempt at humming it. In fact, on Scrubs, J.D. did exactly that once to try to get Turk into a good mood. Thanks to YouTube, here is the series' opening with Jones' track.

The stars of Steptoe and Son, Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett, might have made small screen magic during their long TV partnership but according to several sources, their relationship off-screen was quite acrimonious. The same charge has been leveled at Sanford and Son’s Redd Foxx and Demond Wilson — but in re-visiting the series, one can’t help but marvel at the chemistry between the two actors in their roles. Lamont, despite suffering from the indignities and difficulties generated by his cantankerous father, really does love and respect Fred and you can see it in how actor Wilson will sometimes grin at Foxx when Redd does a bit of business that tickles him. A character like Fred G. Sanford probably would be intolerable in real life, but Foxx exhibits a pixie-ish temperament (his apologetic wave at a person he’s gone too far insulting or his petulant pout at being scolded like a mischievous kid) that makes him endearing despite his shortcomings. A genuine artifact of the 1970s; Sanford and Son’s uncompromising humor still resonates with audiences today both on DVD and in endless reruns; furthermore, it laid the groundwork for future hits from the Norman Lear stable, including Good Times and The Jeffersons. And in the words of the immortal Redd Foxx: funny is funny. That’s all you need to know, you big dummy.

The lawn care truck thief

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
When the Screen Actors Guild announced its award nominations this year, a couple of head scratchers popped up in its film nominations — a known actor in an unfamiliar film and an unfamiliar actor in a movie that only sounded vaguely recognizable. I discussed the former when I wrote about Nick Nolte in the hokey and formulaic Warrior. The latter came with the nomination of Demián Bichir as best actor for A Better Life. Thankfully, A Better Life and Bichir turn out to be both a better film and better performance than Nolte and Warrior.

A Better Life seeks to be in its own way an American variation on Vittorio De Sica's Italian neo-realist classic Bicycle Thieves, formerly known as The Bicycle Thief much as Beijing once was Peking. The additional layer added to A Better Life comes from the plight of undocumented immigrants to the United States who sneak into the U.S. hoping to find what the title promises. Given the recent economic circumstances here, you'd think would-be illegal immigrants would think long and hard before making the treacherous border crossing to be greeted for use as fodder in rabid political attacks on top of the difficulties of trying to get by. (As I'm writing this, an MSNBC promo just asked, "Is the American Dream in danger of extinction?" I always follow George Carlin's line, "They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.")

I digress. Chris Weitz produced and directed A Better Life and boy has Weitz's career traveled all over the map since he first came to prominence in the late '90s as a producer, a writer and an actor. He and his brother Paul co-wrote the animated Antz; he executive produced and occasionally wrote the TV remake of Fantasy Island; he produced most of the American Pie series; he played Chuck to Mike White's Buck in Miguel Arteta's you'll-like-it-or-hate-it Chuck and Buck; he and his brother Paul were two of the many writers credited with Nutty Professor II: The Klumps: he wrote and directed the great About a Boy with his brother Paul (Peter Hedges also contributed to the screenplay); he wrote and directed The Golden Compass; he produced the great films Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and A Single Man; and he directed The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

Now, after this unusual mixture of lowbrow comedies, big-budget films and critical darlings, Weitz helms a low-budget (It's funny — according to Box Office Mojo, its budget was $10 million, and I consider this low budget. The original Star Wars had a $11 million budget.) human story such as A Better Life featuring no well-known actors and a story by Roger L. Simon (whose previous credits include an Oscar nomination with Paul Mazursky for adapted screenplay for Enemies, A Love Story) and a screenplay by Eric Eason (who wrote and directed a 2002 feature called Manito that won many film festival prizes and was nominated at the Independent Spirit Awards that year for best first feature and Eason was named "Someone to Watch").

Somehow, this small film cut through the cacophony that comes during awards season and landed Bichir lead actor nominations at both SAG and the Independent Spirit Awards. Bichir plays Carlos Galindo, who has been living illegally in Los Angeles for decades. In fact, since his relocation he had a son, Luis (José Julián), pretty much your typical American teen whose relationship with dad can be frosty.

Carlos raises Luis alone — it's never quite clear what happened to his mother — doing his best to give his son a life he never had. He worries about the influence of gangs at Luis' high school and lives in constant fear that immigration agents will bust Carlos and deport him back to Mexico, separating him from his American-born son. Carlos keeps his head down as much as possible, working for another immigrant, Blasco Martinez (Joaquin Cosio), who has built up his own lawn care business in the wealthier section of L.A.

One day, Blasco tells Carlos that he's finally made enough money so he can return to Mexico and buy a farm. He offers to sell Carlos his truck, equipment and client list. Carlos hesitates, worried as usual about what happens if he gets pulled over without a driver's license. Besides, he isn't sure he should spend the money.

Meanwhile, Luis faces the usual troubles of a 15-year-old boy dealing with raging hormones and high school bullies. He gets into a fight with some of the seedier elements on campus and the security guard (Trampas Thompson) insists he lift his shirt so he can photograph his tattoos because the school won't tolerate gangs. Luis insists that he neither has tattoos nor belongs to a gang and he's making assumptions just because he's Hispanic, but the guard makes him do it anyway. Luis complies and shows the guard his bare skin, which gets photographed anyway.

Carlos' sister Anita (Dolores Heredia), who also lives in L.A., hears about her brother's opportunity and loans him the cash to take over Blasco's business. Carlos feels confidant for a change and his usual friction-filled relationship with Luis improves. On his first day with the truck, Carlos scouts among the many immigrants looking for day laborer's work. Unfortunately, he makes the wrong pick, choosing a man named Santiago (Carlos Linares). When they get to a yard with a tall tree and Carlo shows Santiago how they scale it to do the work, Santiago takes the opportunity to steal the truck with all the equipment.

Most of the remainder of the movie involves Carlos and Luis attempting to locate Santiago and the truck that holds the key to their life right now. Carlos keeps his anger and anxiety mostly in check, but Luis doesn't hide his hotheadedness, ready to give anyone a beatdown. It's during this journey when we get a better understanding of the father.

Bichir gets some nice speeches, especially when he explains to his son what he meant to him when he first saw him. The actor, who has been working for a long time including playing Castro in Steven Soderbergh's Che and having the recurring role of Esteban Reyes on Showtime's Weeds. His performance isn't showy, but quiet and touching at times, which makes the fact it received any awards notice all the more surprising. As I always like to remind people during this season, though I can never recall who said it, the prizes usually go to those "who act the most, not the best."

Young Julián delivers a very good performance as well in his first English-language feature film.

Weitz properly modulates the pacing of A Better Life, never rushing to try to force it into a suspense tale. The screenplay doesn't really contain that many surprises though its closing image is a heart-rending one.

A whole new world

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
It's hard to know where to begin describing a funny little gem such as Cedar Rapids. Certainly, more hilarious movies have been made. Granted, comedies boasting even bigger and more amazing ensembles entertained me during my moviewatching years. With the exception of Midnight in Paris though, no 2011 film has made me laugh more frequently than Cedar Rapids — then again, the last reputed comedy I saw was Bridesmaids and perhaps I just longed for something written by someone who knew how to structure a comedy and set up jokes to finally remove the taste of that piece of shit from my mouth.

Ed Helms, late of The Daily Show but a regular on The Office and charter member of The Hangover movie franchise, stars as Tim Lippe, a sheltered 34-year-old insurance agent in Brown Valley, Wisc. Tim lost his father at a young age and then his mother in his late teens. Bill Krogstad (Stephen Root), the owner of Brown Valley Insurance, thought he saw in Tim someone who was "going places," so he brought him into his agency, but Tim has never taken off. Roger Lemke (Thomas Lennon) is his company's star, bringing the agency back the coveted "Two Diamonds Award" from the annual AMSI insurance convention in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for three years running.

As Krogstad anticipates Lemke attending and bringing a fourth consecutive award back to Brown Valley Insurance, Roger drops dead — of autoerotic asphyxiation no less. Krogstad can't attend himself because one of his daughters picked the weekend of the convention to get married, but he fears that rumors of the cause of Lemke's death could ruin their chances since the president of AMSI, Orin Helgesson (Kurtwood Smith), brings a moral and religious component to insurance. That makes the innocent Tim the obvious replacement.

Tim isn't completely innocent. He's currently engaged in his first affair with his seventh grade teacher Macy Vanderhei (Sigourney Weaver), but he's never flown on a plane and hasn't been to a city the size of Cedar Rapids. Krogstad gives Tim some tips, the most important being to avoid another insurance agent named Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly).

Once Tim arrives at the hotel hosting at the convention, he gets hit left and right with the shocks of "the big city." He's approached by a hooker named Bree (Alia Shawkat, better known as Maeby Funke of the much-missed Arrested Development), though Tim fails to realize what she's offering. The desk clerk's request for a credit card imprint also knocks him offguard, but that's nothing compared to what happens when he gets to his room an an African American answers the door!

He calls Macy in a panic, but fortunately it's just another insurance agent attending the convention. Even better, it turns out to be one of Tim'a assigned roommates, Ronald Wilkes, and he's portrayed by Isiah Whitlock Jr. That makes it absolute heaven for fans of The Wire because if Whitlock's name doesn't ring a bell, he played the hilariously sleazy and corrupt state Sen. Clay "Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeet" Davis. Phil Johnston's screenplay even has two references to The Wire that Whitlock has said were in the script before he was cast.

Of course, they end up with a third roomie — the man Krogstad warned Tim about — Dean "Deanzie" Ziegler himself, who helps guide Tim to Sodom and Gomorrah's location in Cedar Rapids — or does he? At one point, Ronald asks Deanzie what's wrong with him. "What isn't wrong with me? I talk too much. I drink too much, I weigh too much. I piss people off," Ziegler replies. When Reilly really goes all in for a comedy, he truly dives in and he's hysterical. Ziegler definitely doesn't like how Helgesson tries to impose religion on the insurance business. "There's a separation between religion and insurance. It's in the Constitution," he insists.

The fourth member of the convention's comic quartet comes in the form of Anne Heche as Joan, nearly the female Ziegler. I didn't realize she was in Cedar Rapids and didn't even recognize her at first, but she's funny as hell too. Helms, Reilly, Whitlock and Heche combine to create an awesome comic foursome.

As if they weren't enough, Cedar Rapids also gives us the already mentioned Weaver, Root and Shawkat as well as Helms' former fellow Daily Show correspondent Rob Corddry and Mike O'Malley. I must make special mention of Kurtwood Smith. His role in Cedar Rapids isn't the funniest, but it's amazing how I always think of him as a comic actor now since I stumbled upon reruns of That '70s Show and the only reason I'll watch is the great comic work done by Smith and Debra Jo Rupp as the Forman parents. Such a switch from the days when he always seemed to be a great out-and-out villain as in RoboCop or Robert Sean Leonard's overbearing dad in Dead Poets Society.

The performers bring Johnston's first filmed screenplay to life (he's received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for it and Reilly is up for supporting actor, though I might have opted for Whitlock). Director Miguel Arteta keeps the zaniness moving (everyone involved in the turd that is Bridesmaids should watch this to learn how to make a comedy). Arteta sure has an eclectic resume, having directed episodes of TV shows as dissimilar as The Office, Ugly Betty, Six Feet Under and Homicide: Life on the Street and features such as Chuck and Buck and The Good Girl. Cedar Rapids definitely ends up being something he should take pride in having made.

Mirror, mirror in the sky

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
With Another Earth, you're never quite certain what direction the screenplay by director Mike Cahill and lead actress Brit Marling plans to take you. Given the title and the opening moments that detail the approach of a planet which seems to be Earth's twin, you might suspect that a low-budget sci-fi tale is warming up — then Another Earth takes a sudden twist and you realize that it has a much more human story to tell about guilt and redemption and the new planet exists merely as a subplot and metaphor.

When we initially meet Rhoda Williams (Marling), she's a successful high school student celebrating her acceptance to M.I.T. when news comes over the radio about the sudden approach of a planet that resembles Earth in every way. As the inebriated teen takes her eyes off the road momentarily to gaze into the cosmos, she misses a stoplight and slams into another vehicle, killing a mother and her young son and placing her husband (William Mapother) in a coma.

Flash foward four years and Rhoda finishes her prison sentence (though her identity remained secret since she was a juvenile at the time). Rhoda works as a janitor at a school (Wes Anderson regular Kumar Pallana plays one of her co-workers) while she follows the news on what has been named Earth 2, including a contest offered by a superrich entrepreneur for a free trip to the planet. She begins researching what happened to the surviving husband, who eventually came out of his coma. She discovers his name is John Burroughs, once a successful composer and musician who also taught music at Yale.

Rhoda summons enough courage to go to his door with the intention of apologizing for what she did, but she chickens out at the last moment and claims to be from a cleaning service offering a trial of their service which Burroughs accepts. Her cleaning becomes a regular gig, though she rips up the checks he gives her. A warm relationship develops between the two, making it even more difficult for Rhoda to share her horrible secret.

More research on Earth 2 reveals that the planet doesn't just look like Earth, it appears to be an exact duplicate, containing the same people, places and things present on the original and the doppelgangers behave exactly the same until they become aware of their twin's existence. The revelation point for Rhoda's secret comes when the essay that she wrote for the contest wins. She shares the news with John, who insists on a celebration — though during the triumphant dinner, Burroughs pleads with Rhoda not to go to space and Rhoda decides to come clean.

Another Earth doesn't break any ground and the film's trajectory isn't hard to predict, but Marling and Mapother give good enough performances to make this quiet film work. It doesn't have anything new to say about guilt or redemption and Earth 2 plays as if it's an excuse to make its simple story seem fresher than it is, but Another Earth doesn't commit any sins that make you roll your eyes or feel as if you've wasted your time.

Marling's solid turn as Rhoda proves all the more impressive given that she co-wrote and co-produced the film as well. Mapother also does nicely in a role unlike anything I've seen him in before. I remember him best as Marisa Tomei's abusive jerk of a husband in In the Bedroom. Checking his credits, it seems he's spent most his time in episodic television, including a recurring role on Lost.

Another Earth isn't a great film, but it does have its moments and I've certainly seen worse.

Faith, hopelessness and channeling rage

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
Sometimes when U.K. filmmakers delve into the bleak realm of damaged souls, what results can be unrelentingly grim and depressing to watch. Other times though, such as with Tyrannosaur, actor Paddy Considine's first feature as writer and director, the work may revolve around people in dire and dysfunctional circumstances but Considine and his cast execute the film with such finesse that the carefully crafted mood doesn't transfer to the audience.

Considine, who was so great as the father in Jim Sheridan's 2002 film In America, shows real skills both as a writer and a director with Tyrannosaur, which comes vividly to life thanks to what basically amounts to a three-character story. To be certain, the screenplay populates the film with many more characters that interact with the three main ones, but the casting of those top parts provide the crucial fuel to launch Tyrannosaur into the stratosphere.

Tyrannosaur stars Scottish actor Peter Mullan as Joseph, giving his best performance since Ken Loach's My Name Is Joe which came to U.S. shores in 1999. The widowed Joseph's blood system runs so thick with rage that it's a wonder it hasn't clogged his arteries and induced a fatal heart attack. The film gives us a startling introduction to Joseph as his temper explodes and he kicks his dog to death. Ordinarily, an act of violence of that sort would turn me off immediately. Hidden within Joseph though exists remorse, and the way he tenderly carries the dead dog, sobs over what he's done and prepares the canine's burial, proves touching.

However, Joseph remains Joseph and he still gets into scraps be it with neighbors or strangers. During one excursion through town, Joseph wanders into a Christian thrift store where the woman who works there, Hannah (Olivia Colman), senses his troubles and tries to approach him from a religious standpoint, but Joseph rejects God in very unkind and profane terms. Another day when Joseph ends up on the wrong end of a fight with an ugly wound on his forehead, he finds himself waiting outside the thrift store for Hannah to open it. She's reluctant to do it, but Hannah lets Joseph in and he sees that she's been on the losing side of a brawl as well.

Eventually, these two wounded characters build a trust and Joseph learns that while Hannah might preach the Gospel, at home she's victimized by her husband James (a frightening Eddie Marsan, in a role far removed from his great driving instructor in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky). You probably think you know how things will turn out, but the film actually picks unexpected directions.

To offer somewhat of a "break" from the terrible situation that Hannah finds herself in, Considine occasionally cuts back to a subplot concerning a feud between Joseph and the boyfriend of a woman across the street (Sian Breckin) who walks around with a pit bull chained to his pants and abuses her friendly son (Samuel Bottomley). It's strange to consider this the film's "comic relief," but it plays that way.

Considine, both as a writer and director, constantly surprises you with the direction the story takes which makes the many negative reviews I've seen (none of which I read until after I saw the movie) that think it's a by-the-numbers British working-class kitchen sink drama of violence seem as if they were watching something else. Considine receives substantial aid from Pia Di Ciaula's editing.

Considine's greatest asset turns out to be that cast. Marsan has the smallest role, but he's quite scary and impressive. Colman, who I don't recall seeing before, proves a wonder as Hannah, presenting us with one image only to destroy that and make us see the complicated woman who lies beneath. Mullan though holds the already strong film together. At one point, someone asks Joseph what his name is and he gives the smart ass answer, "Robert De Niro." With his nearly shaved head, Joseph could be Travis Bickle, except he's more grounded. His cragged face looks as if it could tell Joseph's life story in Braille. Mullan's work belongs in the consideration of 2011's best. Too bad you haven't heard his name once.

As for the meaning of the title Tyrannosaur, Joseph explains that in a great speech that comes in the third act of the film that runs at an incredibly efficient 90 minutes.

Centennial Tributes: José Ferrer

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland

CYRANO: You may go. Or tell me, why are you staring at my nose?
THE MEDDLER: No!
CYRANO: It disgusts you, then? Does its color appear to you unwholesome? Or its form obscene?
THE MEDDLER: But I've been careful not to look!
CYRANO: And why not if you please? Possibly you find it just a trifle large!

José Ferrer played many roles throughout his lengthy career on stage, screen, television and even radio, but none loomed larger than Cyrano de Bergerac, who actually was a 17th century dramatist and swordsman but gained famed only in other authors' works loosely based on his life, most notably the 1897 play by Edmond Rostand. Without a doubt, Cyrano became Ferrer's signature role from the moment he placed the fake proboscis on his face and stepped onto the stage of The Alvin Theatre on Oct. 8, 1946 (Though on Nov. 18 of that year, the production moved to the Ethel Barrymore Theatre). His Roxane happened to be the late Frances Reid, best known for her 44-year-run as Alice Horton on the soap Days of Our Lives. I'll get back to Ferrer and Cyrano later in this tribute to the Oscar- and Tony-winning actor, Emmy and Directors Guild nominee and first actor to receive the U.S. National Medal of Arts, who was born 100 years ago today as José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón in the Santurce district of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Ferrer's father was a respected attorney and writer in San Juan. His parents sent José to the prestigious Swiss boarding school Institut Le Rosey, which was founded in 1880 and has educated children of royalty from all parts of the world. After his attendance there, Ferrer went to Princeton University, where he graduated either in 1933 or 1934 (depends which source you read at the time). While at Princeton, he was a member of its famous Princeton Triangle Club, the oldest collegiate musical-comedy theater troupe in the U.S. which was founded in 1891. Since its creation, the club has counted as members Booth Tarkington, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joshua Logan, James Stewart, Wayne Rogers, David E. Kelley and Brooke Shields. Regardless of whether he graduated in '33 or '34, it didn't take Ferrer long to make his Broadway debut, even if it were merely the role of Second Policeman in the comedy A Slight Case of Murder. Written by Damon Runyon and Howard Lindsay, the play opened Sept. 11, 1935, and played for 69 performances at The 48th Street Theatre, a theater that hasn't been renamed but was destroyed when a water tower collapsed on Aug. 24, 1955. When A Slight Case of Murder closed, Ferrer moved almost directly into another comedy, Stick-in-the-Mud by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan which starred Thomas Mitchell, who also directed. Ferrer was cast as the chauffeur. The play's run was a brief one — it lasted only nine performances at the same 48th Street Theatre. It would be eight months before Ferrer would appear on The Great White Way again. When Ferrer tread the Broadway boards again in August 1936 in the Philip Barry comedy Spring Dance, another quick closer, lasting only 24 performances at The Empire Theatre, which was demolished in 1953 so an office tower could be built. His next Broadway role changed everything. The play was a huge hit and Ferrer got his largest part yet. The production was the comedy Brother Rat by John Monks Jr. and Fred F. Finklehoffe and was produced and directed by the legendary George Abbott, who was a spry 49 years old then (He was 107 when he died in 1995, outliving Ferrer by three years). The plot revolved around three senior cadets at the Virginia Military Institute where one is secretly married and about to be a father. Ferrer played Dan Crawford, one of the three, opposite Eddie Albert as Bing Edwards, the dad-to-be, and Frank Albertson as Billy Randolph. The show ran 577 performances at The Biltmore Theatre (now The Samuel J. Friedman Theatre) through May 1938. By October 1938, a movie version of Brother Rat had hit movie theaters, though only Albert re-created his stage role. Ferrer's part in the film went to Ronald Reagan, who met Jane Wyman on the film's production. It's unclear when Ferrer exited the Broadway production, but he appeared in two other Broadway plays while Brother Rat still was running. A very significant event occurred in Ferrer's life in 1938, the year Brother Rat did close though — he wed Uta Hagen, who would go on to become an esteemed actress herself and an even more legendary acting teacher. The next notable Broadway production in which Ferrer appeared was the debut of Maxwell Anderson's Key Largo on Nov. 27, 1939. Based on the Brooks Atkinson review of the play in The New York Times archives and the fact that none of the characters has the same names as the characters in John Huston's famous 1948 film version, it's difficult to tell who played what part. Paul Muni was the star of the Broadway production in what would seem to be the equivalent of the Humphrey Bogart role, though Ferrer plays a character named Frank (and received Atkinson's praise) as Bogie did in the film, though with a different last name. Hagen played Ferrer's Victor's sister. I can't be positive who plays the Johnny Rocco equivalent, but the play also featured Karl Malden as Hunk and James Gregory in his Broadway debut as Jerry. In October 1940, Ferrer received his first undisputed lead role in a smash as he starred in a revival of the drag farce Charley's Aunt under Joshua Logan's direction. The revival ran for 233 performances at The Cort Theatre, which still bears that name today.

Two days before Charley's Aunt opened on Oct. 17, 1940, Ferrer and Hagen premiered another collaboration: daughter Leticia Thyra. Ferrer stayed with Charley's Aunt through May 3, 1941. On Sept. 22, 1942, S.M. Herzig's Vickie debuted on Broadway, marking Ferrer's Broadway directing debut. He also played the husband of the title character, whose role was filled by Hagen. Also in the cast were Red Buttons and Mildred Dunnock. The comedy only played at The Plymouth Theatre (now The Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre) for 48 performances. Sometime in February 1943, Ferrer replaced Danny Kaye for the final month of performances of the hit musical Let's Face It! with songs by Cole Porter and a book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields. Ferrer's next Broadway engagement turned out to be a landmark in the history of that strip of Manhattan theater. Ferrer played Iago and Hagen played Desdemona opposite Paul Robeson in the title role as Shakespeare's Othello. The revival of the famous tragedy opened at The Shubert Theatre on Oct. 19, 1943 and ran 296 performances before taking a break to take the play on tour. The trio returned in May 22, 1945 for 24 more performances, this time at The City Center. To this date, it is the longest running Shakespeare production in Broadway history. While Ferrer was playing Iago, Billy Wilder pursued him because he wanted the actor to play the lead in The Lost Weekend, however Paramount refused to let Wilder hire him, insisting he cast a name. They pursued Cary Grant, who passed but finally got Ray Milland who won an Oscar for the role, despite his initial reluctance to take the part. On a personal level, Othello would leave to an unhappy side effect for Ferrer. Robeson and Hagen had an affair, leading the Ferrers to divorce in 1948. Before their split, Ferrer kept himself busy. On radio, he had a successful series playing detective Philo Vance in 1945. On Nov. 29, 1945, Lillian Smith's play Strange Fruit opened at The Royale Theatre (now the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre). Ferrer produced and directed the production which starred a different though unrelated Ferrer — actor Mel Ferrer, still going by his full first name Melchor. Also in the cast were Murray Hamilton and Ralph Meeker. It ran 60 performances. The two Ferrers would swap roles in José's next Broadway production, though José would produce it while Melchor directed and José starred in the Oct. 8, 1946, premiere of Cyrano de Bergerac. Meeker also was part of the cast as was the actress Phyllis Hill, who would become Ferrer's second wife in 1948 soon after his divorce from Uta Hagen.

"José Ferrer has administered a lively draft of tonic to this season by staging Cyrano de Bergerac as though he meant it. Acting the part of the braggart romantic, he is appearing at the Alvin in a pulsating performance that makes full use of the modern theatre. Although Cyrano is no longer a modern play, it is still one of the most dashing ever written, particularly in the Brian Hooker version that preserves the bravura of the Rostand text in light verse of a modern idiom." That's how Brooks Atkinson began his review in The New York Times on Oct. 9, 1946. Atkinson heaped praise upon practically all aspects of the production — even giving a shout-out to the stage hands for moving the scenery, The critic closes by writing, "Mr. Ferrer has done Cyrano in the grand manner, like a man who gets fun as well as a living out of the theatre." Another notable name composed the incidental music for the production: the renaissance man Paul Bowles. Ferrer's revival ran 193 performances through March 22, 1947 and its run coincided with the inaugural year of the Antoinette Perry Awards, better known by its shorthand name, the Tony, presented by The American Theatre Wing. The Tonys were presented for the first time on April 6, 1947 at the Waldorf Astoria. The American Theatre Wing handed out 11 Tonys in seven categories that first evening. Ferrer's performance in Cyrano was honored for dramatic actor alongside Fredric March in Years Ago. Four others won for acting that first year, including Ingrid Bergman in Maxwell Anderson's Joan of Lorraine and Helen Hayes in Happy Birthday, both for dramatic actress. Shortly before Cyrano ended its run, Ferrer produced and directed a five-performance run of As We Forgive Our Debtors for the American National Theatre and Academy after originally being staged by The Experimental Theatre Inc. When the play closed, Ferrer finally prepared to leave New York, ironically in the film version of the play that won Ingrid Bergman her Tony. Retitled Joan of Arc, the Victor Fleming film premiered in 1948 with Ferrer portraying the Dauphin. He earned a supporting actor Oscar nomination for his film debut. It's been a long time since I've seen the film, but I remember him being the best thing in it other than the vibrant Technicolor cinematography.

Once Ferrer returned from California and making his first feature film, he started bouncing between the media of stage, screen and television. Between January 1948 and May 1949, Ferrer either starred, directed, produced, co-adapted or some combination of those in five Broadway shows. In January 1949, he appeared on The Philco Television Playhouse and reprised his role in a televised version of Cyrano de Bergerac. He returned to the same showcase in April to play Sammy Glick in Paddy Chayefsky's adaptation of Budd Schulberg's novel What Makes Sammy Run? In November 1949, he appeared in his second feature role, playing the manipulative hypnotist in Otto Preminger's thriller Whirlpool. Another fabled story has it that Ferrer was the first choice to play Addison De Witt in All About Eve, but the role went to George Sanders, who of course won the 1950 best supporting actor Oscar for the part. This time period wasn't an easy one for artists and like so many in his field, Ferrer found himself caught up in the Communist witchhunts of the time. Former co-star and friend Paul Robeson had his own problems above and beyond the run-of-the mill ones associated with others who ended up on HUAC-inspired blacklists when in March 1950, at the last minute, NBC canceled his planned appearance on Eleanor Roosevelt's program and banned him from its network while the U.S. State Department lifted his passport, effectively confining the Soviet-friendly artist from leaving the country. Red Channels, an anti-Communist pamphlet by the right-wing magazine Counterattack published on June 22, 1950, a list of 151 artists it claimed had Communist ties — including Ferrer and his ex-wife, Uta Hagen. It affected Hagen immediately and she never did much outside theater, but Ferrer held off repercussions for a bit as he had two films coming out in 1950.

A couple of weeks after his name appeared on the Red Channels list, the movie Crisis opened. Written and directed by Richard Brooks, Crisis starred Cary Grant as a brain surgeon on vacation with his wife in an unnamed Spanish-speaking country where Ferrer played its dictator, who happens to have a life-threatening tumor. Grant's doctor must decide whether he should keep his oath to save lives or let the tyrant die and give the country a chance at freedom. Later in 1950, Ferrer put on the big nose again in Michael Gordon's film version of Cyrano de Bergerac. Ferrer would win the best actor Oscar (so he and Sanders won in the same year) becoming the first Hispanic actor and first Puerto Rican actor to win an Academy Award. Ferrer is one of only nine performers to win both Oscars and Tonys for playing the same role, sharing that distinction with Jack Albertson (The Subject Was Roses). Anne Bancroft (The Miracle Worker), Shirley Booth (Come Back, Little Sheba), Yul Brynner (The King and I), Joel Grey (Cabaret), Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady). Lila Kedrova (Zorba the Greek/Zorba) and Paul Scofield (A Man for All Seasons). To honor his Puerto Rican roots, Ferrer donated his Oscar to the University of Puerto Rico. Ferrer played Cyrano in a television production again on Oct. 17, 1955, on Producers' Showcase and received an Emmy nomination for best actor — single performance. Because the Emmys always have been screwed up, Ferrer also was nominated as best actor in 1951, though even their official database doesn't know for what and the only TV credits IMDb shows prior to 1951 were those two appearances mentioned earlier. At any rate, Ferrer remains the only actor in history to be nominated for an Emmy, an Oscar and a Tony for playing the same role. He also returned to the Cyrano role in a 1953 production he directed at City Center in New York (the year his marriage to Phyllis Hill ended). In a March 1956 episode of the Burns and Allen show, he played Cyrano again, but only as a voice. Abel Gance directed him as Cyrano in French in the 1964 film Cyrano et d'Artagnan. He did Cyrano's voice again in a March 1974 ABC Afterschool Special. On a 1980s Tony telecast, Ferrer recited from the play a final time and then hung up the nose for good.

When Cyrano de Bergerac opened and throughout the time of his nomination and Oscar win, Ferrer had returned to New York where he produced, directed and starred in a revival of the comedy Twentieth Century opposite another 1950 Oscar nominee — Sunset Blvd.'s Norma Desmond herself, Gloria Swanson. In the 1951-52 Broadway season, Ferrer directed three big plays. In addition to directing, he produced the premiere of Stalag 17, staged the key Hume Cronyn-Jessica Tandy teaming in The Fourposter and directed, produced and starred in The Shrike. When the 1952 Tonys came out, Ferrer won best actor in a play for The Shrike as well as best director for all three plays. In Hollywood, he had two films come out. The first was the comedy Anything Can Happen. The second and far more important film was John Huston's Moulin Rouge where Ferrer played the famed painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as well as The Comte de Toulouse-Lautrec, the painter's father. When Ferrer received an Oscar nomination, it was the first instance of a performer being nominated for portraying two distinct characters in the same film. Before that happened though, that Red Channels list controversy finally hit. As William O'Neill wrote in his chapter on The Blacklist in his book A Better World: Stalin and the American Intellectuals:

On Dec. 27, 1952, the American Legion announced that it disapproved of…Moulin Rouge, starring José Ferrer, who used to be no more progressive than hundreds of other actors and had already been grilled by HUAC.…Nine members of the Legion had picketed it anyway, giving rise to the controversy. By this time, people were not taking any chances. Ferrer immediately wired the Legion's national commander that he would be glad to join the veterans in their "fight against communism." A few days later, Ferrer denounced Paul Robeson for accepting the Stalin Peace Prize. On Jan. 2, Leonard Lyons a columnist, wrote that the Legion opposed any further picketing of Moulin Rouge. Victor Lasky, another red-baiting columnist, was said to have withdrawn an article on Ferrer he had written for the Legion's magazine. On the 16th, Lyons reported the Ferrer had ironed out all his problems with Legion officials over lunch.

As I mentioned earlier, 1953 was the year when Ferrer and Phyllis Hill ended their marriage. It also was the year that Ferrer married his third wife, singer and actress Rosemary Clooney. The couple had three sons and two daughters. Their marriage ended eight years later in 1961, though they tried again and remarried in 1964 only to divorce again in 1967. Their first child, born in 1955, was son Miguel, who would become an actor in his own right, always will be treasured by Twin Peaks fans for his role as FBI Agent Albert Rosenfeld. The resemblance between father and son shows through clearly when you compare the b&w photo of José from Whirlpool three paragraphs above to the photo of Miguel as Albert in this paragraph. The marriage of José and Rosemary connected to branches of many entertainment families. It made José the uncle of George Clooney. Their son Gabriel married Debby Boone, who sang the 1977 pop hit "You Light Up My Life," which made Ferrer and Clooney the in-laws of Pat and Shirley Boone. While Ferrer only made one feature film with Rosemary Clooney (1954's Deep in My Heart), the spouses appeared on many entertainment TV shows together as well as The Ed Sullivan Show and an appearance on Person to Person with Edward R. Murrow. In 1964, competed against each other on an episode of the game show Password All-Stars. Even before he married Clooney though, Ferrer was somewhat of a regular fixture on all sorts of TV shows as himself as early as 1949 including The Milton Berle Show, Penthouse Party hosted by Betty Furness and three appearances on Your Show of Shows. Without his new bride, he appeared on shows including Tonight! when Steve Allen was host, two episodes of The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show and the game shows What's My Line? and I've Got a Secret.

For the most part, though Ferrer kept working nearly continuously until his death, the decade of the 1950s marked his heyday across all media. "The truth is I made a few good movies in the '50s, then went into freefall," Ferrer was quoted as saying, but his stage and television work didn't bring the acclaim they once did either. The Oscar nomination he received for Moulin Rouge was his third and final one, though I believe he should have been a contender for supporting actor for his role as Lt. Barney Greenwald, lawyer for the accused mutineers in 1954's The Caine Mutiny. The British Academy of Film nominated Ferrer as best foreign actor for his part, mainly for his superb drunken dressing down of his clients after he has cleared them and exposed Humphrey Bogart's Captain Queeg as a nutcase on the stand. Edward Dmytryk, the sole member of The Hollywood Ten who turned friendly HUAC witness after serving jail time, directed the film. The Oscars deservingly nominated Bogart as lead but from a supporting cast that also included fine work from Van Johnson and Fred MacMurray, instead nominated the milquetoast Tom Tully. In 1955, he made his film directing debut as he re-created his Tony-winning role The Shrike. He directed six feature films in total: The Cockleshell Heroes (1956); The Great Man (1957), which earned him a Directors Guild of America nomination alongside 16 other contenders though the prize went to David Lean for The Bridge on the River Kwai; I Accuse! (1958) where Ferrer played Capt. Dreyfuss in a screenplay by Gore Vidal; and The High Cost of Living (1958). The final two films Ferrer helmed didn't star him: 1961's Return to Peyton Place and the 1962 remake of State Fair starring future in-law Pat Boone. Other notable films in which Ferrer would appear throughout his life included Lawrence of Arabia, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Ship of Fools, the hilarious 1976 disaster spoof The Big Bus where Ferrer plays the villain who spends the film in an iron lung, Voyage of the Damned, finally got to work with Billy WIlder on Wilder's penultimate film, Fedora, made a disaster movie that meant to be serious — The Swarm, Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, the remake of To Be or Not to Be and David Lynch's Dune.

Ferrer's theater career in New York for the remainder of the 1950s resembled reruns. Three days after Ferrer finished the 1953 revival of Cyrano he directed himself in at City Center, Ferrer did the same at City Center with The Shrike. Three days after The Shrike closed at the location, Ferrer acted there in the title role of Shakespeare's Richard III for The New York City Theatre Company with a cast that included Vincent Price and Maureen Stapleton. Two days after The Bard's work ended its run, Ferrer reached into his past again, starring and directing a revival of Charley's Aunt at City Center. One year and a day after the curtain fell on that revival, Ferrer directed Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy at City Center in a revival of The Fourposter. It took three years for Ferrer to return to work on something in New York theater. The project was the original musical comedy Oh Captain!, based on the 1953 comedy The Captain's Paradise starring Alec Guinness. Ferrer directed the musical and co-wrote the book with Al Morgan. Music and lyrics were by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans and Tony Randall played the Guinness role in the musical. The show received six Tony nominations, including the last Ferrer would ever receive for co-writing the book. Ferrer would direct three more shows in the 1950s, only one of which he would act in (Edwin Booth), the second which was the third director to work on a troubled musical (Juno) and the last was the play The Andersonville Trial where he butted heads with star George C. Scott. When he returned to Broadway in December 1963, it was in the original Noel Coward musical The Girl Who Came to Supper co-starring Florence Henderson. Ferrer briefly replaced Richard Kiley in the lead role of the gigantic hit Man of La Mancha in May 1966 and did well enough to lead the first national touring company of the musical. He wouldn't do any Broadway work again for 13 years, though he did some off-Broadway productions. In 1972, he directed The Web and the Rock. He succeeded Ellis Rabb in the role of Robert in the Gerald Gutierrez-directed production of David Mamet's A Life in the Theatre at some point in its run from Oct. 20, 1977-July 9, 1978. Finally, he produced and starred in White Pelicans, written and directed by Jay Broad, which ran for 14 performances beginning Oct. 19, 1978, at Theatre de Lys (now the Lucille Lortel Theatre). Ferrer's last work on Broadway was his direction of the new musical Carmelina with lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner (My Fair Lady, Camelot, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Brigadoon), music by Burton Lane (Finian's Rainbow, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever) and book by Lerner and Joseph Stein (Fiddler on the Roof, Zorba). It only ran 17 performances and received a single Tony nomination best original score. Ferrer was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 1981. The hall's inductees' names get inscribed in gold lettering on the walls of the upper levels of the Gershwin Theatre, one of Broadway's largest houses.

From the 1960s on, the bulk of Ferrer's work came on television. In 1964, he was the uncredited narrator of the first three episodes of Bewitched, explaining the story of Samantha admitting to Darrin that she's a witch before they wed. Rumor has it that the producers of the TV series Batman pursued Ferrer first to play The Joker. He also provided the voice of Ben Haramed, the man who kidnaps Aaron to put in his act in the Rankin/Bass animated version of The Little Drummer Boy in 1968. His presence became a common one on episodic television such as The Name of the Game, The Marcus-Nelson Murders, the movie that served as the pilot for Kojak, the "Mind Over Mayhem" episode of Columbo, Banyon, Starsky and Hutch, Magnum, P.I., Quincy, M.E., Murder, She Wrote, Hotel, Matlock and the requisite appearances on The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. Ferrer took roles in many television movies and miniseries including A Case of Libel, The Rhinemann Exchange, Gideon's Trumpet, Evita Peron, Peter and Paul, Blood Feud, Samson and Delilah, George Washington, Hitler's S.S.: Portrait in Evil, Strange Interlude for PBS' American Playhouse. He also appeared on Sesame Street in 1988 as Tio Jose' to attend the wedding of Luis and Maria. Between 1985-87, he guest-starred eight times on Newhart as Arthur Vanderkellen, the father of spoiled maid/heiress Stephanie (Julia Duffy). Between 1989-91, he appeared on the soap opera Another World four times as Reuben Marino, an attorney involved in a custody suit. Ferrer's final work on film came out posthumously and only opened in Hong Kong. It's an action film called Lam Gong juen ji fan fei jo fung wan or Attack the Restless and starred Leslie Cheung.

Ferrer was married for the fifth and final time to Stella Daphne Magee in 1977, a marriage that lasted until his death. In 1985, he was the first actor to receive the National Medal of Arts alongside the other honorees for that year composer Elliott Carter Jr., arts patron Dorothy Chandler, writer Ralph Ellison, dancer/choreographer Martha Graham, corporate arts patron Hallmark Cards, arts patron Lincoln Kirstein, arts patron Paul Mellon, sculptor Louise Nevelson, painter, Georgia O'Keeffe, soprano Leonytne Pryce and arts patron Alice Tully.

Ferrer passed away on Jan. 26, 1992, in Coral Gables, Fla., following a brief battle with colon cancer at 82. He is interred in Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery in Old San Juan in his native Puerto Rico.

Indie doesn't automatically equal good

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
Many good and great films have come to the attention of cinephiles after garnering attention at the Sundance Film Festival. Unfortunately, just as often it seems to turn out that little indies that charge from the fest with buzz or prizes turn out to be ho-hum enterprises as is the case with Like Crazy, which won 2011's Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Film. It also received a Special Jury Prize for Dramatic Acting for its lead actress Felicity Jones and at least that honor wasn't a case of overstatement since by far Jones turns out to be the movie's best attribute.

Directed by Drake Doremus, who co-wrote Like Crazy with Ben York Jones, the film tells the story of young love between an English girl named Anna (Jones) and an American boy named Jacob (Anton Yelchin) who meet while both attend a Los Angeles university. Their romance proves so intoxicating that Anna forgets the little matter of overstaying her student visa by a couple of months. She returns to the U.K. to touch base with her very indulgent parents (Oliver Muirhead, Alex Kingston), though she's slightly miffed that Jacob nixes any idea to join her in Britain for the two month stay.

A crisis erupts when Anna attempts to come back to the U.S. when immigration flags her visa violation and deports her back to Britain — something that seems to take everyone by surprise (Apparently, neither the young adults nor her parents heard anything about 9/11). Can Anna and Jacob maintain a long-distance romance? What about Jacob's burgeoning furniture-making enterprise in L.A. and Anna's job doing whatever it is she does for Finola Hughes in London?

Jones gives a performance so much better than the film deserves. Like Crazy plays as if it began life as a short film but somehow got out of hand. Doremus, whose previous film I haven't seen but was charmingly called Douchebag, directs the movie as if he had a book open on his lap called "French New Wave Tricks" and he employs most of them — and poorly.

Like Crazy overflows with abrupt cuts, sped-up motion and all the other moves that can be effective when used for a purpose by a director who knows what he's doing but which come off here as if he's throwing the techniques against the figurative wall to see if anything sticks. Unfortunately, none do so they end up resembling mere gimmicks.

I wish I'd been able to see more than just two of the 15 films that Like Crazy competed against at Sundance, but based on that two that I have seen (Another Earth and especially Terri) and reviews and word of mouth on the rest, I feel safe in presuming that at several were substantially better than the mishmash of Like Crazy. (For those interested, those other 13 films were, in alphabetical order: All She Can, Another Happy Day, The Art of Getting By, Circumstance, Gun Hill Road, Here, Higher Ground, The Ledge, Little Birds, Martha Marcy May Marlene, On the Ice, Pariah and Take Shelter.)

Despite the scattershot filmmaking style, Jones somehow delivers a good performance as Anna, though the title misleads. It implies that someone will be a little emotionally unbalanced, but that's not really the case. Yelchin does OK, but Jones overpowers him in the acting department. Jennifer Lawrence gets a few nice moments as a girl Jacob starts seeing during his separation from Anna, but she doesn't get a lot to do. In fact, Lawrence was given more to do as the young Mystique in X-Men: First Class than her Like Crazy role offers.

Jones provides the only possible incentive to see Like Crazy but, as good as she is, I don't know if her performance justifies sitting through it.

Version 2.0 Now in Finchervision

noreply@blogger.com (VenetianBlond) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By VenetianBlond
I’m a fan. I’ve read the book by Stieg Larsson and watched the Swedish film more than once. Yes, the plot takes half the movie to really kick in, the leads are kept separate for too long, and who can believe that a print magazine is dangerous to the dominant paradigm anymore? However, I’m willing to forgive all those trespasses to take a spin through the American version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, directed by David Fincher. My host, Edward Copeland, wrote about the Swedish version here.

The question of whether or not we need remakes of perfectly good international films is a larger issue than should be taken on here. Notable exceptions are found, of course, but I’ll assert that we don’t need remakes at all. The paradox occurs, though, with the question of whether or not we need a new David Fincher film. The answer to that question is yes.

Dragon Tattoo is just the same, only different. Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is an investigative journalist on the wrong end of a lawsuit. It seems his inability to prove certain assertions he made in print not only ruined his reputation, but also emptied his bank account. For this reason, he decides to listen to the pitch of a retired industrialist, Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), who wants to hire him for his own investigation — that of his presumed dead niece, Harriet, who went missing 40 years ago.

Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) is a goth hacker — tiny, brilliant and completely antisocial. She’s been declared incompetent by the state, and must turn over her finances to a new guardian when her previous one had a stroke. The guardian, (Yorik van Wageningen) abuses her sexually, but she later gets her brutal revenge. She’s a photo negative of the Stuart Smalley platitude: she’s better than you, smarter than you, and doesn’t give a flying flip if you like her or not.

Due to her unusual skill at research, Salander is hired by the industrialist Vanger to do a background check on Blomkvist. Once he finds out who did the incredibly detailed work on him, he wants to hire that person to help him find out what happened to Harriet. Finally the two characters join forces and really get on with the investigation, and they not only discover what happened to Harriet, but also what happened to a number of other young women scattered across Sweden.

Fincher spends more time with relationships in his version. We see more of Lisbeth’s affection (or what stands for affection in her life) for her first guardian. He also gives us more of Blomkvist’s stilted relationship with his daughter. Even Lisbeth’s employer at the security firm, Armansky (Goran Visnjic), reveals a little more about how he feels about her as a person than in the Swedish films. There’s slightly more time for humor such as the look Salander shoots Blomkvist when he claims the information on his computer is encrypted.

The main difference is that it’s an American film. The actors are better looking and wear more expensive clothes. They have international pull (Plummer! Richardson! Skarsgard! Berkoff! Wright!) and perform admirably. Where the Swedish film was a workaday piece that doesn’t get in its own way, Fincher is inventive and puts his stamp on his version without reinventing the whole thing.

And there’s no good reason to since whatever plot points hold the mystery together, they aren't as important as the presence of Lisbeth Salander. Played slightly less closed off and less fierce (in my opinion) by Rooney Mara than Noomi Rapace, Salander is the reason for the international craze for the books and the greenlight of the remake. She’s not only a unique action hero, she’s a unique character. She’d be watchable even if she weren’t solving decades’ worth of brutal murders and finding the lost girl. You just have to be willing to sit through the explanations of family trees and who doesn’t speak to whom — not to mention the violence — to get to the good stuff.

But that makes it seem as if that character is the only good thing about the film, which isn’t true. It’s a thriller, and a good one, with random gunshots, secret agendas, old photographs and high tech gadgets. The original title of Larsson’s book was “Men Who Hate Women,” and viewed through that lens, the content rises above a paint-by-numbers investigative procedural. It opens up the proceedings from the individual to the societal — which becomes crucial in the second and third parts of the trilogy.

By the way, FYYFF, on one t-shirt Salander wears, is a phrase written by late New Orleans blogger Ashley Morris as a response to those who suggested that the city of New Orleans should just be left to sink into the sea after Hurricane Katrina.

Finally, the opening credits hit me like a golf club to the jaw — in a good way. A CGI music video of Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Karen O’s version of Led Zeppelin’s “The Immigrant Song,” it’s full of imaginative and nightmarish imagery of scales, tire treads, the actors, computer cords, insects and more.

Survival of the greediest

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
If any Occupy gatherings want a movie to pass the sit-in time which also speaks to the group's issues, the protesters could make no better choice than the riveting Margin Call, a well-acted depiction of the callous way that a fictional Wall Street investment firm treats its employees, its clients and the U.S. economy — all for the sake of perpetuating executive lifestyles, everything else be damned.

Margin Call marks the feature writing-directing debut of J.C. Chandor and an impressive debut it turns out to be. It begins much like John Wells' wretched The Company Men, except that it's an investment firm laying off much of its work force and the movie's focus isn't trying to convince us to cry crocodile tears for the execs who no longer can afford country club fees.

One of the first to get his walking papers is Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci), a senior executive in risk management. His layoff shocks him but Dale seems more concerned about the data on his monitor when he receives the news. He tries to explain to the woman (Susan Blackwell) informing him of his fate about the importance of that in-progress project, but she stays on the severance script, letting him know what his exit package contains and how — for security reasons — his access to email, computer files, etc., has been severed. She sends him back to his office with a security guard to collect any "personal items" and escort him from the building.

As Dale grabs a few things, senior trader Will Emerson (Paul Bettany) sticks his head in to offer sympathies. Eric tries telling Emerson about his incomplete work, but Emerson tells him it isn't his problem anymore. As Dale takes his final walk to the elevator, box of belongings in his arms, one of his assistants, Pete Sullivan (Zachary Quinto), catches up to thank him for the chance to work with him. Eric again mentions his work — and he slips Sullivan a flash drive along with the warning, "Be careful." When Dale gets to the sidewalk, he attempts to make a call on his cell phone only to discover the firm shut that off as well, something that will bite the company in the ass.

Once the floor's layoffs have been completed, its top trading executive, Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey), comes out of his office to give the survivors a pep talk, explaining that it's been a difficult day but it's one that they may all go through again throughout their careers. On the bright side, with so many people gone, the rest should celebrate because they've all moved up several notches in the firm's hierarchy. Pretty much the entire floor takes the advice literally and heads out for drinks after work, including Dale's other assistant, Seth Bregman (Penn Badgley), who encourages Sullivan to go but Pete has immersed himself in flash drive's data and stays to work on it.

When Pete finally figures out what Dale had discovered, he can't believe the numbers and calls Seth to come look at them, followed by Will Emerson. With the projections, the trading firm has become so overleveraged that if its assets (made up mostly of those infamous mortgage-backed securities) should decrease by 25%, the company will owe more than it is worth. Emerson drags Rogers in and soon the firm's most important players have arrived to work through the night for possible solutions to the impending explosion including the head of risk management, Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore), a particularly cutthroat senior exec, Jared Cohen (Simon Baker), and the company's CEO, John Tuld (Jeremy Irons).

As complicated as the subject matter is, Chandor's script makes it digestible and understandable. As a director, Chandor turns the material into a truly suspenseful thriller where no one's physical life may be at stake but it feels as something much larger is. Chandor's screenplay and direction prove great, but he also has been blessed with an embarrassment of riches in the casting department.

Jack Lemmon's influence on Spacey shows in his portrayal of Rogers, the veteran trader who serves as the firm's conscience. Irons turns in a fine performance as the CEO who feels his decisions are based on pragmatism not greed or self-preservation. Baker makes all his scenes come alive simply by the mysterious nature of his character. Quinto (who also served as one of the film's many producers) and Badgley work as a kind of yin and yang of up-and-comers in the business world. Though Tucci's role is limited, he makes the most of his appearances. Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi even appears, playing it straight as a firm lawyer.

For me though, the film's standout ends up being Paul Bettany. He caught my attention first as Russell Crowe's roommate in A Beautiful Mind, but I've been waiting for him to break out ever since, but most of his roles I've missed or have failed to make an impression on me. As Emerson in Margin Call, Bettany creates a cool customer that you're never quite certain where his loyalties lie or whether he even has any. He's also wry and somewhat of a tour guide for the audience through the corporate maze.

Margin Call also boasts crisp editing by Pete Beaudreau and production design by John Paino with set decoration by Robert Covelman that makes the boardrooms and trading office look spot-on real, especially when seen through Frank G. DeMarco's wondrous cinematography. Office interiors don't get heralded enough when filmed this well.

Chandor has won and been nominated for several first feature and first screenplay awards and the Independent Spirit Awards has given this cast its Robert Altman Award for best ensemble, all very deserved accolades. I look forward to seeing where Chandor goes from here.

An hour of waiting for the inevitable to happen

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
There is predictability and then there is predictability. After that, comes Warrior, where any moviegoer who has seen more than a dozen or two family dramas and sports films in his or her lifetime will be able to outline every beat the screenplay by director Gavin O'Connor, Anthony Tambakis & Cliff Dorfman will hit before the film reaches the 40-minute mark. Unfortunately, Warrior runs for nearly another 100 minutes after that.

The biggest surprise that Warrior was able to come up with occurred when the Screen Actors Guild Awards announced its nominees for supporting actor and named Nick Nolte for Warrior, the first time I'd even heard of the film. Ahhh, ignorance was bliss. I do have to say that while Warrior turns out to be a chore to sit through, Nolte, lead Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy, who falls somewhere in between, all perform well. It's just a shame that the three aren't acting in service of a script that deserves their talent.

You might think that I exaggerate how by-the-numbers the details in Warrior play out, but it must have been evident to the filmmakers as well since the posters and promo material all highlight the climactic fight, so fear of spoilers wasn't high on their agenda.

Edgerton, who was good as one of the many criminal thugs in Animal Kingdom, plays Brendan Conlon, a high school science teacher facing imminent foreclosure on his house because of the money problems caused by medical bills for his daughter's heart problem. One night, the former fighter signs up for a parking lot contest based on Ultimate Fighting and picks up some easy cash — as well as suspension from his teaching job. Around this time, I began to dream of a different high school science teacher who didn't become a fighter to provide for his family but began to cook crystal meth instead. Sigh.

Despite objections from his wife Tess (Jennifer Morrison, who was so good as Cameron on House but struggles with the worst melodramatic dialogue here), Brendan decides to pursue mixed-martial arts to make money, especially when he hears about Sparta, a massive Atlantic City single-elimination event financed by a rich entrepreneur with a $5 million purse. He reluctantly turns to his estranged, reformed alcoholic father Paddy (Nolte) to help him train.

That gets to be too much for him as his father tries to use the training as a way to worm his way back into his son's life and to that of his granddaughters, one of whom he's never met. Brendan turns to a former fighter pal of his turned trainer Frank (Frank Grillo) to help him get ready. Meanwhile, Brendan's younger brother Tommy (Tom Brady) reappears, using his mother's maiden name Riordan as a last name after a tour in Iraq. Troops in Iraq recognize him on a tape demolishing a mixed-martial arts champ as the Marine who saved their lives and then vanished.

Tommy stayed with Paddy through all of his rough drinking years and though he doesn't have much use for him, he starts training with him as well. Can you see where all this is headed yet? Let's see — we have a troubled, recovering alcoholic (I wonder if he'll fall off the wagon at some point), two brothers competing in the same sport, aiming for the same big-money event (hmmm…I wonder who will be in the final match? Oh yeah — the poster and promo art gives that away even if it weren't painfully obvious anyway). I forgot to explain that the announcers at Sparta say Tommy Riordan is "Google-proof" because no one has any information on him, yet they know he's a war hero though the Marines have no records on him and no one puts it together that his trainer has the same last night as one of the other competitors.

What truly makes Warrior such a grind to get through is that since we know how the final match of Sparta will wind up, that event starts at the 1 hour, 15 minute mark of the movie, meaning we have to sit through almost an hour of Tommy and Brendan fighting other contenders when there's no doubt who the victor will be. The only mystery comes from which of the two brothers the movie will allow to win. I started thinking of the seventh season episode of Scrubs "My Manhood" when J.D. whips Turk in public and Turk feels he has to save face by getting him back but J.D. doesn't want to his infant son seeing his butt kicked. Trying to think of a solution to the problem, the two shout in unison, "Rocky III freeze-frame ending!" It made me laugh in fear that Warrior would go that route.

To its credit, Warrior doesn't end that way, but no ending would be prove satisfying after the mess that preceded it. I knew director O'Connor's name sounded familiar and was surprised to see he wrote and directed the nice 1999 film Tumbleweeds with the great Janet McTeer performance, which couldn't be any further removed from Warrior. It's a shame that in 12 years he went from that passable indie feature to this formulaic drivel.

Men swarm around me like moths to a flame and if their wings get singed, I can't be blamed

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
It has been a long journey for me to be able to watch and write about Josef von Sternberg's 1930 classic The Blue Angel, and I refer to the version made in German, not in English. I had tried to rent it several times on DVD through different services but the region-free disc always flaked out at the same spot. I finally watched it on Netflix streaming (as I was ending that option before I switched to DVD only and Netflix customers know that happened in September) and was able to see the entire film. Then it was just a matter of finding the time to write about it, but other projects kept getting in the way and The Blue Angel deserves more than a quickie. It's sat around about half done for months, but with a new year, I thought I should get this out of the way, especially when I noticed that the English version got wide release in the U.S. 81 years ago today. Figured that had to be a sign.

My journey to see The Blue Angel proved difficult, but it actually ended up being a breeze compared to what happened to both versions of the landmark film over the many decades since both premiered in 1930, albeit in separate parts of the world.

Why The Blue Angel gained its status as a pivotal point in film history can be attributed to several reasons, such as:

It's widely considered to be the first major German film made in sound;

It marked the first sound film of the first man to win the Oscar for best actor, Emil Jannings;

Despite their difficult relationship on the film that won Jannings that Oscar, The Last Command, it reunited him with director von Sternberg;

It launched the international stardom of Marlene Dietrich.

The differences in the two versions of The Blue Angel extend beyond just the language the actors in which the actors speak. When it premiered in Germany on the night of March 31, 1930, it ran 106 minutes. The raves (in addition to being able to see the as-yet-unreleased English-language version) prompted the U.S. studio Paramount to lure both von Sternberg and Dietrich, who by then were lovers, to the U.S. They made and released Morocco, which earned Dietrich the only Oscar nomination of her career for best actress, before The Blue Angel had its U.S. debut. When the English version was released in December 1930, it only ran 99 minutes, as filmed. The German version didn't play in the U.S. until 1947 and to emphasize Dietrich at the expense of Jannings' lead character (and the story itself), the film was cut to 90 minutes. It wasn't until 2001 that a new German language print, made from original negative material, restored it to 106 minutes and was re-released. Ironically, for many decades, the English-language version became considered lost until a print was discovered in a German film archive, restored and shown in 2009.

With that brief primer on the movie's history out of the way, now I can dive in to talking about the film itself which I'm glad to say stands up very well given that it's nearly 82 years old. Granted, The Blue Angel definitely shows signs of belonging to that awkward phase where silent filmmakers and performers adjusted techniques to the new sound era, but for the most part the movie and its cast clears that hurdle rather easily. Jannings stars as Professor Immanuel Rath, a strict disciplinarian as an English teacher at a boarding school in his small German town. His students mock him mercilessly (a favorite nickname is Professor Unrath, ratshit in English) but he holds a stellar reputation in the port city. (I love how in foreign language films, even from way back, when they update the translations of the subtitles, they put in the profanities.) He doesn't earn much respect from his live-in maid either, who offers little sympathy when Rath awakes one morning to discover his lone companion, a pet bird, dead in its cage. "It pretty much stopped singing," the housekeeper (Ilse Fürstenberg) tells the professor. Though Rath maintains the community's regard, sometimes it's easy to see how he becomes an object of ridicule for his classless pupils or others, such as when he blows his nose and emits a comically absurd honking sound. Still, he tries to teach these callow lads, on one day specifically about Shakespeare's Hamlet. The students ignore him most days, but on this day, he discovers their fascination with postcards which he confiscates bearing photos of Lola Lola (Dietrich), the bawdy performer at the German version of a speakeasy which gives the film its title, The Blue Angel. Lola's images transfix Rath. He even blows on one of the cards and imagines that the feathers on her dress move. After interrogating one of his students, Angst (Rolf Müller) — whom the other students routinely harass because he doesn't frequent the club — Rath learns of the club's location and decides to venture to it himself since The Blue Angel and its performers such as Lola Lola debase the morals of his pupils.

Backstage at The Blue Angel that night, several of Rath's pupils flirt hopelessly with Lola Lola, who plays with them until her turn comes to perform. She immediately commands the stage as well as the establishment, singing to the enthralled, lascivious men in the audience, "Guys, tonight I'm going to pick someone/I'm fed up with the young ones." As Rath stumbles his way inside The Blue Angel, he's so nervous that he gets himself caught in the mesh curtains that separate the main room of the club from its entrance. Rath might have convinced himself that he came to lecture her on moral failings, but it's Lola herself that's enticed Rath on this journey, and as she struts around the stage in stockings and garters, that isn't what's on Rath's mind. He remains enraptured as she croons "Naughty Lola," with lyrics such as "If any of you guys get too near/I'll kick you in the ribs/And punch you in the ear." The students spot their professor and flee backstage, but not before Rath spots one of them. Rath begins searching the rooms backstage trying to find the pupils, encountering a sad and disturbing-looking clown (Reinhold Bernt) who will be a recurring figure throughout the film. He ends up in the dressing room as Lola enters wondering why a man is in there. Rath tells her that she and this club are "corrupting my pupils." Lola brushes this off and begins to undress before Rath, leading him to begin to stumble toward the doorway, being an impediment to those trying to come in and out. Lola sees he's shy and climbs a staircase and Rath stands there, uncertain of what to do next when suddenly panties land in his hands from above. As Rath stands hapless, Kiepert (Kurt Gerron), a magician and manager of the troupe of performers appearing at The Blue Angel, enters yelling at the female performers, though he's protective of Lola until he learns who Rath is and tries to show him that he's important. He sends Lola back out on stage as Kiepert pastes on a mustache to prepare for his magic act. Rath lays into him for letting his pupils attend performances at the club. Before Kiepert can even deny such a thing, Rath spots one of this students and chases him out of the club. Things don't go so well later for the pupil Angst. (Could he be named any more appropriately?) As he sleeps in his bed, shadows approach on his bedroom wall, shapes somewhat reminiscent of Murnau's Nosferatu. Some of the other students start slapping and beating him repeatedly for telling Rath about The Blue Angel.

While it's easy to see the allure of Dietrich and how her star was born out of this film, Jannings proved he could be just as powerful with words as he was in his silent classics, even if some of his emoting continued to play as large as it did in those days when they didn't have dialogue. Rath, a character created in the novel Professor Unrat by Heinrich Mann, manages to be a sympathetic creation in Jannings' hands even though he doesn't take any paths to make the professor that way. He's overly proud and expects too much of others. A plaque in his apartment reads DO RIGHT AND FEAR NO MAN. He isn't above being physical with his pupils, slapping cigarettes out of their mouths. When the school's director (Eduard V. Winterstein) warns him that he "risks his future on that kind of woman," Rath ignores him, telling him, "She is my future wife." Of course, when Rath actually proposes to Lola, she laughs at him, though she ends up marrying him anyway. Watching Jannings' degradation as he goes from esteemed professor to a man making money selling those postcards of Lola Lola, now his wife, to eventually becoming a clown in Kiepert's act and a cuckold as Lola seeks affection elsewhere telling him sometimes, "What choice do I have? That's the way I was made."

The lowest point comes when after five years on the road, all of them get booked to play The Blue Angel again, which to Rath's objection, they promote as the professor's return to the town. Not surprisingly, it attracts a sellout crowd. Rath barely seems human anymore. The professor who once taught Shakespeare, now is just a fool, and not even Lear's. When he takes the stage with the magician, he gets hung up in curtains, mirroring his initial entrance to The Blue Angel. When he tries to speak, intelligible words no longer come out. Kiepert makes a mockery of Rath on stage until a group of men, including Lola's lover, rescue him. Later, Kiepert promises that he will make it up to him. It leads to a quiet and sad dénouement. The influence of the German expressionists shine throughout von Sternberg's direction, though he makes great use of the addition of sound as well. For instance, when Rath makes his return down the alley to the club, he adds the unmistakable sound of a cat in heat. While Dietrich definitely makes a magnetic debut (even if it came out second), Jannings brings the heart and magic to The Blue Angel (at least the German version).

Boldly going where man's ancestors went before

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
Werner Herzog's voice has embedded itself inside my brain. Each time I watch a documentary he directed and inevitably narrated, it takes longer to shake his German-accented English voiceover from my mind. A similar thing happened when I once listened to John Updike read one of his books on tape. After that, every time I read something by the great writer, I heard the prose in his voice. It's not an exact parallel with Herzog, since I only heard Updike when I read Updike. Once Cave of Forgotten Dreams finished, though Herzog's narration ceased to emanate from my TV, for some time afterward and as I write this, his voice continues to echo in my head.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams shares a thematic similarity with Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World except instead of looking at our least-explored continent, Herzog gains access to an ancient cave in southern France, sealed for thousands of years, that gives fascinating insight into what man's ancestors saw and could do in terms of paintings and sculptures believed to be the oldest ever found. The Chauvet Cave, named for Jean-Marie Chauvet, one of three cave explorers who followed an air current during an expedition in 1994 and found the cave apparently sealed to humans for more than 20,000 years.

France seized custody of the prehistoric site to prevent degradation, installing a locked steel door to bar access. The government allowed Herzog access under strict conditions, letting him film no more than four hours a day and if anyone had to leave during that time, the shoot stopped for the day. Making it more challenging, Herzog, who generally dismisses the need for 3D, felt it would make the experience more exciting for the viewer here (alas, Hugo remains the only 3D film I've seen since the gimmick's comeback). However, the narrow passages of the Chauvet Cave made the equipment necessary for 3D filming impossible so a special 3D camera had to be designed.

While some dispute the dating of what's been found in the cave, (Who wants to quibble between 20,000 and 32,000 years ago when either figure will set creationists' hair on fire?) even in two-dimensions the paintings astound. Depictions of animals extinct or evolved, some drawn in a succession that with the dim light almost make them appear to be the precursor of cinema. Handprints indicating an ancestor with a deformed finger is used as a map to trace the journey of the artist and the cave. The two sculptures found even indicate early depictions of a human-like form.

Herzog, always a jokester at heart, throws in an epilogue that questions both what our next step in the history of the world might be as well as whether France might see the tourist potential in this great find.

Herzog used to make some of the most interesting foreign language features around, especially when his stormy acting muse, Klaus Kinski, still lived to produce films ranging from the idiosyncratic (Woyzeck) to the astounding (Fitzcarraldo), from the one-of-a-kind (Aguirre, the Wrath of God) to a remake of a classic that became that rare classic remake itself (Nosferatu: Phantom Der Nacht).

Following Kinski's death in November 1991, Herzog turned almost exclusively to documentary filmmaking. Nonfiction works always held a place in Herzog's repertoire — both before and during his days with Kinski — but most were shorts made for television with theatrical features dominating his directing career. From the start of Herzog's feature career with Signs of Life in 1968 through his final film with Kinski (Cobra Verde) in 1987, Herzog directed 14 documentaries, all shorts except for three feature-length, only two of which were made for theatrical release.

Since 1987, Herzog only has directed five feature films (one of which was a fictionalized version of one of the documentaries he made in that time). With the exception of directing episodes of three separate German TV series, all his work in that time period has been on nonfiction filmmaking — shorts and feature-length, for television and theaters. What's even more fascinating is that his documentaries such as Cave of Forgotten Dreams prove far more interesting than the handful of fictional features that barely get released and, when they do, turn out to be flat-out disasters such as The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call — New Orleans starring Nicolas Cage.

If he can keep finding topics such as Cave of Forgotten Dreams, the loss of Herzog the fiction filmmaker with Herzog the documentarian might make for a worthy swap.

"I never claimed to be one of the 'involved'" — Straw Dogs Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

(WARNING: This post contains spoilers throughout for Sam Peckinpah's original 1971 film of Straw Dogs, which marked
its 40th anniversary Thursday. If you haven't seen it and plan to at some point, best not to read this.)
By Edward Copeland
We left off Part I of my Straw Dogs tribute as I was setting up the main players. If you're starting here by accident, click here to go back to Part I first. I also should note, which I failed to do in Part I (though I doubt its specific omission confused any reader) that I'm writing about Sam Peckinpah's 1971 original, not the recent remake which I haven't seen and don't plan to since it violates my rule on remakes: Don't remake films unless the original contained such big flaws that it allowed for improvement, but people seldom remake the bad or the mediocre. Two rare examples where filmmakers remade mediocre or OK originals and ended up with superior versions are Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven and the Coens' True Grit. Of course, the most famous case belongs to The Maltese Falcon which they didn't get right until the third try directed by John Huston after the awful 1931 version and the strange 1936 adaptation called Satan Met a Lady that changed nearly every detail of the story. Warren Beatty redid Here Comes Mr. Jordan as Heaven Can Wait and it ended up almost as a draw. The most unique case of all happens to be when a very good movie, 1931's The Front Page, got transformed by Howard Hawks into one of greatest comedies of all-time, His Girl Friday. I have to admit — I've enjoyed immensely watching the unnecessary remakes of great films such as Arthur and Fright Night sink like a stone this year. You're probably wondering why I'm wasting so much space in an article about Straw Dogs discussing these other films. That's because despite the spoiler warning at the beginning, some of the art will give things away as well and I wanted to put as much distance between the beginning of Part II and the important stuff as I could since I know how hard it is for some people to use willpower to avoid ruining things they shouldn't know about in a film before they've seen it. Now, I feel I can get back to Straw Dogs after the jump. (FYI: According to IMDb, the 1971 Straw Dogs had an estimated budget of $3,251,794 and worldwide gross of $11,148,828 (and that's largely 1971-72 ticket prices); the 2011 Straw Dogs, according to Box Office Mojo, had a production budget of $25 million and a worldwide gross (at 2011 ticket prices) of $10,324,441.)

Straw Dogs contains few light-hearted moments as it is, but as the film progresses they grow scarce as the tension tightens. The players have arrived, but we aren't sure how they figure in the game yet. Who is Henry Niles and how will he figure into anything when he shows up in the form of actor David Warner? Should we be wary of more of the villagers than just Norman Scutt, Chris Cawsey and perhaps Tom Hedden? Is Charlie Venner trying to be friendly or does he want to rekindle whatever he used to have with Amy? That will happen, but for that first night, the Sumners continue to have a playful marriage as Amy yells for David to come to bed already, since he has spent hours at work in his study. He doesn't notice that outside the study window, Janice Hedden spies on him, The teenage girl gets surprised by her brother Bobby, who wraps his arms around her. (The two have an unusually close relationship it seems to me.) "Do you fancy him?" Bobby asks his sister, who admits she thinks David is "sweet in a way." As David takes a cup and teapot to the kitchen, the Hedden siblings hike onto the roof. In what may be the most purely comical bit of physical acting Dustin Hoffman (or anyone for that matter) gets to do in Straw Dogs. As David shouts up to Amy, inquiring if she wants him to bring her anything, he throws, tosses and flings fruits and tomatoes at their cat who he clearly disdains. Some pieces he rolls as if he's bowling and as he's leaving the kitchen, he even lobs one behind his back. It's funny since the cat never gets hurt and Hoffman's expression never changes while he's doing it.

The cat beats David to the bedroom, taking refuge in her bed. Amy lies under the covers, a miniature chessboard on her lap and a book on chess tips in her hands, contemplating what move she should make next against David. He bets her that he can get undressed and do his bedtime exercises (which consists of jumping rope 100 times) before she makes her next move. As she notices how fast he strips, Amy accuses him of cheating so he speeds through his rope jumping and leaps into bed. Amy doesn't believe he did 100, but David says he was using binary numbers. It doesn't matter because Amy makes her move and puts David in check. His response is to close the chess set and start some foreplay — unaware that the Hedden brother and sister hold each other creepily close as they act as voyeurs. David disappears beneath the covers, telling Amy he's looking for a chess piece. "I think I found a rook," he tells her. Peckinpah does another quick insert here as we very briefly pay a visit to the pub where Scutt taunts Venner with the panties that Cawsey stole. We then return to Amy and David's bedroom where they continue their love play, which Amy certainly seems to be enjoying.

Starting at this point in Straw Dogs, characters begin to act without confirmation while the film deprives others crucial information that the audience knows, but they don't. Peckinpah seems to echo this in the editing style as well as events begin to happen that make the viewer feel as if he or she has missed some scenes. The night before, when we last saw Amy and David, they were enjoying each other when the screen faded to black. The next morning, we find them arguing in the studying. "I was just trying to help," Amy tells her husband. David's tone indicates the fight has been going on awhile as he suggests that if Amy wants to help, she'll get her friends to finish the work on the garage and leave him to his work. She gets up and draws a line with a piece of chalk through his formula, pissing David off further. "Don't play games with me. Don't do it, Amy," David threatens as she finally sticks a glob of gum on the board and leaves. The scene comes as a shock since nothing seems to have foreshadowed it, but the fragmentation has a purpose as we will see as more things develop. For we'll see that pretty much everyone plays a game of some sort. The movie goes from that scene to yet another cut of omission with Amy driving back to the farmhouse. No setup had been given to explain when she left or why — she just storms out of the study and then returns to the farmhouse. What occurred in between remains a mystery, but the scene does call back to the opening one with that inexplicable close-up of her walking braless down a village street. When she parks the car, we get a scene that could be interpreted two ways. Amy notices that her panty hose have developed a run and examines them, unwittingly giving Venner, Scutt, Cawsey and Riddaway a glimpse of her panties. Then again, perhaps she showed her legs and underwear purposely. It earns a tip of the hat from Cawsey, but it causes her to go inside and complain to David in a very important piece of dialogue.

AMY: They were practically licking my body.
DAVID: Who?
AMY: Venner and Scutt
DAVID: I congratulate them on their taste.
AMY: Damn rat catcher staring at me.
DAVID: Why don't you wear a bra?.
AMY: Why should I?
DAVID: You shouldn't go around without one and not expect that kind of stare.

It's illustrative in this case only of the Sumners, but all the characters in Straw Dogs want to have it both ways. Those who viewed the film as being about how men must embrace their inner beast to be real men got the underlying message wrong. People who thought that because Amy parades around without a bra and does other exhibitionist activities meant she secretly wanted to be raped got that wrong as well. First and foremost, Straw Dogs is a thriller, but it is a thriller with a message — that everyone's a hypocrite. Each character — from Dustin Hoffman's math professor to Susan George as his flirtatious wife, from the mischievous teen Janice to the various thuggish locals — wants to have it both ways on almost everything. The figurative straw dogs in Straw Dogs believe that's what's good for the goose is only good for the goose and the gander should back the hell off. That's how a thug such as Norman Scutt can rape Amy, but then help lead a lynch mob to find Henry Niles because they suspect he has molested or hurt Janice Hedden. The David-Amy argument goes on, as Amy accuses David of refusing to commit to anything, though they eventually make up but then, as if she hasn't learned a thing, she goes upstairs to take a shower, dropping her shirt down to David. He tells her to shut the curtains, but she doesn't, given Venner and the other workers a nice look at her naked bosom.

It isn't really mocking intellectuals either because every character belittles someone to prove their superiority. In one scene, Amy asks David what binary numbers are and he starts to give an explanation, but she figures out the rest, to which he responds, "You're not so dumb." With the exception of Henry Niles, who is mentally challenged in some way, every character in the movie finds someone to taunt. Even Reverend Hood (Colin Welland) takes a potshot at Tom Hedden during the church social.

REVEREND HOOD: And now for my next trick, the piece de resistance, I present to you an empty glass. I will now fill this glass with milk.
CAWSEY: Would it work better with whiskey, Vicar?
REVEREND HOOD: Nothing works better with whiskey.
TOM: I do.
REVEREND HOOD: You've never worked a day in your life, Tom.

That really, I believe, was Peckinpah's intention in using the title. Everyone selects their weaker argument (in this case, person) to knock down so they substitute themselves as the superior. Occasionally, it takes the actual form of arguments as when Maj. Scott bring Rev. Hood and his wife to the Sumners and David tries to describe his work and it turns into a discussion of the bloody record of the church that gets them to leave quickly.

DAVID: I'm an astral mathematician.
HOOD: Never heard of it.
DAVID: That's because I just made it up. I have a grant to study possible structures in stellar interiors and the implications regarding their radiation characteristics.
HOOD: Radiation. That's an unfortunate dispensation.
DAVID: Surely is. Yes, indeed.
HOOD: As long as it's not another bomb.
[beat]
HOOD: You're a scientist — can you deny the responsibility?
DAVID: Can you?
[beat]
DAVID: After all, there's never been a kingdom given to so much bloodshed as that of Christ.

Peckinpah's direction and his editing team ratchet the tension up to a boiling point, especially during the film's most controversial sequence. Venner and the other workers take David out on his first hunt (though you have to ask why he's willing to go since at this point he knows that one of them hung their pet cat to death and left her in their bedroom closet.

While David sits bored silly out in the country alone like a fool holding a shotgun, Charlie Venner sneaks back to the farmhouse to see Amy. The scene definitely begins as a rape as Amy resists Venner who smacks her around and rips her clothing. Somehow during the course of this, her attitude changes — they did have a past after all — and she even seizes part of the initiative. (It's interesting though that while they have their encounter, she has flashbacks to her encounter with her husband.)

The sequence becomes a sexual assault when Scutt enters with a shotgun. Venner shakes his head, silently urging him not to do it, but Scutt forces him to pin Amy's arms as Scutt sodomizes her, What's happening to Amy gets intercut with David who actually successfully kills a bird, but the act repulses him and he tries wiping the blood off. After they left him stranded, David decides to fire them all the next day — Amy never tells him what happened, so David doesn't realize what an inconsiderate asshole he comes home and starts attacking her over the conduct of her "friends," the workers.

They go to the church social where Amy starts having flashbacks and David decides to take her home. At the same time, Janice, who constantly teases Henry Niles, has left with him, causing an uproar. She takes him to a place and asks if he's ever kissed a girl and he says no and she kisses him. Henry gets frightened when he hears the mob searching for him and accidentally kills Janice, in a way reminiscent of Lennie with Curly's wife in Of Mice and Men and Frankenstein and the little girl by the pond. Niles flees and what brings everything together happens when David strikes Henry with his car. Feeling responsible, he takes the injured man back to the farmhouse and tries to find the doctor. The lynch mob laid siege to the farmhouse (even though they have no idea about Janice's fate) and Maj. Scott arrives to try to bring things to an end but gets shot to death by Tom instead. What's truly amazing about the climactic siege is that it lasts 35 minutes. As great as Jerry Fielding's score is, most of the climax actually plays without any music. David doesn't have any usual weapons (except Chekhov's mantrap hanging on the wall) and as the mathematician begins thinking of ways to fight back, it's difficult not to think of Walter White and Breaking Bad. At one point, as Scutt tries to break in through a window, David puts a knife to his throat as he binds his hands to the window with wire. He asks Scutt if he's hurting him. My neck's on some glass," Scutt tells him. "Good. I hope you slit your throat," David tells him. He boils alcohol on the stove and flings it on some of the marauders. When you see some of the villager's actions, especially when Cawsey takes to wearing a fake red nose, it's difficult not to picture them as droogs out of A Clockwork Orange. Amy stays torn, wanting to just give Niles to them.

AMY: David, give Niles to them. That's what they want. They just want him. Give them Niles, David!
DAVID: They'll beat him to death.
AMY: I don't care! Get him out!
DAVID: You really don't care, do you?
AMY: No, I don't.
DAVID: No. I care. This is where I live. This is me. I will not allow violence against this house.

When, against the odds, David has offed all the intruders, he looks at Amy and says, "Jesus. I got 'em all!" It's clear though that he and Amy probably are finished. As a viewer, you breathe a sigh of relief that one of tensest 30+ minute sequences on film have come to an end. David gathers Niles and puts him in his car to drive him to a doctor and lead to a perfect summation.

HENRY: I don't know my way home.
DAVID: "It's OK. I don't either.
While The Wild Bunch remains Peckinpah's lasting achievement, it's unfortunate that Straw Dogs, which may be his second best film, languished so long as a turkey, not because the movie failed to meet basic standards of good filmmaking but rather because Straw Dogs became a victim of its time. It was attacked unfairly for having attributes it didn't but those diatribes prevented its assessment purely as a film instead of a polemic. If I'd had more time, I'd be curious if Dustin Hoffman ever spoke at length about the film. Can anyone imagine that he would have agreed to appear in Straw Dogs if it truly were the film its 1971 critics accused it of being?

"I'm just glad I'm here where it's quiet…" — Straw Dogs Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

(WARNING: This post contains spoilers throughout for Sam Peckinpah's original 1971 film of Straw Dogs, which marked
its 40th anniversary Thursday. If you haven't seen it and plan to at some point, best not to read this.)
By Edward Copeland
When Sam Peckinpah's classic The Wild Bunch opened in 1969, its violence drew much controversy, though many critics saw past the bloodshed to recognize the movie's significance and greatness. Two years later, Peckinpah made Straw Dogs — and it received a near-universal greeting of pans, revulsion and diatribes that accused the film of being a one-dimensional attack on intellectuals and, even worse, an endorsement of the idea that rape victims "ask for it." Liking or disliking a movie always comes down to a person's subjective opinion and ideally — I believe anyway — that assessment should be formed by the artistry (or lack thereof) that's on the screen. When you read the reviews of Straw Dogs from 1971, that seldom seemed to be the case. In fact, many critics who despised the film praised Peckinpah's craft simultaneously. Straw Dogs became the victim of cinematic profiling, watched through the prism of real-world events. People projected views formed by outside experiences onto the movie and slammed it because of what they perceived it to be. There's always been a form of film criticism that chooses to judge movies in a political context and that's fine — it's a free country. However, that school of thought tries to apply that model to every movie, sometimes to the point of ridiculousness (I have good friends who believe that Forrest Gump somehow endorses Reaganism. I belong to the camp that believes if you don't think a film's good, just say so — a negative review need not be complicated with an ideological justification. A movie such as Thor sucks, but politics has nothing to do with why I formed that opinion.) I've went way off topic — this post salutes 1971's Straw Dogs. It's ironic, considering the film's title originated as a variation of the term "straw man," roughly defined as a mediocre argument or idea put out so it can be defeated by a better one. Over the decades, more have recognized the major misinterpretation that Straw Dogs received upon release. Its 40th anniversary offers an ideal opportunity for reassessment and analysis of the film as the complex, layered thriller that I believe Peckinpah made in the first place.

While I'm too young to have seen 1971's films in first run, knowing much of the history, events and certainly the movies that year, violence definitely dominated news and entertainment. Vietnam remained front and center as the South, backed by the U.S., invaded Laos and Cambodia while the war's unpopularity grew with larger protest marches (half-a-million people at one in D.C.) and bigger majorities in polls opposing it (60% in a Harris Poll); according to FBI statistics for 1971, the U.S. murder rate jumped to 8.6 people out of every 100,000, continuing the nonstop rise that began in 1964. Stats also showed that about 816,500 were victims of violent crime and there were 46,850 reports of forcible rape — a crime that often goes unreported which it did then more than it does now; Charles Manson and his followers were convicted and sentenced to death in the Tate-LaBianca murders, though a temporary repeal of capital punishment by the California Supreme Court the following year reverted the sentences to life; Wars were taking place beyond Vietnam. East Pakistan fought Pakistan for liberation, eventually becoming Bangladesh. Later, East Pakistan got into a skirmish with India, but the new country quickly surrendered. another "war" began in the U.S. that still continues when Nixon declared the "war on drugs"; Riots weren't uncommon in the U.S., including one in Camden, N.J., that began after police beat a Puerto Rican motorist to death. A more famous riot occurred at the Attica Correctional Facility in New York when nearly half of the more than 2,000 inmates seized the prison, taking 33 staff hostages for four days until New York state police retook it. At least 39 people were killed, including 10 hostages; It also was the era of frequent airplane hijackings. Though not a violent one, it was the year the infamous D.B. Cooper got his money and parachuted into oblivion; Coups, usually of the military type, brought down the governments in Turkey, Sudan, Thailand, Bolivia and Uganda, which brought to power Idi Amin. That's not counting the coups that failed. That's just a cursory glance at what an uneasy world it was in 1971. Flowing into this situation were many, many movies, some that played on that fear, others that allowed for a release of that feeling of impotence. A few of the more high-profile examples:

Two very different revenge thrillers: Michael Caine in Get Carter and Melvin Van Peeble's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.

A different kind of avenger with Tom Laughlin as Billy Jack.

Richard Attenborough portrayed a particularly twisted serial killer in 10 Rillington Place.

Women broke the glass ceiling for stalkers as Jessica Walter terrorized Clint Eastwood in his directing debut, Play Misty for Me.

For the nihilist who thought the end is nigh, we had Charlton Heston in The Omega Man (never mind that its source written in 1954).

Eastwood introduced his famous vigilante cop Dirty Harry, a film that works viscerally but contains some really insipid plotting.

Two from this crop earned best picture Oscar nominations: William Friedkin's The French Connection (which won) with Gene Hackman's Oscar-winning performance as a racist cop who breaks the rules; and Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, which received much more critical praise than Straw Dogs did

despite imagery more violent and often played for laughs. As Quentin Tarantino said in an interview with Gerald Peary in August 1992, "I don't think Stanley Kubrick was condemning violence in Clockwork Orange. He wanted to film that stuff. It was cinematically exciting." I agree. To put it more crudely, Kubrick got off on the violence in A Clockwork Orange. This isn't the case with Peckinpah and Straw Dogs, no matter how many people viewed it that way (often people who thought Kubrick delivered the "right" message were too myopic in 1971 to recognize what Peckinpah's film said. (I do find it interesting that A Clockwork Orange, Dirty Harry and Straw Dogs all opened in the U.S. within a 10-day span.)

One of my all-time favorite critics is Pauline Kael, though I disagreed with her often, but she was completely off-base in what she wrote about Straw Dogs. I've compiled some of the key things she wrote in her New Yorker review of the film:

"Peckinpah's view of human experience seems to be no more than the sort of anecdote that drunks tell in bars."…"The actors are not allowed their usual freedom to become characters, because they're pawns in the overall scheme."…"The preparations are not in themselves pleasurable; the atmosphere is ominous and oppressive, but you're drawn in and you're held, because you can feel that it is building purposefully."…"The setting, the music and the people are deliberately disquieting. It is a thriller — a machine headed for destruction."…"What I am saying, I fear, is that Sam Peckinpah, who is an artist, has with Straw Dogs, made the first American film that is a fascist work of art."

While Kael mostly missed the mark, she came so close to acknowledging that she did see what Peckinpah's intentions were and that they were artistic ones, that it's almost sad. Let's look at those sentences separately. "Peckinpah's view of human experience seems to be no more than the sort of anecdote that drunks tell in bars." Mainly, that's Pauline doing what she loved to do best (and I admit I can be guilty of succumbing to myself) — thinking up a funny sentence and using it. In relation to Straw Dogs, Kael either was blinded by other factors as to what was on the screen or she refused to acknowledge that the story being told had more layers and complexity than a mere anecdote. I'll flesh out my rebuttal on that later. "The actors are not allowed their usual freedom to become characters, because they're pawns in the overall scheme." She's absolutely right here, but she's also being dishonest because as avid a moviegoer as she was she knew that not every film acts as a character study full of finely drawn portraits of the people inside. The woman who routinely answered the question, "What's your favorite film?" with 1932's Million Dollar Legs starring Jack Oakie and W.C. Fields isn't looking for that in every type of movie, especially a genre film and Straw Dogs belongs in the thriller family, albeit one with depth, intelligence and things to say. "The preparations are not in themselves pleasurable; the atmosphere is ominous and oppressive, but you're drawn in and you're held, because you can feel that it is building purposefully." Kael contradicts herself in the same sentence. All movies aren't designed to be pleasure rides, but they still can be enriching. It's the scenario I always posit among friends: You've gathered for a fun evening and you feel like watching Spielberg. What do you put in the DVD player — Jaws or Schindler's List? Just because you settle on Jaws doesn't mean that Schindler's isn't good, it's just not the type of movie you watch for a rollicking good time. The contradiction comes when she describes the atmosphere as "ominous," which would seem perfectly natural for a thriller and then admitting it held her attention because she could tell it was building toward something with a purpose. As I said, she was so close. That's exactly what Peckinpah was doing and did. "The setting, the music and the people are deliberately disquieting. It is a thriller — a machine headed for destruction." Finally, Pauline acknowledges that Straw Dogs is a thriller and within those two sentences, she doesn't say anything that indicates she thinks Peckinpah violated the rules of a thriller. The last sentence of Kael's that I excerpted shows where she hopped onboard a train to crazytown. "What I am saying, I fear, is that Sam Peckinpah, who is an artist, has with Straw Dogs, made the first American film that is a fascist work of art." Again, she admits Peckinpah's artistry but she claims he has used that gift to make a "fascist work of art." No wonder she prefaced that with "I fear" because one gift Kael always had, even when you disagreed with her (other than great writing skills) is that she made you re-think your opinion. She didn't necessarily change your mind, but she gave you ideas to mull. Her Straw Dogs review provides a rare example where I didn't believe that she believed the words she placed in print. Her review reads as if she wanted Straw Dogs perceived simply as a macho appeal to give in to our violent nature and a screed against intellectuals. That's what she wanted to see, but her heart and her brain seem to be having a wrestling match for control over her writing. The adjective fascist got bandied about a lot in reviews of Straw Dogs. I can see how some slapped that label onto Dirty Harry, even if I think that was an overreaction as well, because Dirty Harry carries political overtones and a point-of-view, but, as I said before, I believe films should be reviewed as films and ideology should stay out of it. What does it say then that a true fascist film such as Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will is a staple of film studies not because of content but technique? The adjective fascist should appear if a character in the movie has fascist characteristics or is a fascist, but to label a movie one — to me that's nearly as offensive as when Tipper Gore, James Baker's wife and the rest of the PMRC wanted to interpret what songs meant in the 1980s and institute stringent record labeling. As Frank Zappa said about their plans at the time, "It's like treating dandruff with decapitation." It also reminds me of what Jon Stewart said about politicians of both parties comparing opponents to Hitler. By doing that, they do a disservice to Hitler, he said, "who worked long and hard to be that evil." With that out of the way, it's high time I start talking about what actually happens in Straw Dogs. Before I do, I will say this: a bit of a pass can be given to Kael and other critics who shared her opinion and lay siege to Straw Dogs for all its perceived sins since the version that they saw wasn't the one I did. Peckinpah had to cut footage to avoid an X rating but on home media, they restored that scene. Granted, it might have elicited the same reaction, but the fact remains that when I saw Straw Dogs the first time, I literally didn't see the same cut that the critics of 1971 did — and the scene excised in 1971 got removed from the film's most controversial and debated scene, leaving only the ambiguous sexual assault that seems to turn consensual and omitting the second thug who undeniably commits rape.

The opening credits always remind me of parts of the beginning of The Wild Bunch, the titles themselves specifically naming that film's actors in semi-black-and-white (or more accurately, black-and-gray) freezes while they're on horseback. No actors lurk beneath the monochrome credits of Straw Dogs — where we first hear Fielding's foreboding score — but beneath the title cards, blurry images recall the ants overrunning the scorpion at the start of The Wild Bunch. When the picture comes into focus and color, we see that what's scurrying isn't insects but children, singing, dancing and playing with abandon — in a graveyard. Three of the youngsters circle a dog, which some interpret as torture. As someone who despises mistreatment of animals (I always say I've been screwed over by humans far more often than by dogs), it doesn't look that way to me. A few of the kids gaze through the cemetery fence at the activities in the center of the small Cornish village in England. American David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman) walks back toward his car carrying a box of supplies he's picked up while his wife Amy (Susan George), a native of the village, attracts leers as she struts down the street sans bra.

That shot, coming so early in the film, certainly had a lot to do with putting some of the critics in 1971 such as Kael on edge. She admits in her review that part of her reaction to the film probably stemmed from being a woman and if Peckinpah had placed that image of an extreme close-up of the actress's breasts with erect nipples for no apparent reason and it wasn't brought up again, I'd have been offended as well. When I first saw Straw Dogs, the shot took me aback. That looked like something you'd find in a cheap teen sex comedy in the wee hours of the morning on Cinemax, not in a Sam Peckinpah film starring Dustin Hoffman. Eventually though, it is discussed and you see the purpose — and it's not to say "some women want to be raped." We'll get to that later. I'll finish describing the opening sequence first. The teen Hedden siblings, Bobby and Janice (Lem Jones, Sally Thomsett), help Amy by carrying an antique mantrap that she purchased to her car. Charlie Venner (Del Henney) steps out of a phone booth when he catches sight of Amy. He dated Amy when she lived in the town with her father and the sight of her makes Venner salivate. In this very first sequence, Peckinpah and his editing team of Paul Davies, Tony Lawson (who'd go on to edit Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and every Neil Jordan film since Michael Collins) and Roger Spottiswoode (who also edited Peckinpah's Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid before turning to directing) set the quick-cut pattern that will dominate the movie. The director, stereotyped for slow-motion violence, paces much of Straw Dogs with split-second snapshots. Venner makes a beeline for David and Amy's car where Amy introduces Charlie to her husband. David puzzles over the mantrap that Amy bought and tries to place it in the backseat of the car with Bobby's help. David then tells Amy he's going to run into the pub to buy some cigarettes and David leaves her with Charlie, who shamelessly flirts with Amy and tries to get her to re-create old times.

When David steps into the pub, he definitely feels and looks out of place — but it's not because he's wearing a sign that reads BRILLIANT MATHEMATICIAN STUDYING THEORIES YOU PEOPLE COULD NEVER COMPREHEND. No, his clothing, his look, his voice — they all point him out as someone who doesn't hail from that Cornish village as he asks for "Two packs of American cigarettes." However, no one taunts him or mocks him — they have a bigger troublemaker to deal with, one of their own. The burly, bearded Tom Hedden (Peter Vaughan), father to Bobby and Janice and the town drunk, somehow manages to maintain a degree of respect from those younger than him. As David has entered for his smokes, Tom wants another round after the pub's owner, Harry Ware (Robert Keegan), announces closing time for the afternoon. Tom slams his mug down, breaking it and cutting Harry's finger. As David witnesses this, Charlie enters the pub and asks how the work on David and Amy's garage is progressing. David complains that the two men working on it seem to be dragging their feet and Charlie volunteers to come up the next day with his cousin to help them pick up the pace. Sitting quietly in the pub, observing everything, happens to be the town's magistrate, Maj. John Scott (T.J. McKenna). Tom isn't going to take no for an answer, so he flips up the opening to the bar and serves himself. Scott warns Tom that he's had his fun, but he best be off or he'll have to bring charges and Charlie and another man help the drunkard out, but not before he apologizes to Harry and leaves money for the damage as well as David's cigarettes. Vaughan plays Tom well, straddling that line between charming old lush and frightening bastard. After they've left, David gives Harry the money for the cigarettes. The pub's owner tells him he's already been paid. "You have now," David says before leaving. Most of the actor's work has been in British television productions, though he did appear in Time Bandits and Brazil for Terry Gilliam and the HBO series Game of Thrones.

It takes a bit of a drive to get to Amy and David's farmhouse and since she's driving, Amy takes her husband on a fast and wild ride to get there, partly as punishment for his queries about her past with Charlie Venner. Before they get to the farm, Amy finally admits that years ago when she lived there, Charlie made a pass at her. David and Amy appear a rather unlikely couple, but in rare moments like this or when they're getting romantic, the two do show signs of sexual compatibility. In other instances, not so much. The screenplay by Peckinpah and David Zelag Goodman, based on the novel The Siege of Trencher's Farm by Gordon M. Williams, makes a point of showing that David doesn't respect Amy intellectually and, more than likely, views her as a sex object as much as the leering village thugs do. When the couple arrive at the farm, one of the two workers, Norman Scutt (Ken Hutchison) stands at attention on top of the garage. Amy makes a point of making out with David in the car in full view of Norman, though you can tell it makes her husband uncomfortable. The Sumners get out of the convertible and head separate directions — Amy to the house, David to inform Scutt of his incoming help. When David tells Scutt that Venner and his cousin will be arriving the next day to help him pick up the pace on the garage project, Scutt tells him that he and Mr. Cawsey don't have that much more to do. The name doesn't ring a bell with David, but Amy bumps into Mr. Chris Cawsey (Jim Norton) inside the farmhouse. When Cawsey steps outside, David remembers, "The rat man!" Cawsey helps Scutt on the garage, but his main skill involves exterminating rodents. Scutt asks David if he needs help unloading the mantrap (which really should be referred to as "Chekhov's mantrap" since you know its antique metal teeth shall clamp down on someone before the movie ends) and he gladly accepts. Cawsey explains that the mantraps were set them out in the field to catch poachers. As the three men stand alone outside, Straw Dogs comes as close as it ever will to explicitly discussing current world events occurring in 1971.

NORMAN: I hear it's pretty rough in the States.
CHRIS: Have you seen any of it, sir? Bombing, rioting, sniping, shooting the blacks. I hear it isn't safe to walk the streets, Norman.
NORMAN: Was you involved in it, sir? I mean, did you take part?
CHRIS: See anybody get knifed?
DAVID: Only between commercials. (after some talk concerning the mantrap) No, I'm just glad I'm here where it's quiet and you can breathe air that's clean and drink water that doesn't have to come out of a bottle.

David meekly flashes a peace sign and goes inside where Amy calls for the pet cat, who is nowhere to be found. Though the scene has moved inside, we hear the first line of dialogue between Cawsey and Scutt in the yard. Cawsey asks Scutt if he plans to "have a crack" at Amy. "Ten months inside" were enough for him," Norman replies, apparently referring to jail time. He then inquires if Cawsey saw anything in the house worth stealing and Chris answers no except for one item. He then twirls a pair of panties around his finger. Scutt calls him an idiot, but Cawsey assures him she has plenty and won't notice. "Don't you want my trophy?" Cawsey asks. Scutt says he'd rather have what goes in them. Cawsey tells him that Charlie Venner had a go at her when she lived there with her father and Scutt gets testy. "Venner's a bloody liar and so are you." Tensions in the house simmer more subtly. Amy continues her search for the cat and David mutters, "I'll kill her if she's in my study." Amy inquires as to what he said, pretending she didn't hear, but he doesn't repeat it, but she obviously did because she changes a plus sign in the equation on his study's blackboard to a minus sign. Later, Amy comes and annoys David in his study while he's trying to work. Finally getting the hint, she leaves, though David gazes out the window and sees she's laughing with Scutt and Cawsey who just sit on a wall, not working. She warns them that David will think that they're lazy.

When she returns to the study, he asks what the three of them found so funny. "They think you are strange," Amy tells him. "Do you think I'm strange?" David inquires of his wife. "Occasionally," she replies. He says she's acting like she's 14, which prompts her to chomp her gum louder, and he lowers her age to 12. "Want to try for 8?" She leaves him alone to his work, though later she calls to him that she needs some lettuce to prepare dinner. David gets up to fetch some from their tiny greenhouse when he notices the change on the chalkboard. "She's playing games now? What is this — grammar school?" he mumbles as he corrects the equation. When he gets to the greenhouse, Norman Scutt informs him that Riddaway (Donald Webster) has arrived to take he and Cawsey home. Cawsey stops by to share some odd little information with David. "I feel closer to rats than to people, even though I have to kill them to make a living. Their dying is my living," Cawsey declares as he climbs into Riddaway's truck and sings a little ditty, "Smell a rat, see a rat, kill a rat/That's me — Chris Cawsey/I'd be lost without em, I suppose/Cleverest thing I've seen around these parts is a rat." Later, Amy beckons David for dinner, but he seems peeved at being dragged from his work again.

A short scene in the pub gets inserted as night falls and a man comes in. Tom Hedden calls to the man, identifying him as John Niles (Peter Arne). He tells him that his brother Henry has been seen around young girls again and he better watch him or they'll have him put away. Tom's oldest son, Bertie (Michael Mundell), says that Henry only was tossing the ball to them, earning an icy stare from his father. John promises that if Henry starts to make any mistake "like he did before" he'll put him away himself. "If you don't, I will," Norman Scutt speaks up. When Henry shows up later in the film, he will be played by an unbilled David Warner in a part that's a million miles removed from his role in the previous Peckinpah film, The Ballad of Cable Hogue.

All of the major players have been mentioned or introduced and for the first time, I'm having to split the tribute to a single film in half. I don't have anything else ready to run anyway. For Part II, click here.