Archive for May, 2006
Baby Doll
Posted by frothy in Baby Doll (1956) on May 29, 2006
When Baby Doll was unleashed on the public in 1956, there was a huge moral uproar. Twenty million Catholics protested the film, thanks to a unique damning of the movie by Cardinal Francis Spellman at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The outcry was enough to convince the studio to withdraw the movie.
So what was the big deal? Baby Doll (Carroll Baker) is a nineteen-year-old virgin married to Archie Lee (Karl Malden), who exacted from her before the wedding a promise – that when she turned twenty, she would be ready to consummate the marriage. The movie takes place three days before Baby Doll’s twentieth birthday. So there you have it. Archie Lee and Baby Doll haven’t done the deed, as much as Archie Lee wants to, and it’s frustrating the bejeezus out of him.
To add to Archie Lee’s troubles, his cotton farm (as well as those of just about every other farmer in the country) has been severely crippled by the arrival of a new farmer, Silva Vaccaro (Eli Wallach, in his first film). But on the night that Vaccaro receives an award from the sheriff, his cotton gin is burned to the ground. Could Archie Lee have had something to do with it?
But those two troubles are secondary to the main tensions, all between characters. Baby Doll resents Archie Lee’s possessive-entitlement attitude; Archie Lee resents his wife’s confounding, diva-like behavior. Then there’s the tension between Archie Lee and Silva; first, it’s a professional tension – Silva suspects Archie Lee had a hand in ruining the gin – but then it gets personal after Silva spends a long part of an afternoon trying to seduce Baby Doll.
Tennessee Williams again proved an able adapter of his own plays for the screen, especially in crafting honest dialog and situations. Every scene feels seamy, steamy, and sincere. Nowadays, the brouhaha seems quaint – no way people would get bent out of shape over sexual tension today; it’d be different if Baby Doll and Silvo actually did have a sex scene. So much of the movie feels dated, albeit a fine characterization of Deep South tensions and sensibilities.
270 – X-Men: The Last Stand
Posted by frothy in X Men: The Last Stand on May 27, 2006
I liked X-Men. I liked X2 a little bit more. And I think that X-Men: The Last Stand puts them both to shame. And the best part is that not only are the special effects astounding, the plot twists and character changes will make your jaw drop.
Seems a research lab headquartered on Alcatraz Island has created what they term a “cure” for the mutant gene; that is, a mutant who is injected with the serum will be transformed into a nonmutant – normal, in the view of the makers of the drug. This naturally causes consternation and confusion among the myriad mutants. Do they take the medicine and leave their life of mutancy? Or do they renounce it, choosing to remain true to themselves?
Magneto (Ian McKellen) doesn’t want to take the chance, realizing that with this serum the government – which has been hunting him – could effectively eliminate all mutants, whether they want to be “cured” or not. His plan is to raise an army of disaffected, resentful mutants and destroy the serum – along with any who stand in his way, including Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and his team.
There are plenty of other subplots, all of which intertwine gracefully with the main thread. Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), thought to have died at the end of X2, reappears – but is she the same Jean Grey they all know and love? And what’s up with her and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), anyway? And what of poor Rogue (Anna Paquin), who’s frustrated at not being able to hold her boyfriend Iceman (Shawn Ashmore)? The screen crackles with sexual tension on many levels, among many mutants. And of course many of the mutants’ powers carry an undercurrent of sexuality all on their own.
New to the cast is Kelsey Grammer as Hank McCoy, aka Beast, the Secretary of Mutant Affairs. He’s big, blue, and furry, and he’s basically the liaison between the mutants and the government. Only the government’s a little leery of mutants, now that Magneto’s waging war against them.
You know how there are some movies that give you OH MY GOD moments? I don’t mean wowie-kazowie special effects – like, say, moving the Golden Gate Bridge – I mean more like I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY DID THAT TO THAT CHARACTER! Even if you’re not an X Men fanatic, you do have a sense of who’s who in the X Men universe, who’s more important than whom. And more often than not, although you know bad things will happen to the heroes, they’ll probably all live to fight another day. In X3, though, there’s a strong sense of unease throughout the movie – indeed, will they all survive?
i’ve heard conflicting reports about whether this is the final X Men film, but I really hope not. In fact, I’d prefer an X Men 4 to a spinoff of Wolverine or Magneto, or any of the other characters. This is a cast of characters that acts supremely well as a team, and my impression is that however compelling the actor is, the characters might not be strong enough to carry a film on the level of the X Men films. I mean, look at Daredevil and Catwoman.
All in all, the X Men movies have been progressively better, never letting up and never allowing the viewer to get comfortable with the plot; doing so would lead to the usual predictable, unimaginative storylines that sink most big-budget movies.
X-Men: The Last Stand: ***1/2
Sweet Bird of Youth
Posted by frothy in Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) on May 26, 2006
You know, when you like movies and you like to talk and write about movies, people are always asking you if you’ve seen such and such and whatcha think, and so on, and sometimes you get this complex about how you oughta better watch stuff – even older stuff – so you can give people an informed opinion. (It’s even worse when people recite parts of a movie you should have seen but haven’t, and they don’t understand why you don’t get the jokes…)
Anyway, I always felt this 1962 movie was one I should see, a true classic. It’s the first film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play, which starred Paul Newman, Geraldine Page, and Shirley Knight, all of whom reprised their roles for the movie. But although they’re all great, it’s Ed Begley as a small-town political boss who steals the show – he won an Oscar for his work.
Newman plays Chance Wayne, a dreamer-drifter who returns to his hometown in Florida with a faded movie queen (Page) in tow, hoping to see his ex-girlfriend (Knight). Only his ex’s pop, Begley, has other plans for the cad. And he doesn’t play nice, either. It’s funny, because the acting styles of Ed Begley and the man we know as Ed Begley, Jr. couldn’t be more dissimilar. Begley, Sr was a towering, blustery, commanding man, while his son usually plays meek, gangly, good guys. But this was another time, and characters like Begley’s Boss Finley were fairly common in movies. But Begley’s performance is so exhilirating, so downright nasty, that you feel a real rush whenenver he appears onscreen.
Anyway. A lot of rambling for a 44-year-old movie! But it’s fun to examine old films; it’s like looking at a little slice o’ history. It’s amusing sometimes to see actors right at the beginning of their careers. Newman had been kicking around for a few years and had already done The Hustler, but Knight and Page (not to mention Rip Torn) were fairly unknown. Together, they comprise a wonderful cast.
269 – The Da Vinci Code
Posted by frothy in Da Vinci Code on May 23, 2006
Unless you’re the kind of person whose faith is so unsteady that a mere Hollywood movie can shake it, you’ll probably find much to enjoy in The Da Vinci Code. It has a bona fide leading man in Tom Hanks, a cute French femme fatale, a centuries-old mystery, and Gandalf/Magneto/Ian McKellen. It’s longish, and perhaps a little overplotted (though not for the millions who’ve read the book on which it’s based), but when it was over I felt satisfied that director Ron Howard had gotten it right. As usual.
The curator of the Louvre is found murdered, but before finally expiring he leaves a cryptic message in his own blood that induces Chief Inspector Fache (Jean Reno) to contact a visiting Harvard scholar, Robert Langdon (Hanks). Fache thinks the message indicates Langdon’s guilt regarding the murder, but another officer, Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou) feels otherwise. What was the curator trying to say?
The chase – and effort to prove Langdon innocent – leads the duo around Europe, immersing them deep in the legends of Jesus Christ, the Holy Grail, the Knights Templar, Opus Dei, and Mary Magdelene. It’s important to remember, though, that the book on which this movie is based is a work of fiction. For the learning impaired, that means the author makes no claims of authenticity – the storyline has been concocted for the purposes of entertainment.
Along the way, Robert and Sophie meet up with Sir Leigh Teabing (McKellen), a Grail scholar/devotee/nutcase. McKellen spins a yarn about what everyone’s really after, managing to deal a couple of serious blows to the basic tenets of Christianty as we know it in the process. And no, of course I’m not going to note what those surprises might entail, although by now most people have an inkling or two.
While Robert and Sophie struggle to find clues regarding the curator’s murder – and clues pertaining to the Grail itself – other, more sinister forces are afoot. An albino monk (Paul Bettany) has the mission of finding the location of the Holy Grail – and then preventing at all costs anyone from ever finding out. Then there’s a semicorrupt bishop and the Pope, but they both just have cameos. Not the real bishop and Pope, though; that would be quite the casting coup.
Hanks is well cast. If we’re to believe the rumors, Bill Paxton was Howard’s first choice. If you’re Tom Hanks, how do you deal with your favorite director wanting Bill Paxton over you? It’s gotta hurt at least a teeny bit. On the other hand, Tautou was chosen instead of some pretty strong competition, like Sophie Marceau and Julie Delpy, and she has excellent chemistry with Hanks. They’re not supposed to be lovers, just two semirandom people thrust into increasingly odd situations. Both roles are well written, and the actors are well up to the task.
As good as Hanks and Tautou are, though, McKellen is extraordinary, owning every one of his scenes. Sir Ian has given plenty of commanding performances in recent years, and although this one may someday be dwarfed in retrospect by the roles of Gandalf and Magneto, it’s no less compelling.
The Da Vinci code is perhaps even better than the book, because the book wasn’t terribly good. A riveting, well-paced religious-mystery/thriller is supplemented nicely by a fine cast.
The Da Vinci Code: ***
Tom Hanks’ hair
This link needs little explanation. Tom Hanks’ hair throughout his career!
http://www.thejay.com/2006/05/17/grading-the-career-of-tom-hankss-hair/
The Shooting (1967)
Posted by frothy in Shooting (1967) on May 22, 2006
In 1967, Jack Nicholson had not yet broken out as a Major Actor. He’d done some cheapo westerns and horror films, mostly by guys like Roger Corman and Monte Hellman. The Shooting was directed by Hellman about the same time as Ride the Whirlwind, which was released in 1965.
Cheap and quick westerns were pretty standard back then – you had your good guys in white hats, bad guys in black hats, and the horses who loved them both. Good clean fun. But with The Shooting, Hellman kind of redefined the western, blurring the lines between the good and the bad just enough to puzzle the viewer.
A man comes to visit his brother, only to find his brother’s disappeared and the only person at the ranch is mourning the loss of his own friend, whom he’d just buried. Then along comes a woman who hires the two men to lead her across the Utah desert. But to what end? And as the journey continues, the group is joined by a hired gun, who obviously knows the woman. What’s all this leading up to, wonder the men.
So call it more of a psychological western. Nicholson’s the hired gun. Warren Oates (forever known to my generation as Sgt. Hulka from Stripes) is the good guy. Millie Perkins is the mysterious woman. Fun and fascinating.
Worst Movies
I’ll be away this weekend, so no movie watching, probably. Next up is The Shooting, an old Jack Nicholson movie. I might even go see The Da Vinci Code on Tuesday.
But here’s a fun thing to look at. We all love lists, right? Sure we do. Here are someone’s Top 10 Worst Movies Ever. Tough to argue with them, really, although I’m sure I could come up with more.
The thing is, some movies are so bad they’re bad, and some are so bad they’re good. And even bad movies have some kind of allure to them. I’d like to see Manos, for instance, and Monster a Go Go, but I have zero interest in catching Gigli or From Justin to Kelly. What should be on this list that isn’t?
268 – Hostel
Hostel is half suspense thriller and half gorefest. Most people won’t like the level of violence and blood and such, but for those who are fond of splatterfests, it’ll be like a Renoir you’d love to have in your collection of fine, gross art.
Three youths backpacking through Europe find themselves in a Slovakian youth hostel. It’s all they’ve ever wanted – even better than Amsterdam! The girls are gorgeous and (most importantly) willing, especially concerning young Americans. Even better, the boys have to room with two local lovelies who like to walk around naked and party hardy with their new friends.
But strange things are afoot. Ole (Eythor Gudjonsson) goes missing; the front desk says he’s checked out, and his pals Paxton (Jay Hernandez) and Josh (Derek Richardson) receive a phone message from him saying he’s gone home. And a Japanese guest at the hostel says her friend’s missing, too. What’s up with that?
The first half of the movie is titillating, with plenty of go-thither scenes of fantastic debauchery, wickedly enticing the average male viewer with promises of drinking, toking, and hardcore fornication. I mean, how dare they? Here I am, trying to write a serious review of a nasty horror movie, and they have to muck it up by showing me plenty of gratuitous nudity!
Not that there’s nothing for the rest of the audience. Okay, there’s not much. The first half is aimed squarely at the heterosexual hedonist male. But then we get to the second half, and we get to see what happens when Josh passes out in his room and wakes up in the torture chamber.
This is the moment you’d start covering your eyes, shooing small children from the room, warning people with heart conditions, and so on. Of course, they probably didn’t watch the nakedness, anyway, and in fact aren’t even in the room, choosing instead to lambaste you from the other side of a thick door. I mean, how dare you bring such filth into their home? Why don’t you bring it into your own home, you pervert?
For the most part, the blood looks awfully real, but the editing is so well – pardon the pun – executed that you hardly have time to see how authentic it all appears. The point is, it feels darn authentic. Everything, from the actions of the psychopaths to the reactions of the victims feels pretty sincere.
Scary, creepy, and disgusting, Hostel is of the same – ahem – cut as Saw: a polished, well-shot (heh), squishy-sick horror film.
Hostel: ***
267 – Mission: Impossible III
Posted by frothy in Mission: Impossible 3 on May 16, 2006
I like to think I can separate an actor’s public rantings from his or her onscreen work. I’d like to think that, but I’m not that much of a professional. The truth is, when an actor becomes overexposed or otherwise annoying, it registers in the back of my mind. So the next time I see them in a movie, that dormant part of my brain thinks, “This person’s irritating!”
And so it is with Tom Cruise. Poor Tom! He’s in the papers more for his shenanigans than for his oeuvre. Couch hoppin’, medication dissin’, baby makin’, and brainwashin’, that’s our Tom. Kind of puts a few dents in his long-cultivated image of Tom Cruise, Actor Man. So, unfortunately, I sat down to watch M:I-3 already prejudiced against Mr. Cruise.
But regardless of how you may feel about Tom Cruise, Actor Man, the movie itself just isn’t all that good. It’s bombastic, trying desperately to distract you with noise, noise, and more noise, so much of it you’ll feel numb afterwards. The Mission: Impossible movies are swirls of gunfire, explosions, and grit, but without much in the way of substance – or plausibility.
In this installment, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) has left IMF for a new career as a trainer, and he’s fallen for a pretty nurse named Julia (Michelle Monaghan). He’s done, he’s out, he’s moving on – except, oops, they’ve brought him back in. Seems an agent’s been captured, and for some unknown reason only Ethan and his old team can retrieve her. This is just the first improbability to hit the plot.
Hunt’s nemesis this time around is black-market dealer Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), who’s after something called the Rabbit’s Foot, and Hunt has to stop him. Has to, you see, because Davian’s got his new bride, and he’s not messing around, understand?
A running theme in recent Cruise films has been that his characters always get set up by someone. Mission: Impossible. Minority Report. Vanilla Sky. This one, too, sadly, but it’s not really a surprise. The man is just a bit too trusting.
There are some whaddya-kidding-me moments, such as when one character, having seconds earlier been taught how to fire a gun, shoots a few guys dead without so much as wasting a shot. You know, believable stuff like that. But mostly the action comes at you so quickly that you don’t have time to ponder the holes in the plot. Ah, but just when you’re figuring it’s a lot of sound and fury, there will be a scene that completely stops that ill-gotten momentum in its tracks, as shots linger on expressionless faces for no apparent reason other than to give us a chance to grab some snacks.
With the third director in the series, it seems the M:I movies try a little too hard to top each other (not to mention their contemporaries) in terms of visual effects. Cruise is still a good action hero and leading man, and he can certainly carry a picture even if his star has dimmed somewhat. Frankly, he’s a little more believable in these thrill rides than he is in the “small” movies, like Collateral or Vanilla Sky; when the plot gets center stage, he simply doesn’t have the range.
M:I-3 isn’t a total waste of time, but it’s no longer fresh and exciting; it has its own minilegacy that it must live up to. Judged thusly, it’s probably a good thing (for it) that the movie debuted in theaters before the new X Men movie.
Mission: Impossible III: **1/2
266 – Aeon Flux
99% of humanity has been wiped out by a virus; now, 400 years later, some five million people live in the only remaining city on the planet, headed by the benevolent Goodchild family. A band of rebels, wishing to overthrow the Goodchild dynasty, sends an assassin named Aeon Flux (Charlize Theron) to kill Trevor Goodchild (Marton Csokas). But Aeon finds that things are a little more complicated than as first surmised. Turns out there are mysterious things afoot, and when Aeon learns this, the rules and her mission change dramatically.
Superstylish and straightforward, the movie is an extension of an old MTV animated short. It’s a lot of fun to watch, and even the plot isn’t boggy or otherwise incomprehensible. And that’s saying something, because so often these movies tend to have some kind of intentionally murky plot, the better to distract people from the fact that it’s badly written. This film doesn’t quite perform that little parlor trick; in fact, even though the special effects are the main attraction, the storyline does stand up to close scrutiny.
Theron, as usual, is fantastic; she brings spirit and panache to a role that would have been much less effective with a straight-ahead action femme. She comes across to the viewer as commanding, strong, and mentally and physically tough. In short, an outstanding performance by a wonderful actress.
She doesn’t get much in the way of support, but it’s not really because the other actors aren’t as talented; the film is, after all, called Aeon Flux for a reason. Csokas and Jonny Lee Miller as Trevor’s brother are both a grade or so better than bland. They’re not particularly colorful characters. Sophie Okonedo, as Flux’s compatriot Sithandra, fares a little better, but her role is even smaller.
The visual effects in the film are a real delight, particularly the land around the inner part of the city, where the reigning family lives; there’s supersharp grass, trees that fire upon intruders, and so on. Inventive, even mesmerizing, each scene is brilliantly woven with the next, creating a tapestry of oh-my-goodness images.
(Side note: The group for which Aeon works is called the Monicans. Now, that can’t be related to American pop-political culture, can it?)
At any rate, I found it all to be pretty enjoyable. There’s a bit more to the plot than I’ve revealed here, but you don’t expect me to give away any secrets, do you?
Aeon Flux: ***
265 – Shopgirl
Shopgirl is about a lonely gloves salesgirl (Claire Danes) at Saks Fifth Avenue who is wooed by two opposites, a slovenly Gen-Xer with little ambition and a rich businessman who caters to her every whim (Steve Martin). How can she possibly choose between them? Well, since this is Hollywood, we know that True Love will somehow carry the day. The question is which of her flawed suitors Mirabelle will accept into her heart.
I’ve always liked Claire Danes, who’s the kind of actress who sort of slips under the radar of most people. She usually plays spunky yet elegant, refined yet quirky young ladies. She’s a good choice as Mirabelle, who can do little but stand by and watch the world overtake her. Mirabelle is poised, but she isn’t where she wants to be in life – as if working at Saks Fifth Avenue were a mindless chore. The trouble is, she works at the glove counter, and gloves don’t sell well nowadays, particularly the classy, highfalutin, long gloves that Saks sells.
Enter not one but two new loves, or at least occasional strong likes. Jeremy (Schwartzman) lives in Mirabelle’s building and meets her at the communal laundry room. Constantly poor and sloppily dressed, Jeremy nevertheless possesses an offbeat charm that wins over the ennui-laden Mirabelle. Ray Porter (Martin) gets Mirabelle’s name from Saks and sends her a gift. Kind of creepy in today’s society, but since Ray’s so refined and classy and all, Mirabelle doesn’t seem to mind too much.
So does Mirabelle fall for Ray’s nonostentatious philanthropy? Will she think she’s found the man of her dreams, while Jeremy goes on the road with a rock band? I dunno, but I sure wish someone had done something to someone at some point. I like Danes, I like Martin, and I like Schwartzman, but I didn’t particularly like them in this movie. The movie, written by Martin (from his novel) was slow, plodding along with little or no exposition or development. I’m sure this was meant to convey a sense of reality, that is, that people in real life are really like this. Maybe, but it makes for bad film. Mirabelle is a nice girl, very attractive, but she’s boring. Ray has money and class, but he’s even more boring (the characters even note their own boringness following a particularly fascinating dinner).
Only Jeremy brings any kind of spark to the plot, and thank goodness Schwartzman got the role instead of the callow Jimmy Fallon, to whom the role first belonged. Whenever Schwartzman – the latest of the Coppolas to have a film career – appeared on the screen, I woke up and took notice. He has oodles of presence, and he lent quite a bit of it to the proceedings as Martin and Danes merely faded into the background. Which isn’t meant to imply that Schwartzman was hammy, far from it! His was the most sincere performance in the film.
All in all, I found Shopgirl to be mildly interesting, if only because Martin wrote the book (and provides the toneless narration). The bottom line is that likable characters are sometimes quite dull.
Shopgirl: **
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