2015 - BIG EYES, a true story indifferently told

The apparently true story of an artist named Margaret Keane as played by the actor Amy Adams.  Margaret was a painter who specialized in creepy portraits of children with the dominant feature in the paintings being kids with really big eyes.  Margaret married a guy named Walter Keane who was something of a conman and self promoter. He persuaded her to allow him to take the credit for her paintings while he successfully sold her artwork.

Walter Keane is played by the actor Christoph Waltz in a larger than life performance although you could probably make the argument this is actually kind of hammy acting.  Amy Adams as Margaret has chosen or was directed to play her role as a  very mousey woman who allows a man to dominate her life and her work.  The film eventually focuses on Margaret's efforts to get control of her life and her art and dump her domineering husband.

 

Tim Burton is the director and I suppose considering the cultivated weirdness of some of his previous pictures this would be prime material for him.  But this is no Ed Wood.  For whatever reason Burton abandoned his usual gothic style for a  more conventional story telling approach.  The whole thing is presented like a retro TV film from the 1970's.  The result is an extremely  dull and uninteresting film.  Christoph Waltz does what he can to bring some life into the film but it doesn't help.  Only during the last fifteen or twenty minutes does the film finally take off with a "paint off" contest at a libel trial between Walter and Margaret, something that actually happened in real life.

The writers are Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski who specialize in these kind of true life odd ball stories but they don' seem to be able to work up much interest in this story.   About the only thing this film has going for it is in the production design and the costumes.  But let's get real people don't watch films to marvel at the sets and wardrobe. They come for an interesting and entertaining story.  An extremely disappointing film.

The running time is 106 minutes.

1985 - PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE, well I thought it was funny

Re-watched this at a revival theater the other night, the temperature outside the theater was  -4 below with a wind chill of -14.  The theater was packed.  An almost 40 year old comedy is still bringing people in although I think it would be safe to say it's kind of an older crowd.  They probably grew up on Paul Reuben's man/child character.  Such is the staying power of this film.

To say that critics were divided about the film would kind of be an understatement.  Some embraced it as a supremly funny dadaist experience. Other critics thought it was one of the biggest pieces of crap that was released that year. I guess you go with this kind of humor or you don't.  The film certainly exists in a world clearly created from Paul Reuben's imagination.  Apparently Reubens had been developing this comic character with Phil Hartman for a number of years at a comedy club in Los Angeles called "The Groundlings."  The character proved to be popular and Warner Brothers hired first time director Tim Burton  who had a comic book sensibility himself to direct.

 

Pee Wee's Big Adventure actually turned out to be a financial success.  In many ways it was a high point for both of them and it was kind of downhill after that.  Reubens was stuck with the Pee Wee character for most of career.  Burton while financially successful with his earlier films has definitely hit an artistic slump in his career with crap like the live action remake of Dumbo, the remake of Dark Shadows and most depressingly the remake of Planet of the Apes.

 

Anyway Paul Reuben's loaded the film up with lots of his comedian friends in strange character parts, once seen who can ever forget "Large Marge."  The production design is amusing and the score by Danny Elfman really got into the spirit of the film.

The film was written by Paul Reubens, Phil Hartman and Michael Varhol.  The running time is a lean and funny 91 minutes.

1989 - BATMAN, first revamping of the comic book character

This film looks a lot more conventional 14 years after its initial release.  Warner Bros. studios hired at the time weirdo director Tim Burton who had made a couple of interesting films like Beetlejuice and Pee Wee's Big Adventure.  Watching the film now it's clear that the studio was calling most of the creative shots not the director.  The film is tailor made for a summer popcorn audience.  It has songs by Prince, lots of larger than life actors like Jack Nicholson and a semi campy tone that almost teeters over into comic book stupidity.

The film tries for the gothic look but the photography is fairly conventional.  This version of Batman actually has a "stop the presses" newsroom which could have come straight out of an old movie. 

The casting is kind of interesting.  Michael Keaton was an unconventional choice for the Caper Crusader but the rubber Batman suit helped bulk him up.  Besides Nicholson there is scenery chewer Jack Palance played a crime boss who tries to give Nicholson a run for his money hamming it up.  Some comedian named Robert Wuhl plays a reporter right out of The Front Page.  Billy Dee Williams and Pat Hingle had nothing parts as Harvey Dent and Commissioner Gordon.

However most amusing is Kim Basinger cast as Vicki Vale a supposedly world famous photographer.  Basinger is fun to watch, she changes her hair style and clothes in almost scene she appears in and it seems like she is constantly screaming, her performance is a real piece of work.

This version of Batman looks positively quaint these days and is probably of interest as an example of a movie studio going to the proverbial well repeatedly with the same character and usually hauling in a lot of money every time.

126 minutes, written by Sam Hamm and Warren Skaaren.