1946 - THE RAZOR'S EDGE, interesting and sometimes impressive film about self discovery

This film is based on a very popular book by the writer W. Somerset Maugham.  The book is an entertaining read and Maugham created a fascinating story and hero in the character or Larry Darrell a man searching for meaning in his life after surviving World War I.

 
The film follows the lives of several characters, Larry Darrell the disillusioned former soldier, his fiancee Isabel Bradley, her friend Sophie MacDonald and Bradley's rich uncle the snobbish Elliott Templeton.  The narrator is played by a character called Somerset Maugham who is sort of a dispassionate observer and narrator throughout the film and novel.  The novel has Larry Darrell journeying to India where he studies eastern philosophy and transcendental meditation.  The film also sends Darrell to India but the discussions on life and philosophy are a little more vague, these are tough concepts to put over in a film. 

 

The book was a bestseller and the film was a hit.  The film's success is primarily due to Darryl F. Zanuck the head of 20th Century Fox Studios who at times would personally produce films that were of interest to him.  This is a big, expensive, good looking and well photographed production.  One of Zanuck's best writers Lamar Trotti and I'm sure Zanuck wrote the screenplay. 

 

The film was well cast with Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb and Herbert Marshall in the lead roles.  This is studio film making at it's finest, an interesting premise, a compelling story and Hollywood film making professionalism at it's finest.

The running time is 145 minutes.

1992 - SINGLES, surprisingly dated 90's romantic comedy

One time wonder boy Cameron Crowe wrote and directed this surprisingly dated comedy about the love lives of some young adults in Seattle.  Set during the period where the "grunge" trend was developing. If the film has any interest at all it's as a look into a time when bands like "Pearl Jam" and "Alice in Chains" were beginning to take off.  The rest of the film, not so great I'm afraid.

 

The story is really conventional boy meets girl stuff.  Campbell Scott is a city planner who meets environmentalist Kyra Sedgwick.  They begin a relationship which results in her getting pregnant, him proposing marriage, her losing the fetus and both ultimately breaking up.  Will two such attractive people rediscover their love for each other?  In the meantime perky coffee shop waitress Bridget Fonda has the hots for grunge band leader Matt Dillon who is fronting a group called "Citizen Dick."  Will Dillon finally realize that cute Fonda is the girl for him?

 

This is an extremely light weight story to hang a film around and it really depends on the actors, the dialog and the situations the writer creates.  In this case the actors are fine, the dialog at best is predictable and rather banal and the comedic and romantic situations are not very interesting.  It's all been done before and done better in other films.  I've seen films from the 40's and 50's which seem more contemporary then this antique.  Singles actually got fairly good reviews at the time of it's release for what that's worth.

Cameron Crowe is a big admirer of Billy Wilder and even published a series of interviews with Wilder.  But as it turned out, Crowe was no Billy Wilder.  After some initial success with films like Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Jerry McGuire and Almost Famous his career his descended into movie mediocrity.  Singles was in some ways almost a preview of where his career ended up with films like We Bought A Zoo, Elizabethtown and Aloha.  

The running time is 99 minutes.

1963 - THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER, a romcom about a little kid I guess

Glenn Ford and Shirley Jones get top billing in this romantic comedy about a single father and his young son.  The son thinks it's time for his dad to find someone to marry again after the death of his mother.  So we are off on another mild romantic comedy adventure as Glenn Ford appears to have his choice of three attractive women. Even though the credits would lead you to believe that Ford and Jones are the stars of this film the emphasis is really on child actor Ronny (Ron) Howard.

Howard has had a very long career in Hollywood. He actually started his acting career at six years old and got a part in The Andy Griffith Show at the age of seven.  In The Courtship of Eddie's Father he is all of eight years old and basically carrying the movie.  It's hard to judge Howard's performance, technically he's a total pro.  He cries hysterically when he has to, he acts cute when it's required of him and he's good at playing the innocent son.  He's impressive but a lot of his performing doesn't seem to have a lot of emotional feeling to it.

 

I'll give the other actors Glenn Ford, Shirley Jones, Stella Stevens and Dina Merrill credit, they know enough to stay out of the way of Howard.  They are basically seconds bananas to this tiny terror of a scenery chewing kid actor.  This film wants to be sort of wholesome entertainment but it's not above throwing in Stella Stevens in her usual thankless role as a gorgeous but clueless bombshell who ends up with Jerry Van Dyke miscast as a "love em or leave em" ladies man.   

 

The film was shot in widescreen and color.  The director was Vincente Minnelli who as usual spends about as much time directing the sets and women's fashions as he does the actors.  Shirley Jones is supposed to play a volunteer nurse but you would never know it from the incredible apartment and clothes she wears, the salary for a volunteer nurse must have been in the six figures back in 1963..

 

The film marches along to it's inevitable end. Will Glenn Ford end up with career woman Dina Merrill or earth mother type Shirley Jones?  Don't ever bet against motherhood.

The screenplay was by John Gay, the running time is 118 minutes.

1994 - I'LL DO ANYTHING, decent romantic comedy from James L. Brooks

This tale of Hollywood and an actor learning to be a parent to his estranged six year old daughter is the film that started out as a musical.  Test audiences hated the musical numbers so they were all dropped from the film.  The writer/director James L. Brooks rewrote new scenes which were inserted into the final film but to no avail.  The film was a critical and financial flop.

James L. Brooks the mastermind behind this failure had been on a hot streak with successes like Broadcast News and Terms Of Endearment.  Brooks is a talented guy but I can't recall any musical scenes inserted into any of his previous films.  He clearly decided he was the guy to revive the defunct musical genre.  Disaster was foreordained.

 

What's left is a fairly decent romantic comedy with lots of amusing jokes about Hollywood.  Nick Nolte is an actor who has never been able to get a  break in the movies.  Much to his surprise while taking care of his daughter his ex-wife has abandoned, she turns out to be a talented child actor who gets a part in a sit-com.  At the same time Nolte begins a relationship with a production assistant played by Joely Richardson an English actor who does a convincing job with her west coast accent.

Another relationship is featured in the film between Albert Brooks playing a pushy producer of action films who begins a romance with a film analyst played by Julie Kavner.  Albert Brooks character is clearly modeled after flamboyant producer Joel Sliver.  Albert Brooks is his funny self as usual.

James L. Brooks may not have been someone to take on a musical comedy. His strength has always been in creating interesting characters and putting them in funny situations.  Brooks is always a meticulous craftsman, the performances and scenes are filmed at his very high standard of quality.  I'll Do Anything is probably a lightweight film at best however it has a lot of entertaining qualities.

The running time is 115 minutes.

2011 - CARNAGE, a black and funny chamber comedy

Carnage the film is based on a play by Yasmina Reza called "God Of Carnage: in the theater.   It is a very black comedy.  After an altercation by two grade school children results in one child losing some teeth, the parents of the respective boys meet to discuss the consequences, let the fun begin.

As they attempt to iron out the problems between the two children it's safe to say that decorum breaks down as the accusations of blame fly left and right.  The nastiness between the two couples and at times the men between the women is highly amusing.

This film has an excellent cast, Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly are the parents of the injured child. Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz are the other parents.  Foster had been focusing her career on directing but she was always a talented actor and gave a great performance as a reasonable person who slowly descends into anger and incrimination.

Kate Winslet has always been a "go for it actor," and she certainly went for it in this film.  John C. Riley is good as Foster's kind of dopey husband and Christoph Waltz as the checked out husband of Winslet is amusing as the the only one who sort of has a clue about the situation between the two boys even though he is basically a misogynist and kind of a jerk.

Roman Polanski in his late 70's directed and you can see what appealed to this guy with this play. He has always had a fairly dark view of the human race and this story certainly fits the bill for him.  Carnage is essentially a four character play set in an apartment, but Polanski knows how to photograph the story in such a way that is visually interesting.

The screenplay was by Polanski and Yasmina Reza, the running time is 80 minutes. 

1958 - THE LONG HOT SUMMER, half baked southern family drama

Take a couple of William Faulkner stories about the old South and rewrite them to focus on everyone's favorite 50's movie couple, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward and you end up with this mediocre film.  We're in Mississippi (although shot in Louisiana) where the problems of the rich Varner family seem to be of monumental importance.  Daughter Clara played by Joanne Woodward has been "keeping company" with repressed homosexual  Alan Stewart.  Into Clara's life comes virile Ben Quick who walks around with his shirt off a whole lot.

The head of the Varner family is played by Orson Welles giving one of his over the top performances in someone else's film.  Angela Lansbury is his long time mistress who wants to get married.  Tony Franciosa is his wimpy son who is married to "hot to trot" Lee Remick.  In this cast there is not a southerner in the bunch.  The main plot seems to be will independent and spirited southern belle Clara see the light and end up with Ben Quick, a tough guy on the outside but in reality a very sensitive soul or will she continue to purse the repressed gay guy.  I wonder how it will all come out?

 

This film does have widescreen on location photography to recommend it.  Orson Welles is really the whole show with his glorious hammy performance  and all these young method actors are at the beginnings of their career.  The director Martin Ritt was a New York guy who had trained at the Actors Studio with all of these performers so he knew how to work with them.  Welles was his usual bad boy self on the film but apparently Ritt was able to tame him.

 

There is really nothing all that remarkable about this film.  If anything it’s full of lots of good Hollywood liberals who probably didn’t have a clue about southern culture.  The writers Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. pasted together a screenplay which was really just a watered down version of Tennessee Williams's Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.  Newman and Woodward were good east coast Democrats and director Martin Ritt was also a left winger. Probably the farthest south any of these Hollywood guys ever got was Mailibu California.

The running time is 115 minutes.

1997 - ABSOLUTE POWER, a film with an incredibly ludicrous storyline

Clint Eastwood, starred, produced and directed this film.  Ace screenwriter William Goldman wrote the screenplay.  Eastwood put together an excellent cast, Laura Linney, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Judy Davis,  Scott Glenn and in his final role E.G. Marshall.  The production design and the photography are at a high standard.  The end result is one of the most ridiculous films ever made.

While breaking into an upscale mansion in Washington D.C., master thief Luther Whitney played by Clint Eastwood,  just happens to stumble into the love nest of the President of the United States played by Gene Hackman.  Apparently the President likes his sex rough, he beats the crap out of the woman.  In order to defend herself the woman pulls out a letter opener which she stabs the President in the arm with.  This brings in a couple of secret service agents who end up killing her.  Next the President's chief of staff who apparently accompanies him on his little sex binges, decides to cover up the murder.

 

And this is just beginning of a ridiculously convoluted plot which involves master thief Whitney getting a conscience and deciding to bring the President to justice.  At the same time Whitney must protect his estranged daughter played by Laura Linney who just happens to be a prosecuting attorney and also avoid being arrested by a police detective played by Ed Harris. and the plot even gets more zany.

 

This film was based on a popular novel and Columbia Pictures supposedly payed millions of dollars for the movie rights so you can't actually blame Eastwood for turning this novel into a film.  Fault a studio that doesn't know a ridiculous story when it's dropped on top of them like a ton of bricks.  This is one of the most convoluted thrillers I can ever recall seeing and I sat through Funeral in Berlin and The Kremlin Letter.  Another classic example of wasting a good cast and talented Hollywood production people.

The running time is 121 minutes and I can't believe anyone who watched this wanted it to be a second longer.

2017 - THE POST, another late period Steven Spielberg film

The days of Spielberg making Indiana Jones adventure films  have been over for a while.  Towards the later part of his career he has been concentrating on more intimate chamber pieces.  As intimate as Spielberg can get anyway.  The Post is Spielberg's tribute to the nation's free press.  The heroic publisher and journalists of the Washington Post defy the White House and publish The Pentagon Papers which were a major criticism of the Vietnam war.  The only problem with this film is that the New York Times had already printed this story a while ago after three months of investigation.  The Washington Post for the most part was basically rewriting the story for their readers as they tried to play catch up.  But you would never know it from the point of view of this film.

The Post is actually kind of a boring film. It's hard to make reporters sitting at their desks typing stories interesting.  At times Spielberg races the camera around the newsroom to get some action into the film.  This the approach Lewis Milestone took in his version of The Front Page, another newspaper story.  The only problem is Milestone's film came out in 1931, so we were hardly treading new ground here. It doesn't help matters that the photography is so dingy and dark (courtesy of Spielberg's regular cinematographer Janusz Kamiński) at times you can hardly see what's going on.  I kept worrying the actors were going to bump into the furniture it was so gloomy.

 

The Post has a good cast since it's a Spielberg film after all.  Tom Hanks is tough guy editor Ben Bradlee.  Bradlee was a legendary figure in the newspaper world and while Hanks is okay, his mister tough guy editor can't really compete with Jason Robards Jr.'s portrayal in All The Presidents Men.  Meryl Streep is the publisher Katherine Graham, a society matron who had the job of publisher thrust on her after her husband died.  Streep's performance is not very interesting.  It's just Meryl wearing a lot of ugly early 70's clothes and hairstyles as she gives her usual phone it in performance. 

 

The Post was kind of recognized as a film taking a shot at Donald Trump at the time of its release.  If this is true, Spielberg and the gang really didn't get this across.  Maybe an approach like the one Costa-Gavras took for his political thriller Z would have worked better, now that was an exciting film.

The film was written by Josh Singer and Liz Hannah, the running time is 116 minutes.

1970 - LET IT BE, legendary unseen Beatles documentary is finally seen.

The director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg probably had his hands full during the making of this Beatles documentary which turned out to be filmed as the group was finally breaking up.  Let It Be is supposed to be about the Beatles but the film should probably be called Let It Be starring Paul McCartney with featured players The Beatles because McCartney really dominates the film. 

You really don't get a sense of George Harrison's discontent during the recording sessions, he actually quit the group for a few days until he was lured back.  It's clear during one point in the film Harrison isn't crazy about McCartney telling him how to play his guitar.  McCartney is plainly in the "I'm taking over The Beatles," mode.

John Lennon looks mighty disengaged during the sessions.  The presence of his girlfriend Yoko Ono who hovers next to him during the recording sessions is almost like she was super glued to him.  Yoko doesn't utter a word but she does seem kind of intimidating throughout the film.  Ringo is Ringo.

 

The film was rescued by Peter Jackson and remastered with his company's usual technical wizardary.  It's been playing on the Disney Channel.  If you are a Beatles fan and interested in the group's history you can give it a look but there doesn't seem to be much here.  The film was clearly heavily edited to present The Beatles in the best light that was possible at the time of filming. It's probably amazing they got a film out of these recording sessions at all.

The film runs 80 minutes.

1963 - THE GIRL HUNTERS - odd ball Mike Hammer mystery

Another Mike Hammer story adapted for the screen with a couple of twists.  Mickey Spillane the author of the Mike Hammer books co-wrote the screenplay.  In an interesting piece of casting Spillane actually played the brutish Hammer himself although although not as brutish as Ralph Meeker in Kiss Me Deadly or Armand Assante in I The Jury.  Still there is plenty of unpleasantness to go around.

In this film Hammer has been on a drunken binge for about seven years since his secretary/lover/housemaid, Velma vanished.  After pulling himself together he gets some clues to Velma's whereabouts which in turn leads him to some kind of commie assassin ring whose leader is a guy called "The Dragon."  Along the way he gets involved with Shirley Eaton probably at the height of her beauty.  She was to follow up this film as the "golden girl" in the Bond film Goldfinger the next year.  The film is loaded in early 1960's paranoia particularity when it comes to the Communist conspiracy.

As a detective Mike Hammer is basically a bull in a china shop while he investigates Velma's disappearance.  There are shootings, a very nasty fight in a barn and a truly sick ending.  But lets get real Spillane is no actor but it is Mickey Spillane playing his legendary character which is interesting. To add to the weirdness the film was shot in England with some location filming in NYC.  This film is no masterpiece but it is entertaining.

 

The screenplay was by Mickey Spillane, Roy Rowland and Robert Fellows, the running time is 98 minutes.

2022 - TAR, a character study of a fierce character.

I have no idea what to make of this film.  Cate Blanchett's performance as a talented and extreme orchestra conductor whose life is about to come crashing down, is about as good as you will ever see in any film.  The writer/director Todd Field has done an excellent job working with the actors and his written a fascinating story.  So what's the problem?  

 I think Tar suffers under it's own weight as an intense drama and character study.  Cate Blanchett's performance is completely uncompromising.  Her character Lydia Tar has a fervent connection to the music she conducts particularly Gustav Mahler's 5th symphony.  Lydia Tar also appears to be skilled at manipulating people in her personal and professional life.  In the end Lydia Tar is such a completely unsympathetic character that I finally found difficult to relate to her on just about every level.  To paraphrase the old saying, watching Blanchett's performance has all the fascination of gazing into a snake pit.

I don’t think it helped the film that much of the story while interesting is very subtlety told by the director.  I don't have a problem being challenged by a narrative but at two hours and thirty eight minutes that's a lot of time to be immersed into this muddled world.

 

I'm extremely conflicted about this film.  There are so many good things in it but the running time and the unrelenting unpleasantness were a real turn off.  Tar will require a second viewing which in a way is a complement to Todd Field and Cate Blanchett.  Considering the shallowness of most film dramas this film is in many ways a flawed but very impressive achievement.

2016 - SHIN GODZILLA, entertaining kaiju film

Toho has certainly gotten plenty of mileage out of their Godzilla films.  This is one of their better efforts.  After a bridge collapses in Tokyo Bay, the government attempts to figure out what the hell is going on.  As a giant creature emerges from the ocean and starts moving through Tokyo, the government endlessly debates the best way to handle the emerging crisis before the creature named Godzilla of course flattens all of Tokyo.

From the brief description above,  Godzilla is not the main focus of this film.  Instead an ineffectual Japanese government and their failure to mobilize the military fast enough or evacuate the population of Tokyo is the main focus of this film.  Government ineptness and stupidiy is very heady stuff for what is essentially your typical giant monster movie.  After a while it's difficult to tell where the greater danger lies, a giant lizard or an ineffectual prime minster and his cabinet.

 

This Godzilla film has the customary amount of big city destruction as Godzilla does what he does best, stomp on things.  As is usual in these Godzilla films the JDF (Japanese Defense Force) with all of it's weapons is unable to stop the monster.  Only a dedicated team of government officials and nerds who can think unconventionally can come up with a plan to defeat the monster.  Obviously the outcome is a given and the film makes way for yet another sequel in the series.

Toho has always been extremely careful managing this IP.  Shin Godzilla at the time of release was the 31st film in the Godzilla series.  The next film in the series Godzilla Minus One is excellent.   Since Disney Studios purchased the Marvel and Star Wars series, they have lately been fumbling around with how to manage them much less make good films.  It may be time for a visit to Tokyo and Toho studios for some move making tips.

The screenplay is by Hideaki Anno, the running time is 120 minutes. 

1982 - I THE JURY, very sleezy but entertaining private eye film

Ralph Meeker was the definitive detective Mike Hammer in the 1950's Aldrich film Kiss Me Deadly.  This updated version of  the Hammer character features Armand Assante as the brutish private eye a bigger lowlife than even Ralph Meeker was.  The formula is lots of sleazy sex scenes and lots of gun play.  The plot has something to do with the CIA programming people to become assassins with the unfortunate side effect being that they end up also becoming deranged sex maniac killers.  Mike Hammer in his own nasty way has to sort this all out and put a stop to it. by killing a whole bunch of people.

This is probably one of the few films I have seem that makes sex and eroticism kind of disgusting especially when in involves crazed sex killers.  The action scenes are actually well done since this is right before the era of computer imaging where the stunts and action are basically manipulated by some nerd in front of a computer.

 

Mike Hammer's assistant is the ever faithful Velda who is either his secretary, lover or maid played by a stunning blonde named Laurene Landon.  She's equally capable of flirting with Hammer or pulling out a gun and blasting away at some disagreeable bad guy.  Also in the cast is 1980's babe Barbara Carrera as a creepy sex therapist who Mike Hammer gets involved with. 

This is not a film that you want to watch with your mother or spouse, its tough, brutal, nasty and very entertaining.

The screenplay was by  B movie and exploitation screenwriter Larry Cohen in the best cinematic tradition of completely unredeeming story telling. The running time is 111 sordid minutes.

1988 - BILOXI BLUES, a not very funny service comedy

Considering the talent involved this is a god awful comedy and not a good film.  The director Mike Nichols clearly looking for a commercial hit re-teamed with playwright Neil Simon for Simon's sort of autobiographical story about his time in basic training.  Nichols and Simon had been pretty hot stuff on Broadway during the 1960's and 70's.  They brought Simon's The Odd Couple, Barefoot in the Park and Plaza Suite to Broadway for successful runs.

Over time they both had their successes and failures.  Nichols was no longer the wonder boy director who had made such films as The Graduate, Carnal Knowledge, and Catch 22.  He had a string of failures and was looking to rebuild his career.  Simon had a little better luck than Nichols although he tended to rewrite the same play The Odd Couple, over and over in different variations.  Simon also clearly longed to be taken seriously as a dramatist instead of just a comedy writer so a  "strained seriousness" as Andrew Sarris like to say, had begun to creep into his plays.

Biloxi Blues had been a hit for Simon on Broadway so Nichols looking for a sure fire winner turned it into a film.  The problem was that the film wasn't very funny and the turn towards drama towards the end of the film was abrupt and seemed to be added as an afterthought.  Nichols was a fine craftsman when it came to directing in film or on the stage but he didn't seem to put much effort into this film, it could have been shot by about any mediocre film or TV director.

 

You can't really fault the cast, Matthew Broderick was always a good actor especially when it comes to comedy and he does what he can to make Simon's lame comedy situations and one-liners funny. Probably the only inspiration in the film was the out of left field casting of Christopher Walken as the army drill sergeant.  Walken brings all of his weirdness to a role that was usually standard stuff in this type of film. 

Biloxi Blues did what it was supposed to do, reestablish Mike Nichols as a viable commercial director since it was a minor commercial hit, but the film is for the most part is not amusing and plot wise not very interesting

The screenplay was by Neil Simon was from his play, the running time is 107 minutes.