As a movie fan, I have oftentimes purchased DVDs based simply on the knowledge it is an older, well-known movie, and considered something of a classic. For the most part, this has worked out well for me as few of these purchases have left me feeling burned. That said, there are a couple exceptions, movies that are ultimately disappointing for me as a viewer.
One such film is 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
There's no reason for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner to be disappointing on the surface. There's a well-known cast of quality actors, with leads Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn having another of their legendary team-ups. Director Stanley Kramer had done quality work during his career behind the camera with movies like The Defiant Ones and Inherit the Wind. And it features the usual good, solid acting work of Sidney Poitier, one of those actors I always find compelling and charismatic. Poitier could give Steve McQueen a run for his money as Coolest Man In The Room. The movie also tackles an important issue of interracial love.
Actually, that last part is what's more or less "wrong" with the movie. It just plain isn't subtle. Maybe Kramer and the people he worked with didn't believe a more subtle film could be made on this topic in 1967. I don't buy that, as To Kill a Mockingbird is much better at examining racial issues, though missing some of the subtlety the book it is based on has. Granted, Mockingbird is dealing with an actual life-or-death situation for poor Tom Robinson, but that movie dealt the goods better, and earlier by five years, than Guess Who's manages. The theme of this movie could be dispensed with a sledgehammer.
To review, we are introduced in the opening credits to Poitier's Dr. John Prentice and his fiance Joey Drayton, as played by Katharine Houghton. They're in an airport, acting very lovey-dovey, and after collecting their luggage and calling a cab, the driver is shocked, shocked to see a black man and a white woman kissing in the back of his cab. The driver (and the audience) sees them through his rearview mirror, and his eyebrows go up to show how shocked, outright shocked he is. This may have been all the producers could get away with in 1967. I wasn't there, so I don't know. I do know, as a modern viewer, it seems tame to me.
That said, once the cab pulls away from the curb, this is the last time Poitier will act even a little lovestruck. He and Houghton are on their way to meet her parents (Tracy and Hepburn) to explain that the two are in love and are going to get married. And while Joey continues to gush nonstop over Dr. John, Dr. John mostly just acts as her companion. If not for the opening sequence, you'd never know he's in love at all. I don't think he so much as holds her hand.
The plot goes from there as Hepburn accepts the couple almost immediately, while Tracy, a leftwing newspaper editor, has to grapple with his feelings on the subject of his daughter marrying a black man. He's not certain. Basically, though, the deck is stacked against him. Poitier's John Prentice is a doctor, fairly well-off, does oodles of charity work overseas (this being how he met Joey in the first place), he offers to step aside if Tracy and Hepburn don't approve, and he's freakin' Sidney Poitier, the aforementioned Coolest Man In The Room. The only possible objection to the man, aside from a noticeable age difference, is he's black.
See what I said about lack of subtlety?
So, Tracy thinks over the whole situation, evaluates his own feelings on race and a black man, who's perfect, marrying his daughter, consults his wife, the family priest, and John's parents (John's dad is also against the marriage, as mothers are just SO understanding in this movie), and comes to a decision. He then gives a speech at the end of the movie, and here was where, for just a moment, I thought the movie might dip into some complexity. Tracy begins by saying how he didn't like how everybody spent the whole day telling him how he should feel.
This would be a fantastic way to turn the movie on its ear. It wasn't as simple as black-and-white marriage that was bothering ol' Spencer Tracy! It was how everyone was telling him how he should feel, and he resents that, because he's a good dad and he's been worried about society and what might happen to his little girl and John is a great guy and all, but really, father's worry and stuff like that.
Instead, he launches into a speech on how love is all that matters and he invites everyone to have a nice dinner, with his blessing on the union, and his hopes John's father will come around. Movie ends with a sappy song over the closing credits.
After seeing this, I was somehow less surprised a more recent remake was some sort of slapstick comedy, races reversed, with the late Bernie Mac in the Tracy roll and Ashton Kutcher in the Poitier roll. As much as I felt the original didn't age well or show anything like a complex idea, it still had the Coolest Guy In The Room, and not a onetime host of Punk'd.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Sunday, July 8, 2012
The Muppet Movie (1979)
In general, I don't like nostalgia. I lived through the 80s, for example. I was about 6 when they started and about 16 when they stopped. They were pleasant enough, I suppose, but I much prefer to live in the now and not salivate over every revived 80s property given a new spin. The new Thundercats series looks OK, I suppose, but I was never that big a fan of them in the first place, especially when you realize every third episode involves one of the cats needing to rescue the others, often from mind control. The less said about Transformers on the big screen, the better, and I was a fan of those. I also have the first movie on DVD, so maybe I am a hypocrite. The second sucked, though, and I still have not seen the third.
But, dang it all, I still love The Muppets.
Long before Jason Segel thought to revive them in a project that actually felt like a real Muppets movie, indeed, even before he was born, there was The Muppet Movie. The feature, written by the writers of The Muppet Show captures the pure anarchy of the series well, with all being chaos while a single, forlorn frog tries to hold the whole thing together. Most, if not all, of the recognizable Muppet characters get at least a small speaking part (including Sesame Street mainstay Big Bird, who's looking to go to New York City and break into public television).
Muppet humor, especially in this, the best of their feature films, takes many forms. Puns are inevitable, but word play works with these guys. A small sampler:
Fozzie: I don't know how to thank you guys!
Kermit: I don't know why to thank you guys!
That's a basic joke, it works well for the kids, and adults will probably dig it too, though that may come from not seeing just how awful Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem's paint job on Fozzie's uncle's Studebaker went, something that adults might be more inclined to see as something less than desirable. That the disguise of the car almost works is something else altogether.
Next there's the celebrity cameo. Some have what I think of as the Muppet cameo, where the famous person turns around and faces the camera for just a second so the audience at home can go, "Hey, it's so-and-so!" and go from there. Most seem to be having some fun at least (hard to tell with Charles Foster Kane himself at the end), but this is a movie that trots out for at least a minute or so the likes of Dom Deluise, James Coburn, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Eliot Gould, Paul Williams (who also wrote all the songs), Telly Savalas, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy (the only ones to play themselves), Bob Hope, Richard Pryor, Mel Brooks, Steve Martin, Milton Berle, and uttering a single line, Orson Welles. It's somewhat depressing most of these people aren't around any more.
And then, finally, there's the meta-humor, before meta was hip. The Muppets are watching a movie of themselves, the audience sees them in a viewing room at the movie studio in various bridging scenes, but the movie they're watching has them more or less fully aware they're in a movie and are simply characters in such. Fozzie's script allows the Electric Mayhem to catch up on the plot, and because he leaves it behind, they can rescue the others when they're stuck in the desert without a ride.
And with all that, you get some good music. Gonzo of all people (?) gets a rather sad-sounding one about three-quarters of the way through the film, and this is the movie to feature one of the Muppets' signature songs, "Rainbow Connection".
The Muppets' films while Jim Henson still lived were often sweet movies, OK for the whole family, with a lively energy and generally speaking original stories. When he died and his son took over, the Muppets, when they appeared at all, seemed to be making a new attempt at the old Muppet Show with new characters that people may or may not have cared about (what was up with that Frank Sinatra type with an ape for a manager?), or recasting classic stories with the Muppets themselves. That never felt right to me, so I've largely avoided those movies. In the meantime, there's this old chestnut, that still brings out the kid in me.
But, dang it all, I still love The Muppets.
Long before Jason Segel thought to revive them in a project that actually felt like a real Muppets movie, indeed, even before he was born, there was The Muppet Movie. The feature, written by the writers of The Muppet Show captures the pure anarchy of the series well, with all being chaos while a single, forlorn frog tries to hold the whole thing together. Most, if not all, of the recognizable Muppet characters get at least a small speaking part (including Sesame Street mainstay Big Bird, who's looking to go to New York City and break into public television).
Muppet humor, especially in this, the best of their feature films, takes many forms. Puns are inevitable, but word play works with these guys. A small sampler:
Fozzie: I don't know how to thank you guys!
Kermit: I don't know why to thank you guys!
That's a basic joke, it works well for the kids, and adults will probably dig it too, though that may come from not seeing just how awful Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem's paint job on Fozzie's uncle's Studebaker went, something that adults might be more inclined to see as something less than desirable. That the disguise of the car almost works is something else altogether.
Next there's the celebrity cameo. Some have what I think of as the Muppet cameo, where the famous person turns around and faces the camera for just a second so the audience at home can go, "Hey, it's so-and-so!" and go from there. Most seem to be having some fun at least (hard to tell with Charles Foster Kane himself at the end), but this is a movie that trots out for at least a minute or so the likes of Dom Deluise, James Coburn, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Eliot Gould, Paul Williams (who also wrote all the songs), Telly Savalas, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy (the only ones to play themselves), Bob Hope, Richard Pryor, Mel Brooks, Steve Martin, Milton Berle, and uttering a single line, Orson Welles. It's somewhat depressing most of these people aren't around any more.
And then, finally, there's the meta-humor, before meta was hip. The Muppets are watching a movie of themselves, the audience sees them in a viewing room at the movie studio in various bridging scenes, but the movie they're watching has them more or less fully aware they're in a movie and are simply characters in such. Fozzie's script allows the Electric Mayhem to catch up on the plot, and because he leaves it behind, they can rescue the others when they're stuck in the desert without a ride.
And with all that, you get some good music. Gonzo of all people (?) gets a rather sad-sounding one about three-quarters of the way through the film, and this is the movie to feature one of the Muppets' signature songs, "Rainbow Connection".
The Muppets' films while Jim Henson still lived were often sweet movies, OK for the whole family, with a lively energy and generally speaking original stories. When he died and his son took over, the Muppets, when they appeared at all, seemed to be making a new attempt at the old Muppet Show with new characters that people may or may not have cared about (what was up with that Frank Sinatra type with an ape for a manager?), or recasting classic stories with the Muppets themselves. That never felt right to me, so I've largely avoided those movies. In the meantime, there's this old chestnut, that still brings out the kid in me.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
There aren't many screenwriters that gain any notoriety of their own that don't also direct. Off the top of my head, I can think of three, one great, one better off forgotten, and one last one.
The great one is Paddy Chayefsky.
The one best forgotten, and largely has been near as I can make out, is Joe Eszterhas.
And the last wrote today's movie entry, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That would be Charlie Kaufman. The man seems to be branching out into directing, but really, he's good at what he does, and his films are enjoyably quirky.
This is not to take anything away from director Michel Gondry, either. Between the two of them, they have put together a movie that probably perfectly captures what it means to remember a loved one, and the paradox that losing that person, even temporarily, can give.
The movie opens with a usually-manic-but-not-this-time Jim Carrey as a humdrum guy named Joel who, on the spur of the moment, cuts work on Valentine's Day to go to the beach. Along the way he meets Clementine, played by Kate Winslet, with blue hair and what looks like the inability to sit still. The two hit it off, have a pleasant day together, and love seems to be in the air. But there are some odd things going on, such as Elijah Wood tentatively asking Carrey if he's supposed to be waiting outside Clem's house for her, or the weird dent in Carrey's car, or the simple fact he doesn't seem to know who Huckleberry Hound is.
It turns out there are reasons for all this.
We then go to a few days earlier where Carrey is driving home crying his eyes out. It seems that Clem has no idea who he is and was chatting away with a new guy Carrey only saw from the rear (turns out later it was Wood). He finds out from friends that, after a fight, Clem went to see about a new medical procedure that makes a person completely forget some aspect or person (or in the case of one woman in the waiting room a pet) that is making them miserable. Clem did this to herself and in short order, Joel decides to do the same.
After getting some kind of MRI to find where his memories of Clem are stored, Joel goes to bed and Wood (who works for the clinic and stole Joel's mementos in order to romance Clem himself) and Mark Ruffalo show up to hook his sedated head up to a gadget and erase his memories of Clementine. This leads to the film's most innovative work, with Joel inside his own head watching his memories disappear. At first, it looks like a smart choice as the memories disappear: he and Clem fight a lot, mostly because she grew bored with his repressed nature and he got annoyed at her irresponsibility. Then as the memories continue to disappear, we get back to the early ones and see the two were happy.
And therein lies the metaphorical rub! Why does the memory of Clem cause so much pain for Joel (and presumably vice versa as we never see inside Clem's head but see her confusion out of it)? Because as with all people, the good times are soured by the memory of bad times to come, and the bad times are so bad because there used to be really good times with the same person. Such is love. Not surprisingly, Joel changes his mind and does his best to hold onto something. He "hides" Clem in other memories, hence why he has no recollection of his favorite childhood cartoon, Huckleberry Hound.
But it seems lack of memory doesn't mean people won't make the same mistakes again. It's hardly surprising that Kirsten Dunst's Bartlett-citing receptionist has a thing for her boss given all the praise she lavishes on him in front of Ruffalo. When we find out she was an early patient and had an affair erased already and she is falling back towards that...
The movie ends on an ambiguous note. Joel and Clem learn they were treated, that she'll get bored with him and he'll get annoyed with her, and the two deciding to give it a try anyway. Maybe they get it right this time, maybe they don't, but maybe the movie is saying that ultimately, we're more than just what we remember and things beyond memories shape who we are and what choices we make.
The great one is Paddy Chayefsky.
The one best forgotten, and largely has been near as I can make out, is Joe Eszterhas.
And the last wrote today's movie entry, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That would be Charlie Kaufman. The man seems to be branching out into directing, but really, he's good at what he does, and his films are enjoyably quirky.
This is not to take anything away from director Michel Gondry, either. Between the two of them, they have put together a movie that probably perfectly captures what it means to remember a loved one, and the paradox that losing that person, even temporarily, can give.
The movie opens with a usually-manic-but-not-this-time Jim Carrey as a humdrum guy named Joel who, on the spur of the moment, cuts work on Valentine's Day to go to the beach. Along the way he meets Clementine, played by Kate Winslet, with blue hair and what looks like the inability to sit still. The two hit it off, have a pleasant day together, and love seems to be in the air. But there are some odd things going on, such as Elijah Wood tentatively asking Carrey if he's supposed to be waiting outside Clem's house for her, or the weird dent in Carrey's car, or the simple fact he doesn't seem to know who Huckleberry Hound is.
It turns out there are reasons for all this.
We then go to a few days earlier where Carrey is driving home crying his eyes out. It seems that Clem has no idea who he is and was chatting away with a new guy Carrey only saw from the rear (turns out later it was Wood). He finds out from friends that, after a fight, Clem went to see about a new medical procedure that makes a person completely forget some aspect or person (or in the case of one woman in the waiting room a pet) that is making them miserable. Clem did this to herself and in short order, Joel decides to do the same.
After getting some kind of MRI to find where his memories of Clem are stored, Joel goes to bed and Wood (who works for the clinic and stole Joel's mementos in order to romance Clem himself) and Mark Ruffalo show up to hook his sedated head up to a gadget and erase his memories of Clementine. This leads to the film's most innovative work, with Joel inside his own head watching his memories disappear. At first, it looks like a smart choice as the memories disappear: he and Clem fight a lot, mostly because she grew bored with his repressed nature and he got annoyed at her irresponsibility. Then as the memories continue to disappear, we get back to the early ones and see the two were happy.
And therein lies the metaphorical rub! Why does the memory of Clem cause so much pain for Joel (and presumably vice versa as we never see inside Clem's head but see her confusion out of it)? Because as with all people, the good times are soured by the memory of bad times to come, and the bad times are so bad because there used to be really good times with the same person. Such is love. Not surprisingly, Joel changes his mind and does his best to hold onto something. He "hides" Clem in other memories, hence why he has no recollection of his favorite childhood cartoon, Huckleberry Hound.
But it seems lack of memory doesn't mean people won't make the same mistakes again. It's hardly surprising that Kirsten Dunst's Bartlett-citing receptionist has a thing for her boss given all the praise she lavishes on him in front of Ruffalo. When we find out she was an early patient and had an affair erased already and she is falling back towards that...
The movie ends on an ambiguous note. Joel and Clem learn they were treated, that she'll get bored with him and he'll get annoyed with her, and the two deciding to give it a try anyway. Maybe they get it right this time, maybe they don't, but maybe the movie is saying that ultimately, we're more than just what we remember and things beyond memories shape who we are and what choices we make.
Monday, July 2, 2012
The Last Man on Earth (1964)
Richard Matheson's novella I Am Legend has been adapted for the screen three times. Only one was based on a screenplay by the author and remains the most faithful to the original work, that being The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price as the title character, I've seen one of the other two, the 2007 version featuring Will Smith kept Matheson's title and had a chance to go with his original intentions on the ending but which wussed out before the theatrical release. That alternate ending is still available as a DVD extra, which can make the movie-as-released a lot more frustrating since the alternate ending actually made a hell of a lot more sense with everything that came before. 1971's The Omega Man I haven't seen yet, but it looks like your sort of prototypical 70s pre-Star Wars sci-fi, with Charlton Heston doing his screenchewing best, so I'll be sure to check that out in the future to see how it turned out.
That said, Last Man was the first to reach the silver screen, and if you need a go-to guy with a creepy voice back then, you hired Vincent Price, long before he was terrorizing either the Brady Bunch or Scooby Doo. He's unlisted for his two lines in Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, though if you don't know he was the Invisible Man at the end of the movie (a role he played elsewhere), then you just plain have never heard the man speak. His voice is that distinctive.
This is a good thing too, because one thing I didn't know about Last Man is that it was a joint American/Italian production and Price seems to be the only American cast member in the movie. Everyone else was an Italian actor with obviously dubbed dialogue. On the plus side, Price is alone for the first third to half of the movie, aside from the occasional mindless vampire/zombie lurking outside his fortified house, trying to get in and calling him by name. Price's voiceover explains the situation quite well as he goes about his business acquiring food, garlic, gas, and disposes of the motionless bodies on the side of the road when the sun is out. No doubt due to budgetary limits, these vampires don't die in sunlight: they merely stop moving like a bunch of corpses until Price can either stake or burn them, which he does. Without exception. Or mercy. Even when he finds a small dog, the only living thing he's seen in ages, he ends up staking the poor mutt and burying it somewhere.
But then the flashbacks come along, and the dubbing becomes more obvious. Dubbing is one of those things that a moviegoer might have to deal with, but many (myself included) would rather deal with subtitles. Of course, the characters here are all supposed to be Americans speaking English, so maybe this doesn't work so well, and I have to wonder how well I'd take rewatching some of those Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns now. More often then not, dubbing is more of a distraction than an aid. Here, it's too obvious and doesn't work too well.
As it is, Matheson reportedly didn't care for this movie and had his name removed in favor of a pseudonym. The basic plot of his story is usually the same no matter what the film. The hero is a man who, somehow, has avoided being infected by some kind of plague that has turned everyone else into vampire-like creatures. By day he goes around, conducting experiments on the monsters, gathering supplies. There's usually a dog and/or a dead wife and child. At some point he finds a woman and figures out something that explains Matheson's title...or else it should. Price's version goes for a more action-filled Hollywood ending, though not as over-the-top as Will Smith blowing himself up to save some people from the CGI horrorfests that have broken into his house. Matheson's story itself is, in my opinion, only so-so except for the ending, so I might have to check out Heston's version at some point to see if any of these stick the landing better than Price and Co. did.
That said, Last Man was the first to reach the silver screen, and if you need a go-to guy with a creepy voice back then, you hired Vincent Price, long before he was terrorizing either the Brady Bunch or Scooby Doo. He's unlisted for his two lines in Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, though if you don't know he was the Invisible Man at the end of the movie (a role he played elsewhere), then you just plain have never heard the man speak. His voice is that distinctive.
This is a good thing too, because one thing I didn't know about Last Man is that it was a joint American/Italian production and Price seems to be the only American cast member in the movie. Everyone else was an Italian actor with obviously dubbed dialogue. On the plus side, Price is alone for the first third to half of the movie, aside from the occasional mindless vampire/zombie lurking outside his fortified house, trying to get in and calling him by name. Price's voiceover explains the situation quite well as he goes about his business acquiring food, garlic, gas, and disposes of the motionless bodies on the side of the road when the sun is out. No doubt due to budgetary limits, these vampires don't die in sunlight: they merely stop moving like a bunch of corpses until Price can either stake or burn them, which he does. Without exception. Or mercy. Even when he finds a small dog, the only living thing he's seen in ages, he ends up staking the poor mutt and burying it somewhere.
But then the flashbacks come along, and the dubbing becomes more obvious. Dubbing is one of those things that a moviegoer might have to deal with, but many (myself included) would rather deal with subtitles. Of course, the characters here are all supposed to be Americans speaking English, so maybe this doesn't work so well, and I have to wonder how well I'd take rewatching some of those Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns now. More often then not, dubbing is more of a distraction than an aid. Here, it's too obvious and doesn't work too well.
As it is, Matheson reportedly didn't care for this movie and had his name removed in favor of a pseudonym. The basic plot of his story is usually the same no matter what the film. The hero is a man who, somehow, has avoided being infected by some kind of plague that has turned everyone else into vampire-like creatures. By day he goes around, conducting experiments on the monsters, gathering supplies. There's usually a dog and/or a dead wife and child. At some point he finds a woman and figures out something that explains Matheson's title...or else it should. Price's version goes for a more action-filled Hollywood ending, though not as over-the-top as Will Smith blowing himself up to save some people from the CGI horrorfests that have broken into his house. Matheson's story itself is, in my opinion, only so-so except for the ending, so I might have to check out Heston's version at some point to see if any of these stick the landing better than Price and Co. did.
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