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Grey Gardens (2009)
God-awful "movie-of-the-week" treatment of two fascinating characters
Long-time fans of the original GREY GARDENS documentary were probably pleased that this "movie" treatment of the subject would fill in some gaps in the back story of these two unique denizens of Eastern society -- "How did they get to this?" is the question that always comes to mind when watching the Maysles Brothers' astonishing 1975 chronicle. But I doubt that anyone was expecting a movie that spends close to 70% of its running time wallowing in the most boring fictionalized melodrama seen outside of network television in years and which relegates the fading divas of the dilapidated, Gothic ruin we so knew and loved (or hated, as the case may be) to an afterthought. This is the kind of TV movie one would expect to be assigned to the likes of Melissa Joan Hart and Loni Anderson (or, perhaps, Delta Burke!). And maybe the likes of them could have turned this into a fun wallow for 90 minutes or so, upping the camp value considerably.
The two lead actresses, of course, are the draw for everyone who watches this movie -- and they are each, to different degrees, disappointing. Collectively, though, they're a disaster. Jessica Lange comes closest, as Big Edie, to a convincing portrayal, since she builds her character from the inside out and doesn't depend on impersonation, but still falls short because she holds back (as has always been her habit as an actress), especially in the later scenes. "Less is more" is an invaluable guideline for actors, but sometimes you just have go a little bit more over the top, even toward the grotesque, when it depicts a character more accurately. Drew Barrymore, on the other hand, depends on constructing Little Edie from the outside in, and obviously didn't get to spend enough time in that skin to ever own it. You get to see the gears moving constantly -- Accent! Accent! Accent! -- but you never get to see the force of nature that was the real Little Edie. The biggest problem, of course, is that these two opposite approaches clash in every scene they're in together and the two stars don't appear to be acting in the same movie.
The depiction of Al and David Maysles as cardboard cutouts was just appalling, too. That two such walking pieces of cellophane could have come up with a documentary that was so full of passion and truth is incomprehensible.
It was fascinating to watch the "Making of" featurette that is included on the DVD release, which repeatedly alternates between scenes from the original documentary and scenes from the HBO movie. There were several times when I got lost as to whether I was looking at Jessica Lange or the real Big Edie -- the *demeanour*, especially when she was languishing in bed, was so similar. The same thing never happened with Barrymore and Little Edie. Whenever the real Little Edie appears on screen the energy level shoots up 10-fold. Her cat-like nervous attention, the intense gaze in her beady little eyes, those Kamikaze lurches at the camera -- none of those things were present in Barrymore's performance.
I gave the film a rating of three here, just to acknowledge the excellent production values -- the costumes, especially, were spectacular (and unusually accurate in the '40s and '50s scenes). But I'll watch the real Beales of East Hampton a dozen times again before I sit through this travesty a second time.
Casanova (2005)
A Mixed Bag
A disappointing, low-farce approach to the subject at hand, contradictorily fettered with maudlin high melodrama in the latter-day scenes with O'Toole.
As biography it's a mess, full of deliberate modern-day anachronisms and tacky music-video flashiness, completely lacking in credibility (and a disgrace to the name of Masterpiece Theatre) -- but as low-brow British comedy, in the tradition of the CARRY ON films, it's great fun and mostly successful (thanks to Tennant's charming performance as young Casanova). It would have worked much better as a normal-length film, with the entire of the old Casanova scenes with O'Toole left out of the picture.
Apparently ran 10 minutes longer on the BBC than it did here in the US on PBS (censorship?).
Unconditional Love (2002)
Simply awful ... but saved by the performances.
An utter mess of a movie practically nothing in the script works. The basic premise, trumpeted from the opening shot, of Jonathan Pryce as a superstar-heartthrob pop singer is simply unconvincing (especially as his voice is notably unnotable), the directing is schizophrenic (leaden one minute and frantic the next) and the movie is ridiculously over-long (the exposition alone takes 30 minutes before the plot or Rupert Everett is even revealed) but the performances of Bates and Everett are simply wonderful, Eaton is eminently memorable (although she relies far too much on screaming, undoubtedly dictated by the director, for comic effect), and Aykroyd is terrifically understated and sympathetic.
It feels like two different scripts, torn up, thrown into a box and shaken, but the chemistry between the two leads is palpable and it's heartening to see Everett actually act again (he's been coasting on charm for years). Redgrave has her moments too, but the only scenes that really satisfy, as sure-handed comedy film-making, are the two cameo appearances by Julie Andrews (diabolically skewering her own image) and the DON'T LOOK NOW red raincoat send-ups, which are worthy of AIRPLANE! leading one to think that it can't be a co-incidence that this movie was co-produced by Jerry Zucker, who seems to have managed to get one or two licks in of his own.
Testosterone (2003)
Causes ambivalence to the point of agita!
Seldom have I seen a movie that I found so enjoyable, and so awful at the same time. I've watched it twice, with the same reaction both times.
It's a fun romp to go through, with good pacing, a great look, some really funny situations, and stand-out dialogue ("I'm just a faggot with a gun who needs an axe" - if I'm remembering that exactly - has got to be one of the greatest lines ever!)
And it has some terrific performances: Font was solid fine and it was wonderful to see Braga again, even if far too briefly. Jennifer Coolidge blew me away - she was as funny as ever, but speaking in her normal voice (which I don't think I've ever heard before). The Latin actors were excellent (Brzezicki and Dukah were way easy on the eye, the former delivering maybe the standout performance in the movie). And Sabato was downright hilarious; his five minutes in the film were the comedy icing on the cake. (To all you snobby denigrators here, he's not just a Calvin Kline mannequin, he's got over 40 film and TV credits to his name, going back to the late '80s - long before he was ever pegged to be an underwear model!)
But, as for the awful part ... the whole centre of the movie: David Sutcliffe and his character, Dean ... it just drove me nuts. I don't know whether to blame Sutcliffe for the completely vapid, cellophane nature of Dean's character, since the part was so poorly written and, it seems, mis-directed. I've enjoyed Sutcliffe a lot in other performances; he's always seemed to come across with the goods, and he is definitely charming and funny here too. But, oy! He/Dean is so uncommitted, so uninvolved in his feelings, so unmotivated, it's impossible to figure out what he's doing in Buenos Aires in the first place. He seems so superficial that it's impossible to believe he's heartbroken in the least - just p.o.'d mainly. And to think that he'd travel thousands of miles (and spend thousands of dollars) to gain "closure" over an affair that he would probably get over - and get a replacement for - in a week if he stayed in LA, just doesn't make any sense. (One thing Sutcliffe must squarely take the blame for, though, is his utter lack of believability as a gay character. I'm not talking about anything to do with masculinity or femininity. An actor can successfully play a gay man without any outward signs of effeminacy - which, thankfully, Sutcliffe did - but there still have to be signs of a sensibility that straight men just don't exhibit.)
Compounding the "awful" part of the movie is, of course, the groundlessness of the entire plot and the gaping holes in credibility. Comedy, or drama, there still has to be some sort of motivation for outrageous acts committed by seemingly normal people. Here, there was none. First, as I mentioned, you don't buy the premise that Dean would travel all the way to Argentina in the first place (since his motivation was never depicted as an attempt to reunite with, or rekindle his relationship with, his lover at any cost). Second, why would Pablo ever attempt to have Dean killed? For what? The slight embarrassment he might have been caused? Pablo was marrying for money, with a woman who was already fully aware of his sexual preference and promiscuity (a "marriage of convention" - another great movie line), so unconcerned with his reputation that he openly seduced a waiter at his own wedding reception. And, finally, are we really supposed to believe that a man is so crazed by the rather mundane fact that his lover didn't really love him all that much to begin with (or anymore, at least) that he would be driven to chop off the man's head? I mean, really!
The fun payoff, with the fake-suicided brother and his sister enjoying the rewards of their scheme to get rid of Pablo for his money, fails to fully satisfy simply because you can't believe they would ever get the idea that they had enough ammunition to goad Dean into killing Pablo at all and, therefore, ever succeed with their plan. (Even if Pablo really was behind the intention to have Dean assassinated - which the script makes it seem he was (even though it would have made more sense had Sofia and Marcos made up the whole thing) - Dean didn't seem all that fazed by it anyway; it appeared to be the furthest thing from his mind by the time he raised that machete.)
The fatal flaw is the lack of a pivotal plot mechanism: a motive! I kept waiting for the "plot" to show up: the intrigue, the political machinations that would have made Dean's presence a serious threat, a reason to kill him, and a reason to make him feel so betrayed and/or misused that he would have had a true reason to seek revenge against Pablo - like Pablo was secretly an important government official, where a sexual scandal could mean his ruin. So I kept waiting, and waiting ... and nothing of any significance ever showed up to explain why anybody did anything they did in the entire movie.
And what about that wine cooler? I love sick humour as much as anyone, but are we really supposed to buy the idea that someone would whack off his lover's head in Argentina, stuff it in a cooler, then have it Fed-Ex'd to LA and delivered to his agent's office? And for what godforsaken reason? I don't even want to think about what Dean wanted to keep that head for!
So, there you go - I'm altogether ambivalent about this movie. I loved watching it, and will probably love watching it again, but have the feeling I'm always going to hate myself for it.
Far from Heaven (2002)
Douglas Sirk my eye!
May be some mild spoilers
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I grew up on Douglas Sirk movies in the 1950s, but didn't know it at the time. Back then, they weren't called "Douglas Sirk movies" (he was never a "name" director in Hollywood until his career caught on with cineastes after it had ended). In those days, the majority of the movies that Sirk made for Universal, for which he is now famous, were called "Ross Hunter movies". Hunter produced ten of the movies that Sirk directed, including the remakes Sirk did of Universal's '30s weepers, MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION and IMITATION OF LIFE. Hunter then went on to remake BACK STREET and MADAME X with other directors. It was Hunter who received all the credit -- and the blame -- for those movies at the time. The "Ross Hunter look" became extremely unpopular with contemporary critics the longer it went on. Hunter was the man responsible for the increasingly lush, over-dressed, over-opulent look of these films which were, then, mostly regarded as empty vehicles meant to show off the gaudy sets and the leading lady's jewellery collection. Even watching his films today, the Ross Hunter aura can be numbingly superficial, yet we love wallowing in the nostalgia of those days when glamour meant everything in Hollywood and more, rather than less, was more. [It's hard to resist Lana Turner blubbering her mascara-perfect eyes out in a five thousand dollar ensemble.]
In FAR FROM HEAVEN, Todd Haynes has, indeed, captured the look and feel of the candy-coloured 1950s Ross Hunter production, but there's the rub. What's missing is the passion and the fury of the one man who could raise the typical Ross Hunter wallow up to high art: Douglas Sirk. Sirk got no respect at the time for his Ross Hunter pictures but, after a few years, we came to realise that a handful of Hunter's ill-regarded melodramas needed re-evaluation: those that were directed by Sirk -- because, when Sirk was at the helm, something gripping and disturbing was going on underneath the surface.
To say, as Haynes does, that FAR FROM HEAVEN is a tribute to, and an attempt to recreate, the style of Douglas Sirk is an affront to Sirk's memory (and to our memories). FAR FROM HEAVEN is a dispassionate movie about dispassionate people. It sits there, barely poached, while Sirk's movies fairly boiled over with passion. FAR FROM HEAVEN crawls along at a pace that defies definition (to complain that the movie is slow is not to complain that there is no action, no quick-cutting, no car crashes -- it's to complain that the movie has no heartbeat).
Sirk used Ross Hunter's prettified trappings to his own perverse advantage -- and to our delight. He used that milieu to box in his characters' emotions so that the eruptions, when they came, were even more violent. He turned comfortable surroundings into expressionist designs of oppression that the characters must eventually react against, often in the extreme (Haynes' film has the same surroundings, but not the expressionistic metaphors -- and nobody reacts). Watching Susan Kohner's Sarah Jane unravel in IMITATION OF LIFE is like watching Caligari's hopeless writhing to free himself of his strait-jacket (in this case, her mother's heritage, twisted by Sarah Jane's surroundings into something loathsome) while he strives for freedom in what is actually a prison and a madhouse (here, the false world of gentility surrounding Sarah Jane that reveals itself as monstrous when she faces it head on). Sirk lets her have it with both barrels, and she gets more and more hysterical with every scene. The finale of IMITATION OF LIFE, while certainly over the top by today's standards (and maybe even by those days' standards), is still one of the most cathartic moments ever laid on film. Sirk's characters shouted, screamed, wept loudly, got mean drunk and spit when they talked. They even died crawling up grand staircases in old mansions. Haynes' characters, here, bite their tongues and skulk quietly off into corners. The extent of passion in FAR FROM HEAVEN is when one character raises his voice, just twice, for no more than a single line each time -- and, both times, immediately apologizes for it. Where's the Hollywood truth in that?
FAR FROM HEAVEN does sport good performances, even if they're never allowed to vary (both Moore and Quaid are quite impressive). The music score, by Elmer Bernstein, is exquisite (it's fun to remember he was there at the time, scoring one of the grandest of all '50s melodramas, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM). The photography and production design look just right (although there are a number of senseless anachronisms -- such as brightly-coloured '60s telephones and IBM Selectric III typewriters sitting on office desks in 1957!). But the script is so lacking -- and not just for its overall dearth of emotion. Its structure is out of whack. There's the bizarre, inexplicable disregard for the children, who are callously ignored and/or sent to their rooms every single time they open their mouths. There's the central disaster of two utterly opposing plot lines that never cohere and are always pulling the audience away from whichever one is getting interesting, and each of which belongs in a separate movie. And, what's with that final scene -- maybe the single most redundant sequence ever included in a movie? They'd just done the scene, and to much better emotional effect, a few minutes earlier in the gardener's backyard, and it leaves the viewer with the final impression that the script simply didn't have an ending.
FAR FROM HEAVEN has further problems, but I'm not going to pick it apart any more. I hope someone tries again to emulate the style of the great 1950s soapers, but next time I hope they serve it up with a little less stoicism and a little more juicy Sturm und Drang, as Douglas Sirk would have done.
Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World (1966)
Best biopic ever . . . .
This is my pick for the greatest biographical film of all time. Shot in grainy black and white, on an undoubtedly shoestring budget, for the BBC back in 1966, it still has the technical advantage of being on film rather than videotape (as was the habit of British television at the time).
ISADORA (as it was known, simply, in its American TV showings -- and on its title card) has got everything that led to Ken Russell's reputation as the most innovative and outrageous filmmaker of the late 1960's: mad pacing, undisguised slow cranking, scattershot out-of-sequence editing, an anachronous 1960's pop approach to an early 20th century subject, over-the-top performances, etc, etc, and the refusal to represent Isadora Duncan as any sort of divinely-inspired artiste.
Rather, Russell's Isadora is a mad force of nature on a rampage, cutting a swath through America, Europe, Russia and back through America to Europe again -- browbeating everyone in her path to accept her form of expression as the only valid choice in the world of dance. She devours men like a praying mantis and leaves no one unscathed in her path, all the while consuming herself from the inside out. Though not pretty, she is irresistable; not graceful, her dancing is mesmerizing; not at all nice, she is vulnerable and even lovable. By sheer force of will, she imposed a new esthetic on modern dance and made the world take it seriously -- to become one of the most famous figures in the history of the arts.
Coming from the same home town area (San Francisco), I formed an early interest in Isadora Duncan, having first heard of her in my late teens, just prior to the time this TV film and Karel Reisz' big-budget biopic emerged. This one aired first and left me spoiled to appreciate the sanguine pinings and hand-wringing that vitiated Reisz' bigger effort with Vanessa Redgrave. Redgrave didn't have much of a chance of living up to my expectations, anyway, in conveying Isadora's power and importance, let alone her emotional makeup, since I had already seen it done in what I still consider to be the single best screen performance by an actress -- EVER! -- in Vivian Pickles' interpretation of her. Most people likely only remember Pickles as Bud Cort's hillariously horrifying mother in HAROLD AND MAUDE, but anyone lucky enough to have seen her here knows what a tragedy it is that the movies never found a far greater place for her as a leading actress.
When Pickles shouts the immortal words, "Au revoir mes amis, je vais a la gloire!," her gusto truly adds to the delight of hearing one of the most famous exit lines of all time (apocryphal or not).