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The Walker (2007)
One to skip watch Light Sleeper
While I loved Light Sleeper, and American Gigolo, this movie seemed to be almost intentionally derivative and not work for me. Not that this dosen't work. A Serious Man is derivative of Barton Fink and worked well.
It's hard to put my finger on one thing, honestly. There were highlights. Lilly Tomlin as one of the woman Woody Allen consorts with was wonderful. In fact she carried the coven of older married woman he escorted to the opera, and antique shops just as Richard Gere did in American Gigolo.
Set in Washington DC, there were two other fundamental differences between Gere and Harrelson's characters. While Gere was from the streets, Harrelson was from one of the famous (and in some cases infamous) Virginia families. He also was gay, almost sis gay.
This took away the sexual tension between he and his ladies, and in fact, allowed them to discuss their affairs with other men. Of course there is a murder. One of his ladies, who was having an affair with the decedent, finds the body. Harrelson, naturally, allows her to escape, and calls 911, allowing him to be a prime suspect.
Harrelson had a financial relationship with the man, and perhaps a little more. This is evidenced by him asking for the man's cat, which he knows by name.
The rest of the film is your typical, DiPalma/ Lumet sequence in which a thrown in best friend character helps Woody regain his strength to get out of the eye of both the police and the Attorney General, who had taken a special interest in the case. Of course he could exonerate himself by revealing his lady friends' affair. But he holds strong on principal, but he holds alone.
In the end, Woody is forced to leave DC and find refuge in New York. Please don't throw him in the briar patch.
A Man in Full (2024)
Charlie Croker was a man in full. He had a back like a Jersey bull.
That phrase was echoed over and over again in the 700 page plus Tom Wolfe novel, "A Man in Full". But not once spoken in a 6 part mini series of the same name.
Granted giving any of Tom Wolfe's books a screen treatment has been met with limited success. The 1981 film, "The Right Stuff", based on the book of the same name I understand Wolfe was on set. In 1990, noted director Brian DePalma, having just finished his run of well earned praise for "The Untouchables", destroyed "The Bonfire of the Vanities". This in spite of it being based on one of the most popular novels of the age, and with more star power than Haley's Comet.
It was so bad in fact, that a non-fiction book covering the disastrous film's production, "The Devil's Candy", became a second best seller. The notably tall, satirical, New Yorker, was hardly an accepted member of the literati. The New Yorker absolutely hated him, as did author John Irving, writer of, "The Cider House Rules", and the "Door in the Floor". Two novels that lent themselves to film production.
Tom Wolfe had a favorite white suit, or should I say suits, he wore everyday like a latter day Mark Twain. But unlike Twain, or the French satirist to whom he is often compared, Wolfe was a conservative. Not what we know today as a conservative, but the kind who could enter into a discussion of politics at a professor's dinner party and leave unscathed. Something that could never happen today.
Entering into the facts of the 2024 coverage of the novel, which does pass the albeit low bar of "Bonfire", we find a production which seems to only borrow some source material from Wolf's novel, but is really nothing like it.
The character of Conrad is an unemployed cold storage worker having previously worked at a Croker plant that had been closed due to a staff reduction in order to pay for the continued operation of the hunting estate Turpentine. Also Conrad was white, and this is germain to the story, and lived nearly 3,000 miles away in Oakland.
Roger "Too" White, the corporate attorney for Croker Foods never met Conrad. The book in fact takes place over the course of a year, also germain to the story.
I could just go on, but I won't, you get the point. The good news is, having seen the mini-series, you can read an entirely different book.
Charlie Croker needs to find the strength to put his character above his station. He admires and is befriended by only one black person, Roger "Too" White, who happens to be friends with the Mayor of Atlanta, where both stories take place. His trusted allies at the bank are seeking money back from the sale of his private planes, estate, and a giant office building called "The Concourse".
His visit to Turpentine with his new wife and son was portrayed about the same in the book and series, minus the hit over the head message that you should despise what you read/ saw here. A totally unnecessary dumbing down for which Netflix is famous.
In the series, Conrad is arrested for resisting arrest and his guilt was called into question. In the book he was arrested for trying to steal his car back from the impound, which was a Hyundai, as if to be derisive. His guilt was not called into question here. In the series Conrad was given an option to leave jail after sixty days, in the book it was a year, and there was no judge character.
The importance of the Stoics, the Greek founders of modern civilization which moved both Conrad and Charlie, after their eventual meeting late in the story, was what led both of them down a more verdant path. This was hardly mentioned in the series and was one of the main plot points in the book.
But the biggest sin, in my estimation, was "the deal". In the series Charlie is being forced to try and get a woman to admit to a sexual assault, so that the Mayor won't lose the election to Charlie's old teammate. In the book, a back football star at Charlie's almormata is accused of raping a white coed woman, who happens to be the daughter of one of Charlie's best friends. Charlie must hang out with the kid and introduce him to all of his influential friends in order to offset the damage caused by the charge. In the series it was an election, in the book it was riots and civil unrest.
The series concentrated on Charlie's fall from grace and loss of wealth. Where the book was a multi-layered and nuanced examination of the character who was a symbol of the old southern guard.
In both cases Charlie is reformed, but the other main character, Conrad is simply abused.
There was some good news. Aml Ameen was a terrific Roger White. For some reason the "Too", was also whitewashed, pun intended. And Diane Lane gave one of her best performances yet Charlie's first wife. And I suppose Jeff Daniels was also good, but much closer to a television character than his roots in "Something Wild".
I guess the biggest sinner here is Netflix itself. When the Stephen King opus, "The Stand" was put on the small screen they had eight TV hours of time to fill, and that novel was twice as long as this one. That book could never have fitted into a theatrical release.
I suspect that is the reason why no one has previously tried to tackle "A Man in Full" before. It seems Netfix fails, where HBO, and even TNT has so often succeeded. They had plenty of time to tell this story, which really should have been titled, "A Man in Half."
California Suite (1978)
A Great Snapshot in Time
I think this should be required viewing along with Four Seasons, Shortcuts, and Hannah and Her Sisters. While it lacks the relevance of a Network, or even Breaking Away, California Suite is a great example of an aspirational Southern California life.
I grew up in Southern California in the 70s, and this brings back fond memories of a world lost to time. LAs diversity is what makes it interesting, gritty and, ever changing. The westside culture was featured in many films of the era. California Suite has dated stories, irrelevant characters, and impossible storylines in modern times. It nonetheless shows a smorgasbord of California characters that were quite believable at the time.
The dramatic stories have a spice of humor. The humorous stories have wonderful characters. Walter Mathou is a standout here. I thought it was one of his better films.
If anyone ever asks me, and they often ask me now that I live in the midwest, what I loved about LA. I can refer this film to them.
No time was ever better in LA than 1978, and it's worth looking at.
Don't Worry Darling (2022)
Move over David Lynch
I've always loved David Lynch, and John Waters. Neither of them are one of the most beautiful women in the world. If we truly believe in rating talent based purely on the work, we have to acknowledge this film as a near classic.
Not in the same way as, "The Two Jakes", but certainly on that same level.
What a triumph of the bizarre and intrigue. What do the men in Victory, the mythical desert town where the story takes place. This film manages to be very, very dark in the brightest of settings. The 1960 in perpetuity affect of the little town represented a time in our history when we were richest and most at peace.
It is no surprise, therefore that the setting is ideal to create order, and maximize the potential of the men, doing, no one really knows.
The protagonist, played by Florence Pugh, was sensational. Some might say she was a little over the top, and I agree with that. In general I prefer a little more subtly. That is where this movie falls a little short.
We kind of know in the first ten minutes where the story is going, but how you get there is the key. Just like John Waters or David Lynch, we know what the destination city of the traveling couple will be, we just don't know how they will get there.
This story is somewhat similar, but the place she wants to go is out of Victory. The doctor character in the movie makes a big deal of separating the physical from the mental.
This interaction is key to explaining where the visions are coming from. It's a fly in the ointment, a ghost in the machine. Our protagonist is not interested in breaking up the Victory system, but something drives her to it. Something whic.
Better Call Saul: Saul Gone (2022)
Best ending ever
We wouldn't have expected it. By the time Gene breaks in a house to steal from a cancer patient, we think he has lost all sense of what little morality he had left.
But Gene, the coward, slowing changes into Saul, and Saul into Jimmy.
The Police show up at his apartment, and Saul attempts to escape. He is quickly caught after hiding in a dumpster and is arrested. While still in Nebraska, he calls an old prosecutor turned defense attorney, Bill Oakley. Saul returns to Albuquerque to face his past. Kim follows after Saul threatens damning testimony against her.
Acting in his own defense, with the trusty former local prosecutor at his side, Saul negotiates a sweetheart plea agreement.
When Kim enters the courtroom, Saul, who now asks to be called James McGill, confesses to all of his crimes.
On the prison bus, other inmates recognize him as Saul Goodman, and begin to chant. The next scene is at a Federal Prison, somewhere cold in what appears to be late Winter. Saul is preparing bread, in the giant prison kitchen. A guard appears and tells Saul his lawyer is here.
In the meeting room, Kim explains her New Mexico Bar Card never expired. She offers Saul a cigarette which he accepts. She lights it for him while Saul clutches her hands. They stare into each others eyes for a long time, while leaning on a wall like they used to do at HHM. Kim breaks the silence and reveals that Saul's sentence was 84 years. His plea agreement would have been for 7.
Kim slowly exits the prison, while Saul watches her from the yard. They are just feet apart, but a million miles from each other. Saul pulls out his hands and makes mock pistols, blowing the imaginary smoke off his fingertips, as we have seen Kim do before. Kim walks away, taking every opportunity to look back.
Could it be that this slower, more intellectually satisfying Breaking Bad spin-off had a happy ending. While its hard to argue that an 84 year sentence is happy, it's also hard to argue that with Saul's execution by gangsters seemingly guaranteed, any ending where Saul and Kim both live, and are in each others lives, to the extent that would ever be possible, is happy.
The final scene had the air of a Bogie and Becall movie. I was expecting to see Johnny Rocco around the corner.
It was old fashioned, beautiful, and lovely. Thanks Saul.
Last Seen Alive (2022)
For when you just want to be entertained
I haven't seen a lot of Gerald Butler. But with Liam Neeson taking progressively worse roles, and the sad way out Bruce Willis chose to take, there's certainly a vacuum.
Was this premise original, no. It was preceded by Harrison Ford's "Frantic", and Kurt Russel's "Breakdown". Both of those movies had almost identical premises.
There was no JT Walsh or Kathleen Quinlan, to make the story more interesting. In fact the supporting cast was pretty bad. Hard to say if the actors or the writing is to blame, but both the wife (Jamie Alexander), and the investigating detective. (Russell Hornsby) were quite weak.
If you like Harrison, or Bruce, or Liam, you're gonna like Gerald. There is an authenticity to his angst.
There were plenty of baddie bodies about, and a "blew 'em up, real good...", explosion.
This was shot beautifully, the sound and music was spot on, the editing was terrific, and the plot twists were good.
If you are like me and wretch every time you see one of the uber masculine men make another spy thriller, this is a nice break from that. No one jumps Niagra Falls on a motorcycle, and no one has psychic, or superpowers.
Just entertaining light entertainment, just like Harrison Ford used to make.
Gloria Bell (2018)
Looking for a Sugar Free Mr Goodbar
Julianne Moore has always been one of my favorite actors. She's no Glen Close, she's just Julianne Moore. The perpetual everywoman, but hardly wholesome, and classy to the last.
As Gloria Bell, she finds herself in a simple role about a woman and a culture of late 50's single people in Los Angeles, trying to find relevance in a world that does not value single women in their 50s.
Not that she is throwing up a Norma Rae sign that says "I Am Relevant" or anything like that. In fact this film is refreshingly frank, without being at all political.
Gloria is a divorced woman with two grown kids, and one grandchild. She tries to participate in the world she finds herself in, but it seems the world has become deaf to her.
Not willing to go down a path of depression and despair, she sings in the car, the shower, while on line. She dances at every possible chance. She lives for the chance to enjoy another day of life.
This is demonstrated over and over again as she meets the character of Arnold, played by John Turturro. A fledgling relationship begins.
While she has been divorced for nearly two decades and has evolved to have a self identity outside of being a wife and mother. Arnold, recently single, still clings to the safety of what is considered the well trodden path of nuclear family life.
They begin to fall in love. Both of them quirky in a way the other finds charming. In fact to a younger person, it might appear as though this love story is certain. Those of us who are in our 50s know better.
By not relinquishing his family life, Arnold heaves insults at Gloria on a regular basis. As she defends her current existence, she also begins to value it.
Arnold is not doing this on purpose, after all, he himself considers himself a victim of an unfair world. After rudely taking a phone call from his ex at their first lunch, he states that the call he was just on represents, "a part of me".
In spite of everything, Gloria stands her ground. Unfortunately in so doing she is forced to seemingly watch they demise of this new relationship from the outside. The world cannot see or hear the part of her that does not cry out, but is simply there, happy, free, and dancing.
Happy New Year (1987)
Defining the Buddy Heist Movie
The formula here is simple. Two friends plan a heist while falling for the same girl. The heist goes bad, one ends up in jail and the other ends up with the girl, until the other can exact his revenge.
Claude Lelouch wrote a wonderful script here, full of heart and humor. The movie showcases the talents of Peter Falk, and that's hard to do with so much talent.
While the film was hardly original,it always brings me such a great feeling. You are, as are those up on the screen, conflicted. Who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys?
When presented with only bad guys, such a French thing to do, who is the most virtuous? Had the other man ended up in custody, would he have behaved in such a loyal and gracious manner?
That's what this film is, a good hearted, seemingly light. Nick (Falk) and his buddy Charlie, played well by Charles Durning, attempt a robbery of a Harry Winston location in a little city by the sea.
Nick provides the front work, dressing in costume to set up the manager of the store. Nick lays all the groundwork, but Charlie is the experienced crook. Charlie is the one who empties the shelves and decides what the haul is to consist of, and drives the getaway vehicle.
The first 60% of the movie involves Falk setting up the store with a series of disguises and false identities designed to put the jewelry store manager at ease so he will let his guard down at the crucial time.
Nick meets a girl, of course, who seems wise to, but undeterred by his plans.
Everything is going great, Charlie has everything ready, the love interest is waiting for Nick at the getaway. And Nick and Charlie execute this perfectly impossible robbery, until...
So as the formula goes, whether its the jewels or the plasmids a mistake is made at a crucial point, and Nick gets caught.
Charlie and the girl do not, of course, and Falk is in for a long prison term.
The story doesn't end there. And there is a satisfying twist, but Ill leave that on the screen for you to discover.
The Grifters, which came out just three years later, had similar subject matter, and was a great film. But if you agree with me in my assessment of the Grifters being a
great movie, then you will very much like this movie, and have a good feeling to boot.
Vertigo (1958)
Nothing is what it seems, but you knew that already.
This is a movie I watch about once a decade. I remember first watching it in 1985, essential viewing on our new VCR.
In 1990, it was shown on opening day of our "Sex and Violence in the Media", college class. I understand it narrowly beat Dressed to Kill.
Today I watched it through the eyes of a 50 year old man. This is quite different and changes my opinion, and what I am viewing.
Alfred Hitchcock was angered by the performances of the two leads, was angry at the studio, and the critics. I think the leads were perfectly cast. Jimmy Stewart had to be a man we believed would believe anything, when under the spell of Kim Novak. She had to be both beautiful and approachable. Cold, yet a woman you would want to wrap your arms around.
We are allowed to enjoy the story more, knowing that Jimmy Stewart would be duped. We were allowed to watch Scottie and Madeleine, just waiting for the lie. Perhaps the only disappointment is the lie was revealed too early. The events too dramatic to be true.
The epic scale, and opulence of the film made it impossible to ever be profitable. And that was indeed the bigger lie, the one Hitchcock wanted the rest of us to believe.
Fargo: East/West (2020)
Litterally the genius before the storm
In this, best single episode of the entire Fargo series, and approaching the best thing the Cohen Brothers ever released, Barton Fink, Random tragedy moves the story forward. But that is only half the story.
After wrapping on production of this episode, the entire production had to wrap because of Covid.
The picking up the pieces episodes that followed the onset of the Covid epidemic, were probably the two weakest episodes of the entire series.
Honestly, I would have rather they had just stretched Episode 9 to ninety minutes and called that Season 4.
The genius of the Cohen Brothers is that they take a tiny, pedestrian topic and blow it up to a ridiculous point. It is fearless and breathtaking film-making. "You know, for kids."
Starting with the infertility in Raising Arizona, to writers' block in Barton Fink, marital infidelity in A Serious Man, East-West follows that tradition.
A boy and his caretaker, obviously being pursued by someone, who appears rather ambiguous in his pursuit, check into the a boarding house outside Liberal, KS. A simple enough plotline. Of course, there are a host of odd residents they encounter. There is the mob boss being nursed back to health on the third floor. The old war veteran and the girl who may or may not be his niece. There is the salesman who may or not be an alcoholic.
Outside the home there is a sign-painter finishing a billboard at a lazy pace, an equally lazy service station owner on the outskirts of town, who trades the pursuer a leg up on his prey in exchange for painting help, so long as help means, "You paint and I watch."
The small town life in Liberal seems punctuated by a lack of ambition and effort.
When our caretaker, and eventual hero, Rabbi goes into town to find some ill gotten gains he had hidden in a store, his charge Satchel, meets a dog, Rabbit who jumps out a wardrobe, quite unexpectedly on what turns out to be the boys birthday.
In the meantime we learn a few more things. The caretakers money had been found , and mostly spent on a catalog showroom, and the pursuer is also being pursued at the service station up the road. There are four black characters in the episode; the boy, the service station owner, and his handyman/ hitman, and the attendant at the boarding house. All of them seem to form micro alliances that seemed consistent of how one might have survived daily life in 1950 Kansas.
But alas, the two new friends at the service station are cut down, when the less ambiguous pursuer with an Italian accent and swarthy disposition shoots them.
In spite of the care taker advising the boy that if he did not return he would be in jail or dead, he does return.
Upon realizing a dog my encumber their survival, the caretaker advises the boy of the need to leave the dog. But Satchel is unmoved, so the caretaker and boy venture back into town so they can collect what might be left of their money, with Rabbit in toe.
7500 (2019)
A Whole New Genre?
What I liked about this movie most is trying to figure out just what it is. With the claustrophobic intensity of Talk Radio, the scope of Airport, and quiet intensity of The Fugitive, this film is what seems like a good first effort.
We need good disaster films. They take us away from the troubles we are facing. Back in the day, you could've seen the three films Earthquake, Network, and Airport all at the same theatre depending on your mood and company for the night (of course these were not all out at exactly the same time, but you know what I mean).
Now it's so hard to find anything new, anything that really grabs you. This is NOT a great movie. The story loses steam near the end, and lacks the twist I was expecting.
Also, without hurling any personal insults at Joseph Gordon Levitt, let's just say he, and Keanu Reeves may have been switched at birth.
If you are a Joseph Gordon Levitt fan, you might hate this film, and that is just fine. No great effects, time travel, or any other customary JGL fare here.
Do I think Harrison Ford could've done better? Yes. Do I think Al Pacino could have done better? Yes. But those are high bars, and Joseph Gordon Levitt is far from terrible.
Having said that, however, the script and direction seemed worthy of either of those two stars, and that's saying a lot.
The film does an excellent job of explaining the mechanics of the action. It really does keep you on the edge of your seat, at least for the first hour.
The last half hour, well, that left me scratching my head. Not dissatisfied, mind you, just a little confused.
Regardless of my personal opinion of this feature, I can say that I hope this young director makes more films like this. It's something entirely different in a sea of sameness.
CQ (2001)
A Faciful Rde
Many movies in the late 90s tried to deal with substantive topics in a short attention span package. Four Rooms was the best known example of this.
The penultimate example was Timecode, which also came out about this time. This film does use that Four Rooms structure with the madcap style from the late sixties in which it was set. Kind of Four Rooms meets Peter Sellers' The Party, to use an early 90s cliche.
An aspiring film maker who has a beautiful, doting, flight attendant girlfriend (Élodie Bouchez), tries to make a film documenting his own life, while editing an exploitive, Barbarella style space fantasy.
The lead role in the film within a film is played by model Angela Lindvall, who is impossibly beautiful. This suductress seemly has no real will or mind of her own. An intentional android affectation.
As the film opens, the exploitation film's director, Gérard Depardieu, is fired for attempting to raise his movie to a piece of art, by adding a confusing, unsatisfying, yet etherial ending.
Our man, Paul (Jeremy Davies), is asked to replace him. Leaving his girlfriend in the lurch, Paul complies with the demand, and dutifly begins to reshoot, defeature, and end the film in a way that is more conducive to the tastes of a mass audience. His every encounter with Valentine, or her charecter Dragonfly, sends him into a trance like daydream.
Soon Paul realized what the first diector must've been faced with, and he begins to somewhat follow suit. All the while, the more Paul interacts with Valentine, the more scenes from the Dragonfily movie he falls into in his daydreams.
He is subsequently is releaved of his duties by the low brow producer and Felix DeMarco (Jason Schwartzman) is assigned as the new director having just finished a vampire picture of similar substance.
Felix almost immediately hits on Valentine, and she agrees to marry him on that same night. It's almost as though he is the only one immune to her beauty. Of course in every other respect a complete ass.
Once this happens, Paul falls deeper into this fantasy world he had partially created. We and he loose track of all practical life considerations except for a masterful scene with his ailing father materfully played by Dean Stockwell, and a scene when he arrives home, only to find his girlfriend had finally left him.
At some point he might, or might not have been hired to finish the film, no one can really be sure either way,
Valentine soon becomes Paul's constant companion. She seems to know his every desire intuitively and caters to them with no expectation or need for any support or affection in return.
The film ends with an on screen car accident during the ending reshoot, and Paul is seemingly brought back to some kind of reality, but not real reality.
His obsession, in the end, is the death of his life in the real world.
Fosse/Verdon (2019)
Great Look at Recent History
It's been a while now since most people have thought about Bob Fosse, and it will be forty years this Christmas since Roy Scheider and Jessica Lange brought, Fosse's masterpiece "All That Jazz" to the big screen.
Sign of the times I suppose, there is no way the Bob Fosse story would come to a theater near you, unless of course he rose from the dead and avenged the death of a loved one or something.
In that case it would have been Marvel's "Fosse" and he would've been played by Liam Neeson. There just seems to be no interest in even a perfect artistic production, as a feature film, unless it appeals to the Chinese and the flyover states.
Of course there is Broadway, but being in a flyover state myself, and only being of middle class means, I'll never be able to pay that ticket.
So Fosse/Verdon is good, it's very, very good. It captures as much heart as possible in the stretch it to eight episode culture we now find ourselves in.
But this story seems much more about Gwen Verdon, than Bob Fosse. That may be intentional or just a happy by-product of the me too movement. Regardless of the genesis, Michelle Williams steals the show.
So much depth is brought to the Verdon character with layer upon layer of pain and ambition spread across that almost tragically beautiful face.
By contrast, the producers of this series seem to think that Bob Fosse's talents and achievements are self evident. I disagree with that assessment.
Sam Rockwell, while clearly almost cloning what I think to be Bob Fosse both in look and physical motion, lacks dimension. And that is hard to believe, given that he has hours upon hours to build dimension.
The Fosse character could have used a little Cohen brothers to peel back his skull a bit and peer in to what's inside.
Rockwell is one of the greatest actors of his generation. He most closely reminds me of Dustin Hoffman. The method is strong with this one.
He is trying to play a character that was acted and directed already to such perfection, that he just can't pull it off. Scheider had Fosse right next to him, and the film had the genius sequence of bathroom scenes. Roy Scheider presses play on the Sanyo monaural tape deck and out pours classical music as the takes his uppers and Visine. To think of the broken, tortured image in the bathroom mirror exactly showed where Fosse was at, and explained (but did not forgive), his actions.
In "Fosse/Verdon" we missed that person, but truthfully, if we saw that Fosse again, there would have been no need for the /Verdon, and the /Verdon is really what this show is all about.
Even still I sometimes felt like I was watching the last half hour of Carson when it was still ninety minutes. It was definitely an unnecessary stretch.
The Front Runner (2018)
A Difficult Project, Poorly Executed
I was really looking forward to watching this in the theatre, but it closed almost right away. I chalked it up to an unpopular genre.
After all, the wonderful HBO series K-Street, tackled similar themes and was cancelled after just as season, leaving one of the worst cases of an unresolved plot twist.
In today's society, this story needed a serious treatment, the kind that Altman, while he would have taken this project in a second, could not provide. Sydney Lumet could have provided a perfect setting and timing and come in under budget, but he may have come in a little flat.
But the problem we have here is that there is a reigning master of this genre. In point of fact, while they are a team, there are two.
George Cloney and Steven Soderbergh have been talking this kind of thing with aplomb for about 20 years now. How anyone could tell the Gary Hart story and leave them out of it is a sad mystery to me.
So for those of us that are fans of this genre and have seen everything from Bob Roberts to Citizen Cane, cannot, nor should we sit idly by and watch this story, which was given almost as bad a treatment as Bonfire of the Vanities, silently.
DiPalma survived it, but I don't think Jason Reitman will. There were just too many structural, basic problems with this film. Starting with Hugh Jackman who, other than being "very good looking", was a criminally bad casting choice.
Not that he's a bad actor at all. He is a wonderful talent who I hope never enters the political genre again, or I'll take the aforementioned back.
As is the talented Vera Farminga, who seemed to have the same regard for Jackman she might have for say a tomato, or a house plant.
The cavernous cast of character actors would have needed a Robert Altman just to coordinate them, or a And the Band Played On length.
God bless JK Simmons, who could make a Tide commercial Oscar worthy. Predictably great, flawless performance. He brought depth to a character the writers did everything they could to flatten out.
Maybe, just maybe this piece could have survived as the one thing they did do right was keep the audience view at a fairly tertiary level. This did manage to create some voyeuristic connection to the material, until..... until well.... the "me too" sequence.
The only real chance the audience had to form a close relationship with a character was driven by Prom Queen, Horror Film Princess, turned serious method actor Sarah Paxton. Oh Lord, was she awful!
She came in the story appearing as a mousy political groupie and left as a victimized mousy political groupie. She even had the amazing Toby Huss to prop her up, and nothing, she gave the story nothing.
The 15 or so minutes the story zoomed in on this actor did make the film drop to Bonfire of the Vanities territory. Even at her most coked up, Melanie Griffith would have done a better job.
Had this character received the same viewing as the reporters and editors and campaign staff characters, the movie still would have been bad thanks to the two leads, but at least it could pass as a valiant attempt.
I wish had more good things to say about a movie I was truly looking for a reason to like, but it was just bad. Full stop.
Here and Now (2018)
A Beautiful Waste of a Lot of Talent.
I recently read an article talking American Beauty and how it it has not withstood the test of time. The protagonist being described as a pederast.
But I left that film feeling equally warm and disturbed. In fact, with all the other films that followed and tried to walk that line such as "Boogie Nights", and "Magnolia"; clearly this film did it best.
On the small screen we had Six Feet Under, that would leave you warmed and disturbed after each episode. This piece, while beautiful, left me disturbed and intensely disliking the characters. The male characters weak, and the female shrill and histrionic.
I know that is not a popular assessment, in today's climate, but it's an accurate one. In fact I really began to feel sorry for the horrible trap Tim Robbins must've found himself in. His character had so much potential, and wound up with no more dimension than the paper on which the character was composed.
It was almost as though he was afraid to emote because it might offend someone.
Six Feet Under will stand as a genius piece. We can forgive Alan Balls' later works.
He can still rise to the level of a Paul Thomas Anderson, or Steven Soderberg, if only he shut off his TV for a while. He is hardly unique, however, the Trump era as befuddled many a great entertainer.
I would submit that if Rachel Maddow, and rise above the discussion and produce entertaining shows, so can Alan Ball.
Ozark (2017)
Great Series, but that scares me a little.
People often say we are in the salad days of television. A new Golden Age. To a large extent that's true. Now comes the rush of edgy, slightly perverse, without being gratuitous of course.
Thanks to the complete Hindenburg like second seasons of True Detective , and Fortitude, the second season of even the best of shows is no longer guaranteed. The thrush of taste towards the new, and the rejection of anything even a few years old, does not bode well for a show running more than two seasons.
Netflix, and Amazon hedge their bets with the six episode season, and that's like... well... not good.
Just a decade ago, if any of you Millennials believe the past has any use other than the bones of a nice urban loft, even edgy cable series' like "Queer as Folk" had a 22 episode season. Quickly that number decreased to,13, then 12, and now 10.
The CBS drama still follows the old rules for the old people. They stand alone though, with ridiculous, sappy, emotion driven shows like The Newsroom, and The West Wing, which are now thankfully in a store house next to the Love Boat and Fantasy Island reruns.
And honestly, the next time I have to see an autopsy on screen I hope to God it's my own. CSI, JAG, Blue Bloods, and Law and Order, are on their way to the Murder She Wrote, and Scarecrow and Mrs. King scrap heap.
We have also been allowed to learn from some honest mistakes. Twin Peaks, and The X-Files were really good on analog cable and a 25" tube set, why do they suck so much now?
And no one seems to have the guts to stick with a good series. Poor beleaguered Steven Soderberg. I mean he's rich I'm sure, but he has had so much good material wasted and dying a premature death. First Spalding Gray, then the genius K-Street, with perhaps the most unrealized cliff hanger of all time, then the Knick which HBO somehow managed to negatively promote. It was almost like the little plug before the show should have said, "It's not our fault, it's HBO."
Of course CBS, the harbinger of terrible taste for decades used Soderberg's name to sell it's soft core porn show about call girls. Shame on you CBS. The only good thing I can say about them is they are so out of touch they didn't kill the Twin Peaks remake. Which makes the cackle of David Lynch just a little sweeter.
HBO is changing. I don't think Westworld, The Sopranos, or The Wire would be greenlit at the new HBO. And while I love two, and like the other of those shows, that formula got a little old.
I was really upset when they killed Luck for killing off a few of it's equine subjects, and Vinyl got caught up in a management battle and never saw a second season.
I binge watched The Sopranos, The Wire, and Boardwalk Empire, and I kind of feel like I've seen the second through fifth season of Vinyl and Luck already.
Amazon and Netflix seem like their taste for the cancellation jugular knows no bounds. Mad Dogs didn't make to season two, which was positively shocking.
But the W.G. Snuffy Walden soundtrack laden Grace and Frankie, Transparent, and I Love Dick, seem to still have some legs. Take The West Wing, change some genders and sexual orientations, and there you go. These shows were designed for Millennials to watch with their Baby Boomer Grandparents. And why not? Worked for the iPhone.
But sadly, I think most Millennials would be just as happy with images of dogs walking in and out of loft apartments on their way to the food truck to pay $12 for a roach coach burrito with a credit card.
So that, as usual, leaves us Xers and Ys with less, but it's still quite a bounty "I must say!"
So this is our reward for having to endure our greedy parents and intensely shallow children. We get Ozark, Halt, and Catch Fire, Fargo, Snowfall, and of course Better Call Saul, the Burns and Allen of our generation.
Jason Bateman, and Laura Linney are great of course, but the story is interesting and characters diverse without seeming "transparenty"; that's my new verb.
It's a small story, dark and believable. And not one autopsy.
It could have used a little more creative flair, like the "Sausage Factory" botched FBI investigation in the Sopranos. I think with all the crap flying around the writers and producers may have used a bit too much restraint. But the Cohen Brothers, aren't backing it, fortunately however, neither is Steven Soderberg, so I anticipate a second season.
Oh you wanted a plot synopsis? No you didn't. When was the last time an Xer watched something based on the story, it's all about the cast. That's the bag of crap we bring to the table. I still think it's pimentos in the Thanksgiving dinner of crap served up by the Baby Boomers.
You know the greatest generation watched Fantasy Island the The Love Boat religiously every Saturday night. They never expected social commentary, and titillation was provided by a Charo guest appearance and not an eviscerated carcus on a slab.