A Star Is Born (1976)

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John Norman Howard is 3 hours late to his own show. The 50K people spilling out of the stadium are restless, but they aren’t leaving. When he does arrive, they’re ready to forgive everything, but he’s not even sober enough to remember the words to his own songs.

Meanwhile, Esther Hoffman, an unknown songstress, is the “filling” in a trio regrettably called The Oreos, performing in a bar that serves warm beer or herbal tea. It’s not a great place, and it goes downhill when it’s terrorized by a drunken, sloppy, washed up rockstar. Intentionally or not, he’s incredibly disruptive, and Esther (Barbra Streisand) knows when a gig’s gone belly-up. Generously she leads John (Kris Kristofferson) out to safety.

MV5BMTQ5MzMyMjI0Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODk4NTUyNw@@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1544,1000_AL_ This is where the numerous A Star Is Born remakes made their jump from acting to pop music. My Mom had this soundtrack on vinyl when I was a kid – she was still a kid herself when this came out. She though Kristofferson was a dish.

Anyway, though undiscovered, Esther is a pretty confident babe. It’s clearly a role written specifically for Babs, who shines her special light every moment she’s on screen, which means it’s hard to believe her as anything but The Voice. Although, to be fair, it’s even harder to believe her as a serious love interest – Streisand and Kristofferson do not have so much as a microwave lightbulb’s worth of heat between them. They often substitute cornball humour for passion, and that’s an awkward trade-off that grinds things to a halt.

Esther is mouthy; John Norman is irascible and intoxicated and is deathly afraid of buttoning his top 6 buttons. They’re not exactly a lovable pair, and god help us when the whole thing takes its time getting going. It feels like a cliche that he needs exactly her kind of saving, and yet there it is. Of course, when her star is shooting upward, he gets predictably petulant.

All this to say I’m not a big fan of the movie. I guess you’re in it for the music or you’re not in it at all. Not to worry though, if you don’t like this one, there are a half a dozen other iterations to try!

Somewhere

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Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) is a Hollywood actor ensconced at the Chateau Marmont Hotel. He’s between movies so his days are filled with booze and women and fast cars and while that sounds kinda hot, it’s really a metaphor for how empty his life is, but that’s okay, because for now it’s just enough to stave off the kind of boredom that makes us turn inward and draw some uncomfortable conclusions about ourselves. So far, Johnny has remained introspection-free and what passes for happy. Good enough.

And then his 11 year old daughter shows up. Cleo (Elle Fanning) inexplicably grows fond of him, and her persistent sweetness eventually jostles him out of his ennui. To his MV5BMTkxNDAxNjY4Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTQxMzQ3Mw@@._V1_ surprise, alien, paternal feelings start to surface. Not only does he care for his daughter, he wants to be better for her. It’s a bit of a wake-up call. But then she goes off to summer camp and finding himself alone again, Johnny isn’t sure who he has become, or if he can sustain any of the positive changes. But we have reason to hope.

It’s a little hard to sympathize with Johnny’s privileged moping, so for me, the movie really gets juicy with Cleo’s arrival, which grounds him and helps him to redefine both happiness and success. Director Sofia Coppola tackled themes of success and isolation in other movies too, but this time she’s doing it from the male perspective, where depression looks a lot like hedonism, minus the enjoyment.

Cleo is a clever child and an interesting character. In some ways, it is she who parents and nurtures him, and we get the sense that she probably understands more about what’s gone wrong with his life than he does. But she’s still young and can’t help but look up to him, troubling as that may be. Fanning and Dorff have some pretty charming chemistry together. It’s very telling how the film only feels alive when she’s on screen with him. When she’s gone, it’s not just her father who misses her. She leaves a void.

Coppola is particularly qualified to provide this less-than-savoury look at celebrity. Johnny is working, but he’s not doing his craft, he’s doing the annoying, soul-crushing stuff like press and publicity. Anyone else might appreciate the free vacation to Italy, but for him, Venice is just another obligation. Sure this might be a bit of a retread for Coppola, but there’s a sweet melancholy to this film, at times almost hypnotic, plus her classic eye for detail and style – irresistible, really.

The Hurt Locker

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Like everyone else, I watched The Hurt Locker the year it came out. It was dutiful, really. The subject matter didn’t interest me but its female direction was like a monkey with a typewriter. That sounds awful, I know, but honestly, it was a bit of a sideshow. Just 10 years ago, you rarely if ever heard about a female director, period, let alone one who was taking on a project so classically masculine. A war movie, for christsakes. But Kathryn Bigelow didn’t just ‘take it on’, she was so fucking good at it, even boys had to admit it was great. “A near perfect movie,” one had to admit. “A full tilt action picture” said another. Gosh. It was so undeniably good that the biggest consortium of white men ever, the Acamedy, could do nothing but award in 6 Oscars (of 9 nominations), including Best Picture AND Best Director for Ms. Bigelow. Fuck yeah!

But I didn’t like it.

MV5BNzkzZDFhZTUtMWQwYi00MzNhLThiODItNmRlMDhlODZjZDMzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTIzOTk5ODM@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,674,1000_AL_ Rewatching it, I get why. Jeremy Renner plays hot shit Staff Sergeant William James, a…bomb guy. Pretty sure that’s the technical term. He gets all dressed up in a quasi-astronaut outfit and defuses bombs (ideally). His unit has only about 30 days left in their Iraq rotation when he’s assigned to them (their last guy got blown up) and they immediately want to throw him right back. He rushes into combat like he’s got a death wish, and worse, he puts his fellow soldiers at risk too. Sergeant Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), his subordinate, is particularly disturbed to be working so closely with what appears to be a straight-up crazy, reckless person.

This movie is rife with unapologetic toxic masculinity, and it was fucking hard as hell for me to make it through. In the army you don’t get to choose not to follow a whackerdoodledoo into combat, but from the comfort of my bed (it’s on Netflix atm), you betcha I was yelling obscenities at my TV.

Grudgingly, I can appreciate some of the craft in this movie that I was probably willfully blind to a decade ago. Bigelow uses hand-held cameras and an incredible 100:1 shooting ratio to make this film feel real – almost like a documentary. It’s also relentless. One scene barely ends before the next bout of trouble is upon us, usually already in motion.

I like the ending, what it reveals of James’ character – namely, that he’s happiest when he’s staring a ticking bomb in the face. But that’s essentially also my problem with the film. That his disregard for his own life is going to get everyone else in his company killed along with him. That their only move toward self-preservation is to kill him. Imagine being in Baghdad and contemplating that. That his risk taking and complete indifference to the rules somehow make him this bomb cowboy action hero when in fact, in real life, it makes him a moron and a liability. Personally I rooted against this guy, this “hero” because as much as I don’t really love watching people get turned into jam, at least it would give the rest of this unit a fighting chance. War is tough enough as it is. We don’t need to “up the ante” on a bomb squad in an active war zone. That should have been enough. Crazed war junkies intent on obliterating themselves likely would have been weeded out back in basic. The Hurt Locker is just punishing, and I get that the Academy didn’t want to give Best Picture to Avatar (I haven’t seen that one at all), but, ahem, I do believe Up was also in the running that year.

Christmas At Pemberley Manor

Ian

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A 9-word synopsis for a 9-minute film: Even in his wildest dreams, they laugh at him.

A 9-word review for the 9-minute film: Inclusivity shines brightly through innovative animation and powerful story-telling.

You can watch the short and see for yourself here.

Frightfest 2015: Halloween (1978)

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Co-writers John Carpenter and Debra Hill couldn’t believe that there had never been a horror film simply titled “Halloween”. Taking advantage of everyone else’s missed opportunity, they produced a film set almost entirely on Halloween night that captures all the thrills and chills that we’ve come to expect from our favourite halloweens.

When he was six years old, Michael Myers stabbed his big sister to death. Dr. Sam loomis (Donald Pleasence) tried to treat him but saw nothing but limitless evil in his eyes. fifteen years later, Myers has escaped from his institution and is headed back to the quiet street where it all began.

As Laurie, Jamie Lee Curtis earned the title Scream Queen and has never really been dethroned since. Working with director John Carpenter, she strikes a delicate balance between being scared shitless and being a fighter. Myers is still scary today, sporting a mask which was in reality nothing more than a Shatner mask with white spray paint and wielding a really big knife. the concept is simple enough to be ageless.

Halloween has some good scares but there is no blood so it’s perfect for those who love a good spooky story about a serial killer on the loose but can’t stand the gore that is so typical of these kinds of movies today.

License to Wed

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I know that watching movies sometimes involves a certain about of suspended disbelief, but this movie would require a lobotomy.

Robin Williams plays Reverend Frank, the man in charge of preparing Sadie (Mandy Moore) and Ben (John Krasinski) for holy matrimony. Ben wanted to elope to the Caribbean, but Sadie’s always dreamed of getting married in the family church, and to do so, they have to pass Reverend Frank’s marriage prep course.

Now, let’s take a minute to appreciate the absurdity of an unmarried man assuming any kind of authority on the subject. I mean, really. But Reverend Frank’s particular brand of marriage counselling is made just for movies. It involves ridiculous group activities and the deliberate baiting of in-laws. This is why we say in my business that no counselling is preferable to pastoral counselling. They don’t know what they’re doing, they push the god agenda above anything sane or healthy, and they’re grossly unqualified. Frank is all of these, yet the Sadie blindly accepts everything he says, because he’s her beloved minister. And that might be fine if this was a satire, but it’s not. It’s just a vehicle for Robin Williams to shock and awe – say all the naughty things that a man of the cloth most definitely should not. Sadie doesn’t blink an eye when he bugs their apartment, asks her what she likes in bed, has her drive into traffic blind-folded. Nope, just normal pre-wedding stuff, nothing to see here!

Are there a couple of chuckles to be had? Sure there are. It’s Robin Williams. But to be honest, it looks like a much better time in the blooper reels than in the film itself. On the plus side, the last 20 minutes of the film are a commercial for the Sandals resort in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, so at least everyone got tan while making this piece of crap (the same one that Michael Scott visited in The Office; there are 4 series regulars in this film, and director Ken Kwapis directed several episodes). I am 100% certain that John Krasinski hates that this is on his resume, and he regrets even more saying “Do you wanna walk the midget?” It may have been 2007, but that was never okay.

Frightfest 2015: The Babadook

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Amelia (Essie Davis) has never had the chance to grieve the death of her husband 7 years ago. Because her beloved Oscar died in a car carsh while Amelia was in labor, processing her trauma had to take a back seat to raising a newborn all by herself. Now about to turn 7, Samuel (Noah Wiseman) is having some trouble fitting in, unable to shake the feeling that his mom will one day leave him and develops an obsession with protecting him and his mother from monsters.

Oh, and there’s a monster in his closet.

What starts with a creepy children’s book that mysteriously appears on his shelf, (“If it’s in a word. Or if it’s in a look. You can’t get rid of… The Babadook”), escalates into a full-blown assault on Amelia’s psyche. The more The Babadook gets under her skin, the more dangerous Amelia becomes to her terrified son.

The Babadook, the feature debut from director Jennifer Kent, is a supernatural thriller in the tradition of The Shining. Kent’s film, however, separates itself from Kubrick’s classic in two important ways. First, the dynamic between mother and son and the themes of trauma and loss are more psychologically astute here, with character arcs that would still be satisfying even without the horror element. Second, with Amelia, Davis- as she herself has pointed out- has to play both Shelley Duvall and Jack Nicholson to Samuel and she plays them both perfectly. Her descent into madness is is captivating and played with a restraint that- as much as we all love Jack- has never been his strong suit.

The Babadook will get under your skin. Filmmaker William Friedkinhas apparently stated that he has never seen a movie more terrifying. And he directed the Exorcist, so…

The Angriest Man in Brooklyn

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Henry (Robin Williams) is angry. Crazy angry. Sitting in his car he can think of no better way to pass the time than ranting. Henry hates a lot of things. Henry rants away his commute until something he can REALLY get angry about happens – he hits a cab. Then he really unleashes.

A precautionary trip to the hospital reveals a problem that his doctor hadn’t told him about yet: brain aneurysm. Yikes. But his usual doctor’s out on vacation so Dr. Sharon (Mila Kunis) fills in, but she’s not exactly having a great day either. How bad is this brain aneurysm? It’s pretty bad. Like, 90 minutes to live bad.

What would you do if you had 90 minutes left to live? For most of us, it would be squeezing the last drops out of joy out of life, phoning loved ones, making sure people know how we feel. For Henry, who has destroyed his marriage and is estranged from his son, this is about to be a difficult 90 minutes.

It’s an interesting concept that fails in execution. I never believed Henry. Henry’s anger was out of control and over the top. Robin Williams does a terrific stand-up rant so I know he’s capable of playing a deeply disturbed individual. However, ever time Henry got going, I was always expecting it to end up somewhere funny. It was just too much to be taken straight. The writing is really weak – Henry’s anger just doesn’t seem genuine. Tonally, The Angriest Man in Brooklyn flops around like a fish out of water, gasping for a last breath.

It turns out that Henry has some good reasons for being angry, and these 90 minutes would have been better spent redemptively. The closest he comes is in remarking that his tombstone will read 1951-2014, and that the dash is where it’s at: a true but oft-repeated sentiment. Sadly, this would be Robin Williams’ last movie. I hate to see his brilliant career end on this note. I’m also sad to report that his own tombstone reads 1951-2014. I hope he lived his dash to its fullest. As for this movie which lacks the language to efficiently say “don’t waste the time you have”, I can only caution you to include this movie in the waste of time column. Life is too precious for bad movies.

Laurel Canyon

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Sam and Alex are on their way to a picture perfect life. He’s a newly minted psychiatrist about to start his residency in L.A. She’s a brilliant academic finishing up her dissertation. All Alex (Kate Beckinsale) needs is a little peace and quiet, and Sam (Christian Bale) has the perfect place in which to star their new life: his mother’s house in Laurel Canyon. The only problem is that his mother hasn’t cleared out yet. Jane is still there, producing an album for her latest boy toy. She’s a successful record producer whose rock n’ roll lifestyle wasn’t exactly conducive to raising a son. Now that they’re all trapped in a house together, our straight-laced couple is going to clash wildly with Jane’s wanton ways, and they might even be corrupted…

There’s something to this movie about self-discovery, freedom of expression. It’s non-judgmental by 2003 standards and it’s a little wet 17-CTEK-1908-LC_McDormand2-613x463 and wild, in a having a threesome with my mother-in-law and her skeevy boyfriend kind of way. Don’t think about that too hard. Christian Bale is doughy and passive but ultimately more believable as a psychiatrist than Kate Beckinsale is as a nerd. Which, granted, is not saying much. But man, is she a bad actress or is she a BAD actress? In this she whispers and slides her glasses up and down her nose, and confuses that with a character.

Fine. The real reason, the only reason to go back in time 15 years, is to watch Frances McDormand do her thing. She does all the things! We genuinely do not deserve her, how could we, but until she figures that out, we must hoard all of her performances and allow movies like this to just become another car on the runaway, unstoppable, Frances train. Toot toooot, all aboard!