Annie: based on the characters created by Harold Gray; adapted from the Thomas Meehan/Charles Strouse/Martin Charnin musical by Carol Sobieski; directed by John Huston; starring Albert Finney (Daddy Warbucks), Aileen Quinn (Annie), Carol Burnett (Miss Hannigan), Ann Reinking (Grace), Tim Curry (Rooster Hannigan), Bernadette Peters (Lily St. Regis), Geoffrey Holder (Punjab), Roger Minami (Asp), Edward Herrmann (FDR), and Lois De Banzie (Eleanor Roosevelt) (1982): There's something bizarre about John Huston directing this musical. I assume the paycheck was good and that it allowed Huston to check 'Direct Musical' off his Career 'To-Do' List. But he does a solid job. We can actually see people's feet during the dance sequences. He gets solid performances out of both children and adults. Even the dog does solid work.
It's all both better and grittier than the 2014 remake/rewrite. It could also use about 15 minutes of cuts. The budget for this thing approached that for the first three Star Wars films combined, so it's no surprise that it looks good. The singing is also good throughout, as are the songs. Aileen Quinn performs Annie about as well as a child actor performs anything. Hey, Punjab and the Asp are here too! And Albert Finney, while solid as Daddy Warbucks, is a little short for the role -- 5'9". So it goes. Recommended.
JFK: adapted from Jim Garrison's On the Trail of the Assassins and Jim Marrs' Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar; directed by Oliver Stone; starring Kevin Costner (DA Jim Garrison), Gary Oldman (Lee Harvey Oswald), Brian Doyle-Murray (Jack Ruby), Sissy Spacek (Liz Garrison), Joe Pesci (David Ferrie), Tommy Lee Jones (Clay Shaw), and Donald Sutherland (X) (1991): Oliver Stone's epic conspiracy film still plays out as his most interesting and ambitious film. Visually, it's a stunner, with both scope and rapid-fire editing, often among different film stocks and aspect ratios, making it one of the most visually complex American films ever made. Stone's use of audio follows suit, acting as commentary and counterpoint to the score and to the strictly diegetic sounds of the movie. Indeed, the blur of sound between diegetic and non-diegetic coupled with the blur between film stocks and, sometimes, between recreations and the real photographs and filmed sequences from the assassination of JFK... well, style makes the point of content.
The truth in this case is a very wide quantum smear of possibilities. The narrative makes the case for a singular true story, but that's endlessly hedged by the difficulties the film shows in discovering anything concrete and unassailable other than the simple fact of the President's death. Lee Harvey Oswald remains the virtual particle at the heart of the narrative, his locations and trajectories throughout the investigation's focus seemingly multitudinous, unfixed by an actual observer.
The actors are a Who's Who of American film, from Kevin Costner doing his best Jimmy Stewart as the real-life Louisiana District Attorney who tried a New Orleans resident for being a secret CIA operative involved in a conspiracy to kill JFK to Donald Sutherland delivering a dead-pan 18-minute soliloquy linking together a vast array of disparate elements. Only the relationship troubles between Costner and Sissy Spacek as Jim Garrison's wife seem rote and stereotypical. As fact, JFK may be laughable. As film, it's terrific -- and its central point about a secret U.S. ruling elite that wants the U.S. population to live in a state of endless fear and endless war seems even more plausible now than it did when JFK came out in 1991. Highly recommended.
I Am Chris Farley: written by Steve Burgess; directed by Brent Hodge and Derik Murray; featuring interviews with Adam Sandler, Christina Applegate, Mike Myers, Dan Aykroyd, Bob Odenkirk, Bo Derek, David Spade, Bob Saget, and many others (2015): Somewhat hagiographic biography of Chris Farley nonetheless supplies both insights and context for the deceased comic actor's life and work. There's some fascinating footage of Farley from his days at Chicago's Second City and from his even-earlier stage work. The interviews throughout from family members and colleagues that include Mike Myers, Bob Odenkirk, Dan Aykroyd, and David Spade illuminate the fascination Farley held for those closest to him. Apparently, like John Belushi before him, Farley was actually funnier live than on camera. Recommended.
Annie: based on the comic strip created by Harold Gray and adapted from the play written by Thomas Meehan by Will Gluck and Aline Brosh McKenna; directed by Will Gluck; starring Quvenzhane Wallis (Annie), Jamie Foxx (Will Stacks), Rose Byrne (Grace), Bobby Cannavale (Guy), David Zayas (Lou), and Cameron Diaz (Hannigan) (2014): Pleasantly diverting remake/reimagining of the musical. Quvenzhane Wallis is terrific as Annie, while the rest of the supporting cast is also good. Well, with the exception of Cameron Diaz, who seems both miscast in a role played by Carol Burnett in the original movie and lacks anything resembling a workable singing voice. This is the sort of musical in which the director doesn't film people's feet when they're dancing. Songs written especially for this version are forgettable, but the songs remaining from the original book -- especially "Hard-knock Life" -- are excellent. Lightly recommended.
Laura: adapted by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, Betty Reinhardt, and Ring Lardner Jr. from the novel by Vera Caspary; directed by Otto Preminger; starring Gene Tierney (Laura Hunt), Dana Andrews (Lt. McPherson), Clifton Webb (Waldo Lydecker), Vincent Price (Shelby Carpenter), Judith Anderson (Ann Treadwell), and Dorothy Adams (Bessie) (1944): You can think of Laura as one of the major intertexts with Twin Peaks. You can think of it as a movie starring a man with what's normally a woman's first name and a woman with what's normally a man's name. In any case, it's a fine mystery-thriller-romance film in which the police lieutenant investigating the murder of a bright young ad agency employee falls in love with the dead woman over the course of the investigation, all of this staged in the ornamentally baroque and fussy apartments of the cultural elite of 1940's New York.
Clifton Webb drips acid as arch society columnist Waldo Lydecker, while Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews are both solid as the murder victim and the lieutenant. Vincent Price, looming over everyone with his tremendous height, is a little shaky as a smooth Southern boy-toy/cad. One of Hollywood's most psychologically perverse studies of romantic love and obsession. Recommended.
Ouija: based on the Hasbro board game; written by Juliet Snowden and Stiles White; directde by Stiles White; starring Olivia Cooke (Laine Morris), Ana Coto (Sarah Morris), Douglas Smith (Pete), and Daren Kagasoff (Trevor) (2014): This wouldn't be the worst horror movie in the world if it were the first horror movie someone ever saw. The scares are pretty tame and the 'twist' ending stereotypically lame, but the young actors are surprisingly good. The direction underplays everything, leading to a bit of dullness.
That Ouija is actually a licensed Hasbro board game is probably unknown to most people. What's surprising in a contemporary movie of this sort is that no one uses the Internet to research ghost-busting. What's divertingly stupid about this movie is that no one researches anything useful. One interesting tic of the script is that the teens are on their own in a world in which parents and helpful adults are almost as rare as in a Peanuts cartoon. As those ubiquitous Blumhouse horror joints go, far from the worst. Very lightly recommended.
