Jane Fonda in Five Acts (2018): directed by Susan Lacy: Fascinating HBO documentary about the life and times of Jane Fonda, clearly made with her full cooperation. It's not hagiographic, and Fonda is often the one to take the stuffing out of herself. Her troubled childhood, complete with a mentally ill, suicidal mother and the distant, philandering Henry Fonda as father, is perhaps the most closely observed part of the documentary.
And I didn't know that all proceeds from the Jane Fonda Workout franchise went to charity -- that, indeed, the series was created for just that purpose. And the floating striptease in Barbarella was shot with Fonda lying on a glass floor. And here I thought she was on wires all these years. Recommended.
All Of Me (1984): adapted by Henry Olek and Phil Alden Robinson from the Ed Davis novel; directed by Carl Reiner; starring Steve Martin (Cobb), Lily Tomlin (Edwina Cutwater), Victoria Tennat (Terry), Richard Libertini (Prahka Lasa), Jason Bernard (Tyrone), and Dana Elcar (Schuyler):
Brilliant, one-of-a-kind acting performance by Steve Martin with able support from Lily Tomlin. Martin plays a frustrated, unfulfilled lawyer who ends up with Tomlin's soul trapped in his body after a botched attempt at soul transference. Things progress from there, especially as Tomlin and Martin each controls one side of his body.
This makes for inspired slapstick as they attempt to navigate walking, driving, using a urinal, and a variety of other tasks. A mostly sweet-natured movie, competently directed by veteran Carl Reiner with no visual flair whatsoever -- indeed, the opening titles make All of Me look like a TV movie. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Martin should at least have been nominated for a Best Acting Oscar for this one, but as we all know, the Academy hates comedy. Highly recommended.
Game Night (2018): written by Mark Perez; directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein; starring Jason Bateman (Max), Rachel McAdams (Annie), Kyle Chandler (Brooks), and Jesse Plemons (Gary): Adequate time-filler takes forever to set up its premise. Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams make an appealing couple, though the 10-year age gap makes it difficult to believe they met in college. Maybe Bateman was going back to school after 10 years in the work force. Oh, Hollywood!
Kyle Chandler is weirdly miscast as Bateman's swashbuckling, risk-taking older brother. Cameos from Danny Huston, Jeffrey Wright, and Michael C. Hall are so perfunctory that they seem more like accidental walk-throughs. Sort of genial, anyway, and Jesse Plemons exudes comic menace as a sad, creepy cop neighbour. Lightly recommended.
The Jerk: written by Steve Martin, Carl Gottlieb, and Michael Elias; directed by Carl Reiner; starring Steve Martin (Navin Johnson) and Bernadette Peters (Marie) (1979): Before Airplane and ZAZ and the Farelly Brothers, there was Steve Martin's The Jerk. Launched off Martin's gigantic success in stand-up comedy and then as a guest on Saturday Night Live, The Jerk was a big deal in 1979. I remember because I was 11, and like all 11-year-old boys, I wanted to see The Jerk but couldn't because it was Restricted at a time when Restricted really meant you couldn't see a film in a theatre if you weren't 18. A family VCR was still three years away.
The Jerk holds up well, though it may surprise people who've gotten accustomed to Shop Girl, banjo-touring, sophisticated-but-for-The-Pink-Panther movies Steve Martin. The Jerk is all about swearing and occasionally pushing the taste envelope -- never moreso than in the basic set-up, which sees white foundling Navin Johnson (Martin) raised by a stereotypical poor rural Southern African-American family.
But Navin doesn't know he's adopted until his parents tell him. "You mean I'm going to stay this colour forever?" Navin wails. But late at night, a radio left on to some easy listening music grants Navin an epiphany: he's discovered music he can successfully dance to! And so he's off to find his fortune.
Could a movie that gifts the viewer with not one but two mostly African-American singalongs to "Me and My Buddy Gonna Pick a Bale of Cotton" possibly be made today? I don't know. Navin's adoptive family is smarter and nicer than everyone in the film not played by Bernadette Peters, and the racial satire is a satire of racial portrayals and not an approval of them. Like I said, I don't know.
Certainly white culture comes in for its own slams, along with everything else. But the movie is really a satire of the entire concept of a bildungsroman; it's a lot more sophisticated than it seems. And some of its best moments come in the throwaway bits (for some reason, Pizza in a Cup makes me laugh, as does the washroom key to Navin's first job at a gas station). Peters is a comically gifted actress. The Thermos song is a hoot. And Jackie Mason, Maude's Bill Macy, and Jackie Mason keep things lively once Navin gets to the big city. But beware... life always throws an Iron Balls McGuinty at you some time. Recommended.
