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.
Six Degrees of Separation (1993): adapted by John Guare from his own play; directed by Fred Schepisi; starring Stockard Channing (Ouisa Kitteridge), Donald Sutherland (Flan Kitteridge), Will Smith ('Paul'), Ian McKellen (Geoffrey), and Anthony Michael Hall (Trent): John Guare's excellent adaptation of his own play resonates as much now as it did in when it first appeared in 1990, after the greedy 1980's of American neo-capitalism.
It's a snarky, often bleak look at the lives of the nouveau-riche in New York, embodied in the persons of art dealer Flan Kitteridge and his wife Ouisa (even their first names seem arch). Into their world comes Will Smith as the charismatic son of Sydney Poitier. But nothing is as it seems. All the principals are good, and Smith (and, in a minor role, Anthony Michael Hall) is stunningly good. Highly recommended.
The DUFF (2015): adapted by Josh A. Cagan from the novel by Kody Keplinger; directed by Ari Sandel; starring Mae Whitman (Bianca Piper), Robbie Amell (Wesley Rush), Bella Thorne (Madison Morgan), Bianca Santos (Casey), Skyler Samuels (Jess), Nick Eversman (Toby), Ken Jeong (Mr. Arthur), and Alison Janney (Dottie Piper): Bright, occasionally moving, and often very funny high-school comedy about Bianca Piper, who discovers one day that she's seemingly the DUFF to her two popular gal-pals -- the Designated Ugly Fat Friend who makes the lives of the pretty (or handsome) easier by being approachable without being a romantic rival.
Mae Whitman (Michael Cera's fundamentalist Christian girlfriend on Arrested Development) is excellent as Bianca, as is the amiable Robbie Amell as her jock-male frenemy Wesley. The movie ultimately goes pretty much where one expects it to, but it does so in a pleasing and generally sharply written way. There's a pointed critique of high-school cliques and stereotypes at one point that seems like a necessary rebuke to that reductive high-school chestnut The Breakfast Club. Recommended.
Juno (2007): written by Diablo Cody; directed by Jason Reitman; starring Ellen Page (Juno MacGuff), Michael Cera (Paulie Bleeker), Jennifer Garner (Vanessa Loring), Jason Bateman (Mark Loring), Alison Janney (Bren MacGuff), J.K. Simmons (Mac MacGuff), and Olivia Thirlby (Leah): Enjoyable teen-age pregnancy comedy helped put director Jason Reitman, writer Diablo Cody, and break-out star Ellen Page on the Hollywood map.
The script and its odd turns of phrase (Diablo-Codyisms?) doesn't seem as fresh and insightful now as it did in 2007, but the performances from everyone involved remain fresh and sympathetic. The weird anti-abortion scene seems even more disturbingly neocon now, after a further decade of restrictions to abortion access in many U.S. states. Olivia Thirlby still delights as the sunny, jailiest-teacher-obsessed jailbait a high school ever saw. Recommended.
A Fish Called Wanda (1988): written by John Cleese and Charles Crichton; directed by Charles Crichton; starring John Cleese (Archie Leach), Jamie Lee Curtis (Wanda Gershowitz), Kevin Kline (Otto), Michael Palin (Ken Pile), and Patricia Hayes (Mrs. Coady): Pretty much a perfect 1980's attempt to replicate the complicated heist plots and black English humour of the famous Ealing Studios comedies released primarily between 1948 and 1955.
Those landmark comedies included The Lavender Hill Mob, directed by A Fish Called Wanda's co-writer and director Charles Crichton and clearly an inspiration to co-writer and star John Cleese. Crichton and Cleese put forth a terrific cast giving terrific comic performances -- Jamie Lee Curtis was never funnier or more pragmatically winsome, and Kevin Kline plays so far against type as "Don't call me stupid!" hitman Otto that he seems to be reincarnating Peter Sellers. Cleese is also good (and cleverly gives himself the girl). Set-pieces that involve incompetent stutterer Michael Palin's attempts to murder a witness and Otto's torture of Palin still have the power to shock and delight. Highly recommended.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988): written by Dale Launer, Stanley Shapiro, and Paul Henning; directed by Frank Oz; starring Michael Caine (Lawrence Jamieson), Steve Martin (Freddy Benson), Glenne Headly (Janet Colgate), Anton Rodgers (Inspector Andre), and Ian McDiarmid (Arthur the Butler): Released the same year as A Fish Called Wanda, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels attempts the same sort of black, English comedy without quite succeeding. Michael Caine's con man is a bit too nice, and Steve Martin never seems invested in his con man as a viable character. The only time one believes that Martin could con anybody comes when he's mugging it up as Caine's half-wit brother. There are still laughs throughout, but the movie's let down by its length (a ponderous 110 minutes that needs a trim of at least 15), the writing, and Steve Martin's frenetic, flailing, utterly unconvincing performance. Lightly recommended.
Roxanne: adapted by Steve Martin from the play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand; directed by Fred Schepisi; starring Steve Martin (C.D. Bales), Daryl Hannah (Roxanne), Rick Rossovich (Chris), and Shelley Duvall (Dixie) (1987): Steve Martin's charming, slapstick romantic comedy riffs on Cyrano de Bergerac, albeit with a much happier ending.
Martin plays C.D. Bales, the fire chief of a small mountain town in the state of Washington. He falls for Daryl Hannah's astrophysicist, but she keeps him in the Friend Zone after falling for a dim-witted fireman in Martin's company. Problems ensue. Fred Schepisi does a nice job with both the romantic and the slapstick elements, as does a fine assortment of supporting players. Martin's nose prosthetic and stunt man both do a lot of heavy lifting. Recommended.
Jason and the Argonauts: written by Jan Read and Beverley Cross; directed by Don Chaffey and Ray Harryhausen; starring Todd Armstrong (Jason) and Nancy Kovack (Medea) (1963): Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion wizardry gives various scenes in this mythological adventure movie the quality of a dream -- or a nightmare.
The actors may not be great, the plot may meander, but the film's stop-motion/live-action integration achieves remarkable effects. It's not that the creatures look realistic. It's that they look just realistic enough while maintaining a look that also suggests their otherworldly nature within the narrative.
Jason and the Argonauts contains two of Harryhausen's greatest achievements -- the giant bronze 'robot' Talos and the great skeleton battle. We also get a nifty battle between Jason and the Hydra and a somewhat disappointing sequence involving Harpies, who never seem to be integrated as effectively as the other stop-motion creatures. Oh, well.
Jason and his crew of merry Greeks search for the Golden Fleece, Hercules screws up, and many great battles are had with monsters while the Greek gods help or hinder Jason in his quest. The battle between Jason and several reanimated skeletons occurs at the end of the film, and it really is a show-stopper. Highly recommended.
Freaks: written by Tod Robbins; directed by Tod Browning; starring Wallace Ford (Phroso), Leila Hyams (Venus), Olga Baclanova (Cleopatra), Henry Victor (Hercules), Harry Earles (Hans), Daisy Earles (Frieda), and Rose Dione (Madame Tetrallini) (1932): You really don't watch Freaks for the acting or the writing or that static, early sound-era direction. You watch it because the disabilities and deformities are real, because the story has the crude power of a fable, and because Tod Browning does manage a couple of effective scenes in the dark and the rain, when he's able to stage something that doesn't require camera movement.
So far as I can tell, the longest restored version runs 64 minutes, lacking about 20 minutes of lost footage that were cut from the film after its first couple of weeks of release. The lost footage apparently deepened the horror while also making the 'Freaks' of the travelling carnival more sympathetic and the 'normal' people much less so. What's left is still stunning, and surprisingly sympathetic in its treatment of the carnival grotesques who are simply trying to make a living in a world where the best they can hope for is life as a sideshow attraction.
Besides the unnerving night-time attack scene and the late-movie revelation of what revenge the carnival folk took on the homicidal trapeze artist, other scenes also achieve a sort of Grimm's pastoral. A scene involving 'pinheads' and their protector playing in the woods near the village they're visiting has a grace to it, and a grace note of kindness involving one of the townspeople's treatment of the frolickers.
Only a coda added to the movie after its bowdlerization rings absolutely false. The rest is crude and powerful and impossible to imagine being made today. The horror of the movie begins as a contemplation of distortions of the human form and ends as a classic tale of horrific revenge in the manner of EC Comics or Poe's "Hop-Frog." The viewer's identification moves inexorably towards that of the 'Freaks,' and away from those who would harm or kill or even just mock them. Highly recommended.
What We Do In The Shadows: written and directed by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi; starring Jemaine Clement (Vladislav), Taika Waititi (Viago), Jonny Brugh (Deacon), Cori Gonzalez-Macuer (Nick), Stu Rutherford (Stu), Ben Fransham (Petyr), and Jackie van Beek (Jackie) (2014): Hilarious fake documentary from the people who brought you Flight of the Conchords centered on the exploits of four vampires rooming together in the Greater Wellington Area of New Zealand. There are jarring moments of violence throughout, but the movie overall is surprisingly genial in its portrayal of the vampires and their kith and kin.
One of the things that makes the movie so enjoyable is its rigorous attention to the details of living as a vampire, spun at most points for maximum hilarity. It's hard to groom when you can't see yourself in a mirror, for instance, and for a young vampire, learning to fly can be a real hassle. The vampires are aware of fictional constructions of their habits -- they even crib one bit of hypnotic shenanigans from The Lost Boys, all the while mispronouncing 'spaghetti' as 'basgetti.'
The laugh-out-loud moments are often truly gross -- Dandy vamp Viago's problems with tapping the vein of a victim lead to an awful lot of spurting blood, while new vamp Nick learns the hard way why vampires shouldn't eat chips. Meanwhile, 8000-year-old Petyr lurks in the basement listening to his headphones and refusing to attend house meetings. But he's a good listener!
I mean, really one wishes a 'serious' vampire movie would be this well-thought-out. The writers know their vampire mythology. But they also work some ridiculous changes on their sources, whether it's through Vlad's problems with shape-shifting or the eternal war between vampires and werewolves. What We Do In The Shadows is a sheer delight. Leave your reflection at the door. Highly recommended.
The Jackal Man: A Wesley Peterson Mystery by Kate Ellis (2011): Breezy, enjoyable mystery throws archaeology into the mixture, which apparently happens in every Wesley Peterson mystery from Kate Ellis. Detective-Inspector Wesley Peterson works in South Devon, thus putting a small-town, English spin on the crime-solving.
In this novel, Egyptian mythology and funerary practices come into play as a murderer puts on the jackal head of Anubis, the Egyptian God of the Dead, and starts murdering young women. While Peterson and the rest of the police investigate the crime, Peterson's archaeologist pal Neil Watson stumbles across a series of murders in 1903 that resemble the current killings. It all seems to tie into the formidable collection of Egyptian antiquities at nearby Varley Castle.
Ellis does a nice job of characterization when it comes to characters minor and major. The mystery is pleasingly convoluted without seeming too contrived. She's not the world's most interesting prose stylist, but she gets the job done. The Egyptian mythology and cultural practices make for some moments of body horror, sensitively handled. The gross-out factor is minimal, and the violence far from graphic.
Plot-wise, the only major flaw comes when Ellis goes to the stereotypical threat to the loved ones of a detective. I realize that a detective story isn't a paean to realism, but the contrivance of this event -- something that almost never happens in reality -- has come to be a real turn-off for me. It's a too-artificial source of suspense, especially in a novel that already has threats and mysteries enough to keep the reader entertained and involved right to the final solution. Still, this is a solid diversion. Recommended.
Planes, Trains & Automobiles: written and directed by John Hughes; starring Steve Martin (Neal Page) and John Candy (Del Griffith) (1987): Having only seen stretches of the broadcast-TV version of this movie for years (actually, decades), I'd forgotten how much swearing there is in the movie, especially in a great scene between Steve Martin's anal-retentive marketing guy and a car rental agent played by the indispensable Edie McClurg. And despite the heavy dose of schmaltz the movie dumps on us at the end, this remains a great comedy. Getting home for Thanksgiving has never been such a harrowing, comic enterprise.
Planes, Trains & Automobiles certainly is not subtle, and for someone whose films tended to trumpet the virtues of the working class over those of the upper middle-class, John Hughes does have a thing for using poor rural people as comic grotesques. But they're funny grotesques. John Candy is magnificent as the slob-Falstaffian shower-ring salesman Del Griffith, while Steve Martin makes a perfect foil who also gets some moments of comic rage that recall Daffy or Donald Duck as much as they suggest any human antecedents. Hughes movies were never entirely realistic, which is actually one of their charms -- they're comic fables when they're at their best, ones in which driving around in an immolated rental car singing along to the radio makes perfect sense. Highly 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.
