Happy Accidents

July 19, 2008

Happy Accidents (2001) ***1/2

Directed by Brad Anderson

“The future isn’t what it used to be…” –Sam Deed, Happy Accidents

What Happy Accidents lacks in originality, it more than makes up for in its smart and funny execution. The film plays almost like a mix between Donnie Darko and Sleepless in Seattle. It’s similar to Donnie Darko because of its exploration of the philosophy and logic of time and time travel. It’s similar to Sleepless in Seattle because it’s a romantic comedy that often relies on its characters discussing and understanding their relationship through other people in their lives. What’s refreshing here is that both its science-fiction and romance elements work well. Also, it’s pretty solidly funny, including a moment that made me laugh very loudly for close to a minute. The moment I’m referring to involves the description of a sex game where the man pretends to be Anthony Michael Hall from Sixteen Candles! Anderson, who also wrote the screenplay, may very well deserve to be called a genius if only for his use of that great and very random reference.

My friend, and avid blog commenter, Lucy Todd recommended this film, and recently, I read that film critic Richard Roeper included it among his “buried treasures”—films that deserve bigger praise and a bigger audience. First of all, I’m glad Lucy made the recommendation, but even more so, I’m glad that Roeper mentioned the fact that the film isn’t well known. Therefore, I began watching the film assuming that it was going to be good, but maybe not great. I read and listen to movie critics enough to know films that have received praise even if they weren’t hits. I’ve never heard of Happy Accidents before Lucy recommended it. If it really was going to be amazing, then I believe that I would have at least been familiar with it.

In my opinion, my cautious optimism going into Happy Accidents was exactly the right attitude to approach this movie. The movie isn’t great, so I wasn’t disappointed. Yet, I’d definitely call the film good—maybe even very good. I enjoyed the film enough to feel quite satisfied with it. The problems that the film contains, and yes it does contain problems, weren’t significant enough to make me begin disliking it overall. I’m embarrassed to make this reference, but I feel like the child that eats the porridge of the three bears. Baby bear’s porridge, like my initial attitude, was just right!

Marisa Tomei plays Ruby Weaver, a diagnosed codependent. As such, she’s oftentimes self-destructive in her romantic relationships because she identifies her self-worth with her boyfriends. In a session with her therapist Maggie Ann Ford, called Meg for short, Ruby describes her first encounter with Sam Deed (Vincent D’Onofrio), a socially awkward man with a past that at times is very hard to believe. He mentions that he’s new in New York after growing up in Dubuque. Soon, Sam mentions to Ruby what is supposedly the truth about his “past” if one can call it that. He’s actually from 2470 traveling back in time, a practice which has been outlawed, in order to escape prosecution for killing his sister, an act which he claims was an accident.

Ruby, with the help of Meg, friends and family, goes back and forth between wanting to go along with his delusion, which she at first thinks might be a harmless romantic game Sam is playing, and wanting to leave him. Ruby begins to doubt Sam’s sincerity and to question his sanity when she finds his drawing book filled with the same drawing and the name Chrystie Delancey printed over and over throughout. Things become further complicated when Ruby discovers that the pictures in Sam’s wallet, which he has said are of his sister and parents, are actually from photo sheets placed inside of frames for sale. A final twist involving the prediction of Ruby’s accidental death raises the stakes at the end and makes us question more than once whether Sam is indeed from the future.

Marisa Tomei, who will always be known for winning the most surprising Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in My Cousin Vinny, has proven herself an extremely talented and capable actress in films like In the Bedroom and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. She’s wonderful in Happy Accidents which allows her to display her impeccable comedic timing. Personally, I think Vincent D’Onofrio was the wrong choice for Sam Deed. He’s not bad in the film, but I think he’s a bit too obvious. Other than his work on Law and Order: Criminal Intent, D’Onofrio, along with actors like Ray Liotta and Christopher Walken, is known for playing dangerous psychopaths and weirdos. At first, I believe that Sam is supposed to come off likeable in his seeming innocence and naivety. Personally, because it was Vincent D’Onofrio, I was uncomfortable with him from the beginning since I know his characters often have the potential to invoke terror (see Full Metal Jacket and The Cell). Had a less menacing actor been cast, then I might have appreciated Sam Deed’s transitions between seeming sanity and insanity in a greater way.

Donnie Darko, one of my favorite films, takes itself very seriously in its attempts to play around with the philosophy of time. Clues are given throughout the film which assists the viewer when interpreting its bizarre ending. Happy Accidents isn’t open for interpretation—the science of time travel which Sam explains is straightforward and fully explained. By the end, we have a very clear answer as to whether Sam is lying, delusional or telling the truth. Anderson should be applauded for his creativity that’s for sure. Yet, the film’s not science fiction; at its most fundamental level, it’s a romantic comedy. I’m sure science fiction geeks might adore Donnie Darko’s portrait of time travel. I don’t believe the same is true for Happy Accidents.

Had Anderson tried to please the hard core Trekkie demographic, I think the film wouldn’t have worked as well as it did. Because he didn’t spend too much energy geeking out, Anderson was able to focus on the film’s effective dialogue and sublime humor. I agree with both Lucy Todd and Richard Roeper that Happy Accidents, as a “buried treasure,” is definitely a fun, smart and refreshingly modest slice of escapist entertainment.

The 100 Greatest Films I've Ever Seen- July 2008

There aren't too many changes, but here is my updated list of the 100 greatest movies I've seen. The numbers in parentheses indicate their position last month.

1. Ordinary People (1)
2. Citizen Kane (2)
3. Titanic (3)
4. Best Years of Our Lives (4)
5. Casablanca (5)
6. Schindler’s List (6)
7. Gone With the Wind (7)
8. Midnight Cowboy (8)
9. The Truman Show (9)
10. The Seventh Seal (10)
11. Brokeback Mountain (11)
12. Oliver! (12)
13. Sunset Boulevard (13)
14. Fargo (14)
15. Once (15)
16. Singin’ In the Rain (16)
17. Double Indemnity (17)
18. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (18)
19. Gandhi (19)
20. 8 ½ (20)
21. Life is Beautiful (21)
22. Beauty and the Beast (1946) (22)
23. The Bicycle Thief (23)
24. The Grapes of Wrath (24)
25. Raging Bull (25)
26. About a Boy (26)
27. Being John Malkovich (27)
28. Apocalypse Now (28)
29. The Godfather (29)
30. West Side Story (30)
31. Bonnie and Clyde (31)
32. Taxi Driver (32)
33. Rififi (new)
    
34. Grave of the Fireflies (33)
35. The Graduate (34)
36. Rashomon (35)
37. Bridge on the River Kwai (36)
38. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (37)
39. North by Northwest (38)
40. The Departed (39)
41. The Maltese Falcon (40)
42. The Wizard of Oz (41)
43. Dances with Wolves (42)
44. Star Wars: Episode IV: The New Hope (43)
45. Fanny and Alexander (44)
46. 2001: A Space Odyssey (45)
47. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (46)
48. The Sound of Music (47)
49. Stagecoach (48)
50. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (new)
    
51. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (49)
52. The Deer Hunter (50)
53. The Shawshank Redemption (51)
54. Broken Blossoms (52)
55. All About Eve (53)
56. Pulp Fiction (54)
57. The Passion of the Christ (55)
58. Rocky (56)
59. Donnie Darko (57)
60. Nashville (58)
61. My Best Friend’s Wedding (59)
62. The Manchurian Candidate (60)
63. Treasure of the Sierra Madre (95)
    
64. Battleship Potemkin (61)
65. Yankee Doodle Dandy (62)
66. Hoop Dreams (63)
67. Terms of Endearment (new)
    
68. Spirited Away (64)
69. The Godfather Part II (65)
70. Jaws (66)
71. Shame (67)
72. Blowup (68)
73. City Lights (69)
74. High Noon (70)
75. Annie Hall (71)
76. Duck Soup (72)
77. The French Connection (73)
78. Born on the Fourth of July (74)
79. Rear Window (75)
80. Bride of Frankenstein (76)
81. Babel (77)
82. To Sir, with Love (new)
    
83. Victor/Victoria (78)
84. Shane (79)
85. The Prince of Egypt (80)
86. 12 Angry Men (81)
87. Simon Birch (82)
88. No Country For Old Men (83)
89. Evita (84)
90. A Few Good Men (85)
91. Everyone Says I Love You (86)
92. Pleasantville (87)
93. Sullivan’s Travels (88)
94. Beauty and the Beast (1991) (89)
95. Forrest Gump (90)
96. Marty (91)
97. The Thin Man (92)
98. The 400 Blows (93)
99. The Silence of the Lambs (94)
100. The Apartment (96)

Four new films entered my list this month--Rififi, They Shoot Horses Don't They, Terms of Endearment and To Sir, with Love. Four films fell off my list--A Place in the Sun, Belle de Jour, Il Postino and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Sydney Pollack Director Marathon Final Thoughts

July 18, 2008

Sydney Pollack Director Marathon Final Thoughts

Pollack was originally intending to be an actor until Montgomery Clift of all people called a studio executive and told him to hire Pollack to direct. His reputation as an actor’s director made him very well liked in Hollywood during his life. I really appreciate how he included mega-superstars in all of the films that I watched during this marathon. Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Paul Newman, Sally Field, Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Gene Hackman and Tom Cruise all starred in great Pollack films. Just look at that list one more time—it’s absolutely breathtaking.

I was very bothered early on in the marathon about Pollack’s visual, musical and editing techniques that he utilized in film after film. My qualms with his direction even kept some films from being considered masterpieces in my mind. The Way We Were, Jeremiah Johnson and Three Days of the Condor could have all been five star films had Pollack’s uneven direction not been a factor. He often uses quick edits, porn-like jazzy soundtracks and musical montages, all of which irked me to no end.

I began by first watching Out of Africa, which was monumentally disappointing. I followed it with Absence of Malice which I enjoyed just fine. It wasn’t good enough, though, to convince me of Pollack’s greatness. Thankfully, the next three films I watched were The Way We Were, Jeremiah Johnson and They Shoot Horses, Don’t They. I loved these three, and bit by bit I started to change my opinion about Pollack as a director. It wasn’t until They Shoot Horses, Don’t They that I converted to the Pollack love fest.

Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, Sydney Pollack was an exceptionally gifted and important director in the history of film. Overall, even with films like Out of Africa and Tootsie, I’m extremely glad that I chose to do this marathon. Here are the films ranked in order of my preference.

1. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
2. Three Days of the Condor
3. The Way We Were
4. Jeremiah Johnson
5. Absence of Malice
6. The Firm
7. Tootsie
8. Out of Africa

Following in Filmspotting’s footsteps, I will bestow my marathon awards.

Best Actor- (tie) Robert Redford- both Jeremiah Johnson and Three Days of the Condor

Best Actress- Jane Fonda- They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

Best Supporting Actor- Wilford Brimley- Absence of Malice

Best Supporting Actress- (tie) Holly Hunter- The Firm and Teri Garr- Tootsie

Best Direction- They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

Best Picture- They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

Finally, the following are five of the very best moments during this marathon.

1. The derby in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They
2. Entering into the cabin to find unimaginable horror in Jeremiah Johnson
3. Tom Cruise hiding on the ceiling by wedging his body above exposed pipes in The Firm
4. Redford returning only to find the corpses of his co-workers and later to encounter the assassins in Three Days of the Condor
5. The final scenes of They Shoot Horses, Three Days of the Condor and The Way We Were.

On a final note, I strongly urge you to watch They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? This is an overlooked masterpiece in my opinion that deserves more praise and attention!

The Color of Paradise

July 18, 2008

The Color of Paradise (1999) ***

Directed by Majid Majidi

The last image of the Iranian film The Color of Paradise totally sucks! Thank God it was at the very end. Had it occurred earlier in the film, I probably would have been turned off to anything that followed because of my disgust of the image itself. Don’t get me wrong—the final image isn’t disgusting in a gross way. Instead, it’s disgusting in a corny, stupid way. I’ve seen a number of films that I enjoyed all along but disliked the ending. Sometimes, I give the film credit for what works and recommend it overall. Other times, the ending ruins the quality of the film as a whole so drastically that I can’t bring myself to ultimately sing its praise. The Color of Paradise has to be the first film whose last image disappointed me—so much so that I’m tempted not to recommend this movie. Still, though, it’s worth seeing, and like Majidi’s other 1999 release Children of Heaven I think most people will embrace the movie a lot more than I did.

One of the very best aspects of The Color of Paradise, and one of the most fascinating characters I’ve seen on screen, is Mohammad, an eight year-old blind boy played by Mohsen Ramezani. For me, the most exhilarating scene in the entire movie occurs right at the very beginning where Mohammad and his blind classmates punch out Braille markers onto a piece of paper as their teacher dictates poetry. Holy crap! These kids impressed the hell out of me with their amazing ability to punch the Braille so fast that it puts my eighty words a minute typing speed to shame.

That early scene immediately assured me that I was going to enjoy The Color of Paradise much more than Children of Heaven, a film that I really didn’t like at all. I believe that Children of Heaven teaches nothing at all, and since its plot is absorbed into Iranian poverty, which is an issue that intrigues me, I felt totally cheated that the film didn’t tell me anything that felt authentic about being poor in a country that’s more and more becoming one of the top enemies of the United States. Yes, it can be argued that the film is supposed to be entertaining and not informative. Okay, then I will say truthfully that I wasn’t entertained at all.

The Color of Paradise, on the other hand, taught me so much about being blind just in that one Braille scene alone! So, no matter what was about to come later on, I knew that I could leave the film having learned something about a topic that fascinates me. Imagine my delight when the film continued to show us Mohammad’s new discoveries by using his other working senses. Majidi must be praised for the brilliant decision to close in on Mohammad as he’s experiencing non-visual beauty, while at the same time showing us gorgeous nature imagery so that the viewer can connect the beauty that he or she sees with the beauty that Mohammad touches, smells and hears. I was emotionally connected with Mohammad every single time he was experiencing the joy of exploring his environment.

On the other hand, I wasn’t emotionally connected much at all to the film’s main plot. Mohammad’s father (Hossein Mahjoub) does not want to bring Mohammad home from his school for the summer holidays because he is in the process of collecting enough to pay a dowry to the father of the woman he is very much in love with. The school won’t keep the boy, so the father reluctantly takes him to his home which is shared by Mohammad’s grandmother and two young female cousins.

For some bizarre reason involving the grandmother allowing Mohammad to go to the local school, his father takes him away to live with a blind carpenter so that Mohammad can become his apprentice. Eventually, things hit a low for his father—so low in fact that the father contemplates killing Mohammad or at least allowing him to die. What does he choose? I’m not going to say, but unfortunately, it all leads up to that final atrocious image.

The characterization of Mohammad’s father didn’t feel complete. For pretty much the entire film, we see him sulk miserably as we sporadically learn more about his struggles with the dowry. The plot as a whole felt confused and poorly conceived. I really didn’t care about the story involving Mohammad’s family, nor the story involving the carpenter, nor the final journey with his dad. What I loved were the moments where we simply watch Mohammad explore. One exception must be pointed out though. The very first time we see Mohammad utilize his other senses to compensate for his blindness, he finds a baby bird that has fallen out of its nest, climbs a tree and returns the bird to the nest before the mother bird could find it missing. The cheesiness factor of that scene is enough to put Kraft to shame. I can only imagine that at some point in the future, when Mohammad learns that mother birds reject their offspring if they smell humans on them, he will burst out crying in the middle of class. I wonder if anyone ever taught that to Majidi who also wrote the screenplay.

Lots of elements work and lots of elements don’t, especially the plot. The Color of Paradise has its heart in the right place, but maybe its heart shouldn’t have been so sugar-coated. That being said, there are moments of excellent filmmaking here, and the unforgettable Mohammad character is truly wonderful. Warning—if you’re eating while watching The Color of Paradise, I’d recommend stopping somewhere around the hour and fifteen minute mark, because once that final image appears on screen, there’s a good chance you are going puke everything right up.

The Firm

July 15, 2008

The Firm (1993) ***

Directed by Sydney Pollack

John Grisham is one of the most successful authors of the past twenty years. When I think of great “beach reads,” I think of all of his books. I’ve read a handful, and I remember enjoying each and every one. Yet, I certainly didn’t feel like I accomplished a lot after reading them. I’ve been reading this one non-Grisham book called I, Claudius for about ten years now. No, the book isn’t 30,000 pages long, and no I am not the slowest reader on the planet. After reading a chunk, I simply put the book down and don’t return to it for a long period of time, usually years. Interestingly enough, if I remember correctly, I have like thirty pages left, so if I really wanted to, I could finish the book in an hour. Still though, my motivation to go back to I, Claudius immediately is extremely low. It’s a very complicated, dense read, and I don’t have any desire to give up even one hour at this point to put forward the effort necessary to complete it.

The whole point of my telling you this is that I foreshadow a real sense of accomplishment and pride which I will feel once I’ve read the last pages of I, Claudius. Finishing John Grisham books don’t give me any sense of accomplishment because they are simple, shallow page-turners, albeit entertaining ones. Grisham was a lawyer so just about all of his books deal with the justice system in some way. The Firm is no different at all, focusing on a young Harvard Law graduate named Mitch McDeere, played by Tom Cruise. Working his ass off to graduate in the top five in his class, he’s approached by many law firms throughout the country. One Nashville law firm makes him an offer he can’t refuse, though he should!

He and his schoolteacher wife, Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn) move into a house the firm has picked out for them, and when they arrive, they find it furnished with a brand new Mercedes sitting in the driveway. Abby’s freaked out when she learns that the firm encourages their associates to have children. No women have ever worked there, except one, and all of the associates are white.

Mitch and his mentor at the firm Avery Tolar (Gene Hackman) travel together to the Cayman islands on business and it’s here that Mitch discovers boxes of documents containing the names of four young associates that have died coincidentally all in the last ten years (the one female employee mentioned earlier is one of the four names on these boxes). Mitch decides to explore more into their deaths first by talking to a boat rental operator in the Cayman Islands and then to a private investigator recommended by his incarcerated brother Ray (David Strathairn).

The investigator, played hilariously by Gary Busey, eventually gets killed because he’s asking questions about the firm, and his secretary Tammy (Holly Hunter) contacts Mitch for help. It’s here that Mitch decides to include Tammy in a plan to copy files from the firm in order to give to the FBI. As is often the case in Grisham stories, the FBI (or the police in other stories) also become an enemy. Agent Wayne Terrance (Ed Harris) threatens Mitch’s brother Ray in order to force Mitch to get the documents so that the FBI can stop the firm from laundering money for the Chicago mafia. If Mitch does turn over evidence and testify, he will not only be disbarred for breaking attorney/client privilege, but he and his wife will have to relocate under the shield of the Witness Protection Program.

I’ve only described the first hour and a half of The Firm. I won’t give away the rest of the movie, which is good because had I described the entire film, I’d have to write many, many more paragraphs. The film is over two and a half hours long, and therein lies its first major problem! There’s so much going on in this film, and there are so many characters involved. This is clear when I mention the impressive list of some of the great movie actors of recent times: Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gene Hackman, Hal Holbrook, Wilford Brimley, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, David Strathairn, Gary Busey and Toby Bell. Of course, actors of this caliber aren’t going to take bit parts, so it should come as no surprise to hear that all of them do have a decent amount of screen time. Sure, it’s fun to see great actors together on screen, but when there are too many characters, it’s often the case that too much is going on in the story. That’s definitely true here. The story could have been edited quite a bit, and even if the decision was made to keep all of these characters in, the film still could have easily been cut down by about a half an hour, making the film much closer to two hours than three!

Tom Cruise is at his overacting worst in The Firm. Most of the film requires him to stand there clenching his jaw because that’s what he’s robotically programmed to do when he plays a character dealing with a difficult situation. If only he could give us something other than an intense stare when his character encounters an obstacle, then I believe he could have been much better. Unfortunately Pollack decides to close up on his face way too often, which I guess he thought the audience would want. Personally, seeing his default expression up close over and over again got old.

The other performances in the film are strong all around, especially by Holly Hunter, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role. She didn’t win, but I’m sure she was just fine that night since she did walk away with the Best Actress Oscar for The Piano, a film that I look forward to seeing someday soon. Harris, playing the ethically challenged cop which he’s played a million times before and since, has quite a lot of fun chewing the scenery in his performance. It was great to see Wilford Brimley team up with Sydney Pollack again, as they did in Absence of Malice. Brimley plays the head of the firm’s security, and I don’t know, if I was a crooked law firm, I’m not sure I’d hire a 250 pound seventy year old to be head of security. Nonetheless, he was fun to watch.

Out of all the film adaptations I’ve seen of John Grisham novels, The Firm takes itself the most seriously by far! Pollack’s direction is fine throughout, though his signature quick edits and jazzy soundtrack music were bothersome once again. Despite its bloated plot and running time, I was entertained by The Firm, and the movie didn’t really feel painfully long. The last forty five minutes especially were a lot of fun to watch, and the scene involving Cruise hiding on a ceiling by climbing on top of pipes was wonderfully riveting. If you’ve got the time, it’s not a bad watch at all. Perhaps Pollack should have directed a film version of I, Claudius instead of The Firm. A two and a half hour plus running time would have felt more appropriate for that film rather than this one.