Three More Billy Wilder Films

August 13, 2010

Sabrina (1954) ***
Directed by Billy Wilder

My tweet:

Sabrina (1954)- Enjoyable enough, but I'm still waiting for Bogart's transformation to be believable. *** out of 5

Other thoughts:

First of all, let me agree with the consensus that Audrey Hepburn is ravishingly beautiful in Sabrina. Second, let me disagree with the consensus that Sabrina is a great film--it's not. We're expected to buy into the fact that this gorgeous young woman is so daft that she would try and kill herself over a schoolgirl crush on the moronic David Larrabee (William Holden), and then spend three years of her life in Paris thinking of nothing but him only to return sophisticated enough to catch David's eye. Then, because David's marriage to another woman is important for business, his older brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) plans to win Sabrina over and convince her that the two of them will move to Paris where he plans to send her alone in order to continue his life as a bachelor. I'll put aside the fact that someone who looks like Humphrey Bogart in 1954 would never be able to win over someone who looks like Audrey Hepburn in real life, but I won't overlook Linus' horrible personality and the unbelievable transformation he goes through at the end. Granted, the movie floats along with significant charm and Hepburn's presence on screen is enough to make the movie watchable; however, Sabrina deserves better than either of these two idiots, and if Wilder had more brains, he would have reached this conclusion as well.

Witness for the Prosecution (1957) ****
Directed by Billy Wilder

My tweet:

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)- Charles Laughton is truly amazing in this fun, convoluted courtroom mystery. **** out of 5

Other thoughts:

Towards the end of his career, Charles Laughton was often accused of overacting and hamming up his performances. Maybe this is true, but considering that I'm not too familiar with his work, his huge, Oscar-nominated performance in Witness for the Prosecution absolutely blew me away. He plays Sir Wilfred Robarts, the greatest defense lawyer in England who just suffered a debilitating heart-attack. This is clearly a man who doesn't appreciate being handled, which is driving his control-freak nurse, played by the Bride of Frankenstein herself Elsa Lanchester, crazy. Sir Wifred is supposed to take on the easy civil cases due to his health, but the day he returns from the hospital, he's presented with one of the most intriguing and sordid murder defense cases against a mild-mannered egg beater inventor named Leonard Vole, played by Tyrone Power. Leonard is accused of murdering a wealthy old spinster, and supposedly his German wife will back up his innocence, though she's about to surprise everyone by being the character the film's title suggests. Her name is Christine, and she's played with icy precision by Marlene Dietrich. Though Power and Dietrich received top billing, this is Laughton's movie hands down. The ending presents a twist that's perhaps not as clever as it thinks it is, and the final resolution by Sir Wilfred to defend a character with everything he's got doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but as courtroom dramas go, this one delivers not only the tension, but also a great deal of comedy for an unqualified good time all around.

Irma la Douce (1963) **1/2
Directed by Billy Wilder

My tweet:

Irma la Douce (1963)- Ending made me chuckle, but plot is preposterous & Lemmon's completely miscast--a mess of a film. **1/2 out of 5

Other thoughts:

Why oh why did I decide to choose Irma la Douce as my final addition to Filmspotting's Billy Wilder marathon? This sad exercise in miscasting and miscalculation took that spot over other lauded late Wilder films which I haven't yet seen such as One Two Three (1961), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) and Avanti! (1972). Also, I could have given my time over to 1951's Ace in the Hole, which some hail as a masterpiece. I chose Irma la Douce precisely cause I heard the guys on Filmspotting mention it, and it somehow stuck in my mind. On paper, reuniting The Apartment's Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine in a non-musical adaptation of a successful Broadway musical might sound like gold, but let me assure you, other than MacLaine's Oscar-nominated performance, there's really nothing worth seeing in this painfully long comedy of errors. Jack Lemmon, God love him, has never been more ridiculously wrong for a role. His goofy, clumsy everyman persona is applied with complete integrity to a character who is supposed to start out a pathetic cop and end up as the most feared pimp in the dangerous streets of Paris. That's right folks... Jack Lemmon as a feared pimp. The entire plot lives or dies based on the single concept that MacLaine's title character, a dog-clutching prostitute, is a complete idiot with no self-worth whatsoever. Lemmon's character deceives her in the most convoluted ways into believing he's a British Lord. The machinations of the plot during the climax are meant to be comically absurd, but the comedy doesn't work and the absurdity comes off so smug that it's almost aggressively unpleasant. Some day I will watch the films I mentioned above and curse myself for not having chosen one of them sooner.

Once Upon a Time in America

August 8, 2010

Once Upon a Time in America (1984) ***1/2
Directed by Sergio Leone

My tweet:

Once Upon a Time in America (1984)- Taut gangster epic leads into final act full of dull melodrama & overblown self-importance. ***1/2 of 5

Other thoughts:

Sergio Leone must have been quite a guy to know in real life. After finally finishing all six of the significant films he directed, it's clear that he's not afraid to give into his indulgences on screen. This very audacity produced a masterpiece and a near-masterpiece in The Good, the Bad & the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West respectively. On the other hand, sometimes he can dig himself into a shallow grave with such overblown pomposity like he did with Fistful of Dynamite and the final ninety minutes of Once Upon a Time in America.

At almost four hours in length, Once Upon a Time in America is a rich and textured tale of New York Jews growing up during and after prohibition as they navigate their way from petty to organized crime. The film begins with a murder and brutal torture of two secondary, loyal characters we meet later on. Thugs are looking for Noodles, played as an adult by Robert DeNiro, who we first meet in the middle of a heroine binge at a Chinese theater. He's startled awake by the sound of a phone which rings and rings for maybe nine or ten minutes as Leone presents scene after scene with phones that are answered but don't stop the ringing. Ultimately, he witnesses the corpses of what look like his three best friends brutally murdered on the streets of New York. After disposing of a henchman waiting for him to show up, Noodles returns to his tortured ally Fat Moe, says goodbye, takes a key from within a clock and purchases a one-way ticket out of the city not to be heard again for decades.

As an old man, Noodles revisits Fat Moe after receiving some strange correspondence. His visit reminds him of his childhood days with three younger friends and a new found compatriot in Max whose ambition and guts allow the group to carry out more dangerous crimes while starting to rake in the bucks. The five young crooks make a lifelong pledge that they will donate 50% of all their earnings to a suitcase which can only be opened if everyone is present. The suitcase is stored at a bus terminal locker and the key is kept by Fat Moe. One of the boys dies young while Noodles goes to prison for, among other things, murdering a cop.

The rest of the film alternates between Noodles as an old man and a young man fresh out of prison when he reunites with Max, played by James Woods as an adult, and Patsy and Cockeye, the remaining of the original five. Here the four get involved in union politics, diamond theft and brutal assassinations. Ultimately, Noodles and Max begin to grow apart as Max questions Noodles' loyalty and deals with issues of his own power in the group, as things come full circle to the deaths of the men in the streets. The conclusion of the film has Noodles as an old man learning about the meaning of the correspondence he receives, which of course brings back old memories, opens new wounds and has Noodles encountering people he never thought he'd ever see again. After answering so many belabored questions, the final moments of Once Upon a Time in America require the viewer to ask new ones, possibly even questioning the validity of everything that precedes.

There are some absolutely wonderful sequences in this epic, which is almost a logical certainty considering the film is nearly four hours long. The opening sequence, like many of Leone's opening sequences in other films, successfully presents a dangerous atmosphere while merciless teasing the audience with provocative images and actions without giving any immediate context for them. The entire time spent in flashback to Noodles' childhood is maybe the best part of the movie, beautifully presenting themes of friendship, love, sex and identity in often heartbreaking ways. These scenes give us the soul of the characters since we see them at their most innocent before they become unapologetic killers in adulthood.

Interestingly enough, Once Upon a Time in America was a box-office and critical flop when it was first released in the United States since it was edited significantly with the childhood sequences almost cut out completely. Without this establishing anchor, true character development would prove impossible. Though the movie felt long, I'm glad this hour was reestablished once the film was released on home video and subsequently on DVD.

Noodles as a boy is played by Scott Tiler, an actor whose career fizzled out completely in the late 1980s. I bring up his name because I was more impressed with his performance than that of DeNiro who plays Noodles as an adult. Granted, as an adult, Noodles has survived eight years in jail which could break down a person's spirit, but DeNiro barely registers as having any character at all. He plays Noodles in a sort of daze as opposed to Tiler who has this spark in his eyes from the very beginning which allows us to connect completely with the character of Noodles who is going to be in just about every minute of the movie. DeNiro then forces the viewer to take a step back and almost disconnect completely. When he's in a scene with James Woods as adult Max, Woods lights up the screen with so much charisma that I wish Woods had the more significant role.

The final ninety minutes after intermission completely left me cold beginning with Noodles almost inexplicably raping his childhood crush after a ridiculously over-stylized romantic dinner. The twist at the end over the supposed death of one of the characters could be seen coming from a mile away, and the encounter between the two feels rushed and perfunctory. This all occurs after a strange reunion between an aged Noodles and an ageless Deborah, the girl he fell in love with as a child and raped as a young adult.

Once Upon a Time in America is so very great in so many ways but it's also so very disappointing in many other ways. Though I ultimately think his great moments trump his failures, I'd use this description to describe the directorial career of Leone as well. Both his successes and failures were epic. This was his last film before dying in 1989, and he certainly left it all out on the table. Despite its flaws, Once Upon a Time in America really does prove essential viewing, much like the all-too-similar Godfather films, though this movie isn't in the same league. Too bad, though, since it really could have been just as good--instead, it's just as epic.

Edge of Darkness

August 10, 2010

Edge of Darkness (2010) **1/2
Directed by Martin Campbell

My tweet:

Edge of Darkness (2010)- a. gov't conspiracy thriller b. grieving father's descent into madness c. Ridiculous pablum --Answer- C. **1/2 of 5

Other thoughts:

I'm going out on a limb a little bit here by trying to incorporate Mel Gibson's recent actions into my review of Edge of Darkness, which might just be Gibson's last successful film if he's not able to get over the stigma of his frighteningly raging phone messages left on his girlfriend's answering machine. In the center of this admittedly dumb thriller is a performance so aloof and out of touch with reality that it ought to be singled out as one of the film's major flaws.

Gibson plays a Boston detective whose adult daughter is shot dead on his front porch with him standing beside her. At first, everyone presumes that the bullet was meant for the cop and not the daughter, but as clues unravel, it becomes increasingly clear that there's something illegal and dangerous going on by a private company in charge of maintaining the government's nuclear stockpile, and the cover-up leads back to a Massachusetts senator. The company isn't called Halliburton, but it might as well have been.

Two conflicts are at the center of the film. First is the mystery over who killed the daughter and the conspiracy that's connected. Second, and apparently more importantly, is Gibson's character's attempt to stay sane in order to complete the investigation. Supposedly, the entire time, he's about to be so overcome with rage that there's no telling what he will do, but he knows that he must suppress the darkness in order to bring justice to his daughter's killers.

This leads back to my initial desire to look at Gibson's real-life troubles. The tension between sanity and insanity that was intended to come across through Gibson's performance doesn't at all. There's a turning point in the film where, let's just say, Gibson's character isn't able to keep it together, and sadly, this blow-up feels right out of left field. Despite a few times where other characters tell him that he's going to crack, and despite a handful of hallucinations of his daughter which could very well be interpreted as memories and not psychosis, there's no indication that this cop is going to turn out the way he does. This flaw falls square on Gibson's shoulders. Perhaps he's so out of touch with reality himself that he's not able to inhabit a real character anymore. During the moments of histrionics when Gibson shouts or threatens, he's fun to watch, but during the moments of quiet introspection and suppressed grief, he almost doesn't register as having any humanity whatsoever. He's a shell of a character on screen, and perhaps one can point to Gibson's real-life psychological disconnects for answers.

Yet, even if Jimmy Stewart were alive and giving his career best performance in the lead role, Edge of Darkness would still be watchable garbage. There are so many plot details that are downright ludicrous that it ultimately becomes impossible to truly invest in the mystery on screen. First of all, the police department lets the cop lead the investigation over his daughter's murder, which is of course a defense attorney's dream scenario. Second, people keep getting killed, though the cop is the biggest threat to everyone. He's allowed to live and move around freely because otherwise there would be no movie. Third, the head of the company shares classified information with the cop which only makes things worse for his own cover-up. This same scene ends with that character asking the cop a truly asinine question for no other reason that to have Gibson point a gun in his face and then ask him the same question.

Ray Winstone has a lot of fun playing an unbelievable character with his own unbelievable issues, and the film is convoluted enough to force the viewer to exert a bit of mental energy to keep up, but not smart enough to be intellectually satisfying. Edge of Darkness is certainly compelling enough to pass the time, and the cop's ultimate unspooling does pack a punch. Yet, for all its adequacies, this is still a really dumb film with a lead performance by a man who's perhaps lost touch with humanity to such a degree that he simply ought not to act anymore.

Kick-Ass

August 8, 2010

Kick-Ass (2010) **
Directed by Matthew Vaughn

My tweet:

Kick-Ass (2010)- I'm all about the fun, but this fanboy magnet is maybe the most mindless thing I've seen all year. ** out of 5

Other thoughts:

Kick-Ass should be criticized as a bad movie because it is pretty terrible, but it shouldn't be denounced, as it has been, for its ultra-violence or the way young Chloe Moretz is required to use bad language. The violence isn't all that disturbing, and having just watched Life During Wartime, there's nothing Chloe said in this film that the young actor in that film didn't top in shock value. Rather than marginalizing the film on a moral ground, it's smarter and easier to bemoan the fact that Vaughn and company are content with presenting a sloppy, lazy final product to its niche audience.

Based on the graphic novel, gravel-voiced Aaron Johnson plays David Lizewski, a comic superfan who decides to become a real life superhero mainly because, as a normal teenager, he's not really all that successful. He dons a green wetsuit and confronts some carjackers who quickly stab him which is immediately followed by David being struck by a car. He's fitted with metal rods in his bones, and his nerve endings have been numbed, which makes David somewhat immune to pain. He uses his medical mishaps to take on a superhero alter-ego called Kick-Ass, and when he successfully stops a gang beating, Kick-Ass becomes an internet sensation.

This captures the attention of a super fighting father/daughter duo who decide to follow in Kick-Ass' footsteps and take on the superhero personas of Big Daddy and Hit-Girl. They're played by Nicolas Cage, in another in a long line of bizarre performances, and nine-year-old Moritz. Also taking notice of Kick-Ass is crime boss Frank D'Amico whose son Chris convinces him that he can win Kick-Ass' trust by becoming a superhero named Red Mist. All this leads to stabbings, shootings and viscera right out of the pages of the graphic novel. Among the sequences of gore, David finds a girl who thinks he's gay and then ravishes him when she finds out he's not.

The first half focuses mostly on a teenager's quest to find meaning in life and a look at what a real life superhero would have to face in terms of violence and brutality. The tone is one of tongue in cheek reality, but once Christopher Mintz-Platz enters the picture as Red Mist, the whole thing takes on a colorful comic book feel and the development of David beyond the stupid girlfriend stuff mentioned above ceases completely.

There's a lot of winking going on which shows that the film isn't taking itself too seriously, but the way in which the fights are staged makes them feel so false that it's impossible for any kind of tension to build up at all. The violence is meant to be over the top, though personally, I found the gore kind of dull. There are a few funny moments, but not enough for the film to work as a comedy. At the climax, after killing so many people without breaking a sweat, Hit Girl meets her match when she's face to face with Frank who easily inflicts quite a beating on her. Of course, this makes no sense. She's a killing machine until the script requires her to be a defenseless eleven-year-old girl. On top of that, at the very end, a character is left alive for no other reason than for the upcoming release of Kick-Ass 2.

Kick-Ass doesn't work as a violent action film or a comedy or a coming of age story. It's trying to be fun, and though at times it is entertaining, the film as a cohesive whole is truly lazy. The story could easily have been tightened in so many ways, any of which would have added significantly to the unity of the plot. What we have here is a promising first draft, and despite the fact that Comic-Con fanboys were exhilarated, they perhaps don't realize how much better Kick-Ass could have been if it wasn't so completely slapdash.