Out of the Past: The Week in Film

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. The Advocate (1993) Dir. Leslie Megahey - UK
2. The Running Man (1987) Dir. Paul Michael Glaser – US
3. Sundown (1941) Dir. Henry Hathaway - US

Guilty Pleasure Cinema:
1. Perfect Stranger (2007) Dir. James Foley - US

Astounding Cinema:
6. She Hate Me (2004) Dir. Spike Lee – US
5. Bamboozled (2000) Dir. Spike Lee – US
4. September (1987) Dir. Woody Allen – US
3. Shadow of a Doubt (1943) Dir. Alfred Hitchcock - US
2. Manhattan (1979) Dir. Woody Allen - US
1. Boyz N the Hood (1991) Dir. John Singleton - US

Rewatched Goodies:
1. Inside Man (2006) Dir. Spike Lee – US 10/10
2. The Witches of Eastwick (1987) Dir. George Miller – US 8/10

Theatrical Screenings:
2. The Book of Eli (2010) Dir. Hughes Bros. – US 5/10
1. The Lovely Bones (2009) Dir. Peter Jackson – US 9/10

The Advocate (1993): So, when I tell you this title was released as The Hour of the Pig (no, not the Ann Coulter story) in Great Britain I’m most succinctly summing up the quality of this puzzling and insipid celluloid. Set in 1452, the film supposedly sets about to educate us on how animals were held accountable for the same rules and laws as humans, and, subsequently, were forced to under go a courtroom process alongside humans. What does every accused being need? A lawyer of the courts, of course! Colin Firth stars as a ‘city’ lawyer that moves to a small village naively assuming he can make a bigger impact there. Instead he falls in love with a gypsy woman whose pig is on trial for murdering a young Jewish boy. What can I say about a film that’s got not a leg to stand on (and would be called “The Lawyer” if set in modern times)? It’s dreary, dull, and oh, it’s set in 1452 France---except that stars like Colin Firth, Ian Holm and Donald Pleasance aren’t French, so why don’t they drop the damned “Monsieur” they all seem uncomfortable saying? This film is about as tasteless and interesting as watching pigs have sex. Would you be surprised to know that this was director Leslie Megahey’s only theatrical film and that he hasn’t made a film since?

The Running Man (1987): I never read the Stephen King (excuse me, Richard Bachman) novel this was based on and after seeing the film, I probably never will. Paul Michael Glaser (yes, the Starsky of “Starsky & Hutch”) directs this boring, boring, boring tale set in the year 2019, in which convicted felons are forced to survive a public execution game show whose host is famously played by Richard Dawson (“Family Feud,” and “Hogan’s Heroes”). Arnold Schwarzeneggar is our wrongly accused dullard protagonist and Maria Conchita Alonso stars as his love interest, though the only moment on screen the couple share being involved in anything other than trying to live is at the very end. Jim Brown and Jesse Ventura pop up in entertaining little roles, but altogether, this film had difficulty keeping my attention.

Sundown (1941): Henry Hathaway is a more than capable director, (helming some of my personal faves, like Niagra, 1953 and The Dark Corner, 1946) and his main stars are more than capable players, like George Sanders and Gene Tierney (Bruce Cabot is a little dull for me, however). Yet this WWII drama about the British in Kenya (apparently protecting it from the Nazis but mostly telling the natives what to do and not do) sinks like a lead balloon. Tierney is really the only point of interest, claiming to be a half breed Arab woman named Zia that runs a network system between tribes in the desert. But that grows old fast. Sundown (so named after a traditional saying I didn’t quite catch) is also notable for a very brief appearance by Dorothy Dandrige. But beware, she doesn’t get to speak any lines. She only gets to be a Kenyan princess that smiles pretty while a British general decides what black man gets to marry her. Bleh.

Perfect Stranger (2007): While this isn’t really a piece of cinema worth championing, I would like to note that the Halle Berry/Bruce Willis thriller Perfect Stranger is a perfect little piece of escapist fare. Sure, it’s a bit contrived, sure there’s way too many flashback sequences to hand revelations to you on a silver platter, sure there’s one plot twist too many. But that doesn’t make it a bad film. The three leads, Berry, Willis, and the underrated Giovanni Ribisi are all quite entertaining in their respective parts, though it gets a little tiring (and seems a little 1995) to have Berry enter internet chat rooms and read to us what’s being written to her and vocalizing what she’s about to write. Director James Foley is responsible for some cinematic greats (Glengarry Glen Ross, 1992), some middle of the road features (Fear, 1996, Confidence, 2003) and then some drek like Who’s That Girl (1987) and The Chamber (1996). While Perfect Stranger may not be a cinematic great, it’s got some nifty little Hitchcockian moments (and I like how your perception of the title changes throughout the narrative). Basically, an investigative journalist creates an alter ego to seduce and deduce if her murdered friend’s lover, a powerful businessman, was responsible for the murder. Attempting to tie things together a little too completely, you might just forgive it and realize that it’s the perfect guilty pleasure movie and unfairly deserved the drubbing it received upon release. And Halle Berry looks gorgeous.

She Hate Me (2004): Notoriously maligned upon release, I have to agree with Roger Ebert’s review of the film that Spike Lee knows exactly what he was doing when he made this film the way he did. Lee’s films are always packed with a LOT of material (and I’m not sure if I’ve seen a Spike Lee film that’s under 2 hours running time). Some accuse his films of being convoluted. While She Hate Me may seem like two, if not three films in one, (or seven, I think Ebert claims), lovers of cinema can’t help but be intrigued by it. Basically, our protagonist, played by Anthony Mackie, has just been fired from the pharmaceutical company he works for when attempting to expose corrupt practices (his bosses are played by Woody Harrelson and Ellen Barkin) and ends up in his own corrupt scam for dough when his lesbian ex (Kerry Washington) approaches him to impregnate both her and her partner to the tune of 5,000 each (the old fashioned way, that is). Eventually, Washington pimps Mackie out to a bevy of rich lesbians wanting babies, each shelling out 10,000 for a lay. Mackie unbelievably beds 5 or 6 of these women a night and impregnates all but 2 on the first try. Highly unbelievable---but what is Lee saying about stereotypes about virile black males, not to mention lesbian stereotypes concerning popular belief that all they need is a little dick to be won over? Not to mention that some of these rich lesbians are white (and Bai Ling and Paula Jai Parker pop us as Sapphic sultries) and have absolutely no qualms about getting pregnant by a black man. Which leads us to another subplot of the film when Monica Bellucci visits Mackie to get pregnant, the daughter of an Italian mob boss (John Turturro), her ethnicity important because we have yet another Spike Lee film about Italians and African Americans sleeping together. (Hello! Jungle Fever, 1991). Turturro demands to see Mackie (and provides Mackie with his best Godfather impression) seemingly pleased to be able to have grandchildren, the gay card trumping the race card (Who cares what color the baby is as long there’s going to be a baby?). There is a LOT going on here (and I’ve neglected to mention the origination of the title which is a riff on XFL player Rod Smart’s nickname for himself, “He Hate Me”) and too much for a review to fully appreciate. Lucrative cinema is the cinema of Spike Lee.

Bamboozled (2000): Much more infamous than She Hate Me is Lee’s critically maligned film Bamboozled. I disagree with Ebert’s review, criticizing Lee’s use of blackface in this film as “going too far” for the purpose of satire, which the film is meant to be. I disagree because I don’t believe it’s going too far. In many respects, I don’t believe it can go far enough. The use of blackface is severely taboo---but it’s something that happened. While on the surface, Bamboozled seems to be packaged as a black comedy (no pun intended), but consider the title---Lee shows us a clip from Malcolm X using the word in a speech (in reference to whites). The word ‘bamboozled’ means to have been tricked or deceived, much like how the film works as a mechanism of satire (ie, how audience members watching Lee’s film are part of those being ‘bamboozled’). The film centers around Damon Wayans, playing a character named Pierre Delacroix, an African American TV writer frustrated by his racist boss, Michael Rapaport---who thinks he’s earned the right to freely use the ‘n’ word because he has a black wife and two mixed kids with her. For revenge, Wayans deviously constructs a blackface minstrel show, hiring two homeless street performers desperate for work that won’t mind degrading themselves. The show, much to the chagrin of Wayans, is a huge success. Jada Pinkett Smith plays Wayan’s assistant (and Mos Def appears as her brother, a member of a radical hip hop group) and provides some comic relief as she also can’t understand why Wayons is doing what he’s doing. Add to the fact that Paul Mooney is cast as Wayons estranged father (Mooney talks about white people similar to how Ann Coulter talks about liberals), and Wayon’s ‘white washed’ accent and suspiciously ‘french’ name and you have, at it’s base, concepts of whitewashed versus blackface---and who is wearing what mask at what time? Bamboozled veers off into kidnappings, murder, and mayhem (perhaps Lee’s commentary on how civilization might just rip apart at the seams if we were to realistically address these issues in popular culture) and it may have some other structural issues as a film, but it is nonetheless captivating, funny, angry, maddening, and a brilliant conversation piece.

September (1987): About twenty minutes into what is considered Woody Allen’s second ‘serious’ film (after Interiors, 1978) I gleefully realized that Allen had created an imaginary tale of the daughter of Lana Turner, who was famously acquitted for killing Turner’s boyfriend in a highly publicized court case and the effect it may have had on her. Of course, Turner’s name was changed for the film, which centers on 6 adults vacationing at the end of summer in a summer house in Vermont. The house is kind of owned by Mia Farrow, the daughter of a famous Hollywood star several decades before, played battle-ax brilliant by Elaine Stritch. Farrow has recently recovered from a suicide attempt under the watch of Denholm Elliott, who is in love with her. However, Farrow has fallen in love with a lonely neighbor, a struggling author and divorcee played by Sam Waterston. However, Sam Waterston has the hots (even though he’s slept with Farrow) for her best friend, the married Dianne Wiest, herself desperate to still be considered desirable while struggling through a loveless marriage. While most likely another homage to Ingmar Bergman (as was Interiors), September culminates in a wickedly emotional scene that I’m sure Bergman enjoyed. Excellent, moving cinema from Woody Allen.

Shadow of a Doubt (1943): Hitchcock considered this to be his favorite film. Starring Teresa Wright, who was a major Hollywood name in the 1940’s (she won Best Supporting Actress for her 1942 film, Mrs. Miniver), her lead in Shadow reunites her with one of her co-stars from The Little Foxes (1941), Patricia Collinge, here playing her dowdy mother. Joseph Cotton stars as Uncle Charly, a man who makes his living taking advantage of the fortunes of lonely rich widows the best way you can---killing them and taking their loot. On the lam, he skirts to his sister’s house (Collinge) for a lengthy visit, receiving a warm welcome from his niece (Wright), who was named after him. Convinced she’s so close to her uncle that they’re virtually telepathically connected, Wright starts to get suspicious when Cotton starts giving her gifts like expensive rings with other people’s initials engraved inside. Hmmm. Plus there’s two nosy detectives poking around, asking a lot of questions. What’s a girl to do? Wright most certainly is not my favorite Hitchcock heroine---in fact, she’s a little irritating. If remade frame by frame today, you’d be convinced she’s just a hysterical, repressed young girl who has the hots for her suave uncle. Scripted by playwright Thornton Wilder, and the film debut of Hume Cronyn, Shadow of a Doubt is vintage Hitchcock and gives Cotton a devilish role (and thankfully much better than their collaboration that would come later in the decade, Under Capricorn, 1949, my least favorite of the major American films Hitch made----though the French apparently LOVE it).

Manhattan (1979): Ahh, Woody Allen’s Manhattan---it’s not my favorite Allen but it’s certainly a whimsical ode to the city that’s kind of about falling in love. There’s several beautiful shots of New York that just made me want to jump on a plane and sit somewhere on a park bench in black and white. Allen apparently disliked how the film turned out and was surprised at its amazing critical reception. Highlights of the film are Mariel Hemingway as a 17 year dating the 42 year old Allen (their scenes together now feel like an ominous prophecy of things to come) and her performance is really quite good and she deserved her Oscar nod for Supporting Actress. It’s also interesting to see Meryl Streep in several scenes as Allen’s lesbian ex-wife who has custody of the kid and is penning a tell all book about her life with Allen (apparently he’s the writer of a popular television series). And of course, there’s Diane Keaton, the mistress of his best friend played by Michael Murphy. What can I say? After Annie Hall (1977) it’s difficult to judge the chemistry of Keaton and Allen here, except that it’s always a treat to watch them work together.

Boyz N the Hood (1991): On the surface level, this film will always be referenced as the first film for which a black director was nominated for Best Director, that being John Singleton (and we can add one more name to that short list at this writing in 2010, that being Lee Daniels!!!) but it’s really got so much more going for it than that. Starring Cuba Gooding Jr., the film concerns a group of friends growing up in South Central L.A. Gooding is mostly raised by his father, a gruff and excellent Laurence Fishburne, who attempts to raise his son not to be like the neighborhood kids. Half-brothers Ice Cube and Morris Chestnut seem to reflect the hopelessness up growing up in the ghetto, one born without hope of ever being anything but a gangbanger, the other robbed of opportunity to realize a greater potential than being anything other than a statistic. While there seems to be an overbearing air of hopelessness to this film, the characterizations are quite impressive and full of hope and the possibility of change. It’s refreshing to see Fishburne as a responsible, loving, and reasonable father, raising his son single handedly while his ex-wife (Angela Bassett) works on her career. And even more refreshing is Cuba Gooding Jr. as a young man growing up that wants a better life that the options available for him in South Central and has the gumption to do so. Singleton’s film isn’t without some hilarious moments (like Tyra Ferrell receiving mail from the mailman without a beat mere seconds after a loud, violent brawl between her sons on the front lawn), and stands as an amazingly impressive debut feature for Singleton. And don’t forget a few faces that would become major names in the coming decade, like Regina King and Nia Long.