Since The View from
the Couch post (below), thirteen more DVDs have wended their way through my
player, competing to retain their places on my overcrowded shelf. Results
follow.
You’re a Big Boy Now (1966).
This flick was Francis Ford Coppola’s UCLA thesis. Like so many interesting films, it transcends
its time even as it is firmly rooted in it. Beautifully shot in NYC, it is the
story of 19-y.o. Bernard who is having a hard time growing up. He is infatuated
by the narcissistic and cruel actress Barbara Darling (Elizabeth Hartman), who
enjoys nothing more than crushing his already shaky sense of manhood and self-worth. All
the while, he ignores the real treasure Amy (a young Karen Black) who cares for
him. Barbara’s sadism is given an explanation, though not actually an excuse. Meanwhile,
Bernard’s parents, while urging him to grow up, in fact hold him back. This
coming-of-age film is clever, funny, off-beat and sports a quintessentially
1960s soundtrack by John Sebastian performed by The Lovin’ Spoonful. Shelved.
The Ladies Man (1961).
Jerry Lewis made some very good movies as an actor and as writer/director. He
is funny as the Delicate Delinquent
(1957) and convincing as the ruthless talk show host in The King of Comedy (1983). The
Nutty Professor (1963), written and directed by himself, is a true comedy classic.
He also made stinkers, such as Way…Way
Out (1966) and the almost unspeakable Slapstick
of Another Kind (1982). The Ladies
Man is neither…and both. Lewis shows real directorial skill in this film,
with a superb purpose-built set, solid camera work, and good choreography. None
of this is enough to overcome a script that doesn’t rise to the level of weak. Jerry
Lewis is big on physical humor, but all slapstick (slipping, colliding,
breaking) is not in-and-of itself funny. It really isn’t. It needs some context
– not a lot, necessarily, but more than is offered here. In The Ladies Man, Jerry goes to work as a
sort of errand boy in a houseful of women with acting ambitions; this set-up is
never exploited for anything more than so-so bits and gags – with one
excessively maudlin message as a lagniappe. If you want an intelligent, funny,
and heartfelt comedy about a boarding house full of aspiring actresses, choose Stage Door (1937) with Katherine
Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, and Lucille Ball. Unshelved.
The Sorcerer’s
Apprentice (2010). Nicolas Cage (born Nicolas Coppola, Francis’ nephew)
never just walks through his parts. He always puts effort into them no matter
how inane they may be. When he ran into financial difficulties some years ago,
he began to accept roles that were very inane indeed. We probably all do things
for a paycheck of which we are not proud, but not all of us have the results recorded
on film for all time. Perhaps he was hoping for better when this role was
offered. If so, his hopes were dashed. The concept for this movie sounds
promising enough: dueling sorcerers, a search for a successor to Merlin, a love
story spanning centuries, the evil Morgana le Fey loose in modern day NYC, and
a bumbling young lad challenged to face his destiny – all brought to us with
high budget special effects from the folks at Disney. What could be missing? Oh
yeah, how about a script to go along with the concept? What there is of one is so flawed that
Nicholas couldn’t save it. Despite all the whiz-bang action, the film manages to
be boring. Unshelved.
Woman Times Seven
(1967) – As the title clues us, vignettes of seven women comprise this 1960s movie, which once again shows that a film lives or dies by
its script. All of the seven women are played by Shirley MacLaine. The stories are set in Paris and Rome. Was Cesare
Zavatinni (the screenwriter) trying to be funny? Poignant? Sad? It doesn’t matter,
because the film isn’t any of those things. Only one of the women is
believable: the one who thinks she is being followed by an admirer (today we
would say “stalker”); the audience learns, though she never does, that he is a
detective hired by a jealous husband. All of the other characters are crazy or
cartoonish, and not very amusingly so. There is also something unsettling about
every one of them being financially well-set. You’d think one out of seven
wouldn’t be. The theme is love and betrayal, which certainly can be fodder aplenty
for a movie – but not this movie. If you’re a Shirley MacLaine fan and like the
vignette format, try What a Way To Go
(1964), which is, at least, funny. Unshelved.
Nine Lives (2005).
Also a series of vignettes about women, though this time with nine different actresses
and a creditable script. Nine Lives
has an excellent cast including Sissy Spacek, Elpidio Carillo, Amanda Seyfried,
and Glenn Close. The characters span the social spectrum. One is in jail, one
is hospitalized, one is an unwelcome guest at the funeral of her ex-boyfriend’s
wife, another has a path-not-taken moment in a grocery store when she
encounters an old flame, while yet another wavers between suicide and murder. The
stories overlap a little near the end. Love in the various tales takes
different forms. Seyfried’s character, for example, plainly gives up an Ivy
League college opportunity (though she denies it) in order to provide help to
her parents, who need it (though they deny it). Glenn Close picnics in the
cemetery with her young daughter (Dakota Fanning), combining an affection for
what was with an affection for what is. All nine characters are credible, and,
as in real life, they don’t always wrap up their issues neatly. Shelved.
Angel (1984).
Unapologetic trash. A 15-y.o. prep school girl moonlights as a hooker and
befriends the oddball (and generally likable) street people on Hollywood Blvd. A
psycho is prowling the streets and killing prostitutes. The film has a few cute
moments, and the effort to win the audience’s sympathies works to the extent
that we’re happy when Angel grabs her landlady’s gun and goes after the killer.
Angel spawned two atrocious sequels
that should be avoided at all costs. Though the original film is not without a
certain guilty pleasure appeal, there are too many flaws in the production,
casting, acting, and direction for the DVD to be shelf-worthy. It’s a closer
call than one might think, but Unshelved.
Sucker Punch (2011).
I never saw worse reviews for a movie than for Sucker Punch: "two
hours of solitary confinement, which feels more like dog hours" (Michael
Philips, Chicago Tribune); "Movie lives up to its name"
(A.O. Scott, New York Times); "What happens when a studio
gives carte blanche to a filmmaker who has absolutely nothing original or even
coherent to say" (Lou Lumenick. New
York Post). There was the odd
exception, e.g. Betsy Sharkey of The Los Angeles Times: "utterly
absorbing romp through the id that I wouldn't have missed for the world." I
didn’t see the same movie as the mainstream critics. I saw the same movie Betsy
did. Critics complained that the plot doesn’t make sense. While I understand
the confusion, the film does make sense: wrongfully committed to a high
security asylum by a corrupt stepfather, "Baby Doll" seeks freedom
while indulging in two layers of fantasy rife with elaborate videogame-style imagery.
The key to the story (this is not quite a *spoiler*) is what we are told it is
right at the beginning: “the mystery of whose story it will be.” It is this,
not the lobotomist’s hammer, that is the sucker punch. Shelved, but I realize a majority of viewers won’t like it.
The Best of Burlesque. This collection contains 7 hours of material filmed
mostly between 1950 and 1955, an era when the classic burlesque houses still
reigned. Within a decade they were all but gone, replaced by the go-go bar. One
of the DVD features is called Too Hot to
Handle. It is a record of an entire burlesque show, with the live band, the
singers, and the comic acts - some awful, some funny – along with the dancers
with their sets and routines. The DVD also contains a long list of shorts (some
in 3D) featuring headliners and relative unknowns. Tempest Storm's act is very
traditional but amazing. Corky Marshall
does a funny dance/monologue routine about a nervous stripper on her first gig.
The 1950s were the bad old days in any number of ways. Most of the social
changes since then have been in the right direction. Yet something was lost
along the way, too. Even if you’re too young to remember the decade, this
collection can evoke some nostalgia for a time when the sleaze had more style. Shelved.
Chump Change
(2000). This witty, well-written, well-acted (and occasionally silly) flick won
several film festival awards in 2000 and 2001. Then it disappeared from view
until quietly released on DVD a few years later. It deserved more confidence
from the producers. Stephen Burrows, who wrote and directed, portrays an
actor/comedian/screenwriter who goes home to Wisconsin
after being overwhelmed by Hollywood .
There he unexpectedly encounters a woman played by Traci Lords, who is charming
in this atypical role. He discovers she is renting his mother’s house while his
mother is on an extended vacation in Iceland : “You’re not my mother.”
“You’re not my son. At last, closure.” This is hardly the first film to make
fun of big bad Hollywood
and it won’t be the last, but it is one of the more pleasant. Shelved.
Love Object (2003).
In this truly creepy low-budget film, shy and troubled Kenneth buys an ultra
high-end sex doll. She is named Nikki. His “relationship” with her actually
helps his confidence enough to develop a real relationship with a pretty
coworker named Lisa (Melissa Sagemiller). Uh-oh, Nikki is jealous and starts
causing trouble. Or is Ken bonkers and causing the trouble himself? When Lisa
discovers Kenneth is weirder than she ever imagined and tries to back away, he
develops a plan to turn her into a doll with embalming techniques. Twisted, but
that’s precisely what the movie is supposed to be. Shelved
Nick and Norah’s Infinite
Playlist
(2008). No, this is not a late addition to The Thin Man series, though
it does involve detective work: the search for a secret show being held
somewhere in NYC by Where’s Fluffy, the favorite band of teens Nick (Michael
Cera) and Norah (Kat Dennings). The movie takes place over the course of a
single 24 hour period in which Nick and Norah meet for the first time, break up
and make up with each other, make up and break up with their respective old
flames, seek out Norah’s drunken girlfriend before she gets into trouble, scour
the New York club scene (the bouncers don’t seem strict on the over-21 rule in
this pic), and search for Where’s Fluffy. This film doesn’t try to be anything
deeper than a breezy teen date-flick, but it succeeds at being that. Likable. Shelved.
Somewhere (2010). Sofia Coppola
(Francis’ daughter) wrote and directed this film about a spoiled self-indulgent
movie star who lives for expensive toys (such as his Ferrari), luxury hotel
suites, shallow affairs, and tawdry (but pricey) entertainment – until the
daughter he barely knows (Elle Fanning) shows up. It takes a while, but Elle
evokes parental feelings and values in him that he didn’t know he had. At the end
he walks away from his Ferrari, leaving the keys in the ignition. This film
received mixed reviews, but those who liked it liked it a lot. It won some film
festival awards. I’m just not the right audience for it. If I had any kids,
perhaps I would be. But I don’t and I’m not. Unshelved.
Hey,
I’m getting better. I unshelved 5 out of 13.
The Lovin’ Spoonful play the 1966 soundtrack to You’re a Big Boy Now. (The dialogue is audible in the actual film.)
You know I'm on the fence with "Suckerpunch". It looks visually dazzling, but the director is really hit and miss for me. "300" was OK, I liked "Watchmen" a little more. Still, I might have to check this one out, just to see the anime and video game inspired madness.
ReplyDelete"Moonrise Kingdom" also looked interesting, and again the director is really hit and miss for me. But you with both these directors, I appreciate that they try new and different things - even if the result don't quite make it. It's better than watching the same cookie cutter movies.
Suckerpunch is at least worth a look. I can't imagine what MST3K would have done with it.
ReplyDeleteTrying something out of the ordinary does count. All of writers/directors of the "shelved" in the above list at least tried that.