May December More Dull than Shocking

 

 

 

MAY DECEMBER (2023)

Directed by Todd Haynes

Netflix, 117 minutes, R (nudity, drugs, language, subject matter)

★★

 

May December is a Todd Haynes film based upon the true-life story of Mary Kay Letourneau in which she, a teacher, seduced 12-year-old student Vili Faulaau. When her crime was discovered, Letourneau was pregnant with their first child. She was sentenced to six years in prison for child-rape, which was reduced to 6 months on the condition she avoid contact with Faulaau. She violated her parole, was pregnant with their second child, and spent seven years in prison. She was 35 when she initiated sex with Faulaau, then a 6^th grader. The two married in 2005, shortly after she was released. They stayed wedded for 14 years until they divorced in 1999.

 

May December is a lightly veiled (in more ways than one) version of May Kay and Vili that relocates the affair from Washington State to Savannah, makes her student 13 instead of 12, and rechristens him as Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), who is Southeast Asian rather than Samoan. May Kay is fashioned as Gracie Atherton (Julianne Moore), who dumps her husband to play rockabye baby with Joe. Director Todd Haynes insisted that his movie was an homage to Ingmar Bergman’s Winter Light (1963) and Persona (1966). Yeah, and I’m Henry VIII, I am, I am.

 

The film was reviewed positively, won a few awards, and Melton was singled out for excellence as a supporting actor at various cinema festivals. Yet, it was a box office bomb that lost 75% of its $20 million budget. It seems that audiences found the content creepy, no matter what the critics said. I wasn’t offended by the subject matter nearly as much as I was bored. A very old movie adage holds that if you’re going to go over the top, go way over. May December could have been done as camp and it would have been a better movie.

 

A filmmaker corollary says that if you intend to make a serious film and you aren’t Ingmar Bergman, be sure to have something to say. I generally like Julianne Moore, but May December turns her into a fading magnolia rather than a MYOB spitfire. She just wants people to see her and Joe as good Georgia neighbors and community members. Fat chance when they have three biracial kids, one a college student and twins in high school. You can imagine the hazing they undergo from peers who know the deeper story. As we meet Joe, he’s a big hunk, a lunk, and blue-collar guy with a flat affect.

 

Into their lives comes a movie company wanting to film their story. Sure, there’s nothing like having a famous actress, Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) coming to town to “study” for her upcoming role to protect one’s privacy. Berry talks to people all over Savannah about the Yoo family. Surprise! Gracie is viewed as immoral, a bad role model, and a criminal. It doesn’t help that her ex-husband badmouths her and is happy to play the role of victim, which wasn’t quite the case. Joe is cast in a victim’s role, something Berry presses him on. Did he ever feel he was groomed? Was Joe too young in 6^th grade? Did Gracie took advantage of him? He contemplates the last question, though he mostly rejects it. In more candid moments he admits to having enjoyed the sex. I’ll bet; what 13-year-old boy wouldn’t wish to get up close and personal with Julianne Moore? But he’s flirting with 40 now. 

 

Melton is the best part of the film. He plays Joe as a dim-bulb who, apparently, hadn’t thought about these matters before. That stretches credulity, but Melton almost makes us believe it. If only he hadn’t bedded Elizabeth/Portman, the story would have been more believable. (They are the pair that has the steamiest sex in the film.) Even less believable is his instant guilt, which doesn’t jive with the boredom he displays toward Gracie. We know from later in the film that Gracie and Joe separate, just before Gracie (like Mary Kay) dies from cancer.

 

The Mary Kay Letourneau story is a sad one that should have made for a dramatic retelling. “Boredom” is a word one would never expect from such material.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

  

STAGE DOOR (1937)

Directed by Gregory La Cava

RKO, 92 minutes, Pre-ratings system

★★★★

 

Stage Door is often tagged as a tragicomedy. Although something quite sad happens to one of the characters, this Gregory La Cava-directed movie is heavier on the second half of that portmanteau. The movie followed the script of a play written Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman that closed the year before the movie appeared. It made money and garnered Oscar nominations, but it was one of increasingly rare incidences in which the play earned more money.

 

If you allow for the fact that this is a Great Depression-era film, your viewing pleasure will increase. It follows the constant flow of aspirant and briefly successful actresses in and out of a boarding house controlled by a booking agency. The cast is large and impressive, though the fame of many of the headliners would come later. This older movie definitely passes the Bechdel Test, as it is a film about women talking to women. Most of the men in the Stage Door are cads. If you know anything about (if not, consult Wikipedia) Ferber or Kaufman, you can count on a lot of barbed, acerbic, and funny badinage between boarding house residents. It’s the kind of movie that could be labeled “catty,” but these women are more predator tigers than domesticated tabbies.

 

The principals include Judy Canfield (Lucile Ball), a good-times gal; Kay Hamilton (Andrea Leeds), who was a star for a season who hasn’t had a part in ages and needs money; Jean Maitland (Ginger Rogers), a sharp-tongued vixen prone to mean acts such as pilfering the silk stockings from Linda Shaw (Gail Patrick) and ruining what was likely an expensive gift from Linda’s beau, Anthony (Adolph Menjou). That was quite a nasty thing to do at a time in which good stockings sold for today’s equivalent of over $36.

 

There are several odd-fitting residents, including newbie Terry Randall (Katharine Hepburn), who Maitland and her hangers-on ridicule for using big words, her fancy wardrobe, and her polished demeanor. They assume she comes from money, but that’s only partially true. Her father is loaded, but cuts off her allowance when she insists on pursuing a stage career. They don’t know who her father is, so they assume she has a “sugar daddy.” The implication of that term is that Terry is a “kept” woman who exchanges sex for fancy duds. The irony of this is that just about every woman in the boarding house, except Terry, yearns to have a boyfriend who will treat them. I will again remind you that this is a 1936 movie. In the film the women are “man-hungry” and the men know it. Boyfriends are generally older than their dates, are well-heeled, are clearly trying to bed them, and play musical conquests from among the boarding house population. It’s a mutual exploitation society of sorts. Many of the men are somehow connected to the theatre (directors, producers, underwriters, etc.) and the women are literally hungry as well as looking for a husband. Only Hattie (Phyllis Kennedy) has the chutzpah to date a butcher!

 

The other oddballs are Southern belle Mary Lou (Margaret Early), who finds out the New York isn’t Louisiana.  Ann Miller also has role as “Annie,” a fan-girl companion to Jean who dreams of being a dancer. (Miller succeeded in that quest, though she lied about her age and was just 14 when she scored a part in Stage Door.)

 

As you can see, Stage Door had what might be called an A-level cast: Ball, Hepburn, Miller…. At the time, though, Eve Arden and Constance Collier–two of the residents– and Patrick were better known, and film critics tabbed Early for an Oscar nomination. In a way, a lot of 1930s’ movies were akin to the 1933 version of 42^nd Street in which understudy Ruby Keeler dances to fame. Hepburn-as-Terry gets a similar chance to show off her talent, courtesy of a lot of help from Eve (Eve Arden) and aging resident Ann Lutheir (Collier), though Terry has something more serious in mind.

 

It’s hard to do justice to films with a big cast. There are more serious things in the film–a tragedy, veiled critiques of backstage immorality, and sexism–but the writing is razor-sharp. Give it a try.

 

Rob Weir

Belushi, His Rise and Fall

 

 

 

 

BELUSHI (2020)

Directed by R. J. Cutler

Showtime, 108 minutes, MA (drugs, language)

★★★★

 

I would not be the first to say that Saturday Night Live simply isn’t very interesting anymore. After 51 years, so much has changed that it’s hard to see it as the pathbreaking comedy that it once was. Many oldsters, despite some brilliant cast restructuring during the decades– Tina Fey, Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal, Jeanene Garafalo, Joan Cusak, and Maya Rudolph top my list– the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players (Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Bill Murray, Garrett Morris, Gilda Radner, and John Belushi) has never been topped.

 

Note that this is my opinion and that I’m speaking of an ensemble cast. Ultimately, SNL viewers are like superfans of a sport; the “G.O.A.T.” is the stuff of barroom debates and who you pick often gives away your age. Gen Xers often cite figures such as Will Ferrell, Norm Macdonald, Jimmy Fallon, Amy Poehler as favorites; if you’re younger still, you might cite Kate McKinnon, Cecily Strong, or Mikey Day. I’d grant Pohler, but the rest strike me lame. Chacun ses goúts. But any way you slice it, SNL is now merely a TV “sketch” show; it lacks the rebellious out-of-control mania of Belushi and Radner. Once upon a time, Saturday Night Live was as close as American TV got to anarchy. Eric Idle hosted SNL several times. In his mind, only Belushi would have held his own as a member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. More fodder for barroom arguments (or coffee klatches for those of us who go to bed earlier).

 

For me, Gilda was funnier, but Belushi was the Harpo Marx of the cast, the guy who could walk on the set, raise an eyebrow, and people would laugh. Like Harpo, he could destroy a set before you could daub your eyes. Replace Harpo’s horn with a samurai sword and that’s Belushi, a brilliant physical comic. (Okay, Harpo never took drugs!) I had never seen the 2020 Showtime special, but Belushi is now on video and other streaming services. It comes close to explaining what made him tick and what resulted in his early death in 1982 at age 33. (At least he got past the 27 Club.)

 

I found parallels between Belushi and Kurt Cobain. Belushi couldn’t get past his belief that TV was homogeneous. It’s no secret that Belushi and Dan Ackroyd were pals, but few realize the depth of their friendship. It was so strong that each was ready to give up acting to tour as The Blues Brothers. That’s ironic as we learn from a look into John’s Wheaton, Illinois, childhood. He disliked Wheaton, but always stated his wish to be an actor. Belushi pushed SNL toward anarchy, but it was never far enough to suit him. (Or should I say the “suits” at NBC?) Shades of Cobain and his hatred of corporate rock.

 

An on-set legend holds that Belushi and Chevy Chase hated each other, but Chase is on screen saying nice things about John. I suspect that given Belushi’s erratic work habits that most cast members hated him at some point, but if you deeply hate someone you say no thanks when asked to comment on their legacy. Most of his SNL colleagues are on screen to sing his praises, including oft-exasperated producer Lorne Michaels.

 

Perhaps the biggest revelation is that John was a one-woman man. He fell in love with Judy Jacklin when they were in high school, married her, and leaned on her during his darkest drug-addled moments. We become voyeurs to the letters John wrote to Judy in which he bares his fears, anxieties, and depression. Behind all the craziness, Belushi was analogous to Robin Williams. In the end, Belushi was an addict and admitted to Judy he was so hooked that he couldn’t quit.

 

This is a very good biography of Belushi, though I disagree with a few of decisions made by director R. J. Cutler. It is a mix of real-life video and animation, the latter of which isn’t expertly drawn and seems like filler-looking-for-content. It also seemed a glaring omission to say little about Jane Curtin’s allegation that Belushi was a misogynist.   

 

Rob Weir:

 

Postscript: In many ways, the Showtime documentary was a farewell letter from his widow Judy. She became an actress and producer. Judy married Victor Pisano in 1990,  divorced him in 2010, and died of cancer in 2024.

You Hurt My Feelings is Flat and Dull

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YOU HURT MY FEELINGS (2023)

Directed, written, produced by Nicole Holofcener

A24, 93 minutes, R (entirely for F-bombs)

★

 

You Hurt My Feelings isn’t a terrible movie, merely a relentlessly flat one. Director Nicole Holofcener, also wrote and produced a movie about an overdone subject and failed to do anything new with it. How many flicks have you seen in which a character gets in trouble for telling a white lie that escalates into a black one? If the moral of this tale is “tell the truth or a lie will come to bite you,” I doubt you’ll be tempted to throw confetti into the air to celebrate such a unique revelation.

 

I saw this one in the “new to video” bin at the local library, had never heard of it, and took it home because I like actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus. She plays Beth, a successful memoirist who is married to Don (Tobias Menzies), a therapist. The two are so devoted to one another that they finish each other’s sentences, share their food, and order one ice cream cone between them. All of this is to the shock of their grossed out 23-year-old son Elliot (Owen Teague). One wonders how Elliot got to be 23 without previously noting said behavior. Beth has a bad case of creative paralysis, which is obvious to her, her publisher, and a rival firm–both of whom reject the manuscript. She’s inconsolable, so Don tries to console her by telling her that her critics are idiots and that she’s a wonderful writer. 

 

Poor Don. He’s an ineffective burnt-out therapist, but it’s his fetish for socks that does him in. After lunch with his brother-in-law Mark (Arian Mayed), who has just been fired from his acting job, they cross a New York City street and enter a sock shop, where Don confesses that Beth’s latest writing effort is lame. Unbeknownst to either, Beth and her sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins) go into the store, as Beth wants to surprise Don with a new pair of socks. She overhears Don’s remark and silently exits. She is crushed and is convinced that her husband is a liar who can no longer be trusted. Sarah tries to soothe things, but fumbles the effort.

 

Excuse me for being a heel, but this hardly seems like an earth-shattering, irreconcilable situation to me. Toe the line and deal with it, say I. Instead, Beth festers like a foot fungus, treats Don like a worn-out insole, and begins to wonder if their marriage is over. About the only thing that redeems this movie at all is that scenes of inept therapy, both Don’s and that of the marriage counselor, are pretty funny. It’s even funnier to imagine that in the Big Apple that such lame shrinks could stay in business long enough to pay the rent. I’m led to believe there are a lot more star therapists than sock stores in Manhattan, but whadda I know?

 

Will Don and Beth forgive each other? In a movie whose dramatic moment occurs in a sock shop, you can guarantee that this “comic drama” will err on the side of weak comedy rather than gut-wrenching drama. Of course they do. So why not pull up your… never mind. To top the shared ice cream cone with an over-sweet maraschino cherry, not only does Beth revise her new memoir to great acclaim, her n’er do well son Elliot churns out a successful play with a role for Mark.

 

I know I’m not supposed to look for Logic 101 in a comedy, but I didn’t buy a thing in You Hurt My Feelings. Julia Louis-Dreyfus has all the emotional affect of a zombie, and Menzies is more hangdog than Huckleberry. If the therapy hadn’t been so bad, I might have fallen asleep. You Hurt My Feelings is a bad title, a bad script, and bad direction. For the record, even the socks looked boring.

 

Rob Weir 

 

 

 

The Roses a Good Guilty Pleasure

 

 

THE ROSES (2025)

Directed by Jay Roach

Searchlight Pictures, 105 minutes, R (language, sexuality, violence)

★★★★★

 

The Roses is a British remake of the 1989 film War of the Roses, which starred Kathleen Turner and Michael Doulgas. Readers of this blog know that I am not a fan of remakes, but this one surpasses the original. It’s a rare occasion in which the Brits remade an American film rather than vice versa. That’s good news for viewers, as British actors are generally more skilled than American celebs.

 

Without getting bogged down in history, the title pays homage to a 30-year struggle over the English throne between two cadet branches of the Plantagenet family, the House of York (whose emblem was a white rose) and the House of Lancaster (red rose). If you care, the winner was the Tudor family. Neither The Roses nor The War of the Roses was about that bloody 15^th century struggle over the kingship, but both movies had plenty of vitriol and fireworks.

 

The Roses refer to a modern family, Ivy (Olivia Coleman), a talented chef wannabe, and Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch), who hopes to become a major architect–two dreamers who were mad (made?) for each other. They meet in London, fall passionately in love, share their respective dreams of moving to the United States, marry, and ten years later, live in a spectacular home in Mendicino, California, with their twin children, Hattie and Roy. They exude the American Dream, aside from differing parenting skills: Ivy bribes the kids with gooey desserts and Theo is an exercise drill sergeant-as-dad. They have money, drink great wine, throw elaborate dinner parties, and have good friends, especially Amy (Kate McKinnon) and Barry (Andy Samberg), and Sally (Zoë Chao) and Rory (Jamie Demetriou).

 

They gather to celebrate Theo’s unveiling of the new naval history museum. It is truly spectacular, but it looks… well … a bit overdone, with its sweeping cantilevers and sail-like appendages. A freak tempest reduces the entire building and Theo’s career to rubble. At lightning speed, he is ridiculed as a dangerous egoist, becomes the butt of cutting jokes, and is blacklisted. The only question left is who gets sued. Ivy steps in and works like a plow horse to keep the family afloat. Theo has built her a nice restaurant, but to recover from the debt they are in, Ivy needs to upscale. A depressed, unemployed Theo passes his days drilling the twins into super-athlete shape. Soon, Ivy is a rising star in the food industry. (Make sure you’ve eaten before watching the film, lest you start stuffing sugar down your throat!) She’s on TV and magazine covers, is the toast of every city she visits, and opens new restaurants galore. Is Theo envious of her success? You bet your pencils and protractor he is.

 

Lionization notwithstanding, Ivy has become an absentee wife and mother. The war of the Roses begins with toxic jealousy, barely survives failed therapy, flirts with divorce, and settles into a Hatfields versus the McCoys feud in which each tries to outdo the other in cruelty. If it sounds grim, it’s not. Despite the dangerous and insidious games on the screen, The Roses is quite funny as long as you remind yourself, “It’s just a movie.” The movie’s success –and its big surprise ending – is due to the skill of Coleman and Cumberbatch. Like the stage-seasoned actors they once were, each has been schooled in nuance, accents, and drama.

 

Some audiences were turned off by the movie’s “meanness.” Sorry, viewers, but that’s on you, not the script or the direction of Jay Roach. The film is a hybrid black comedy and satire and if you don’t get the latter, you won’t get the humor. All those amazing houses and sets weren’t there to make you envious, they were lampoons of materialism and unfiltered ambition. The “war” of the Roses, like most actual wars, could/should have been avoided. Pay attention to Ivy’s desserts, which in their own way, are as architectural as Theo’s designs. You might wish to dive into them, but they are splendid illusions, inedible manifestations of an unchained id. Even sex is treated this way. Kate McKinnon is an out-of-control harpy who puts the moves on Theo no matter who is in the room. She’s over-the-top, but so is everyone else. The Roses isn’t a film, but it’s a very good guilty-pleasure movie.

 

Rob Weir

 

The Sheep Detectives is Cute but Inconsequential

 

 

 

 

THE SHEEP DETECTIVES (2026)

Directed by Kyle Balda

Amazon MGM, 109 minutes, PG

★★★

 

PG movies fall into the category of “review-proof” family films immune from what critics say¹. My take on The Sheep Detectives is that it’s a cute, inconsequential movie with a good soundtrack. It will remind you of Babe, Gordy, Chicken Run, and Shaun the Sheep with voiceovers from famous actors collecting easy paychecks by pretending to be “talking” animals. If you think too much about such movies you’ll conclude they are silly, simplistic, and (of course!) unrealistic, but who’s going to say that when wide-eyed children are engrossed in them and parents are getting a 109-minute break. Besides, you might get a lesson on sheep varieties from watching it.

 

Kindly shepherd George Hardy (Hugh Jackman) spends his evenings reading to his sheep, who huddle around and are soothed by his voice. Most of them have no idea what he’s saying, except perhaps Lily (voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus), an intelligent sheep who is George’s favorite. Each sheep, be it a Merino, a Shetland, a Cheviot, or a Castlemilk Moorit acts according to its breed. Twins Reggie and Ronnie, for instance, are Norfolk Horn sheep who spend a lot of time butting each other in the head. As the life of a sheep goes, this pasture has it made. Even an old Boresay sheep (voiced by Patrick Stewart) believes that sheep don’t die; they just float up and join the clouds. Heaven forbid they would learn about mutton stew.

 

The farm is just outside the village of Denbrook, which is mostly imaginary, but will remind you a bit of Darrowby in All Creatures Great and Small, though filming was done in the “Home” counties near London, especially in the Buckinghamshire village of Ivinghoe. It’s a big weekend in Denbrook, its annual agricultural fair. Director Kyle Balda gets a lot of mileage of juxtaposing the excitement and community solidarity of Denbrook with the jaded dismissiveness of urbanites chancing upon the fair. One of the latter is Eliot Matthews (Nicholas Galitzine), a stuck-up public-school boy² pretending to be a reporter and photographer. In keeping with the rural bumpkin/sophisticated urbanite split, villagers are smiling, cordial, and sometimes on the dopey side. The town policeman Tim Derry (Nicholas Braun) is dense enough to make Barney Fife look like a physicist, and Denbrook seems as if it has been peopled by Stepford neighbors.

 

Rural bliss is severely disturbed, though, when George Hardy is found dead. Derry, of course, gets the cause of death all wrong, so the sheep have to figure out how to get stupid humans to see that he was poisoned, just as they must unmask his murderer. What’s a murder mystery without a tin of red herrings? Caleb Merrow (Tosin Cole) has long yearned to buy Hardy’s property as he has a secret deal going with a butcher named Ham (!) Gilyard (Conleth Hill) to combine the two flocks and sell more mutton. (There’s a scene between Merrow’s dogs and the two flocks that’s a bovine version of Stalag 17.) Once rural harmony is shattered, other suspects emerge. Solicitor Lydia Hardbottle (Emma Thompson) appears to add more chaos to Denbrook. She is Hardy’s London attorney whose job is to unseal and read George’s will.

 

Much to everyone’s surprise, Hardy is a millionaire who holds the patent on a sheep medicine called “orf.”  Young Eliot steps up to reveal he is actually George’s biological son Peter. Alas, also in town is a visitor from the United States, Molly Gordon (Rebecca Hampstead) who purports to be George’s daughter. All of a sudden, the village is afoul with sheep pellets galore. Is someone pulling the wool over local eyes? Who ya’ gonna call? Sheep detectives!

 

I again emphasize that it’s a cute movie, sometimes quite clever and sometimes a forced feeding of artificial sweetener. Stay through the credits to hear a reworked version of “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).” It was such a hit for The Pretenders in the 1980s that many people think it’s an Irish standard. I think everyone can agree it’s a great song.

 

Rob Weir

 

^1. Re: my point family films have different rules, this is Hugh Jackman’s high-grossing movie and he is knocked off early on.

^2. For reasons that go way back in history, in England a “public” school is a private school, often a very posh one.

A Tax on Dreams and a Very Unusual Movie

 

 

 

 

 

STRAWBERRY MANSION (2021)

Written and Directed by Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley

Music Box Film, 91 minutes, Not-rated

★★★

 

Strawberry Mansion is a film so bizarre that it makes Hundreds of Beavers seem like a documentary of the fur trade.  It is the brainchild of Albert Birney and Kentucker [sic] Audley and you can take your pick of what category into which to plug it: science fiction, comedy, surrealism, fantasy, or a warning shot across the bow. Unless you were at Sundance in 2021 or in one of the 27 theaters that screened in during its 11-week run, you’ve not seen it. It made just $54,762 during those 11 weeks and the only thing we can definitely say is that it is indeed an independent film. I can’t imagine taking any attempted synopsis of this film before a group of high-roller producers.

I don’t mean to imply I didn’t like it; it’s more a case of not having the foggiest idea of how to explain it as I’m not sure what just happened on my screen. The year is 2035 and the government has figured out how to tax people’s dreams. The film blurs the line between dreaming and being awake. Early on we see James Preble in an entirely pink room: walls, furniture, cups, utensils…. An obsequious pink-suited man called Buddy (Linas Phillips) comes bearing a bucket of Cap’n Kelly’s Chicken and a tall cup of Red Rocket Cola. He tries to entice James to try a chicken and gravy milkshake and, heaven help him, James likes it. What in the name of Col. Sanders is going on? Buddy reappears from time to time, always with chicken and cola to make James believe that he is James’ only friend. Is he, or is a glad-handed Satan as ad man?

James is a dream auditor. By 2035, all our dreams are recorded on a small stick that can placed into a computer to determine how much tax is owed. James is dispatched to the home of an old woman named Arabella–call me “Bella –Isadora (Penny Fuller), who lives alone with her turtle “Sugar baby,” and has not submitted her dream stick or paid her dream tax in quite some time. She lives a quirky remote home, the movie’s titular Strawberry Mansion, and Bella immediately offers pie and a place to stay while James does his audit. James tells Bella that she is supposed to keep track of all her dreams and she smiles and says she has; it’s all stored on tapes: cassettes, VHS, Betamax, reel-to-reel…. Stacks and stacks of them. To make sense of them he has to don a cross between a diving helmet, the head of a 1950s robot, and Australian bandit Ned Kelly’s iron mask. But James keeps seeing things: a young version of Bella, human-like creatures covered by green foliage, and occasional scarier images.

James learns from Bella that she and her late husband discovered that advertisers figured out how to infiltrate our dreams. Imagine if you were in the middle of a very pleasant or terrifying dream that was interrupted by commercials! Bella also recounts that she and her husband built a device to shut off the commercials. What happens next is so weird you’ll need to remind yourself that it might be dream logic. James will spend what seems like years being on a desert island with Bella, losing her, and seeking her. They will dine in a restaurant with a frog waiter, run away from Buddy, and then lose each other for “years” when James appears as a ship’s commander whose crew consists of two life-sized talking rats named Richard and Marcus. From time-to-time James encounters the terrifying Blue Demon. The Demon, like the Rats and the Frog wear what appear to be papier-mache heads. Getting hit on the head with a bowling pin presage some of these… what? Dreams? Shifts of reality? When he finds Bella again, she has to remove all the greenery he has acquired as one of the grass/foliage figures that line her property.

Is James some sort of chosen one to save humankind from rampant commercialism? Just a nerd who got in the way? A figment of his own imagination? There is an explanation of sorts and a possible happy ending, but who’s to say whether it’s just another flight from reality? Don’t ask me! All I can say is that Strawberry Mansion is my new standard of a weird movie.

 

Rob Weir

 

Rob Weir

Laura Revisited: Preminger's Best?

 

 

 

LAURA (1944)

Directed by Otto Preminger

20^th Century Fox, 88 minutes, pre-ratings system

(In black and white)

★★★★

 

This review originally ran in 2021. I offer it again as I am in the midst of films directed by Otto Preminger (1905-86). This version is lightly edited.

 

There are many reasons to prefer Laura for film noir fans wishing to discover/rediscover actress Gene Tierney. They begin with Otto Preminger. He was a legendary director, whereas various remakes by other directors, including a 1968 made-for-TV film were at best middle-of-the-road. I’ve never seen Fiona on Fire, a porn film based on Laura, but let us assume that Gene Tierney was a superior actress. Preminger had the sense to tantalize rather than fetishize. His noir classic in black and white exemplifies how films about shadowy characters should be done. Preminger dusted his frames with psychological theory rather than encasing them.

 

Laura is a study in obsession. It begins when New York City Police Detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) is assigned to a grisly murder scene. Wealthy advertising executive Laura Hunt (Tierney) is the presumed victim of a shotgun blast to the face. Although she was beautiful and accomplished, she also had a reputation for being difficult and ruthless, which means any of a number of people had motives to dispatch her. At first, McPherson centers his investigation on her snooty, no-account fiancé Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price). Carpenter is a classic “kept man” with no discernible skills of his own, hence his motive for murder doesn’t add up. Maybe Hunt’s aunt, Ann Treadway (Judith Anderson), knows more than she lets on. She has also been bankrolling Carpenter and may have been having a side affair with him. There’s also a matter of a missing murder weapon and the ace in the hole: Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb). He’s a newspaper writer who “made” Laura by lifting her out of her uncultivated bumpkin ways, mentoring her, and showering her with expensive gifts, including her pricey apartment and most of its flashy appointments. Lydecker insists their relationship was non-sexual, but he speaks of Laura as if she is one of his possessions. 

 

McPherson finds himself making repeated trips to Laura’s apartment, and we soon suspect that his motive is to solve the crime because he has become creepily attracted to the large portrait of Laura hanging above the fireplace mantle. One night, McPherson falls asleep beneath her picture. When he awakes, Laura is standing before him!  It’s not a dream. McPherson concludes that the actual victim was one of Hunt’s models, Diane Redfern. McPherson arrests Laura for Redfern’s murder, a complication as he has fallen in love with Laura. Can he do his duty or will he help her, even if it means letting a murderer walk away? We know what Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade would do, but is McPherson cut from the same trench coat cloth? And is Laura actually guilty of anything?

 

Laura is a corkscrew mystery involving a cast of oil-covered, morality-challenged characters. Who, if anyone, is telling the truth? And where is the rifle that killed Diane Redfern?  I called it a study of obsession and that should be interpreted literally and broadly. It seems that everyone–especially Lydecker and McPherson–is obsessed with Laura. She, in turn, seems demure, but perhaps she’s infatuated with herself. Or maybe not!

 

The acting–though affected in 1940s’ ways–is superb, even Vincent Price and Tierney’s who at this stage of his career was a character actor more than a star. He’s quite good as Tierney’s castoff lover. The much-underappreciated Dana Andrews strikes the needed balance between believability and cheesy fascination, and Tierney scores as a raven-haired femme fatale. (Don’t believe those garish 1940s posters in which she’s colorized to look like a redhead!) Clifton Webb, though, comes close to stealing the glory. His is a performance that walks several lines, not the least of which is the thin one between utterly contemptible and wholly fascinating. For what it’s worth, elements of Preminger’s own personality can be read into Webb-as-Lydecker. One could easily become obsessed by this film. Several Preminger films are considered superior, but few surpass Laura.

 

Rob Weir

Anatomy of a Murder: Antique or Pathbreaking?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anatomy of a Murder (1959).

Directed by Otto Preminger

Columbia Pictures, 160 minutes, not rated.

★★★★

 

Americans like to believe that our justice system is mostly fair, especially when it comes to jury trials. Yet there are circumstances in which the verdict is open for conjecture. The 1959 film Anatomy of a Murder, though an old film, raises questions that remain relevant. I do caution, that as in most older movies, one must remember that today’s “normal” is often not that of earlier times.

 

Anatomy of a Murder takes place in the upper peninsula of Michigan and is loosely based upon a real case. A novel of the same name was written by “Robert Traver,” but that was the pen name of John Volker, a Michigan Supreme Court justice. Volker fictionalized a 1952 case in which he was a defense attorney. One of the most controversial situations for any criminal court, then or now, occurs when a defendant pleads not guilty by reason of insanity.

 

The movie involves a semi-retired folksy lawyer named Paul Biegler (Jimmy Stewart). Who would rather fish than lawyer. He is persuaded, though, to meet Army Lieutenant Frederick “Manny” Manion (Ben Gazzara). The facts are not in dispute. Manion walked into a bar and shoot Barney Quill. Biegler, though, thinks Manny was driven to blind fury; Manion claimed that Quill raped his wife, Laura (Lee Remick). Yet, given the statutes of the day, that’s not a defense. Biegler is reluctant to take the case until his former partner Parnell McCarthy (Arthur O’Connell), now the town drunkard, thinks Biegler should take the case. Did Parnell’s pledge of sobriety convince Paul to take Manny’s case, or was it that Laura is quite a looker?

 

The prosecution offers a plea deal to reduce the murder charge to manslaughter. At the urging of Manny and Laura, Biegler says no deal. The trial is presided over by visiting judge from Lansing named Weaver (Joseph N. Welch). His appearance is one of many surprises in this film. If Joseph N. Welch sounds familiar, he was the lawyer who took on Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s in one of the first televised trials. McCarthy was impugning the reputation of a young man who Welch knew was innocent. It was Welch, who brought down McCarthy with a simple question: “Have you know, decency, sir? Have you at long last no decency?” That moment spearheaded McCarthy’s downfall. In Anatomy of a Murder, Welch plays a judge with a sense of humor, but he also attempts to run a tight ship.

 

This 1959 film is sometimes said to be the first American movie in which the words “rape” and “panties” were spoken aloud. The latter might induce a guffaw, but not so funny is that until 1994, it was acceptable to cite a woman’s provocative appearance as a mitigating factor in sexual assaults. Laura’s “sexy” attire consisted of wearing slacks and going about barelegged! Biegler faced some pretty fancy prosecutors, district attorney Lodwick (Brooks West) and a polished advisor from the Attorney General’s office, Claude Dancer (George C. Scott). They are the kind of attorneys that you might conjure today, sharply dressed, erudite, and keen cross-examiners. Anatomy of a Murder at times reminded me of screwball comedies directed by Frank Capra. This is especially the case when McCarthy and Biegler discover an 1886 precedent in Michigan that allowed for an “irresistible impulse” to be cited as a defense.

 

Who will win, the down-to-earth team of attorneys or the slick guys from the city? The case will turn on a few special witnesses not the least of which is Mary Pliant (Kathryn Grant). As in today’s insanity pleas, psychiatrists testify for both the defense and the prosecution. Not surprisingly, they came to different conclusions! One of the expert witnesses is Orson Bean, who older viewers will recognize. Music fans will spot Duke Ellington in a scene with Jimmy Stewart. Another delightful part, that a Biegler’s wisecracking secretary is played by Eve Arden, another who was famous in her day. In other words, this is a heavyweight cast.

 

You can watch Anatomy of a Murder two ways. It’s either a laughable antique, or a pathbreaking film whose frankness helped alter how sexual allegations are today handled in court. It probably won’t settle opposing views on insanity defenses.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boomerang: Is Turnabout Fair Play?

  

 

BOOMERANG!  (1947)

Directed by Elia Kazan

20^th Century Fox, 88 minutes

★★ ½

 

I thought I had nearly exhausted the film noir collection at the Forbes Library until I found a listing titled “More Notorious Film Noir.” Some of them stretch the definition of film noir but if a movie keeps my attention, the label becomes secondary.

 

 Boomerang! is a film whose genre is debatable. It is a film noir or a crime drama? Some film historians call it a “docudrama,” a good compromise. This one dates from 1947 and is not the 1992 film of the same name starring Eddie Murphy. I remind you that it’s hard to copyright a movie title, so it’s not unusual for unrelated films to bear identical titles. The 1992 movie Boomerang was panned by critics and audiences alike, but the 1947 film starring Dana Andrews got three Oscar nominations. It was (and still is) an unusual production. 

 

 The “docu” part of the “drama” is that, with a few name changes, it parallels a real-life event. In 1924, Catholic priest Father Hubert Dahme was gunned down on the streets of Bridgeport, Connecticut. He was well-liked and the public pressured law enforcement to solve the case. A World I vet was fingered for the crime, but the States Attorney concluded that police coerced a confession based on weak circumstantial evidence.  The attorney’s name was Homer Cummings, who went on to become the U.S. Attorney General (1933-39) under FDR and served three terms as mayor of Stamford, Connecticut, before going into private law practice.

 

 Director Elia Kazan echoed that narrative and in partnership with cinematographer Norbert Brodine made a film that looked like a documentary. They shot gritty street locations in Stamford and courtrooms in White Plains, New York, used music sparingly, and sought to preserve realistic police and courtroom procedures. In the film, the priest’s name is Father George Lambert and the States Attorney is Henry Harvery (Andrews). Richard Murphy’s screenplay added political twists that enhanced the drama. The “Reform” party has just turned out a longtime corrupt regime. The title Boomerang! comes from unexpected turnabouts and the manner in which it forced viewers to weigh questions of “dirty politics.” A central consideration is morality of using comparable low tactics against corrupt powers in the name of reform and overlook those who hold party purse strings. 

 

 Harvey is, at first, anxious to prosecute veteran and drifter John Waldron (Arthur Kennedy) for Father Lambert’s murder, but the more he contemplates the evidence–lineup identification, a generic gun, a confession–the more the case smells like rotten fish. Methods that today that are patently illegal were not so in 1947. Now, the moment an accused person asks for a lawyer, all police questioning must cease. Waldron was interrogated for two full days, beaten, and deprived of sleep until he “confessed.” As in 1924, police and the new reform government faced strong public demands to catch the killer. At a preliminary hearing, Harvey advises that he has changed his mind and moves that the case against Waldron be dropped. A veritable lynch mob is turned back by the police chief (Lee J. Cobb) but personal pressure is applied by reform party boss, real estate mogul Paul Harris (Ed Begley). He’s even willing to (mis) use a donation for a public park made by Henry’s wife, Madge (Jane Wyatt) to threaten the Harveys with homelessness. Will Henry relent or do what is just? Which will prevail, truth or power? Popularity or real reform? That Kazan would raise such issues is ironic given his role as a “friendly witness” during the House Un-American Activities Committee* five years later.

 

The acting in Boomerang! is uniformly strong, but I must warn that the script has holes that sometimes makes it hard to follow. It is, again, a period piece in which many standards and values differed from those of today, though the power of money might ring distressingly true. Kazan’s film style is long on verisimilitude, but its lack of flash can be jarring for modern film viewers. It’s not my favorite docudrama, but Boomerang! is worth watching.   

 

 Rob Weir

 

 * Kazan’s testimony during guilt-by-association HUAC hearings led numerous individuals to be blacklisted during the Second Red Scare. When Kazan received an honorary Oscar in 1999, many inside the auditorium turned their backs on him. It did not escape notice that, when pressured, Kazan opted to save his career instead of following the path of Harvey/Cummings.

Sing Sing Humanizes the Incarcerated

 

  

SING SING (2024)

Directed by Greg Kwedar

A24, 107 minutes, R (language)

★★★★ ½

 

Sing Sing is one of the most infamous prisons in the United States. Located in Ossining, New York, it was once home to “Old Sparky” (electric chair), which dispatched 614 convicted criminals to the hereafter between 1891-1963.* Yet, it has also been the home to innovative programs such as a theatre project known as Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA), which is the subject of this very fine and moving film. Director Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley wrote the screenplay with assistance from (among others) Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin and John “Divine G” Whitfield who were once inmates in Sing Sing and veterans of the RTA. Nine other actors also served time in Sing Sing.

On screen, we quickly learn that Divine G (Colman Domingo) is the star playwright, lead actor, and leading spirit of the RTA. The group has just finished a Shakespeare play under the direction of Brent Buell (Paul Raci). The group can’t decide on a new play, so G is tasked with writing a new one. He also tries to recruit Divine Eye (Maclin playing himself) into the RTA. To say Eye has attitude is an understatement. He’s innately intelligent but inside the joint he’s a don’t-mess-with-me loner and tough guy. He says he wants nothing to do with RTA but G knows a phony when he sees one. G discusses matters with his cellmate “Mike Mike” (Sean San Jose) and follows his advice to challenge Divine Eye. He does and Eye shows up as the group discusses what G should write. Eye is all bad news, but it is he who suggests a comedy.

A comedy indeed. How do you feel about some of the greatest stage soliloquies stitched together in a comedic romp? How will G react to Brent’s decision to cast Eye in the play’s only dramatic role? G is shaken, but he reluctantly becomes Eye’s tutor. To simplify a whole lot of moving story development, the two also become friends, especially after Mike Mike dies of an aneurysm. Can you say “a star is born behind bars?” G will also tutor Eye in writing his clemency appeal and about losing the chip on his shoulder. But, like many of us, G is smarter in giving advice than in assessing his own situation.

G is also up for clemency and despite glowing recommendations from prison staff and administrators, makes two fatal mistakes. First, he insists that another person did the crime for which he has been incarcerated. Second, he takes credit for the RTA in a prideful way. The lead commissioner of the clemency board (Sharon Washington) asks him if he thinks he is a good actor, G says he’s learned a lot about acting from Brent and the RTA. Her next question is, “Are you acting now?” G is stunned and instantly aware that he has screwed up. It’s a clemency hearing after all, meaning an appeal for forgiveness. Sure enough, his request is denied. It stings even more when Divine Eye’s appeal is granted and he is released.

G is hurt and reacts like Eye might have. In the following weeks he says the RTA is BS, swears, rips up his cell, tries to provoke Eye, gets tossed into solitary, and isolates himself when he’s out. But RTA is in his soul; he apologizes and resumes RTA duties. When he is paroled seven years later, guess who greets him on the outside.

Cinematographer Pat Scola is an unsung hero in making Sing Sing., which garnered praise in festivals and independent cinemas. Colman got a Best Actor nomination and Maclin a Best Supporting Actor nod. Neither won, but merely getting nominated is pretty amazing for a film made for less than $2 million and featuring former prisoners. Scola’s camera humanizes the men inside the “joint” and lingers on how relationships are built under stressful and depressing situations. Scola and Kwedar also had the good luck to get inside the Downstate Correctional Facility** months after it was decommissioned. Sing Sing does appear in the film, but only its exteriors as it still houses nearly 1,600 prisoners. Downstate looked and felt like the inside of a real medium/maximum prison, complete with cellblocks, heavily screened views of life outside, and drab interiors.*** Scola’s use of 16 mm filmstock gives the film a gritty, grainy look.

I highly recommend this film, as it’s truly a superior effort. My only beef is that mixing professional actors with ex-cons often makes interactions too polite, a veritable Hawthorne effect.

 

Rob Weir

* New York abolished its death penalty.

** If you driven west on I-84, the razor-wired Downstate facility is on your right. It was closed in 2002. On your left you will see the older Fishkill Correctional Facility, which still jails medium- and maximum-security prisoners because it’s larger.

*** I know something about the inside of prisons as I once worked in probation/parole services.