As bad buddy cop comedies go, “Cop Out” is perhaps one of the better ones. Taken as a piece of storytelling, it’s guilty of the capital cinema crime of trashing itself: repeatedly disrespecting its own reality. On the other hand, taken as a way to kill some time watching fairly skilled comic actors like Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan and Seann William Scott be funny in a loose and genial way, it’s reasonably enjoyable. That, however, does not excuse its numerous sins.
Directed by Kevin Smith but written by the TV scriptwriting brother act of Mark and Robb Cullen, “Cop Out”seeks to convince us that none-too-competent tough guy detective Jimmy Monroe (Willis) and zany neurotic Paul Hodges (Morgan) have been somehow functioning as partners in the NYPD for nine years. After a bit of excess zaniness by Hodges while dressed as a giant cell phone leads to the brazen murder of a hapless informant (Juan Carlos Hernández), neither Monroe nor Hodges is particularly concerned about their clear responsibility for the death. The missing paychecks from their resulting suspension, however, are a big problem.
”In the Loop” is a broad and harsh satire in which the feckless and self-serving behavior of political operatives in Britain and the United States threaten to lead inexorably to a completely needless war. To all appearances, the war is not waged for any logical reason, but only to further the personal agendas of a few ego-addled politicos. Farfetched, isn’t it?
Directed by acclaimed British TV comedy veteran Armando Iannucci (”I’m Alan Partridge”), “In the Loop” is largely an extension of the 2005 miniseries, “In the Thick of It,” with its Oscar-nominated screenplay penned by Iannucci and a quartet of writers from the series. And so, “In the Loop” borders stylistically on mock-documentary. However, if it were an actual documentary, it would be in the category of, “I could send you a screener, but then I’d have to kill you.” It’s a real worm’s-eye view of the rush to a war of (poor) choice.
If things had gone a bit differently, she might well have been as huge a superstar as such contemporaries as Audrey Hepburn or Natalie Wood — she certainly had the talent and screen presence to do so. However, as I’m reminded by her New York Times obituary, an ugly situation involving a sexual proposition the married actress got from Howard Hughes likely prevented Jean Simmons from reaching the super-stardom she deserved as much as anyone. The vindictive aviation and filmmaking magnate may have deliberately put her in films he thought were inferior and refused to allow his film studio to lend her out for the lead in “Roman Holiday,” the role that deservedly made Audrey Hepburn a more or less instant star.
Nevertheless, Ms. Simmons, who sadly passed on yesterday at age 80 from lung cancer, outlasted her Hughes contract and gave witty and altogether enchanting performances in numerous and diverse films, ranging from break-out teenage performances as the young Estella in David Lean’s still-definitive 1946 version of “Great Expectations” (she’d eventually play Mrs. Havisham in a TV production) and as Ophelia in Laurence Olivier’s 1948 “Hamlet.” As a puckishly beautiful adult actress who pretty much owned the word “luminous,” she had no problem quietly stealing scenes on an epic scale from the likes of Kirk Douglas in “Spartacus,” Burt Lancaster in “Elmer Gantry,” Gregory Peck in William Wyler’s underrated “The Big Country,” and, most famously these days, Marlon Brando in her only musical appearance, “Guys and Dolls.” Brando was easy to outshine musically though she was also easily his acting equal or superior, but here she shows she would have had to chops to almost hold her own musically with with costar Frank Sinatra, if only the script had called for it. What she lacks in polish, she more than makes up for in sheer commitment.
An admitted survivor of alcoholism, Simmons was a class act on every level who famously complimented Hepburn on her great “Roman Holiday” performance, as painful as it must have been to watch and even though it’s not clear that she wouldn’t have been just as good in the role. She kept working through most of her life — her last significant role was her voice work in the English-language version of “Howl’s Moving Castle” — and her loss to the world of entertainment is not a small one. She was often low-key, but she was never dull.
And here’s one more. Sorry about the double subtitles, but this is a clip of the great opening sequence of Rohmer’s “Love in the Afternoon” (sometimes called “Chloe in the Afternoon” to avoid confusion with the Billy Wilder romantic comedy). It starts out like classic Rohmer and ends with a bit of sci-fi.
The breathtaking cinematography here is by the late Nestor Almendros. Whatever you do, when you see this one, get the Criterion version.
In 1934’s “Manhattan Melodrama,” Clark Gable’s virtuous gangster literally goes to the gallows for the sake of his friendship with William Powell’s honest but sincerely conflicted politician, now the governor of the state. As Gable nobly refuses Powell’s offer of a reprieve – he deserves his fate – and prepares to meet his end, they shake hands, a bit dewy-eyed. Thirty-four years later, Oscar (Walter Matthau) and Felix (Jack Lemmon) in “The Odd Couple” are pretty clearly in the throes of one hilariously complex love/hate relationship but, when their friendship is healed by the end of the film, even the briefest of hugs is not in the cards for the poker buddies.
Now, of course, we live in a very different male-bonding world. Yet, even as the hug becomes the new handshake for many, the question remains: what is the new hug? No wonder so many of us seem caught between a junior high school level fear of being thought gay and artsy post collegiate embarrassment that we’re not cool enough to actually be, you know, a little bit gay. It’s life in the post-Kinsey, post-ambisexual/glam David Bowie, post “Seinfeld” “not that there’s anything wrong with that” world where, as proven by “Superbad,” the spectacle of straight males being physically affectionate is somehow funnier than ever.
Also, If you’ve haven’t seen them, you may also want to check out my interviews with Humpday’s two stars, Mark Duplass (of the filmmaking Duplass brothers) and actor-filmmaker Joshua Leonard (”The Blair Witch Project.”)
A once influential theatrical artist with a flair for surreal provocation and a madcap sense of humor makes some questionable decisions and winds up in a world where, at least for the moment, no one much cares for his stories. Doe this remind us of anyone we know?
Well, ex-Monty Python animator and trouble-plagued big budget cult movie director Terry Gilliam has made no secret of the autobiographical nature of “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.” Between that, the tragic death of Heath Ledger midway through filming, and the numerous references to the grim reaper that fill this dark and occasionally comic fantasy, it’s kind of impossible not to think about the grim real world conditions of its making; not only did the production lose its star in the most painful way possible partway through filming, but producer William Vince also passed on from cancer during post-production, while Gilliam himself suffered serious injuries after being hit by a car. The writer-director emphasizes that the screenplay for “Parnassus” was not significantly rewritten after Ledger’s death, but in view of this strangely disjointed film, that brings up a lot more questions than it answers.
By the way, if you happen to be seeing this on December 24th, Meet Me in St. Louis is playing tonight on TCM 1o:00 pst/1:00 est and again in March. Here’s the scoop.
Note: This review was co-written many weeks back (I’m linking late!) with the highly esteemed Ross Ruediger of Bullz-Eye and The Rued Morgue. Guess which movies I saw, and which ones Ross saw!
Forty-two years after his death, B-horror legend William Castle remains synonymous with cinematic gimmicks with names like “Emergo,” (a glow-in-the-dark skeleton that flew over the audience), “Percepto” (a small vibrator under some theaters seats) and “Illusion-O” (a “ghost viewer”). Though his modestly budgeted productions delighted the young, they were impossible to take seriously and never earned him the kind of respect given to less avidly commercial auteurs. Still, he was a solid movie craftsman of the old school with a buoyant attitude who worked with Orson Welles and Roman Polanski, and possibly influenced Alfred Hitchcock’s move into sensational horror with “Psycho” and “The Birds.” As a director, he was a competent craftsman whose essentially good-natured works aimed a bit low. As a showman, however, Welles, Polanski, and Hitchcock had very little on him.
There’s a good chance that, growing up, you’ve fantasized about being a private investigator. Fed by a lifetime of TV, movie, and literary P.I.s, I know I have – and still do. The mind of Andy Barker (Andy Richter), however, has been elsewhere.
Andy’s an accountant, and a very good one, but he’s so unaware of the noir mythos that when someone mentions the movie “Chinatown,” he asks, “Is that with Jackie Chan?” Blissfully married to the adoring Jenny Barker (the quirkily deadpan Clea Lewis), he’s more than happy taking all his walks on the mild side. Still, when he moves into the strip-mall office that once belonged to the aging and more than slightly crazed retired tough guy private dick Lew Staziak (the late, great Harve Presnell), he finds himself beset with clients who have more need of Jim Rockford or Phillip Marlowe than a Certified Public Accountant. With the questionable help of Staziak and two of his office neighbors – zany video store proprietor Simon (Tony Hale of “Arrested Development”), who provides Andy with movie knowledge and little else, and flag-waving Afghan-American restaurateur Wally (veteran actor Marshall Manesh) – he sets about righting wrongs and fighting bad guys. His only weapons: common sense, high morals, and his vast knowledge of accountancy.
A film about Greece, made by an expatriate Greek director, but featuring an all-star French-speaking cast, “Z” is, alongside John Frankenheimer’s “The Manchurian Candidate” and Jean-Luc Godard’s “Weekend,” one of the most important political films of all time. Even if, artistically and in terms of sheer entertainment, it’s not quite on the same level as either of those masterpieces, it had an immediacy those films lacked. Unlike Godard and Frankenheimer, director Costa-Gavris wasn’t only working out of political conviction, he was trying to free his homeland.
Shot and financed in the former French colony of Algeria, “Z” is based on a thinly fictionalized novel by Vasilis Vasilikos detailing the 1963 murder of pacifist leader Gregoris Lambrakis and the investigation that followed. Presaging the John F. Kennedy assassination by several months, the killing helped set the stage for a full-scale fascist military takeover of Greece, which lasted from 1967 to 1974. That, in turn, set the stage for Costa-Gavris, a promising young director hot off the success of his first film, “The Sleeping Car Murders,” to recruit a cast of mostly French stars to participate in a film designed specifically to raise a worldwide alarm. With the tacit acceptance of the U.S. and Western Europe, the world’s cradle of democracy was harboring a totalitarian regime that regularly tortured and murdered dissidents and had banned everything from the Beatles and long hair, to Mark Twain, Dostoyevsky, and a certain letter of the alphabet. With “Z,” Costa-Gavris made sure the world knew that.
Forward to Yesterday is dedicated to all that is valuable yet deemed—rightly or wrongly—to be dead or dying in movies and popular (and unpopular) culture, politics included.
