Film and Television

This and That

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458490967My wife and daughter are in France for a month, so I’m all alone at home…unless you count my daughter’s dog, the hamster and the fish. I feel like a zoo keeper…my life has become BORN FREE in a tract home. But the solitude has given me the chance to catch up on some books and movies, when I’m not cleaning backyards, cages and fish tanks…

 OSS 117: LE CAIRE NID D’ESPIONS

This French spy spoof is everything GET SMART wanted to be and AUSTIN POWERS should have been. It perfectly mimics the look, feel, sound, fashion and acting style of the 1960s spy films down to the smallest, lovingly crafted detail. And on top of that, it’s hilariously funny, too.

 In-bruge_l

IN BRUGES

This a bloody, dark comedy about two hit men who are sent by their boss to chill out in Bruges, Belgium after an assignment goes bad. I loved everything about this film which, in terms of tone and violence, is sort of a cross between PULP FICTION, JACKIE BROWN and SEXY BEAST. I don’t understand why this movie didn’t generate some attention…it’s seemed to open and close in a weekend here in L.A.. It’s a shame, because this may be one of the best movies I’ve seen all year.

WANTED

Sure, the stunts and effects are cool, but this movie left me cold. I just never got into the characters or the story. I found myself glancing at my watch, biding my time until the next stunt. It badly wants to be THE MATRIX or BOURNE IDENTITY, but to me it felt like I was watching a video game instead of an actualPoster1 movie.

SERAPHIM FALLS

A post-Civil War western starring Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson, both of whom were totally miscast.
Not that it mattered. It’s a strange cross between OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, JEREMIAH JOHNSON, and RAMBO, and not a fraction as entertaining or fresh as those movies. Brosnan plays a former Union soldier (who apparently has Navy SEAL survival training) relentlessly pursued through snow-capped mountains and parched deserts by vengeance-seeking former Rebel soldier Neeson. Neither man is a villain or a hero which is, of course, the point of the movie, which is driven home with the subtlety of a wrecking ball. The movie seems tired, familiar, and pointless.

THE GARGOYLE

This isn’t a movie, but rather one of the hot galleys from BookExpo. It’s by first-time author Andrew Davidson and it’s a breath-taking, though problematic, debut. The story falls into what is becoming something of a genre unto itself:  the “wounded man finds redemption and love with the woman who nurses him back to health” and who endures his agony by escaping into a Gargoyle
fantasy world of imagination and flashbacks. The story, as a result, shares some similarities to THE ENGLISH PATIENT, THE SINGING DETECTIVE and THE WATERDANCE, to name a few. Despite some familiar motifs, this is a brilliant, compelling, and darkly funny novel…at least for the first two-thirds. It’s about a coked-up porno actor who is in a terrible car accident that nearly burns him alive. It’s in the burn ward that he meets a woman who is either a schizophrenic or his lover from several past lives. To say more would ruin things. I was enthralled for the first two thirds of the book, as much by the story as the prose. Davidson is a master storyteller, and I don’t say that lightly. I can’t believe this is his first novel. The writing and structure evokes John Irving, Robertson Davies, and Susanna Clarke…with several “side trips” that could stand alone as mini-novellas (something Irving has done in several of his books by having his “author” characters share their stories or by using extended, anecdotal flashbacks). The book fumbles in the finale third, with an extended dream sequence and a limp, pointlessly drawn out conclusion that doesn’t satisfy on any level. It doesn’t matter. That small disappointment is more than outweighed by the brilliance of what precedes it. The characters, images and stories in this amazing book will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading. I strongly recommend it.

Get Smart Isn’t

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I loved the TV series GET SMART and I still do. You could pick any episode from the first three seasons of GET SMART and it would be ten times funnier than Steve Carrell’s new movie version. The GET SMART movie is a listless, laughless remake that makes THE NUDE BOMB, the last GET SMART feature film, look like brilliant comedy. But while I was sitting there, fighting sleep and debating whether to walk out or not, it occurred to me that GET SMART has a lot of the same problems as Steve Martin’s THE PINK PANTHER remake. In both cases, someone made the inept decision to make the bumbling heroes smart and capable…and very good at what they do. Maxwell Smart and Inspector Clouseau were lovable, clueless, idiots who thought they were brilliant at what they did…and were far, far from it. That was what made them so funny. So why change the key aspect of their characters? The two Steves are extraordinarily funny guys — but have their egos become so big they are hesitant about playing morons? That wasn’t a problem for either one of them in the past (see THE JERK or ANCHORMAN).  If they didn’t want to play Maxwell Smart and Inspector Clouseau as we know and love them…then why bother playing the parts at all? They even screwed up the “Would you believe” and “missed it by that much” jokes.

The only thing I liked about the GET SMART movie was the very, very, very in-joke of seeing Carrell use all three of the cars that Maxwell Smart drove in the series opening title sequence (cameos by Bernie Kopell and Leonard Stern seemed awkwardly shoe-horned into the movie). But that one moment was hardly worth the agony of watching the rest of the movie.

Loving REBUS

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I've been enjoying a REBUS marathon over the last few days — not the Ian Rankin books, but the terrific TV movie adaptations starring Ken Stott as D.I. John Rebus, taking the role from the woefully miss-cast John Hannah. They are simply terrific…and in some cases, even better than the novels they are based on (in that respect they are akin to the JESSE STONE movies based on the Robert B. Parker novels). Stott is pitch-perfect as Rebus, and the writing is tight, sharp, and  true to the spirit, if not every plot move, of the books. Some of the movies, in fact, could serve as a lesson in adaptation for aspiring screenwriters — the writers get to the heart of what makes each novel work, cutting away the fat, focusing the plot, and amping up the character conflicts. REBUS is the best new traditional British detective series since the late, great INSPECTOR MORSE (though I've got a couple seasons worth of LEWIS, the sequel series with Morse's sidekick, to watch so I may have to revise that opinion). I've got two more movies to watch and then it's over…apparently for good, since Stott doesn't want to do any more of them and, without him, neither does the network. I hope they can lure him back to do an adaption of "Exit Music," the final Rebus novel.

FAST TRACK rave

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I have no idea who this guy is…or where he saw FAST TRACK…but he gave the movie a rave:

The lives of four characters criss-cross when each of them gets
involved with the world of illegal street racing.  And lots of fun it
is, too. Lee Goldberg has created four very interesting characters and set up some cool
dynamics between all of them.  It's got a few good stunts here and
there, but most of the two hour pilot is devoted to the relationships
betweeen the characters: the deeply-in-debt owner of a garage and her
boyfriend, a cop who secretly street races for thrills.  Her friend,
Mike, wants to be a street racer if she will give him the chance.  She
won't, but a rich, bored trophy wife is happy to jump into his world,
and he's happy to jump into her bed in return.  There's some criminal
hijinks and a few gun battles along the way and – by the end of it all
– the four leads have bonded into a very unusual team.  I would love to
see more.

Thanks Michael!