Ishtar.

Review #2248: Ishtar.

Cast: 

Dustin Hoffman (Chuck Clarke), Warren Beatty (Lyle Rogers), Isabelle Adjani (Shirra Assel), Charles Grodin (Jim Harrison), Jack Weston (Marty Freed), Carol Kane (Carol), Tess Harper (Willa Rogers), Aharon Ipalé (Emir Yousef), Fred Melamed (the Caid of Assari), Fuad Hageb (Abdul), David Margulies (Mr. Clarke) and Rose Arrick (Mrs. Clarke) Written and Directed by Elaine May.

Review: 

"Well, oddly enough when I made this movie, Ronald Reagan was president and there was Iran-Contra, we were supporting Iran and Iraq. We put in Saddam. We had taken out the Shah. Khomeini was there. I remember looking at Ronald Reagan and thinking—I’m qualifying this, this was just an idea, I didn’t really believe it—I thought, he’s from Hollywood, he’s a really nice man. It’s possible the only movie he’s ever seen about the Middle East are the road movies with Hope and Crosby, and I thought I would make that movie....If all of the people who hate Ishtar had seen it, I would be a rich woman today."

To put it mildly, Ishtar landed like a smelly fish being thrown onto a wedding party with audiences at large. There's plenty to say about Elaine May beyond just saying this is (currently) her last film as a feature director. The Philadelphia native was the child of actors that had their own Yiddish theater company. Not surprisingly, she got into acting, which eventually led her to meeting Mike Nichols. The two collaborated with each other in improvisational comedy that led to them doing their own standup team that ran for a few years (resulting in Grammy Awards) before they went their own ways. After a handful of years in acting and theatre work, May became a director with A New Leaf in 1971. The Heartbreak Kid (1972) is arguably her most noted film, but Micky and Nicky (1976) endured enough trouble that she did not have her cut of the film shown to the public until after the film already died in theaters. So, a decade later, May was essentially given a chance to direct again because of her help in writing on Heaven Can Wait (1978) and Reds (1981), which each had Warren Beatty as star and director. So yes, Beatty would produce the film (believing that May never had a good producer behind her) to go along with starring alongside Hoffman, who happened to have the help of May in (uncredited) work on Tootsie (1982) and eventually went along with being in the film despite his misgivings about the script (specifically when the film shifts from New York to Morocco for "these guys who think they're Simon and Garfunkel"). While the movie was a flop, May has continued to write (such as the 1996 Nichols comedy The Birdcage) and occasionally act into her nineties.

Maybe it works better for those more familiar with road movies. The film is basically a riff on the seven Road to... films that featured Bing Crosby, Bob Hope & Dorothy Lamour from 1940 to 1962. Those were comedies that were more about gags (and the occasional song) than plot (which could have differing professions from film to film such as sailor playboys on an island or inept vaudevillians dealing with evil hypnotists). Of course, maybe I'm not as familiar with Hoffman or Beatty in films. Maybe it just was a bit too subtle for its time. Maybe, maybe, maybe, nah, this movie just wasn't for me. Honestly, I tried to give the movie a fair shake, but really it just wasn't that funny. It lumbers in the time between the start and actually getting to Ishtar with songs that totally supposed to be funny by being terrible (as written by Paul Williams, who you would remember from stuff such as A Star Is Born [1976]). But all I see is a movie that drones and drones until the only thing that matters by the end of its time in the sand and bland is being thankful you aren't stuck watching it further. You can try to mine humor all one wants in uncomfortable neurotic weirdos, you just have to *be funny* about it. Strangely, it reminded me of Spies Like Us (released two years earlier as its own homage to the Road films, complete with having Hope in a cameo), which also wasn't exactly great in, well, the comedy (of course, it didn't stop others from making their own Road homages, as evidenced by The Road to El Dorado [2000]). Hoffman and Beatty have mostly stuck with the film in terms of defending it (for the most part) with the former calling it "a B-minus, C-plus comedy". And there are people that have raised the film up as not being just a noted flop that probably did find something worthwhile in its comedy involving second-rate musicians that fulfill themselves in their craft. The attempts at showing the "creative process" must be how people who don't care for watching movies about making movies feel.

The chemistry of the trio just isn't there to inspire anything on the level beyond looking at the sand and the ideas of trying to say something about the politics around the people thinking about the Middle East that just seems middling. Adjani bumbles around in a silly getup (get it? short hair?) that benefits no one in actual presence, and the only funny one really is Grodin, because he always seems on point for understated amusement (or Weston, who is seldom seen). Even at 107 minutes, it just feels hollow and middle-ground, never actually getting a rise by the time it goes to what surely seemed funny for its climax of essentially saying, yes, you too can sing all you want and be a name if you happen to have leverage. As a whole, the negative buzz around the film didn't lend it many favors back then, and maybe there really will be a push a few more years down the line to really rehabilitate the movie as a hidden gem, but I am not one of those people. Encounter at your own curiosity of a film that is not nearly what you might think it is, for better or worse.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Next up: let's do a second chance for something that actually is good...Hudson Hawk.

No Country for Old Men.

Review #1921: No Country for Old Men.

Cast: 

Tommy Lee Jones (Ed Tom Bell), Javier Bardem (Anton Chigurh), Josh Brolin (Llewelyn Moss), Woody Harrelson (Carson Wells), Kelly Macdonald (Carla Jean Moss), Garret Dillahunt (Wendell), Tess Harper (Loretta Bell), Barry Corbin (Ellis), Stephen Root (Man who hires Wells), Rodger Boyce (El Paso Sheriff), and Beth Grant (Carla Jean's mother) Written, Produced, and Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen (#659 - True Grit (2010), #765 - Fargo, #1063 - Blood Simple, #1517 - The Big Lebowski, #1552 - A Serious Man, and #1629 - Miller's Crossing) 

Review: 

The movie is adapted from 2005 novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy. While the Coen brothers were trying to adapt the novel To the White Sea, producer Scott Rudin approached them with the rights to make a film adaptation of the book. This is the 12th feature film by the Coen brothers, who as usual edited the film, with this coming off the heels of their previous work such as Intolerable Cruelty (2003) and The Ladykillers (2004). Take it for what it is worth when it comes to how they went with Bardem: he told them "I don't drive, I speak bad English and I hate violence", and yet he was their ideal choice to star in the film (after Heath Ledger had been in talks before bowing out)...provided that his schedule would work with them, because it would have been Mark Strong if that didn't work out. At any rate, this proved to be one of their most successful films, with the Coens receiving three Academy Awards for their work in this film. 

For me, part of the thing that comes with looking at movies that fall into multiple categories is to look at how it manages to execute what you might see coming from the genre without becoming consumed by what you expect over all things. The film has been called a "neo-Western", "crime thriller", or even "noir". For me, the movie was at its most curious and enjoyable in its setup when it comes to showing the stories of the three lead characters, one that knows when to say something meaningful. I think I can acknowledge the faithfulness of the novel and book with its meditation on the futility of trying to make a clean getaway while also thinking it is just a really nice shaggy dog thriller. Inevitable or not, I just found more to like overall in their previous works such as Miller's Crossing (1990) and Fargo (1996) when it came from top to bottom execution. But don't take my words as a big criticism, because the movie is still pretty good, an old-fashioned period piece that deals with the pitfalls of chance and fate for 122 minutes. They weave a tale that is generally compelling with a generally involving cast and locale.

In a sense, the movie is almost a slasher film, if only because Bardem's sociopath character kills nearly every person he meets (which basically translates to about a dozen people). He is deniably the best part of the film in how he shows unwavering terror with no reservations about just who he is: an agent of death, one who looms over everything. Of course, Brolin is no slouch in comparison when it comes to the other side of fate: trying to evade what and where one is going to end up regardless of the layers of inevitability. Jones has the least amount of time among the three, but folks who are familiar with Jones and his ability to make any type of cut-and-dry role seem interesting to spend time with. He is caught in the middle of fate: being ill-equipped to deal with the ever-changing frontier. Harrelson is the odd man among the supporting cast, a bargaining man who unintentionally is the weak link among the supporting players because of how he comes and goes, particularly when Macdonald and Corbin make such interesting presences without as much time to spare (the latter has one scene with Jones total while the former is the only one to share a scene with each of the main three). The landscape of the film is quite nice, in that one never thinks about the setting of the film being 1980 beyond just figuring it is 1980, complete with the barest of music and cinematography by the dependable Roger Deakins. As a whole, it is a movie that takes its time to build the layers of bleakly amusing fate that works most of its wonders through the usual Coen building blocks of genre blending and distinct characters that ends up making a solid (if not perfect) experience.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

The Man in the Moon.

Review #1499: The Man in the Moon.

Cast: 
Sam Waterston (Matthew Trant), Tess Harper (Abigail Trant), Reese Witherspoon (Dani Trant), Gail Strickland (Marie Foster), Jason London (Court Foster), Emily Warfield (Maureen Trant), Bentley Mitchum (Billy Sanders), Ernie Lively (Will Sanders), and Dennis Letts (Doc White) Directed by Robert Mulligan (#116 - To Kill a Mockingbird)

Review: 
"When I was little, I really wanted to be an actor, which was kind of weird because my mom and dad were both in the medical industry."
"Coming from Bronx Irish is hardly Southern. But there was that sense of the Irish storytellers, the fairy tales.”

When the doors of one film career closes, another career opens up for someone else. This was the last film directed by Robert Mulligan, who had started work in directing after serving in the US Navy and graduating from Fordham University in 1948. A messenger job at CBS led to directing in television in an era soon labeled as the "Golden Age of Television", directing for television programs starting in 1952 for shows such as Suspense, Studio One in Hollywood, and Playhouse 90. His one major award win was a Primetime Emmy Award for his direction of the television production adaptation of "The Moon and Sixpence" (1959). By that time, he had entered into the world of film with Fear Strikes Out (1957), with Alan J. Pakula as producer (the two would produce six more films with each other over the next eleven years). Despite not being known for having a particular personal vision with his films, he managed to cultivate a dedicated career for himself that reflected his attitudes towards honest storytelling, which resulted in notable films such as To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and Summer of '42 (1971). As for a beginning, this was the debut film appearance of Reese Witherspoon. She had expressed an interest in acting from a young age, doing work in an advertisement for a flower store at age seven. She found herself interested in a casting call for this film hoping to win a teenage bit part but ended up cast as the lead role due to impressing Mulligan.

There is a fair sense of timelessness when it comes to this film, which generally reaches most of its melodramatic points with well-put flourish and a game cast that does not betray its homespun foundations for no good reason. There is a sharp atmosphere that is quite riveting in making an interesting coming-of-age story come through in various forms of careful moments of clicking energy within its young and traditional actors. Witherspoon proves a worthy focus to keep an eye on, wrapped with energy that moves from scene to scene with confidence for someone so young that springs well with any kind of useful scene with others, such as talking about having a first kiss or actually doing one. Waterston seems quite suited to lead the film on with careful honesty to his surroundings without having to say too much. Harper follows along in the same vein, doing fine with carrying the film in the little moments. London alongside Strickland represent the other side to focus on in the film, with the former providing an adequate interest to pair off with Witherspoon (or Warfield) with small bright moments that blend in with some conflict that he runs through without making a clunky note of. On that note, Warfield proves the final key to filling the cast with wandering grace that makes her bonds count fine. On the whole, the pace is kept on the level for 100 minutes with reasonable movements and careful planning in its story of growth and tragedy that proves a worthy winner for Mulligan to go out on and for Witherspoon to start out with.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Silkwood.

Review #1299: Silkwood.

Cast: 
Meryl Streep (Karen Silkwood), Kurt Russell (Drew Stephens), Cher (Dolly Pelliker), Craig T. Nelson (Winston), Fred Ward (Morgan), Diana Scarwid (Angela), Ron Silver (Paul Stone), Josef Sommer (Max Richter), Charles Hallahan (Earl Lapin), Tess Harper (Linda Dawson), Sudie Bond (Thelma Rice), Henderson Forsythe (Quincy Bissell), and Bruce McGill (Mace Hurley) Directed by Mike Nichols (#175 - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, #550 - The Graduate, and #637 - The Birdcage, and #1157 - Wolf)

Review: 
On November 13, 1974, a chemical technician was killed in a car collision in Crescent, Oklahoma is what is believed to be an accident. Karen Silkwood, of course was more than just a blurb on the newspages, since she was an activist who was investigating wrongdoing into the plutonium plant that she worked in, for which she had been contaminated. Her death inspired a lawsuit against the plant she worked for, which had two trials before a final settlement in 1986, with the closure of the nuclear fuels plant having occurred the year after Silkwood's death. In any case, it does seem interesting to make a biopic drama based on her short life that attempts to stick to a group of the basic facts alongside movie-magic that conjure some ambiguity that goes off mostly without a hitch. Perhaps it proves a bit too long at 131 minutes, but one that can't really be denied is that the movie has a well-picked cast to ready its ship along when it is required to. The cast really does seem to seep right into these ordinary folks without trouble, really, where even knowing the fate of its focus doesn't make for much predictability, one who has a bit of tunnel vision for what she believes is the imperative thing to do. This is key with Streep, who pulls in a tremendous performance, filled with spark of persistence and warmth that make her story flow for its audience that makes her interesting enough to follow with. Russell, in a departure from the usual action genre roles, pulls off a rugged turn that seems just as down-to-earth as the lady he acts opposite with, and they do share some casual chemistry together whenever he is on screen. It shouldn't prove too surprising that Cher was suited for an understated yet fine performance here. In her second film since venturing back into acting (after starring in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean on stage and screen the previous year), she seeps right into an unassuming role and does just fine with making the right impression with just being oneself. The rest of the cast does alright with filling out this world with no big troubles, where one doesn't need a clear villain or hero to really drive the facts along (McGill does play his role pretty adversarily, but not at the expense of realism). Is our focus a martyr or someone who got caught up in their own moral imperative? However one feels about the muddled circumstances of her ultimate fate, one cannot say that the film isn't still compelling through and through its real-life surroundings that will provoke at least some discussion when it comes to whistle-blowing and what proves to be the right thing to do, no matter what the risks could prove. In that sense, this proves to be a decent piece of entertainment headlined by Streep and her cast to go along with a well-run story from the headlines.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.