COOGAN’S BLUFF

By Marc S. Sanders

Coogan’s Bluff is hardly Clint Eastwood’s best film.  The first collaboration with director Don Siegel is thin on story, flat on romance and light on its bad guy.  However, it is an important chapter in Eastwood’s storied career.

Shortly after the famed Sergio Leone spaghetti western Dollars trilogy, and ahead of his big city cop pictures, Coogan’s Bluff was the go-between.  The movie starts like a western with Deputy Coogan emerging out of the hot Arizona desert in his cowboy hat, uniform and rifle.  He’s not on horseback though.  He’s riding a jalopy of a jeep and he’s apprehending a wanted Navajo criminal.  He’s got the cool looking sunglasses on too.

The movie shifts gears, and now Coogan is arriving by helicopter into the concrete jungle of New York City.  We never even see him get his assignment.  He shuttles to the police precinct by cab, maybe the deputy’s first cab ride ever because he gets charged a “luggage fee” for his briefcase. The station is run by Lt. McElroy (Lee J Cobb).  Coogan is the fish out of water, dressed in his white ten-gallon hat, brown suit and bolo tie.  McElroy doesn’t know any better and presumes this brute is from Texas, quite different from Arizona, and especially New York.  In 1968, Coogan is not a typical Midnight Cowboy.

He is here to extradite James Ringerman (Don Stroud) back to Arizona.  Not so fast though because McElroy tells him the crook is locked up at Bellevue for an LSD overdose.  There’s a lot of red tape with the judge and the state Supreme Court to go through before Coogan can get his hands on him.  Like a lot of Eastwood characters, Coogan will exercise his own kind of “bluff” and recover the lawbreaker who has actually escaped from the ward.

Coogan’s Bluff performs like a very rough first draft of a screenplay.  There are gaping holes in the narrative.  It’s never clear what crime Ringerman committed and how or why Coogan was assigned this case.  Siegel’s film began with this Navajo fugitive and a blond, adorable lass for Coogan to get in a tub with at home.  It’s a very abrupt cut to the New York City skyline though with his helicopter arriving on the famed Pan Am building (which is a few years away from a notorious helicopter crash).  Ten minutes in and we are watching a very different movie than what we started with.

A romance sparks between the lawman and a police psychologist (Susan Clark, “Ma’am” on Webster) as quick as Coogan arrives.  That relationship goes nowhere because Clark’s role and storyline lend nothing to the film except to stretch the running time to ninety minutes.  The pair end on a very weird note as well.  Scenes were missing to make this connection add up to the sum.  In their second to last encounter, Susan Clark is fuming with Eastwood over how Coogan treated one of her patients in his pursuit of Ringerman. In the final shot she is adoringly waving him away as his helicopter takes flight. What did I miss here?

It’s not all bad as Siegel’s picture plants the seeds of what would become all too familiar with Clint Eastwood – a tough, handsome, quietly brooding brawler who can handle himself in a bar fight and be triumphant in a thrilling, motorcycle chase.  The edits of both scenes are outstanding and Siegel captures magnificent shots.  

The fights, with pool cues, bottles and beer mugs as weapons of choice, are choreographed really well.  It doesn’t even look like the performers are being careful.  The set looks like something off the Universal lot though. Bar stools and tables break apart too neatly. The blood looks like paint. 

I have to believe Eastwood did most of his own stunt work, including leaping off a speeding bike and tackling Don Stroud’s antagonist.  Seamless work with well positioned camera placements.  It’s all so much more defined than the shaky stuff that Michael Bay would do thirty years later.  That kind of junk only hides the action that they would be afraid to execute.  The real stuff from guys like Siegel, Eastwood, McTiernan, Donner, and Peckinpah will always reign supreme.

Famed musician Lalo Schifrin is dropping familiar notes and cues that would thrill within the Dirty Harry world, four years later.  (Loved his assorted themes for Starsky & Hutch too.) Deputy Coogan, who doesn’t carry a gun, transitions into Inspector Harry Callahan with the .44 Magnum, and the stakes become bigger all around.  Schifrin’s piano keys and nervously fast strings amplify later in his own career from what he initially composed here.  It’s fun to recognize but like the script and edits of the movie, his work also feels incomplete.  Effective and interesting, but choppy and rough.

Don Siegel’s signature camera work is also familiar.  To ensure you recognize something of consequence, the director quickly zooms in on the bag, or prop or picture or close up.  Again, every tactic executed in Coogan’s Bluff feels like practice for what would be perfected later on.

Too much material must have been excised from Coogan’s Bluff in post.  Dots feel unconnected and while Clint Eastwood is worthy of acceptance, his performance is like an audition tape of the tough and silent guys his career will eventually offer.  

The cowboy cop enters a hippie nightclub splashed in rainbow colors and drugged flower power where he meets eventual Dirty Harry regular, Albert Popwell.  It’s fun to see the conservative Clint stick out, and would become a staple routine for his pictures, but this first try doesn’t quite stick the landing.  A bit like this remains unmatched to Eddie Murphy’s famous scene in 48 Hrs. with the honky-tonk club.  

The Man With No Name hung up the poncho, shaved the stubble, exchanged his thin Spanish cigars for cigarettes, put on a suit and carried a badge.  Why, the guy is just almost Dirty Harry!!!! Forgive my redundancy.  It’s just so evident of showing where Clint came from and where he was going next.  The story of this picture doesn’t matter.  The story of the guy leading this picture is what’s important.

I recommend watching a large sum of Clint Eastwood’s filmography before taking in Coogan’s Bluff.  Out of context of the actor/director’s choices, it’s a poor, uninteresting film.  Looking at it after familiarizing yourself with Clint Eastwood, and Don Siegel, it’s fun to see how apparent these men hopped from the dry desert heat into the city streets.

Coogan’s Bluff is not a great movie, but it’s a fascinating transitive piece from 1968.  It simply serves as a confident stride for its marquee name who will carry on a legendary tradition for the next fifty years thereafter. 

COYOTE VS. ACME

By Marc S. Sanders

It’s ironic and a bit reflective to think about how Coyote Vs. Acme eventually made it to theaters.  Along with an anticipated release of Batgirl, featuring another return for Michael Keaton as Batman, the Looney Tunes feature was abruptly shelved by Warner Brothers as a tax write off.  Corporate America was exercising its accountant’s bloody fist in order to amplify the books.  However, the people have spoken and the animated rascal would eventually have his day in court.  Batgirl seems to have not survived the Joker’s man-eating Venus Flytrap, however. (That was actually an episode from the ’60’s TV series that scared the bejeezus outta me when I was a kid…but Robin got eaten, not Batgirl.)

The mega-conglomerate known as Acme is arguably bigger than Amazon, Walmart, Disney, Apple and the world’s crop supply of Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice combined.  Why?  Well, because they have John Cena as their attorney with a bolo tie and cowboy hat to boot along with the shrewdest…I say…I say the shrewdest rooster known to mankind, Foghorn Leghorn as its current CEO.  One thing these guys know how to do is circumvent the faults of their products by executing small settlements or finding loopholes to escape from liability.

Wile E Coyote has had enough!  He’s invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in anvils, slingshots, gigantic magnets, rocket skates, and falling pianos.  Yet, his targeted prize – the meep, meeping Road Runner – evades captivity.  It’s time Acme bear some responsibility and pay.  So, he hauls all of his defective purchases into a handkerchiefed sack tied to a stick on his shoulder and hires an injury attorney for the cartoon community to represent him – a sad sack in a brown suit named Kevin Avery (Will Forte), assisted by his capably, confident, crusading niece Paige (Lana Candor).

The little man – ahem, rodent – is finally gonna sock it to Goliath corporation.  Suck it WB—-I mean Acme!!!!!

Coyote Vs. Acme is what you’d expect from Looney Tunes.  Everything is ridiculous and welcomes immense laughter with sight gags that only their brand of animation can offer.  No matter how many times poor Wile E. finds himself suspended in midair before suffering an enormous drop below, I love to see the dust cloud poof up and hear the “wampf” foley sound as he slams into the ground.  Being that the Road Runner/Coyote shorts were always my favorite of the Tunes, I never got enough of their routines.  The painted hole in the ground – you know to fall through? That’s here too.

None of the characters are reinvented.  They are just slotted into a courtroom liability suit that’s as familiar as what the Ford Corporation was culpable of when they knowingly left potentially explosive cars on the lots.  (See my review of Class Action found on this site.) 

Why? 

Because monetarily speaking the settlements would be more cost effective than a widespread product recall.  Well, as Wile E, Paige and Kevin will discover, Acme has a similar mindset for the cartoon community.  This makes for good courtroom drama such as the Tasmanian Devil’s raucous, indecipherable testimony (hilarious by the way) or the clandestine secrets that Tweety Bird and Bugs Bunny might be holding on to.  

Daffy Duck likely will not be a reliable witness, though.  DAMN YOU ACME!!!!

Coyote Vs. Acme is great entertainment that you can take your kids to while you laugh and nod your head at the newsworthy stories that inspired this plight of the plaintiff, Mr. Coyote.  Believe it or not, there’s a message mixed within all of the insanity.

I grew a little tired with the middle portion of the movie, and I could have welcomed some more antics within the courtroom that feature an underused Luis Guzmán as the judge.  The stakes of Kevin’s practice going under ring true of material from A Civil Action and Erin Brockovich as the case becomes more insurmountable.  Didn’t really need this frankly.  I don’t care about Kevin.  Just let Kevin do his job in court.  His insecure schlub slows the picture down some, even if Will Forte has cute chemistry with all of the characters.

I love that Tweety’s granny made it into the picture, but where was Sylvester? He’s in the background, having a catnap in the family room, but otherwise he’s got nothing to do.  That was a shame.  

Minor quibbles aside, Coyote Vs. Acme is refreshing animation combined with live action.  The artwork is thankfully not the newly updated computer graphics of Pixar and Minions fare.  I know the Looney Tunes were likely not hand drawn for this feature, but at least their images and actions are preserved in their original fashion.  If it ain’t broke don’t fix it and this is one thing that Acme, Warner Brothers and producer James Gunn keep intact.  Everything looks great with a perfect blending of human characters falling into complicated Looney Tunes traps. The conversations between the animated and human communities are seamless.  John Cena trying to decipher through Tweety’s speech impediment is winning.  I even applauded how the writers approach the now taboo character of the perverted and horny Pepe Le Pew.  The little stinker can actually still serve a purpose in a post Me Too climate.

I hope Coyote Vs Acme opens doors for more material.  Put the guys in a police station, or a hospital.  Have them enact a Law & Order episode.  Any one of them can run for President against Kelsey Grammar or Sean Penn or Mark Ruffalo for example.  These guys can easily operate in an internet world crowded with confusion and identity.  Keep the locomotive going, and if you get run over, dust yourself off, step off the tracks, and sift through the Acme catalog for the next novel invention.

Something has gotta work! Right Doc?

MEEP MEEP!!!

BREEZY

By Marc S. Sanders

The great thing about following Clint Eastwood’s career that spans over seventy years is there is so much I still have to uncover.  For example, following his well-known directed pictures Play Misty For Me and High Plains Drifter, he followed up with a surprising May-December meet cute romance called Breezy, which marks the first time he opted not to direct himself in front of the camera while going against type with an absence of threat or violence.  Heck, he even makes that clear when his heroine of the title makes a run for it out of a stranger’s car.

Breezy is played by a young Kay Lenz, her breakthrough role as a cheerful flower child, which reminded me of Julia Roberts’ hooker with a heart of gold in Pretty Woman.  Breezy aimlessly wanders through the California hillsides with her floppy hat and personalized guitar case on her back, hitching rides from one car to another.  When she comes upon the home of real estate agent Frank Harmon (William Holden), she happily hops in his car with a smile and a lot to chat about.  Frank is the middle age, twice divorced lonely bachelor, who is not looking for any company.  Yet, Breezy’s magnetism grows on him.  Her casual nudity around his house is not so much erotic as just a way to get past any awkwardness between the two. Breezy is young but you’d be hard pressed to find any insecurities about her. The more experienced and elder Frank may be quite the opposite, though.

William Holden plays a similar kind of personality that he would offer a few years later in Network; not quite over the hill but not looking back at the youth he might have felt thirty-five years earlier at Breezy’s age.  The main difference is that Breezy is nothing like Faye Dunaway’s cold-hearted character. Frank is mired in what he gave up too easily in his prior marriages (Joan Hotchkis, Marj Dusay), one on bitter terms, the other was regrettably let go.

Breezy is such a departure from what Eastwood, the filmmaker, accomplished in the 1970s.  He’s not crafting anything in the realm of his violent pictures like Dirty Harry or his six shooter cowboys.  Misty was also bent on a twisted and frightening nature which is entirely absent here.  About the only fingerprints you’ll find is a blink/miss it cameo of the proud director standing on the boardwalk as the lovers stroll by.  They also buy two tickets to see Drifter.  I like these wink n’ nod moments, reminiscent of Hitchcock’s notable mischief.  

This adult romance etched out of mid-life crises mixed with naive youth seems like a variant follow up to the success of Love Story. Kay Lenz occupied the Ali McGraw slot.  Midway through this picture, I told myself that had Eastwood been older, he likely would have played Holden’s role who was in his mid-50s at the time.  Eastwood would get the opportunity decades later with his superbly quiet adaptation of The Bridges Of Madison County. I’ll even say his soft spot shows in his Every Which… movies, albeit with an orangutan or Sondra Locke.

I discovered Breezy after listening to a podcast on the director’s career (Make My Day, found on Apple Podcasts) and my observations are much more alert.  Thematically, I had always divided Clint Eastwood’s career into two halves.  Whether it was comedy or drama, I always considered the bulk of his work before Unforgiven to rely on violence being resolved with violence delivered by his fists and gunplay.  To my knowledge thus far, the Oscar winning western was a first that paved the next thirty years of his career with messages of anti-violence (A Perfect World, Letters From Iwo Jima), steering his persona away from any celebration of bloodletting.  Breezy however, seemed to project maturely sensitive insights that I hardly saw from the filmmaker.  

Like most of his films, Breezy was furnished under budget with simple camera work.  The wheel is not being reinvented here, but with his regular crew, Eastwood assembles a tight story that evolves at a nice pace.  The love story is not rushed even if young Breezy opens every page of her book as quickly as she meets a new person.  William Holden in his sport coats, wide ties, and casual sweaters is the turtle against the rabbit of this race.  The enjoyment is observing when these two parties can move at similar speeds.  

You also get the opportunity to see how Frank and Breezy’s backgrounds clash.  The hippies that carry over from the sixties hang on the street corners while the white-collar professionals sit at their desks on the other side of the window, closing real estate transactions.  Frank’s friend Bob Henderson (the typical boring middle age/ middle class name) played by Roger C Carmel (Harry Mudd of Star Trek) thinks about what his life could be if he didn’t have his past choices to weigh him down.  That’s still a common issue for middle-aged men to wrestle with.  Breezy’s girlfriend Marcy (Jamie Smith Jackson) is a cute pal but it’s clear she has no future because of a neglectful boyfriend, and their shared habit of LSD highs.  Interestingly, neither camp has a problem with the other. In Eastwood’s film, these two very different communities are tolerable of the other’s existence. That’s refreshing. Still, Frank and Breezy have to realize the independence they have even if they are years, and worlds, apart from each other.

Clint Eastwood checks off all the boxes to emulate beautiful chemistry from his two leads. Their unexpected romance is uneven, but there lies the challenge for finding solid foundations of love and respect.

DON’T SAY GOOD LUCK

By Marc S. Sanders

Adam Sandler’s production company, Happy Madison, has released a new film for his daughter, Sunny Sandler, to star in, and like her their previous collaboration, You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah, it’s an engaging, comedically emotional hit.  Don’t Say Good Luck is not as strong as the family dramas that are built on blocks of biting sarcasm like Terms Of Endearment and Steel Magnolias, but the cast and writing devote at least the same level of emotional maturity to the product.  

You might argue that Sunny Sandler falls under the category of a “Hollywood nepo-baby,” but the actress’ talent in performance, accompanied by show stopping singing, demonstrates that she deserves to be on stage and/or in front of a camera.  She’s a dynamo that I find far more appealing than I ever gave her comedic father credit for.

Laura Hankin wrote this screenplay based on her experience as an eighth grader who was cast in the school play while dealing with a terminally sick relative at home.  Sandler portrays Sophie who only hopes to get cast as the supporting role in the school’s upcoming production of Waitress: The Musical.  Following call backs, Sophie learns that she’ll be playing the lead.  It’s exciting, unexpected and certainly challenging, especially because she’ll romantically be playing opposite the cute boy in school and they’ll have to kiss on stage.  Yet, it’s also bittersweet because she has to accept her best friend Carolyn (Scarlett Estevez) has dropped out of the show while not being entirely forthright with Sophie, and Carolyn’s new friendship with Erin.  

Sophie’s happy home life is also compromised because mom’s cancer has returned and the forecast for survival is not likely.  Mom is Elizabeth, played with beautiful sensitivity by Melanie Lynskey.  Lynskey and Sandler make a perfect mother/daughter pair with outstanding chemistry.  Their pace is marvelous either when they are putting on southern belle acts for strangers in the mall or struggling with Elizabeth’s decline.  They make you laugh and cry.  I’m bold enough to declare that Sunny is much more entertaining than her successful father Adam, who I’ve never been that drawn to. Lynskey’s performance is contained with an energy to remain as an active mom. She relies on the convincing makeup to gradually show her decline while not crutching upon a weakened voice or droopy body language. That happens too often. This portrayal is welcome and convincing as one of those people who say “I’m gonna fight this.”

Don’t Say Good Luck is a refreshing coming of age comedy-drama that treats its young actors with authentic respect.  Following …Bat Mitzvah and now this film, I gratefully believe that Adam Sandler seeks out these scripts because they are not exclusive to just the two or three leads.  Hankin’s screenplay fleshes out the other kids in the musical’s cast.  Every actor with at least one line of dialogue appears to serve a meaningful purpose to this film. With so many active participants in the cast the setting’s community is on a solid foundation. There’s life within this high school where the kids go through the theatre games followed by musical choreography and vocal warmups. Even the quirky musical director, who has few lines, has a characterization that is relatable. This is rarely seen, and hard to accomplish in most movies, especially with a brisk running time of only ninety minutes.

Claire Scavone stands out as the enthusiastic actor freshman with the big smile, big glasses and BIG VOICE who absolutely loves theater and the kids she performs with.  She’s an outstanding escape from the heavier moments of the film.  The typical, blond popular girl (Elyse Bell) who always gets the leads is not the staple enemy of the picture. She’s got the privileged ego at first sight, but then there’s a quick reveal to how she relates to Sophie. Don’t Say Good Luck is not that movie where the snob gets her comeuppance. None of us should love to hate a kid. Sandler’s production knows this.

Adam’s friend Steve Buscemi has reached the stage of playing a grandfather and paired with Bebe Neuwirth as his wife who comes home to help their daughter with family tasks.  Buscemi is not trying to steal any scenes.  Neuwirth is the mother who oversteps her offers to help but rattles the discomfort that comes when cancer is killing a loved one.

Stephanie Beatriz does more with the theater teacher role than you’d find in typical Nickelodeon or Disney fare.  She emulates what is rewarding about teaching with encouragement and respect for her class.  As a community theater actor/director/producer, I related to every issue that comes her way from tech issues to sets coming apart and especially to instilling confidence in her student actors.  My daughter missed out on this experience in her high school productions.  This film reminds me of what I absorbed when I took up theater in school.  I also appreciate that the kids are not heightened to be smarter than standard dimwit adults that so many other films rely on.  

Max Greenfield as dad might have been worthy of a more expansive role.  The guy who runs the sandwich shop with Jon Lovitz, while balancing taking care of his terminally ill wife and a pair of rambunctious twin boys.  However, like Endearment and Magnolias, this film hinges on the mother/daughter perspective.  So, I can forgive this shortcoming.

Don’t Say Good Luck is schmaltzy with the inevitable sappiness found in tear jerkers, but the dialogue does not appear wasted, and director Julia Hart finds those perfect beats with her ensemble of mostly young actors and extras.  She also captures heart wrenching close ups of Sunny Sandler whose dynamic performance must respond to first love, friendship challenges, domestic drama, exciting opportunities and a likely potential for loss.  If you are not completely engaged in her closing song performance that wraps up this piece, you left behind several pieces of both your heart and soul somewhere. She belongs on the charts.

Don’t Say Good Luck pulls Sunny Sandler out of Adam’s large shadow.  She gives an emotionally strong, breakthrough performance that might earn her at least a Golden Globe award in the Comedy/Musical category, as well as trophies in the young actor awards ceremonies.  

Don’t Say Good Luck is now streaming on Netflix.

THE DRAMA

By Marc S. Sanders

A happy couple ends up not so happy when they get a little too honest with each other.  

After watching Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama, I’m left unsure of what was supposed to be learned or what I’m supposed to take away from his picture.  Is he telling me that when you are on the cusp of walking down the aisle, if you see a red flag, you should hike it and run, or should you literally drop your betrothed’s pants and call do-over? 

After a cold open of meet cute cuts where the characters speak with one another and the film “stylistically” edits sudden breaks so that sentences of dialogue are interrupted for quick cut moments in time (I really don’t know why, because this routine got old really fast.), Borgli’s picture makes itself much clearer by showing that Emma and Charlie (Zendaya, Robert Pattinson) are the meet cute couple with successful careers, a million dollar New York apartment in the Village and a gorgeous wedding on the horizon.  

While at a wine tasting evening with the Matron of Honor and Best Man, Rachel and Mike (Alana Haim, Mamoudou Athie), a game is played where the four challenge one another to confess the worst act they have ever committed.  Emma is clearly the most reluctant to participate and thus the last one to go.  Comparatively speaking, Mike’s act is quite tame when measured against what Charlie and Rachel admit, especially Rachel.  The three laugh about it all though.  I found Charlie to be an asshole for giggling over what came of his actions.  I found Rachel to be a heartless fuck for dismissing her sick deed, as well.  These were not immature hang up crank calls.  When Emma admits to only planning her worst act but never following through, the dynamic shifts in the worst way imaginable.  

I will not spoil what she reveals.  What Emma planned when she was teenager is repulsive.  Yet, unforeseen circumstances stopped her from execution, and she explains that her life went in a completely opposite direction of nobility from that point on.  Nevertheless, Charlie cannot look past Emma’s confession, and he randomly grows startled by her while also envisioning his fiancée in unflattering scenarios inconsistent with the woman he thought he knew and loved.

Rachel is even less tolerable or accepting of Emma, and does not hide her bitterness (again) at only what was planned but never happened. Rachel’s mindset goes to a cousin who was a victim of a terrible incident that Emma has nothing to do with.  This allows one of several personal conflicts to remain at the top rather than just drift away.

The Drama runs out of road very fast.  The confessions around the table are interesting and left me curious as each person steps up to share. Afterwards though, when the evening is over, characters have sobered up, and simply because Borgli’s script contrives it to be, the anguish mires on and on and on.  

Borgli thematically uses alcohol consumption as a way to keep his characters repulsed with themselves and each other.  I guess he figures if these people are drunk they can vomit over and over with endless guilt and conflict.  If they sobered up they might start making sense, own up to their faults and move past this with no further judgement or resentment.  

Wouldn’t that be a lousy movie? 

Emma first explains and apologizes when the response does not go over favorably.  Later, she explains to Charlie how she turned her life around and did something positive with herself and the greater good.  Charlie seems to be deaf to what’s told to him.  (Ironically, it’s Emma who is deaf in one ear but remains much more attuned to what’s happening.). Moreover, he never considers relaying Emma’s explanations to Rachel, who really elevated this beyond reason.  If he had, then Borgli’s movie would have ended at the forty-five minute mark.  

With twenty minutes left in the movie, Charlie’s anguish cannot be contained. As the wedding day gets closer, he temporarily lets his guard down and loses a moment of commitment and clarity.  The math adds up to bloody and disastrous proportions at the wedding as toasts are drunkenly made by both Charlie and Rachel.  Poor Mike is delivering the cringe expressions that really belong in a bedroom farce and not in a movie called The Drama that reveals a lot of unwanted, meritless drama for the sake of earning movie ticket admission fees.

None of what you see in Kristoffer Borgli’s film is necessary.  It’s like an episode of Three’s Company.  If just one person would simply stop, think and clarify then all of this would be behind them.  Borgli doesn’t allow his characters to do the most obvious and sensible actions though.  He dumbs his characters down to persist the drama of The Drama.  

The end of the story lacks a payoff.  It’s never clear if all of the truth comes out or if any of these four characters see reason.  All that Borgli does is have Emma and Charlie reunite and try another reset method that they both attempted to do three separate times earlier in the movie.  Am I to believe that this time it’ll work because tears were shed and someone has a bloody nose?

I dunno!

Borgli seems to have painted his screenplay into a corner that he can’t escape.  So, he opts to go in a proverbial loop. If a band aid on a leaky pipe is not going to work the first time, why are you trying to put a new one on after that, and then another, and then another?  

ELYSIUM

By Marc S. Sanders

Neill Blomkamp is that writer/ director who escapes my memory until I see a movie trailer with one of his signature robot designs weaved into the populace of his dystopian stories, like in his widely recognized District 9 and Chappie, which I’ve yet to see.  These androids are as capable as humans but primarily devoid of feelings and follow stringent programming with no exceptions.  That way order is maintained without an interference of subjectivity.  These figures are not plotters like HAL 9000 or companions like R2D2, but they have strength through arms and legs to restrain anyone out of line, and thus that’s a hard obstacle to circumvent when you are a human member of a vastly overpopulated Earth who desperately needs to reach the orbital space station Elysium where the wealthy thrive and survive with technology designed to cure any illness or injury.

Matt Damon is Max, a former street criminal, now factory worker on parole who dwells among the detritus of filth, crime, sickness and starvation left behind on Earth.  An accident with a piece of machinery exposes him to radiation that only allows him less than five days to live.  His one chance is to board Elysium and take advantage of a quick remedy that will cure him and prolong his life.

Jodie Foster is Delacourt, the business-suited, high-powered official who keeps a tight ship on the station in space.  She ensures that all traffic in and out are strictly enforced to uphold the enchanting Utopia for the uber-rich.  She’ll go so far as to order vessels shot down on approach. That still doesn’t prevent rebellious outlaws from trying to make way.  Food and medicine are scarce below on Earth.

Max conspires with a known rebel (Wagner Moura) who will get him on board Elysium in exchange for downloading all files about the ship that are stored in the mind of an executive (William Fichtner).  Delacourt contracts a bounty hunter named Kruger (Sharlto Kopley) to hunt down Max and extract the files while also keeping him from making his journey.  

Elysium boasts some spectacular visual effects ranging from all of the robotics that work against Max and his rebel comrades to the ships that travel across the skies of a dirty Los Angeles and up into the reaches of space.  The space station is shaped like a hexagonal satellite and filled with stunning upper-class decor.  It’s quite the country club for the one percent of one percenters with pools, tennis courts and well-manicured lawns.  Everything is colorfully lit while the daytimes of L.A. are distressed with dirty brown and grey hues.  Blomkamp demonstrates the wide expanse of class warfare with the two environments.  This film deserved Oscar recognition for art direction and special effects.  Outstanding work.

As Damon was still in his Jason Bourne phase, he looks everything of the suffering muscled, action hero, complete with a kind of steel frame screwed into his chest, back and head to keep him upright and ready to run and fight.  Damon, accompanied by Blomkamp’s designs look like a spawn of a Phillip K Dick story.  You can easily group Elysium with Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report.  Though Elysium released five years later, it operates like a pre-cursor to Wall-E with stacks and stacks of high-rise garbage on Earth, while the elite live happily in the heavens.

Still, the set ups never feel entirely complete.  Something always felt like it was missing.

I think Blomkamp’s outline extends more validity to its fiction thirteen years after its release.  It’s not overtly stated but there’s no denying that the heroes are battling against an anti-immigration regime, lacking feeling for those that do not measure up to the wealthy and upper class.  I believe I appreciate Elysium a lot more now, than had I seen it back in 2013. 

Call me woke if you want!  It’s such a stupid, invented moniker to argue against compassion, anyway.

This film is lacking though.  Blomkamp could have offered more contrast between the two regions.  For the wealthy, there’s a very cold Jodie Foster who’s not lending much depth except to give the orders that identify her as the villain.  Delacourt debates with the President (Faran Tahir) of the station but I could not easily identify what they disagree on.  What’s he doing here and what exactly is on his mind?

Sharlto Kopley’s character looks like another Mad Max spawn with a very hard to understand dialect and a barbaric exterior.  Not exactly a villain I love to hate.  I gave up trying to comprehend anything he was saying and only regarded him as the guy that Matt Damon had to outrun, and out-punch if he’s ever to reach his destination.  

Alice Braga is Frey, the adult version of Max’ childhood friend.  As an ER nurse, she has her own reasons to get Max on Elysium.  Her daughter is stricken with leukemia.  She’s a side story and Blomkamp’s film could have just focused on Damon’s peril to run like in The Fugitive.  It’s rare I see Frey helping Max’ plight.  Braga’s stay is over welcomed with a lot of cutting room floor material.

Elysium has good action and outstanding special effects that build a convincing future year of 2154. It’s not a perfect thriller, but its themes are clearly relevant to the concerns of most Americans and illegal immigrants.  

Are our governing bodies, taking into account all manners of people and social classes, or are they functioning with a harsh and violently forceful approach?  Add another half hour to this movie, and excise some irrelevant characters in the cast, and this likely would have shown a clearer, more precise grim future of a year 2154 that looks a lot like real life modern day social structure.

THE END OF OAK STREET

By Marc S. Sanders

I look at a movie like The End Of Oak Street and I think to myself didn’t we once have all that we needed?  As kids raised in suburban life, we had our share of turmoil when mom and dad wouldn’t stop bickering and the neighborhood bully wouldn’t leave us alone.  However, Superman bedding, books on dinosaurs and the solar system, and a dog named Starbuck, along with neighborhood barbecues and a local library made up for a lot.  Movies like Gremlins, The Goonies and E.T. from the early 1980s were spared the onslaught zombified characters brainwashed by the World Wide Web, delivered by means of portable electronic devices.  In order to escape danger, you ran or pedaled as fast as you could while screaming your head off.  When you had a moment of respite, you stretched your imagination to logically surmise why the science fiction you always read about was actually coming true.  

When I saw those movies in the theaters and later rented from the video store, I didn’t have to reflect.  These were fresh tellings of new adventures with honest and relatable issues that might have been happening in other homes, just like they occurred in my house.  The End Of Oak Street invites you to reminisce while welcoming today’s generation to look beyond their Play Stations and A.I. reliance.  It’s a simple and familiar film not out to challenge you like a complex standardized test.    Writer/director David Robert Mitchell only wants to thrill your discoveries as they follow a terrifying, inescapable journey.

The Platt family do their best to maintain a family nucleus.  Audrey and Brian (Maisy Stella, Christian Convery) are siblings who rely on each other while their parents, Denise and Greg (Anne Hathaway, Ewan MacGregor) seem like they are teetering on the unheard of D-word.  When I was growing up, only one kid in my school had divorced parents – far from what my daughter witnesses.  The family’s slivers of divide, along with that pesky bully and an irate neighbor who literally threatens to shoot Starbuck, take a back seat to strange occurrences of flashing lights at night and mounds of animal poop in the backyard.  There’s also plant life that grows quickly out of the ground, yet is of unknown origin. 

The day after the biggest flash happens, the Platts discover that their suburban neighborhood has been transported to prehistoric times when dinosaurs run amok.  Like a familiar franchise, these animals are ready to chase, roar and eat the neighbors.  The Platts seem to have the best luck at surviving though.  Now they have to figure out how to stick together, stay alive, hope that Starbuck comes home, and get back to present day, 1982.

The dinosaurs resemble the creatures of the Jurassic Park/World pictures.  David Robert Mitchell introduces some new breeds with toothlike delights, though.  My favorite was some kind of giant snake or eel that can gracefully enter a home from the upstairs bedroom and silently wind its way through the hallways, staircase and down to the kitchen before it quietly opens its wide maw with enormous fangs that are ready to bite down on Anne Hathaway.  Outstanding work!

There are triceratops and raptors and “veggies-saurouses,” and pterodactyls that claw and nibble and bite and roar and chase.  It’s nothing novel after twenty Jurassic movies.  Still, the time period and setting are new to this standard and the cast is genuine, well mostly.  Anne Hathaway hearkens back to the stressed suburban mom that Dee Wallace Stone delivered in E.T.  She’s a good housemaker at her wit’s end with a dream for another kind of life.  Ewan McGregor’s European dialect is hard to ignore.  So, he doesn’t exactly feel like that dad with the Adidas shorts, tube socks and white tennis shoes.  Greg delivers pizzas to make ends meet. It was hard to buy a guy with an accent designed for highbrow Shakespeare dropping off a large pie with everything on it. The character is drafted well as the paternal figure who is not the king of his castle and lacking all the answers. McGregor just feels more intelligent than Brian Platt is supposed to be.  In this movie, dad doesn’t drive.  Mom drives the car and wields the gun.  Craig T Nelson (Poltergeist) would never stand for that. Oscar Isaac was originally meant to play the role. He would have been a more appropriate choice.

The End Of Oak Street works like a rainy Saturday afternoon picture at the neighborhood theater when you’d be dropped off at the mall by mom while she ran her errands.  Bicycles and homemade bows and arrows fend your way through the made-up adventures in the woods or between the homes and within the backyards.  

Again, dinosaurs are nothing new or novel anymore, but David Robert Mitchell sets up a handful of shocking moments that will drop your jaw as some characters wind up in unexpected peril.  Other times you laugh as the Platts can only run across well mowed lawns, from one end of the street to the other.  It’s adventure, but this family also has time to come to grips with their hang ups while running out of food and avoiding being consumed by their unfamiliar environment.  

Anne Hathaway is especially right in this time period, and she only makes McGregor look more suitable in this middle Americana period setting.  When he speaks, I hear Obi Wan Kenobi and Trainspotting, but at least Hathaway keeps him engaged as a husband device for her performance as the frustrated, neglected housewife.  

The End Of Oak Street is a welcome passage of escape to a time when visual effects were being embraced as a means to tell wondrous stories of imagination.  It’s fortunate, that on the surface, its technology stops at the chapter of a once familiar now, when social media wasn’t needed to save your life, much less solve your problems. The family had to sleep on the family room floor together, and then assemble in a circle to talk to one another about whatever was bothering them.

JJ Abrams’ studio Bad Robot produced this film.  He also directed Super 8, a clear salute to Steven Spielberg’s alien adventures that’ll thrill you and make you ugly cry.  This is the director/producer’s specialty-to echo how much these films shaped so many of us into adulthood.  I hope Abrams and his production crew stay on this trajectory.  I’d like to play in the past a little more before I head back to my future.

ANATOMY OF A MURDER

By Marc S. Sanders

I’m a sucker for courtroom theatrics and Otto Preminger’s Anatomy Of A Murder is no exception.  Though it is sorely out of date when most of today’s viewing audiences have at least one Law & Order episode under their belt. Preminger’s film, adapted from the novel by Robert Traver and inspired by a real-life upstate Michigan homicide, hinged on taboo language and heinous motives enabled by revenge.  Even the father of leading man, James Stewart, found this film to be entirely offensive and campaigned for audiences to avoid seeing it.

Army Lieutenant Frederick Manion (Ben Gazarra) is on trial for the murder of an innkeeper he believed raped and abused his promiscuous wife, Laura (Lee Remick).  Good ol’ boy lawyer Paul Biegler is the former prosecuting attorney of this small Michigan town who opts to represent the defendant.  This will be Paul’s first trial on the other side of the courtroom, and he recruits his best friend and colleague to help him, a washed-up lawyer and lovable drunk named Parnell (Arthur O’Connell).  Paul’s strategy is to defend his client with a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity because Manion is adamant he has no recollection of killing the victim with five gunshot wounds. 

Anatomy Of A Murder is easy to follow because it does not have a wealth of variables to twist the narrative in different directions.  The interest works on Stewart’s Capra-influenced likability.  George Bailey becomes a lawyer. The actor is older by this point in his career, and this performance would be his last Oscar nomination.  He’s sharp in the role and quick on his feet with objections and standard trial ligations.  He’s also adorably charming as he crafts fishhooks at the table while a witness is being questioned by opposing counsel.  That was a first for me to observe.

The prosecution has its small-time attorney, Mitch Lodwick, played with mustache-adorned, nerdy conservatism by Brooks West.  However, a big metropolitan lawyer sits next to him.  George C Scott might be early in his career here, with black slicked hair and dark suits as the imminent Claude Dancer, who notoriously arrives from Lansing, Michigan. He’s reputably intimidating and altogether sly.  He hardly says a word during the first third of his performance and his silence is impossible to ignore. However, when he takes lead counsel later in the story, Scott demonstrates that he’s the standout element of the picture.

Anatomy Of A Murder relies on the taboo nature of the crime on trial.  A rape of his wife motivates a suspect to kill.  In any circumstance, that is going to necessitate a discussion on the subject of ladies’ undergarments.  With a sidebar committee consisting of Stewart, West and Scott with the sleepy, elderly Judge Weaver (Joseph N Welch, famously part of the McCarthy hearings), the script includes time to debate how best to describe Laura Manion’s panties by going so far as to ask if there’s a more suitable word for “panties.”  The men are stumped and the Judge draws a line in the sand by declaring to the courtroom that any sort of chortling will not be tolerated.

In 1959, it’s unheard of to tarnish a person’s ears with vocabulary that includes “sperm,” “intercourse,” “penetration,” “climax,” “rape,” “panties,” “girdle,” and “bitch.”  Yikes!  My friend Anthony and I watched the Criterion Blu Ray of Preminger’s film, nominated for Best Picture, Screenplay and a trio of actors (Stewart, Scott and O’Connell) and we did our best to put our perspective in the past, before our time when Father Knows Best occupied television sets.  Yes.  It was likely shocking with a lot of gall to pull away the veil of sexual deviancy.  An intoxicated Lee Remick is no Donna Reed as she struts around in tight pants and low-cut blouses with a pair of sporty sunglasses.  On the stand, she describes her panties as either being white or pink with lace down the side and ripped off during her alleged assault.  Later, Jimmy Stewart is holding the evidence in clear view.  It couldn’t be anything but shocking.  Turn on any program today, and you’re apt to find any of this conjecture within an episode of Friends or Modern Family. Still, ‘the fella who spoke to Harvey the rabbit is fondling women’s underpants in a courtroom for everyone to see? For shame.

Laura Manion is also tested on the witness stand by Mr. Dancer when she declares she swore on a set of rosary beads. The attorney questions her faith with the Catholic church and if she is worthy of identifying herself as a Catholic any longer. Another person reveals being born out of wedlock. Something that no one should ever know. Religious conservatism tests the merits of its witnesses. In 1959, to say you swore on a set of rosary beads is not taken lightly. To be known as a bastard child is a social crime. Today, it’s just a phrase as common as saying “I swear on my children…” or you are just raised in a single parent home. The servitude of Anatomy Of A Murder has changed over decades of different generations when many are not so protective their personal sensibilities. The age of internet browsing allows everyone to be much more revealing in beliefs or lack thereof, and what constitutes as sexual appeal or how you originated.

Beyond the coarse language and subject matter of Anatomy Of A Murder, there’s not much here that feels fresh or pioneering any longer.  Today’s audiences are far too sophisticated for what Preminger was brash enough to originally show on screen. Anthony and I were certain that Laura’s adorable shaggy dog and a gold cigarette lighter that resurfaces a few times would lynchpin inevitable twists in the case.  Alas, it was just a dog, and alas it was just a lighter.  Yet, the attention to these items seemed like apparent invitations to significant developments.  

Actually, the one surprise that comes from the film is regrettably revealed too soon.  A material witness is disclosed midway through the picture.  However, when George C Scott questions this individual on the stand towards the end of movie, his character is the only one in the room who doesn’t know anything about this person.  With the audience already in on it, what is left to learn except to watch Scott’s character stand apart from everyone else? Had Anatomy Of A Murder been made today, the big reveal would have occurred in the courtroom for all to be surprised and intrigued.  Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict did that. Unfortunately, this is a terribly unfortunate misstep in execution.  It even takes away from Scott’s sensationally devious performance while sucking out potential dramatic heights.

As Paul waits for the jury to return with its verdict, Parnell ponders the dynamics of twelve strangers coming together to determine the fate of an accused.  It’s as if no one ever heard of a jury before this film was released.  Surely audiences, on the cusp of Perry Mason with Agatha Christie at the local library, were somewhat familiar with juries and judicial proceedings.  Anatomy Of A Murder is so simplified that it’s hard to embrace how heinous its evidence and testimonials should be.  

However, Jimmy Stewart performs like Andy Griffith’s famous characters, from Mayberry and Matlock.  The fella loves to fish and sit with his friend Parnell as they joyously read law books well into the night.  If a trial comes along, he might take it if he’s up for it. This guy is just so relaxed with himself and his practice which amonts to hardly any business and income as his faithful secretary, Maida (Eve Arden) reminds him for the run along relatable humor of the piece. Oh Maida, there you go again. Ribbing Paul all along!

Anatomy Of A Murder serves as a lookback to when movies were shedding their innocent, whitewashed skin. It anticipates that audiences will accept heinous crime and sexual deviancy. Otto Preminger trusts America’s favorite actor, Jimmy Stewart, to deliver. Lee Remick stands as an influence for those overly sexualized roles that Sharon Stone and Demi Moore would occupy thirty years later.

Preminger’s film has a widely recognized reputation with a bestowed ten Oscar nominations (though not including Otto Preminger). AFI ranks it as one of the top ten courtroom dramas, in the company 12 Angry Men and Judgment At Nuremberg. Criterion has a print edition within its library. Yet, seventy years after its introduction the temperature of the film is lukewarm, and the subjects are not so jaw dropping. As well, at nearly three hours running time, it could stand to have edited out so much irrelevant material that slows down the story and lends nothing to its characters.

Anatomy Of A Murder is upheld by its formula which I’d argue has been significantly more enhanced and leaner in movies to come, which drew from its inspiration. This is an anatomy of a courtroom crime drama, in its most basic form, when unmentionables might have been mentioned for the first time. I’m glad I didn’t die of embarrassment in front of Anthony. I mean I’ve heard of intercourse and I’ve seen women in girdles in a Glamour magazine (like George Costanza) before, and at the very least I’ve seen women’s panties on sale at Macy’s. If you have as well, then you are likely ready for Anatomy Of A Murder.

DEAD CALM

By Marc S. Sanders

During the summer of sequels in 1989 (Lethal Weapon 2, Ghostbusters 2, Indiana Jones 3, Batman 1, Dalton/James Bond 2), Phillip Noyce directed a sleeper thriller that took place in the middle of the ocean with only three actors at his disposal.  Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill play the married couple who are looking for a needed escape following the loss of their child in a car accident.  Billy Zane is the psycho who upends their oasis on the seas.  It all leads to Dead Calm.

The tricks of Noyce’s film are familiar formula.  The wife is terrorized.  The husband is left helpless.  The nutjob killer has his way with the whole routine until he gets conveniently careless for a split second.  Fortunately, the trio of actors are very capable.  The script needed more invention, however.

In the middle of nowhere, on a clear day, the sailboat navigated by Rae and John (Kidman, Neill) come upon a large sinking ship.  Only one survivor emerges from the vessel in a rowboat coming right for them.  His name is Hughie (Zane) and he doesn’t have much to say of what happened.  All he’s got to aid him are his swim trunks and his stamina.  Otherwise, he’s very disoriented. The couple welcomes him on board and while he rests down below in a locked cabin, John goes out to the damaged ship to uncover what occurred, leaving Rae alone with Hughie. 

Upon discovering some sinister trappings have taken place, John desperately rows back to his boat before Rae is subjected to Hughie’s unwelcome intentions.  He’s not successful.  The sailboat takes off, leaving John marooned in open water with only the sinking boat left behind.  It’s at this point, I started to give up on Dead Calm.

One opportunity after another leaves Rae with the chance to get the upper hand.  Yet, she doesn’t take advantage.  It’s never confusing to see Hughie for what he is. After all, he abandoned her husband at sea!!!! Rae sees this with her own eyes!!!!!  At best, she takes to the on-board radio and radar, attempting to contact and locate John.  Yet, she does nothing to protect herself, leaving Hughie to roam and plot and terrorize.  At least pick up a steak knife to fend off your intruder.  Rae never arms herself with anything until long after Hughie has the upper hand.  She even willingly subjects herself to Hughie’s advances in a scene that is just icky and carried on far longer than necessary. 

Noyce’s script has no respect for Kidman’s portrayal of Rae.  I bet she’d still be an intelligent, strategic woman, despite her recent trauma of burying a child.  Nevertheless, the screenplay restricts the character’s wisdom and intuition for the sake of stretching out the picture.  Phillip Noyce should have been more open minded to the idea that Dead Calm could have found its sea legs by making the sailboat a one-on-one arena for woman against man.  Nicole Kidman can take on Billy Zane.  Let the girl stand up for herself.  However, it’d be absurd for the female to be the hero, right?  The woman’s purpose is to be the damsel in distress.  Reader, as a versatile actor, Nicole Kidman is a lot of things.  She should never be a damsel.

Sam Neill’s participation works like a separate storyline.  Left to his own devices, alone on the sinking ship, he must use his character’s mariner skills to catch up with his boat that is long out of sight.  Believably, the setting works against him with an engine that won’t start and water levels rising.  As well, there is plenty of information provided to paint a picture of the antagonist that John and his wife are up against.  It’s not all spelled out, but there’s enough to realize danger is within reach, thereby upholding the suspense. 

Phillip Noyce and his set design crews do good work at gradually diminishing the integrities of both boats.  Water quickly rises, wood splinters through doorways, planks and floors, sails become undone, things capsize, and equipment and utensils scatter as the action increases. 

Regrettably, the ending tacks on the unworthy “killer come to life” for one last hurrah.  It’s ridiculous Friday The 13th tripe and opens one more opportunity for Rae to shut off her intuition to serve the helpless victim element.

I can’t forgive the absentmindedness of Kidman’s character.  This woman is so much brighter than Phillip Noyce gives her credit.  Even at this young age, before she became a top billing star with an Oscar, Nicole Kidman was working on a more advanced level than the material she was given.

CHARADE

By Marc S. Sanders

I’d always heard that Stanley Donen’s Charade was the definitive Hitchcock movie that was not directed by Alfred Hitchcock.  Maybe that’s true.  Yet, having watched it over sixty years after its release, I get the feeling this paved the way for other comedy/thrillers like what Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn did in Foul Play or Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepard accomplished with Moonlighting.  Remington Steele is another example. There’s a killer on the loose.  Nevertheless, that shouldn’t stop anyone from engaging in fun flirtations without breaking a sweat in some of the most strikingly colorful costume wear that Givenchy can provide.  

Audrey Hepburn is Reggie Lampert a woman ready to divorce her husband Charles due to a loveless marriage.  When she returns to Paris from a skiing retreat she finds their apartment has been emptied.  Mr. Bartholomew (Walter Matthau) calls Reggie into the American Embassy and explains that Charles was murdered and thrown from a train.  He also had ties with the CIA.  During the war, his military unit came upon a trove of a quarter of a million dollars.  The other members of that unit are likely looking for the money and they will go after Reggie to get it.  She has no idea what Charles was involved with or what he did for a living or how he made his fortunes.

Peter Joshua (Cary Grant, a Hitchcock regular) comes in and out of Reggie’s life.  She trusts Peter, but then gets skeptical of his charm when a truth becomes inconsistent.  He has an explanation for everything, and the cycle of good faith starts all over again.  

Charade is predictable, right from start, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a lot of fun.  Henry Mancini’s soundtrack keeps Donen’s picture peppy as Audrey Hepburn dodges suspects with Cary Grant’s assistance.  The movie doesn’t rush for the inevitable romantic kiss between the two leads.  The fast talking lines pace their performances.

The men in pursuit are James Coburn with a supply of threatening cigarettes to burn, a nerdy Ned Glass and George Kennedy looking like an imposing Bond henchman with an iron claw for a hand and a belted trenchcoat.  They all stand apart, and one of them could be the killer with a little more to collect on the apparent fortune to be found.

The Hitchcokian comparison stems from the recognizable structure of his pictures.  I don’t deny the familiarity.  Yet, most of Hitch’s films operate on a more sinister level.  Then again there was To Catch A Thief with Cary Grant and that movie could have been part of the same universe as Charade.  I simply credit Donen’s film with what it inevitability inspired as opposed to where it seems to have been sourced from.  

The story sets in motion the meet cute romance of Hepburn and Grant, and despite the clear age difference they’re also charming together.  Try finding a Gen X leading man who could shower with his suit on for an amused Audrey Hepburn.  Try finding a leading woman of today who could be so taken with a such a silly demonstration from a leading man.  Cursing and crude bathroom humor were never necessary for these two.

When a movie opens with a troublemaking kid shooting a squirt gun in the kissers of both Audrey and Cary you immediately recognize the lighthearted tempo of this picture.  These two sophisticates are ready to minimize their dignity while racing through a romp in beautiful Paris, France.  I was happy to run along with them.