Category: Robert Wuhl

MELANIA

By Marc S. Sanders

Self-absorption is an expense of time for the outsiders looking in.  At an hour and forty-one minutes, the time I spent to watch Melania Trump’s documentary, Melania, was a terrible cost.  

The First Lady’s exploration of herself covers her personal experiences in the twenty days before the second inauguration of President Donald J Trump on January 20, 2025.  Frankly, after the movie kicks off with a needle drop of The Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter (a favorite of mine), the mundane slugs on an endless runway.  

Brett Ratner, the director who nearly destroyed the celebrated X-Men franchise and delivered too many Rush Hour films, covers Mrs. Trump walking in slow motion…a lot…like way, way, way too much.  The first five minutes, even after the credits have finished, show Melania walk down hallways, step into elevators, step out of elevators and walk down more hallways into parking garages adorned with Trump campaign posters (great art direction) to get into a limousine that takes her to the airport to board a corporate Trump plane. Then we get to see her stride down the middle aisle that divides impeccable white leather, upholstered chairs.  It’s like…MELANIA IS REALLY DOING ALL THESE THINGS.  And I get to see it???? Me??? Really???

She’s a rock star or a superhero or perhaps she is simply MELANIA, because no one else could ever be THE MELANIA.

The main subject explains in monotone voiceover how she wants to cover the time she invests as a philanthropist and businesswoman in the days leading up to the inauguration.  So, we get right to the important things first like deciding if her evening gown is tight enough around her waist and neck, and if the lapels on her suit need to be bigger.  Hopefully, the designer can alter the collar on her white blouse.  Plus, how should the shoulders look?  There’s much to talk about.  So, Ratner is wise enough to return to these pressing topics later when Melania single-handedly decides that the white band around her infamous lampshade hat, worn on Inauguration Day, is not narrow enough.  Business! Philanthropy!

Staged interviews with young ladies looking to earn a position as Melanie’s personal assistant are weaved into the picture.  I learned that the job is simply not 9-to-5 work.  

I cannot say I’m a fan of Melania Trump.  I do not think I’ve been a fan of any First Lady.  I don’t know much about any of them.  Though I was impressed when Arnold, Dudley and Mr. Drummond got to meet Nancy Reagan on Diff’rent Strokes with her Just Say No campaign.  Reader, as an eleven year old it had an impact on me.  It was straightforward, simple and to the point. Plus, she was friends with Mr. T.  So, job well done Mrs. Reagan!  Now, I was curious what could I gain from our current First Lady.  Here was her opportunity to show us her very best.  

Melania does a zoom call with the First Lady of France to declare her push for her Be Best campaign.  The logo is written in blue crayon font.  It’s cute.  It’s eye catching and I never learn anything about it.  I’m guessing it is aimed at children, but what is it precisely doing to benefit children?  What tactics are being planned? What’s being executed?  What events are taking place?  Will Melania at least go to the Kids Choice Awards and get a pie in the face on Nickelodeon?  C’mon Melania!  Do it in the name of Be Best.

The most admirable moment in this self-described documentary is when Melania gets a visit from Aviva Siegel, an Israeli kidnap survivor from the Hamas attacks on October 7.  She wears a shirt that shows an image of her husband Keith who was still in captivity at the time of this filming.  This scene occupies about three and a half minutes of the entire movie.  Aviva is welcomed to cry on camera while Melania’s profile is shot from across the sofa in a New York high-rise apartment.  Melania doesn’t cry, doesn’t quiver, doesn’t ask a single question that I can recall serves any kind of consequence.  Yet, the one-time fashion model complements Aviva’s shirt and how it looks on the poor woman.  No promises or assurances are made in this brief moment.  They sit on a grey sofa.  Not a bed.  So, don’t expect bedside manners.

On to the party planning for the inauguration dinners and celebrations plus more wardrobe insight customized exclusively for the First Lady.  My wife watches reality shows showing home decor and reconstruction.  My parents would watch Lifestyles Of The Rich & Famous during the decadent 1980s.  What those programs accomplish that Ratner and Trump do not are the whys and hows.  Why did this millionaire need that kind curtain.  What drew them to those colors and patterns.  Why call the yacht this particular name, and so on. Melania simply goes for the gold trim in the napkins and tableware.  

She loves fashion designer Hervé Pierre’s evening gown, white with a black zig zag of fabric down the front and a high slit at the leg.  Now, let me tell you.  This is a dress!!!! It’s gorgeous and she looks gorgeous wearing it on the evening of January 20, 2025.  Yet, for a film that devotes so much to this object how about telling me something about the inspiration for the design.  If you’re going to invest so much into this piece of craftsmanship, then at least go deeper than having the woman literally look at herself in a mirror.

As the film is winding down a part of the country is on burning uncontrollably.  The California wildfires that displaced so many people were happening ahead of Trump’s inauguration.  Melania takes it upon herself to sit cross legged on a leather sofa in her ready room in front of a flat screen to watch the happenings unfold on FOX News.  An expensive piece of artwork dangles behind her head.  Her voiceover tells us that her heart breaks while Ratner gets close ups of her stunning blue eyes adorned in perfectly coifed mascara.  It’s ridiculous how hollow this looks.  An absence of emotion and sincerity.  You could have avoided making so light of this terrible period by just not having her reflect at all.  Melania is generous, however.  She allows her heart to break.

The First Lady’s husband makes appearances insisting to his wife that he won in landslides across various states.  We see him test one of his staffers who is unable to explain why championship sports are scheduled on the same day as the inauguration.  Is this anything that anyone can learn from?  Brett Ratner arguably has access to most of what the Trump staff and family can extend, and this is a nothing piece of nothing.

Melania mentions how her loving mother passed away a year prior and how she ran a fashion business that inspired her daughter to follow a similar path.  Where and when was this business in operation?  What was the name of it? The son in law Donald tells us that they loved her very much and she was a hell of a woman.  Melania’s dad will reside at The White House.  What else can we know?

Barron is Melania’s son with Donald.  He never speaks.  He’s shot from a distance. Never shows affection for mom and dad, but mom hopes he chooses a path that makes him happy.  Finally, a parent admits it!!!  

Melania’s attempt at bi-partisan openness has her attending Jimmy Carter’s funeral.  I’ll say he’s one of the worst Presidents in American history.  However, his philanthropic work following his service is second to none.  Unquestionably, a good soul.  Melania cannot even say that.  Brett Ratner is not insightful enough to prompt the First Lady for a few words about Carter’s contributions.  

Towards the end of the film, portraits of Jackie Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt and Mamie Eisenhower are shared.  Why?  I dunno.  I guess I’m supposed to gather that Melania Trump carries on a legacy.  Do Melania or Melania or these filmmakers know the specific contributions of Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs.  Eisenhower, and what they personally mean to them?  Truly, I can’t say off the top of my head.  However, I’m not a First Lady making a movie about myself or my esteemed position.  So, tell me what it means to you.  Allow me to learn more than how your hat or your suit or your gown should look on you.  

Be Best? How?  

Homes are burning?  Anything you gonna do about it?  

A husband remains missing?  Is there someone you can call?  I mean I’m aware of the obstacles that come with politics and international affairs, but maybe this worried wife could gain from prayer with a Rabbi and you by her side.  

I’m never expecting Melania Trump to singlehandedly fix the world.  All I’m asking for is what she declared herself to be.  A businesswoman and a philanthropist.  

Mrs. Trump is a Michael Jackson fan, and her favorite song is Billie Jean.  She barely flexes herself in the back of her limo to sing along.  So, I get it when that song comes on at the beginning of the film.  It might be the most genuine, insightful portrait of the whole documentary simply because it shows a small shred of natural humanity in the woman.  That being said, why open the movie with the Stones’ Gimme Shelter?  It’s gritty and gives me images of struggle, doom and grit.  A dirty, garage band kind of song.  The outer shell of Melania Trump is anything but a single riff or note of the Stones’ song. So why?  I guess because the rights to use the number must be expensive, and money is no object to this superhero’s fanbase.  The sacrifice this woman does from one outfit to another, from one limousine to another, from one estate to another.  

No!  Being First Lady is certainly not a 9 to 5 job.

Ratner concludes Melania by shooting his subject leaning on her fists against a glass table-topped desk for professional photos.  She looks like a superhero ready to take on the world.  Honestly, if Melania Trump were to enter a phone booth to change into her costume and don a cape, she wouldn’t be able to find the door to let herself out.  

BATMAN (1989)

By Marc S. Sanders

If Warner Bros was to abandon the campy familiarity of the Adam West TV series, Tim Burton was the best candidate to deliver The Dark Knight into the macabre gloominess of a bustling crime ridden Gotham City.  Burton is proud of his grotesque weirdness which is what this famed comic book character demands.  

Despite a story that always teetered on flimsy to me, this close-out picture of the decadent 1980s, has so many elements that work. It begins with the marquee cast to the richly deserved Oscar winning hell on Earth art designs from Anton Furst to silly pop/funk samples from Prince and the orchestral score from Danny Elfman.  This is truly the film that put Elfman on the map.

Jack Nicholson collected buckets and buckets of cash to bring Batman’s arch nemesis Joker to life.  He earned every penny.  There’s been copycat attempts (Hello Jim “Mr. Shameless” Carrey) to a handful of other interpretations of the psychotic clown, and still no one has overshadowed what Nicholson brought to the role.  His performance seems like a combined amalgamation of previous celebrated career roles from Easy Rider to …Cukoo’s Nest.  Prince served as his cheerleading entourage to compliment the purple and green color schemes.  This Joker is a perfect antithesis to the famed title character superhero.

Batman is portrayed by Michael Keaton.  Let the record show that when news broke of Mr. Mom occupying the part, I was not a skeptic.  I had seen the dark and dramatic side of the former standup comic a year prior (Clean And Sober, my review is on this site).  I knew he could pull it off.  His quiet pondering as either billionaire Bruce Wayne, whose parents were gunned down in front of him as a child, to the Batman under the cape and mask work on the opposite spectrum to Nicholson’s uncompromising insanity and hyperactivity.  

Keaton against Nicholson are a defined Yin and Yang.

The supporting cast have good moments too including the loyalty of Bruce’s butler, Alfred.  Michael Gough brings Wayne Manor alive and Burton, with a script from Sam Hamm, welcomes several spotlights from the expected council of the trusty character.  Kim Basinger is photojournalist Vicki Vale, Bruce’s love interest.  Frankly she has better scenes to share with Robert Wuhl as Gotham’s reporter.  The Batman fan in me stops short at Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon.  It’s not the actor’s fault however that the film offers little for him to do on screen.    Hingle never had much material to play with in the four films he occupied.  That’s regrettable.

The best supporting character is the setting of Gotham City.  With Burton’s penchant for a Vincent Price characterization, he relies on Anton Furst to bring the towering midnight blue steel, skyscraper pillars to enormous heights, reaching into the blackness of heaven.  Every street, alleyway, balcony, puddle, garbage can or mugger, policeman and cabbie that circumvent this city lend life to this hopeless, criminal world.  It’s astonishing how well constructed this Gotham is.  Designs go just as far with Wayne Manor, the underground Bat Cave and a chemical plant designed in hot steam,  with enormous barrels of rainbow, acidic liquids and rickety platforms. Even Vicki Vale’s apartment is gorgeous to look at as both Bruce Wayne and the Joker compliment it as having “lots of space.” Tim Burton and Anton Furst make certain the people who roam these environments are entirely aware of what they occupy.

Sam Hamm’s script doesn’t appear as solid as everything else on screen.  There’s never a cohesive beginning to end trajectory and a lot of the film feels like short story episodes.  Joker takes over the localized mob.  There’s that story.  Joker somehow concocts a chemical poisoning amid the various hygiene products.  Yet it only spreads to the local newscasters.  Gordon, Alfred, Vicki Vale, and certainly not Bruce Wayne ever gets exposed.  Once that storyline begins, it’s quickly disposed.  A little attention focuses on Batman’s beginnings.

The irony of Batman is that unlike other superhero films, this one does not hinge on an origin story for the good guy dressed in black.  That angle is devoted mostly towards Joker, and Nicholson makes the most of his large amount of screen time.  A favorite, sinister scene that maybe Edgar Allen Poe might have approved of is Burton’s invention for Joker to gradually reveal himself beneath the darkness.  He’s depicted sitting in a dirty office basement with an underground cosmetic doctor who witnesses a transformation in the gangster turned madman.  I just like it.  It’s hair raising.  The moment plays like Poe writing a new version of The Mask Of The Red Death.

For me, this is likely Tim Burton’s best film, just below his passion for detail in Ed Wood.  Batman offers up a lot of variety ranging from the darkness of the character to the disruptions revealed in the antagonistic, loudly dressed, Joker.  

There’s no denying how visually memorable the film remains and how quotable it is as well.  In 1989, when superhero movies were not the event release commodities they are today, the endless hype only enhanced the experience of finally seeing the movie on the big screen.  Over a year ahead of release, t- shirts, caps, action figures and costumes were of the highest demand among kids, teenagers and adults.  I actually miss the marketing blitz that overtook the finished film product.  Everyone you encountered was embracing Batman and Joker.  These might be pop culture phenomena, but they created a commonality among the masses of the world.  Batman was worthy of all its swag and endless mania.  It was a celebration of movies for people of all ages to take seriously.

Fortunately, the first half of the 1989 promotional partnerships were never squandered on a decidedly terrible movie.  The end product was immensely satisfying.

Tim Burton upheld his dedication while still a young director in a cutthroat and competitive industry.  As the later films, from a careless Joel Schumacher, demonstrated, it takes an endearing kind of passion to pull these eccentrics off on a silver screen.  Fanboys will happily toss that Bat logoed t-shirt away if they feel betrayed by the movie, they couldn’t wait to sink their teeth into.

An enormous sigh of relief came across the entire pre-internet world.  Keaton is great.  Nicholson of course.  Check out the Batmobile and Bat Jet as well!!! Prince’s music videos served as free commercialization to see the movie over and over again.  A separate record was released to highlight Danny Elfman’s work.

Rightly so!

The grand scheme of delivering Batman and Joker to audiences, was worth every second of the wait.

An astounding achievement of near perfect filmmaking, this Batman film was never overshadowed even with a better, leaner Dark Knight interpretation to arrive nearly two decades later.

Right this way Mr.  Nolan.  Your table is ready for you.

BULL DURHAM

By Marc S. Sanders

How Susan Sarandon did not even get nominated for an Oscar for Ron Shelton’s Bull Durham, I’ll never know. Shelton writes the character of the lustrous, Annie Savoy with grace, wisdom and silky sex appeal. It remains one of the best female characters to ever appear on a screen and no one else could have played the part other than Sarandon.

Shelton’s sensational script opens with Annie’s declaration that she believes in the “church of baseball” and from there it waxes poetic on the sport’s religion and traditions as Annie uses her charm to seduce the Durham Bulls’ newest talent, dim witted pitcher Eppy Calvin “Nuke” Laloosh (Tim Robbins) leaving the team’s experienced catcher Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) wanting more. That is until Annie realizes that she’s the one who wants more.

Davis is recruited to groom Nuke for the big leagues. Nuke has got a million dollar fast ball arm but he “…fucks like he pitches. Sort of all over the place.” Crash is the frustrated player with talent but the sun is setting on his opportunity for the big leagues. Dumb Nuke has a future that just doesn’t seem fair to Crash. Annie is no help when she chooses Nuke over Crash to hook up with for the season.

Shelton explores so many dimensions in his script. It does not solely focus on the three primary characters. The screenplay stirs in a mixture of what it’s like to serve on a minor league team with bats and gloves that are cursed, the urge for a rain out game or what present to get Bobby and Millie for their wedding. A call to the mound might settle some of these things.

Shelton directs his script with a very natural approach. Watch Crash and Annie flirt in a batting cage. Costner and Sarandon don’t even flinch as the balls whiz between them. Baseball is a part of these characters. They live and breathe baseball and they relish sex.

Shelton’s last 15 minutes of film offer a celebration of sexual release that appears pleasant, fun and somewhat religious as the chemistry between Costner and Sarandon remains strong. They rattle the whole house it seems and the kitchen will never be the same.

Robbins is great with his idiocy. He wasn’t as well known when this film was released in 1988. His surprise appearance of stupidity is so lovable and welcome. When he tries to think he gets himself in trouble. When he listens to his coaches, Annie and Crash, he excels. The pains he goes through upon their advice is ridiculously hilarious. Don’t forget to breathe through your eyelids, Nuke.

I also gotta recognize Robert Wuhl and Trey Wilson as the managers of the team. They are hilarious but not overt. Wuhl is great as he bellows out encouraging but incomprehensible cheers from the dugout. Wilson looks on with tired facial expressions.

This cast is invested in the cloth of America’s pastime. They know the batting averages. They read the signs. They play for the crowds. It’s as if Shelton moseyed into the town of Durham, North Carolina, put his camera up and watched how another season all played out. His lens could have been working with a documentary mindset.

Bull Durham is one of the best scripts ever written full of brilliant one liners and philosophies that I might not entirely understand what any of it is referencing. Yet when Annie or Crash carry on, I can’t help but suddenly get interested.

Bull Durham is the best baseball film ever made performed by an outstanding cast led by a director with a clear, wide-open vision.

Play ball!!!