Summer Days, Summer Nights (2018, Edward Burns)

Summer Days, Summer Nights never really has any “grabber” moments. It’s got a couple big misses, one I’ve got a lot to say about, the other would technically be a spoiler. If it weren’t also a total cop-out. The movie looks the cop-out in the eye and blinks, with writer, director, and costar Burns deciding to acknowledge the big miss he’s committing to making.

Directing-wise, Burns does a fabulous job with Summer Days. The film takes place over Summer 1982 in resort-town Long Island. It’s on a budget, so Burns figures out all these great ways to showcase what he’s got to budget to include. There’s a big block party set-piece, and it’s beautifully done. Shame it comes at the end of the first act, and Burns never tries anything else anywhere near as complex or ambitious with the rest of the picture.

It’s also where the soundtrack—with one exception, the movie’s got a great soundtrack—intentionally reminds of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Summer Nights shows its hand a little much. Burns is doing an eighties teenager movie without any gratuitous sex or racism. There’s non-gratuitous sex, of course. But no racism of any kind. There aren’t any Black people. Lindsey Morgan and Anthony Ramos are Latinx. They’re it for people of color.

There’s also no class privilege stuff, which is weird because it’s part of the setup.

But Burns also isn’t doing a revisionist eighties teen sex comedy. Every female character in the movie proves her worth by having a boyfriend. Summer Days doesn’t just not pass Bechdel; it doesn’t even entertain the possibility it may. There’s even a terrible insert scene where Rita Volk cries to mom Susan Misner about how a boy likes her, and she likes him too, and it’s just not fair for some reason. Burns’s script is a series of romantic dramedy tropes. They never succeed, but sometimes the cast is likable enough, or the filmmaking’s solid enough; it doesn’t matter.

Other times it matters. Especially with Volk’s arc.

The film’s split between three couples. First, there’s protagonist Pico Alexander, playing the son of Burns’s character. They’re working-class, but Alexander only hangs out with the rich kids. When Summer starts, he’s planning on going to college to become a Wall Street tycoon, even though everyone tells him to be a writer. The writing thing isn’t important. It’s Burns’s biggest backstory cop-out. Right away, rich girl girlfriend Carly Brooke dumps him, and he soon finds summer romance with slightly older woman Morgan.

Morgan tells him it’s just going to be a fling. We don’t find out anything about her backstory until the second half of the movie, despite her being the strongest female character.

There’s just no time with the other arcs.

Like Ramos and Caitlin Stasey. They were high school sweethearts, and she broke his heart. Fast forward seven years, she’s back in town. Now, neither Ramos nor Stasey have any personality outside this backstory, so they’ve got couple friends, Zoe Levin and Jon Rudnitsky, to keep their story busy. Levin and Rudnitsky are sort of Summer Days’s unsung heroes, right up until the third act when Burns forgets they were around. But Ramos and Stasey’s plot is a “will they or won’t they” one.

Then again, so’s Volk’s arc with Amadeus Serafini. Serafini is Alexander’s cousin and staying with him and Burns for the summer. Burns sets Serafini up with a job at Misner’s dock, where daughter Volk also works. Volk’s sad her rich boy boyfriend left her for the summer, and Serafini’s got the hots for her because… she’s a girl, and he’s a boy. There’s no other story to them.

Until we get to Serafini’s live music performance, which is kind of a surfer dude Bruce Springsteen song, only it’s a creepy, controlling stalker song about how Volk needs to get with Serafini, or her life is meaningless. He sings it to her in public. It’s a lot. Like, there’s a concept for a relationship there, but the movie does nothing with it. Instead, it’s just Serafini mooning soulfully at Volk about why she should love him back.

Burns does seem to think the eighties setting and the decidedly strong production values are enough to get him a pass on all the lazy, shallow writing, but he is incorrect. They are not enough, mainly since his enthusiasm—directing-wise—for the eighties setting lessens after the first act and is immaterial by the third, except the occasional payphone.

And the third act’s so dramatically inert, strong production values aren’t going to help.

Best performances are Rudnitsky, Ramos, Stasey, and Levin. They kind of come in a bundle. Alexander and Morgan aren’t exactly good, but they’re very likable. They’re the most fun couple, thanks to that likability. Serafini and Volk are the worst. When he’s doing soulful surfer dude, Serafini almost makes it. When he’s weird creeper coworker, not so much. Volk’s got the worst part in the movie, and it’s kind of impressive she’s never terrible. She doesn’t have enough of a part to be bad; it’s a dreadful role.

It’s pretty clear by the second act Burns doesn’t actually have anywhere to go with Summer Days, Summer Nights. But he knows how to get an hour and forty minutes out of that inertia. Unfortunately, ever-competent and often exquisite filmmaking isn’t enough to make the third act palatable.

Even with lower and lower expectations, Summer Days, Summer Nights disappoints. It’s too bad. It looks phenomenal—William Rexer’s photography, Timothy J. Feeley’s editing, Stephen Beatrice’s production design, and Rosemary Lepre Forman’s costume design. They all do great work, as does Burns as far as directing.

Shame Burns didn’t make the script worth the production or even actors.

Newlyweds (2011, Edward Burns)

Newlyweds is an exceptional disappointment. Not really because of the concept–upper upper middle class New Yorker whining–or the execution–Burns has his actors speak into the camera, the characters giving interviews–but because it’s always shaking and Burns, as writer and director, always takes the worse path. Newlyweds is a what happens, at least as far as Burns’s script, when you make bad choices. Every single time.

The film opens with titular Newlyweds Burns and Caitlin FitzGerald out to brunch with her harpy sister, Marsha Dietlein, and her sister’s miserable, sexually frustrated (all because of Dietlein) husband, Max Baker. Burns goes out of his way to make Baker as gross as possible, and Dietlein as mean possible. The audience is supposed to be annoyed with Baker’s whining, but they’re supposed to hate Dietlein. She’s such a prude she doesn’t want to listen to Burns’s comic retellings of he and FitzGerald’s problematic sex life (it’s all FitzGerald’s fault, of course).

No slut shaming though, because they’re prudes. All the slut shaming is for Kerry Bishé, who shows up immediately following the introduction, as Burns’s long lost little half sister. Burns, writing himself possibly the shallowest role in the film–he really uses those into camera interviews to sidestep narrative responsibility–and Bishé had a bad dad, which has nothing to do with the film. It’s just there for immediate sympathy (not for Bishé, because she’s always being slut shamed, but for Burns). Bishé’s exceptionally traumatic visit all gets to serve to make Burns into an even better guy. Bishé’s shit out of luck.

Along the way, Baker hooks up with a twenty-three year-old girl (Daniella Pineda), Bishé hooks up with FitzGerald’s ex-husband (Dara Coleman), and chaos ensues. But it does give Burns the chance to write FitzGerald as a harpy in training and himself as a male savior. A sensitive male savior to some degree, but not much of one.

The worst thing is how much FitzGerald and Bishé appear willing to try to make this movie work, Bishé especially. And her performance is a mess. Burns and editor Janet Gaynor cut magic with every other actor in the film–Burns berating Baker is legitimately hilarious, regardless of Burns’s irresponsibility as a writer, and the walking shots (everyone basically walks from scene to scene Newlyweds, in William Rexer’s nicely lighted Manhattan) have great cuts–but Bishé’s editing is awful. Once the script gets around to revealing all her secrets, it’s like the editing is designed to make the audience sympathize less and less.

But, to some degree, everyone’s pretty good. Dietlein has a terrible, shameful part, but she plays the hell out of it. Burns has to double down on her being awful because otherwise it means he’s got the film wrong. And he does have it wrong. FitzGerald’s good, Coleman’s kind of great, Baker’s a cartoon (as opposed to everyone else’s caricatures). Even Burns, as an actor, is really pretty good. He’s mugging a little, but the rest of his cast isn’t, which provides an interesting contrast.

He just can’t seem to figure out how to direct his script, because it’s a bad script. He can make the movie–the actors work, Rexer and Gaynor are great, P.T. Walkey’s music is solid–but he can’t direct this script. There’s no relationships. Burns intentionally starts the film with these characters having no apparent foundation.

I wish Newlyweds were more pedestrian, because then it wouldn’t be such a disappointment. Burns really should’ve worked a little bit harder on the writing, because everything else is there.

I mean, if he’d actually been able to sell Baker as a legitimate character… the sky’s the limit. Though he probably wouldn’t have been able to sell him wearing a golf cap–Burns, not Baker–the whole movie. Did Burns have a golf cap company he was promoting or something?

No Looking Back (1998, Edward Burns)

No Looking Back runs just under a hundred minutes. The first half of the film–roughly the first half–evenly relies on its cast. In fact, top-billed Lauren Holly almost has less than either Jon Bon Jovi and director Burns (acting, second-billed) in the first half. It’s a love triangle and she’s the prize. Burns is coming back to Nowhere, Long Island after running away to California years before. Ex-girlfriend Holly has moved on and in with Bon Jovi, who’s ostensibly a childhood friend of Burns’s but it’s a somewhat reluctant friendship. Burns is a jerk from scene two. He has two honest moments in the film; his first and his last. The rest of the time, he’s basically just a prick.

But he’s a different kind of prick than Bon Jovi, who’s the too perfect man. He wants to be a good dad, can’t wait for Holly to join his mom and sisters in the kitchen for football Sunday (he’s in the living room with his brothers), and so on and so forth. There’s this strange transition with sympathies, which Burns (as a writer and director) doesn’t deal with very well. He tries hard to keep the love triangle restless–the three characters never all interact in a single scene, even if all present–and it strains the film at times. But it also pays off because it means Holly gets more opportunity.

Then around the halfway market, a Bruce Springsteen song comes on the radio and No Looking Back totally changes. The first half soundtrack, with the exception of a Patti Scialfa track or two, is indistinct, bland, late nineties pseudo-alternative songs. Nothing distinct. And then, all of a sudden, Holly assumes the protagonist role decisively. Performance, script, direction. The first half of the movie has been an awkward setup to provide back story to turn the second half into a Bruce Springsteen mix tape set to film. And it’s exceptional. The film’s flow is better, the scenes more poignant–I mean, it’s a soap opera. The thing couldn’t fail the Bechdel test more if it tried. But it’s this exceptional soap opera turned character study. And what ends up saving it is when Burns, as writer and director, stops pretending there’s any depth to he and Bon Jovi’s characters. More, the characters have to stop pretending too. It’s awesome.

Plus, there’s scene payoff for most of the supporting cast. Blythe Danner (as Holly’s mom) gets almost nothing in the first half and ends up being essential in pulling off the big finale upswing. Connie Britton’s great as Holly’s sister, with the first half’s least disjointed arc. Jennifer Esposito and Nick Sandow are both good as various friends, though Sandow’s basically Norm from “Cheers” and Esposito doesn’t get enough to do.

Oh–and Joe Delia’s score is a mess in the first half. There’s this generic hard rock theme running through the score. Maybe Burns could only get the four or five Springsteen songs and had to save them, but it’s not a good theme for Holly as Burns intentionally and maliciously upends her life, albeit through accepted social conventions. Score is much better in the second half.

Great photography from Frank Prinzi. Nice, patient editing from Susan Graef.

Holly doesn’t have a great character here; Burns ignored her too much in the first half to setup the second, but she gives an excellent performance. The stuff she gets to do in the second half, it’s like a reward for having to suffer through the first half’s weaker scenes. Bon Jovi gives a strong performance and once Burns, as an actor, gets to the Springsteen section, he really comes through as well.

No Looking Back has more than its share of problems, all of them (with the exception of the music) director Burns’s fault. It’s also pretty darn great; again, all Burns’s fault.

She's the One (1996, Edward Burns)

She’s the One has a fantastic first act. Some of the banter doesn’t connect, but all of the performances are strong and when the banter does connect, it makes up for the rest. Director, writer, and star Burns relies a little too much on “gentle” homophobia for the banter between his character and Michael McGlone’s. They’re brothers–John Mahoney (easily giving the film’s best performance) is the dad. Mom never appears. I thought she was deceased, but no, Burns just doesn’t give her an onscreen presence, which is a big problem later on. Anyway, Burns’s reliance on the “sister” jokes for McGlone end up just being foreshadowing for the real problem with the film–Burns and McGlone are lousy leads.

But, wait, still being upbeat about the first act. Maxine Bahns is great as Burns’s new wife. They meet in his cab in the second or third scene and go off to get married. Jennifer Aniston is excellent as McGlone’s suffering wife. She gives the film’s second best performance. But she’s not just suffering because McGlone’s an alpha male jerk, but because he’s carrying on with Cameron Diaz.

Diaz, it turns out, is Burns’s ex-fiancee, who he left after she cheated on him. Eight million stories in New York City, of course it turns out everyone knows each other. Except they don’t, so Burns isn’t even trying to do an interconnected thing. Once the second act hits, Burns fully embraces the “movie about nothing.” Short scenes, usually in long shot, setting up what someone else says and then everyone else talking about it. Maybe if it were intentional, but it seems like Burns is trying to find the story. He never does. She’s the One has roughly thirty minutes of actual content. It runs over ninety minutes.

Along the way, there’s some fine acting from Mahoney and Aniston. Frank Vincent is hilarious as Aniston’s father. McGlone’s a funny jerk. The problem is he’s pretty much the lead, because Burns is exceptionally passive in his performance. He gives himself the shallowest character. Well, it’s between his character and Mahoney’s, but at least Mahoney gets an arc, at least Mahoney gets some agency.

Diaz is bad. She’s got a terrible part, which just gets worse for her along the way, but she’s not good in it. The film requires her to have exceptional chemistry with Burns. She has none. She ought to have some chemistry with McGlone too, since he wants to leave Aniston for her. But nope. Aniston and McGlone, when they’re with other people and not just in their own subplot, are great together. Bahns is best in the first act, then her part goes to crap too.

She’s the One is about Burns and McGlone having to accept some responsibility for themselves and doing whatever it takes to get out of it. Burns, as director, tries as hard as he can do get them out of it too. The women of She’s the One are all universally more interesting than the men; Burns just doesn’t want them to be. So there’s some internalized, “gentle” misogyny going on too.

The last act is a rush to save everything and, thanks to Mahoney and Bahns, Burns is almost able to pull it off. Almost.

Great songs and score from Tom Petty (though it’s usually just for Burns and Bahns, McGlone and Aniston don’t get music). Frank Prinzi’s photography is solid, even if a lot of Burns’s composition is questionable. When he finally gets around to letting characters talk and actors act–i.e. the third act–She’s the One shows some of the promise of the first act.

It’s just too little, too late.

The Fitzgerald Family Christmas (2012, Edward Burns)

The Fitzgerald Family Christmas is going to be frustrating to talk about. Burns contrives a melodrama and then proceeds to remove all the melodramatic fluff. During the scenes when–after the first act concludes–more of these melodramatic events occur, there’s a brief recognition of what he’s achieved. At some point in the second act, after three more events Burns should not be able to get away with occur, I wondered if he was just testing himself. He assembles the finest ensemble cast in years–costarring alongside them. They (and the filmmakers) bring Fitzgerald to a whole new level.

At one point, when Burns (as an actor) is listening to Heather Burns speak, I found it hard to believe was able to contain his zeal at giving her such good dialogue and directing such a good performance. There are a couple other similar scenes with Burns and his costars, but the one with Heather Burns stands out. She might give the film’s best performance. She’s certainly in the top three… or top four.

Fitzgerald concerns a large family in the two days before Christmas. I didn’t gauge the time on how Burns split the days in the run time, though they seem about equal. Burns is the oldest son–he lives with mother Anita Gillette (in one of the other top four performances), who turns seventy the day the film opens. Heather Burns is one of the daughters; in the female children category there are also Marsha Dietlein, Caitlin Fitzgerald (another top four) and Kerry Bishé. The other two male children are Michael McGlone and Tom Guiry (last top four). After the top four, in case you’re wondering, are “the next two,” being Bishé and McGlone.

And Ed Lauter is the absentee father. He’s great too. Everyone’s great. It’s just how to measure them–like I said, frustrating to talk about. It’s hard to think of an ensemble where everyone has such perfect parts. Not “good” or “great” perfect, but actual perfect–they will never be this good in anything again.

Burns himself almost steps back into his own story arc with Connie Britton. He also gives McGlone and Bishé a little story arc, which Burn then uses to imply history about the family without relying on artificial exposition. He does, of course, have exposition, but he’s able to layer it in organically.

I’ve got to get to the technical aspects–I decided on the first sentence Fitzgerald needs a double-length response. P.T. Walkley’s score, which adapts Christmas standards, helps in Burns’s draining of the melodrama. The songs imply the holiday and the confusion behind it for the characters; it’s essential.

Burns shoots Fitzgerald Panavision aspect; it’s another angering feature. Some of the shots are so good, so precise and exact in how Burns positions the characters together, they made me mad. His composition-William Rexar’s photography is key–is unbelievably meticulous as to how he presents the characters interacting with one another.

The Fitzgerald Family Christmas is wondrous.

Sidewalks of New York (2001, Edward Burns)

Sidewalks of New York is Edward Burns embracing the idea of becoming the WASP Woody Allen. Well, Burns is Irish Catholic, so not exactly the WASP Woody Allen… but something nearer to it than not. It’s his attempt at making a quintessential New York movie while being aware he’s making a quintessential New York movie.

And he partially succeeds. Even with one enormous—so enormous I’m tempted to call it ginormous (even if Oxford thinks it’s a word, I don’t)—problem, Sidewalks is a good film. It’s an extremely finished, safe film, but it’s a good one.

What’s so striking about the film is how comfortable Burns gets with his cast. It isn’t the traditional Burns cast—these aren’t Irish guys on Long Island, it’s a bunch of New Yorkers from the boroughs transplanted to Manhattan.

It’s somewhat anti-Manhattan, actually, even though every scene except one is set there.

The acting is all wonderful, particularly from Rosario Dawson (who, unfortunately, is victim of the ginormous problem), Brittany Murphy and David Krumholtz. Burns is good, but he really doesn’t give himself a big role. He usually lets Dennis Farina (who’s hilarious) overpower their scenes. Stanley Tucci is good, just giving an excellent Tucci performance. Heather Graham is sort of out of her league, sort of not. My favorite is when she can’t help laughing at Tucci.

In smaller roles, Michael Leydon Campbell, Nadja Dajani and Libby Langdon are excellent.

It’s Burns being unambitious and gloriously so—that statement’s a compliment.

Purple Violets (2007, Edward Burns)

I’ve been avoiding seeing Purple Violets for almost four years–I thought it was going to be one of Burns’s lesser works. So, obviously, it shouldn’t be a surprise it’s his best film (it’s also his best film as a director).

I’m having some trouble trying to figure out how to start talking about it. It’s different from his usual approach to scripting, maybe because he has a clear protagonist here and it’s Selma Blair. It’s her film–even though the other three principals, Patrick Wilson, Burns and Debra Messing, get significant scenes to themselves.

For a while, there’s this juxtaposing of story lines–Blair and Messing opposite Wilson and Burns. Then the characters start crossing over and everything comes together in a completely organic way. Halfway through the film, the plot is still unpredictable. Even the last scene is, to some degree, unpredictable. It’s all incredibly delicate.

Blair’s great, which wasn’t a surprise. The surprise was Patrick Wilson. His part is a somewhat regular guy and he turns it into this constantly surprising, deep performance (Burns’s script helps). Burns gives maybe his best performance ever here. He’s kind of making fun of himself, but also not. Messing is another surprise. She takes what could be a sitcom harpy and turns it into a lovely performance.

And Donal Logue–as a Brit–is great.

The PT Walkley score and the William Rexer photography are amazing.

From the first shot–thanks to Walkley and Rexer–it’s clear Burns probably has something phenomenal here.

Then he delivers.

Lovely Day (2001, Edward Burns)

Lovely Day is a series of clips—it opens with the American flag around Manhattan and ends with a thank you sign to the NYPD and FDNY, but otherwise, it has little to do with 9/11, at least ten years later (it was part of “The Concert for New York City” benefit concert)—set to Bill Wither’s song, “Lovely Day.”

It’s a good song, but a curious choice (Withers wasn’t a New Yorker).

By not having a narrative or a theme, it focuses attention on a couple things. First, it becomes clear the short’s seventies, home movie look is a filter, which makes one question the unfiltered video. Second, how did Burns arrange the subjects?

It’s only four minutes, which is almost too long if it’s just about people… but long enough to make one curious about Burns’s process.

It’s not high art, but it’s a nice four minutes.

Nice Guy Johnny (2010, Edward Burns)

I really wanted Nice Guy Johnny to be Ed Burns’s best film. It’s his best made film. His composition of the Hamptons landscapes are singular. The incorporation of PT Walkey’s music is sublime. Burns even uses sped up film (or video) to great effect. If Burns did shoot Johnny on digital video, he and cinematographer William Rexer deserve a standing ovation.

The film is full of these incredibly precious moments–not at all saccharine–but these earnest, precious moments. The performances Burns gets out of newcomer leads Matt Bush and Kerry Bishé are phenomenal. Bush is clearly a talented comedic actor and Burns uses that ability–usually playing Bush off himself (Burns plays Bush’s aging loathario uncle to great effect). But there’s also this intense sadness Bush brings.

Bishé is completely different–I don’t think Burns has trusted one of his actors as much as he trusts Bishé since Brothers McMullen when he didn’t really have a choice. Bush isn’t the stand in for young Burns, it’s more like Bishé is taking that role (a gender reversal of McMullen actually). The result is this serious and thoughtful young woman who is genuinely unlike anything I’m used to seeing in films today.

Nice Guy Johnny reminded me a couple times of The King of Marvin Gardens and Badlands.

Unfortunately, the film only runs ninety minutes. Burns has done great work in that running time before… but Johnny needs more time.

I really hoped Burns would make it home; he almost does.

The Brothers McMullen (1995, Edward Burns)

The Brothers McMullen is filled with moments of brilliant filmmaking. More than enough. It just doesn’t finish off on one of them. The film needs to go out as strongly as it starts and it comes up short. Burns’s filmmaking is organic (undoubtedly a result of a long filming and imaginative editing) and the ending is far too perfunctory.

Some of the problem with the ending is Burns’s decision to give himself the least interesting role in the film. Even Jack Mulcahy, whose infidelity arc (the three brothers–Burns, Mulcahy and Mike McGlone each have separate crises, which–very nicely–never come together) is somewhat awkward as its mostly an internalized crisis, has more to do than Burns.

Burns’s arc (with Maxine Bahns as his love interest) is basically a romantic comedy with the slapstick removed. It’s very pretty, but it lacks a certain amount of emotional weight. Instead of turning himself into the protagonist–though he allows himself the showiest monologue–Burns gives that role to McGlone. With a nauseating amount of Irish Catholic guilt, the character shouldn’t even be sympathetic, but Burns’s script takes the character on a significant personal journey, all beautifully essayed by McGlone.

His two romantic interests–Shari Albert and Jennifer Jostyn–are both excellent. All of the performances in the film (Connie Britton probably gives the best) are good, though Burns’s direction occasionally leads to unsure moments.

The direction, while consistently excellent, falters whenever there’s a dramatic one shot.

But those quibbles are minor.