Category: Directors Gi

What’s Love Got to Do with It (1993, Brian Gibson)

Not counting the ill-advised, if still not wholly unwelcome epilogue, What’s Love Got to Do with It ends about ten years before the film came out. Love’s a biopic of Tina Turner (played by Angela Bassett except for the adorable then rending prologue), almost entirely focusing on her time with Ike Turner (Laurence Fishburne). Just present action, Love covers twenty-five-ish years.

Most of the time is spent in the fifties and sixties, as locally successful musician Fishburne makes it big when Bassett becomes his singer. Bassett’s a country girl moved to the big city (St. Louis), reuniting with the mother who abandoned her (Jenifer Lewis, whose disappearance is another of the film’s problems) and big sister Phyllis Yvonne Stickney. Who also disappears. Lots of disappearing characters in Love.

There are very few bad performances in Love. They’re uniformly white men too. First, Rob LaBelle shows up as Phil Spector, and he’s risibly godawful, then James Reyne is even worse as comeback Tina’s manager. On the one hand, the movie’s biggest problem is not tracking Bassett post-divorce and into her significant eighties success (forty-something Black woman recreating her career and stardom). On the other, Reyne’s so terrible. I don’t know if the movie could’ve sustained him.

They would have had to do some really good performance scenes.

The best things about Love are Bassett, Fishburne, and the musical performance scenes. Bassett’s got a fabulous stage presence (and lip-synching). But the music rarely matters. Love is the Tina Turner story (as of 1992) and, at that time, it still involved (at least in the public consciousness) Ike, which turns Love into a movie about a manipulated and groomed young woman (a characterization Turner disputed) suffering for twenty-some years before showing up the dangerous loser sociopath she’d kept famous.

Except part of the Tina Turner story is she’s badass. Once Bassett gets to the badass stage—even if it’s badass Buddhist (something else the film’s got a peculiar handle on, Tina’s spirituality)—the movie’s not just over; it’s so over, it brings in the real Turner for a musical number, a jiggle, and a wink. Besides knowing Bassett and Fishburne were great in the movie, one of the only other things I knew was Turner gets to finish out the movie, effectively erasing Bassett from the film’s memory. It’s a complicated situation, to be sure, and it probably could’ve been done well, but definitely not by director Gibson.

Gibson’s exceptionally bland. There’s no aspect of the film he appears interested in, which is strange since there are so many possibilities. It’s set during the Golden Age of Rock ‘n Roll (for a while). Gibson’s not interested. It’s about the transition into the Sixties. Gibson’s not interested.

Technically, the best scenes are the musical numbers. They’re where editor Stuart H. Pappé does his best cutting. Pappé occasionally will have bad cuts in other scenes (mainly towards the front), but the musical numbers are great. Even if the film doesn’t really tie them to the narrative. Love will do things like fold three years into three sequential scenes with nothing about the passage of time, so it’s not surprising the musical sequences are disconnected. Love buries the lede on Fishburne being physically abusive to Bassett for added dramatic emphasis, which is one heck of a move but also not surprising.

Like I said, the movie’s half as long as it ought to be—Bassett thriving away from Fishburne ought to be the story—but given what they do with the few scenes in that era (and the casting), it might not actually help the film. Not with the same creatives behind the camera, anyway.

Jamie Anderson’s cinematography is usually Touchstone Bland, but he does have a few really well-lighted scenes. Good production design from Stephen Altman and costumes from Ruth E. Carter. Stanley Clarke’s score is indescribably horrendous. Just a different score might be enough to pull Love up.

Vanessa Bell Calloway (as Bassett’s only friend) and Lewis are the best supporting performances. No one in Bassett and Fishburne’s entourage is bad (Chi McBride, Khandi Alexander, and Penny Johnson Jerald have the most significant parts), but they’re playing caricatures.

Even with its Touchstone-y constraints, Love ought to be better. Bassett, Fishburne, and Turner deserve it. Not Ike Turner, though. He was a piece of shit (and the scenes Fishburne had the producers add to “humanize” abusive Ike make him more obviously a sociopathic predator, so Fishburne being outstanding isn’t not problematic). Turner herself made some very astute observations about the film’s framing of Bassett as a victim (which a better second half would’ve helped, though it seems like it’s foundational).

So, very unfortunately, Love’s a mixed bag. Great acting—Bassett’s mesmerizing—can’t make up for an alternately vapid and bland (albeit not incompetent—except that score) production.

The Zero Theorem (2013, Terry Gilliam)

I had been planning on opening this post about The MacGuffin—sorry, I mean The Zero Theorem—with a quip about how it’s faster to just Google “Terry Gilliam Brexit” than to watch the movie but Gilliam’s actually not one of the bad Pythons on Brexit. So I had to fall back to The MacGuffin quip.

Zero Theorem’s an interminable 107 minutes ruminating on the human condition through the eyes of Christoph Waltz’s dystopian future worker-bee. Waltz “crunches entities,” which are like little AI equations or something. It doesn’t make sense and doesn’t have to make sense. Pat Rushin’s script is terrible, but also, there’s a left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. We watch Waltz do his work, which is done with a juiced-up video game controller, and the interface is very “this is a Unix system, I know this,” until it’s clear it’s just a CGI block animation with some equations written on the blocks. So he’s a gamer, only Waltz clearly wasn’t seeing these video animations because he might’ve done something to move along with the video.

It gets worse later on when Waltz gets a teen sidekick, played by Lucas Hedges. Hedges will wrest control of the game—sorry, entity cruncher—from Waltz; only the CGI won’t change at all. In fact, they just more boldly reuse the same animations from before when Hedges is doing it. So Waltz’s work doesn’t matter because the visual representation is nonsense but also because it doesn’t make any sense but also because it relates to the Zero Theorem, which is just a MacGuffin.

The movie’s layers of pointless stacked.

About the only good thing in Theorem is David Thewlis, who occasionally stops by as Waltz’s boss. Everyone in Theorem is a thin caricature, usually with some exaggerated costume design to imply depth, but Thewlis is the only one with enough costume oddities to get anything out of it. He’s got a terrible toupee, but he also enjoys the potential for dress up. It’s nearly a character.

It’s not, but nearly.

And better than anyone else.

Hedges has a lousy part but is also bad. Waltz is fine. He trusts director Gilliam and gives it his all. Gilliam doesn’t deliver and will occasionally embarrass Waltz to no end, but Waltz’s loyalty doesn’t waver. I guess he gets a gold star.

The main characters are Waltz, Hedges, and Mélanie Thierry. Thierry is the virtual sex worker—virtual sex; she’s real, the sex isn’t—with a heart of gold who falls for Waltz, even though there’s a pronounced age difference. The age difference comes up when Waltz’s computer psychiatrist (Tilda Swinton in another Tilda Swinton cameo—this time, she raps… yawn) points it out, so they turn off the computer. Thierry’s at least not a teenager.

She’s also awful.

It’s not her fault; it’s just her performance is she isn’t a native English speaker, and so has an awkward accent. Plus, she gets scantily clad and then naked (Waltz also gets naked, though the camera doesn’t linger in the same ways). What more do you want from a part?

Besides the script, Zero’s problem is the budget. Gilliam can’t make hash out of a low budget, instead utilizing cheap (and bad) CGI. He’s also desperate enough to reference some of his previous movies directly (did he forget he didn’t make Blade Runner though?). But it’s not just the CGI. Gilliam doesn’t get any help from his crew.

David Warren’s production design is the most obvious detriment. It’s all very early 2010s—Warren’s convinced the future is young people filming themselves on iPads. Aren’t they terrible? The young people, not the iPads. Waltz just can’t understand them but will eventually work his redemption arc by changing himself (not really, but the script says they have to say the lines, so they do) to fit Hedges’s requests.

Most of the movie takes place in Waltz’s home, an old church. So lots of unlikely future tech and religious imagery. Sure, let’s try that one again.

Also working against the film are cinematographer Nicola Pecorini and composer George Fenton. Fenton’s just bland and repetitive, while Pecorini’s bland, repetitive, and downright bad at a lot of the lighting. The composite shots are particularly dreadful.

The film doesn’t exactly have any moments, but there are times when Waltz gets some traction out of nothing.

Oh, I forgot. Matt Damon’s the big boss. At times even he seems to know he’s in a lousy movie.

Girl on a Chain Gang (1966, Jerry Gross)

The actual chain gang sequence of Girl on a Chain Gang is in the third act. There are no actual chain gang sequences; all of that action happens off-screen, almost as though producer, screenwriter, and director Gross couldn’t afford enough chain to make it happen. But getting there is quite the ordeal for characters and audience alike.

Chain Gang tells the tale of three Northern college folks, one white man, one Black man, and one white woman, who’ve traveled to the South to help get people registered to vote. Unfortunately, they draw the attention of a couple drunken sheriff’s deputies who’re thrilled to harass some Yankees. The film doesn’t identify the location of the film’s action outside the fictional town (it was filmed on Long Island). Still, with the constant gator references and the sheriff being terrified of the state police finding out he’s running illegal work farms, regularly raping women, and murdering men… it seems like Florida.

Julie Ange plays the woman who the sheriff (William Watson) and his deputies accuse of being a prostitute so they can arrest her and her friends without much incident. Ron Charles and Peter Nevard play the deputies. The film introduces them getting drunk with a local sex worker, Arlene Farber, who’s all right because she helps sheriff Watson frame folks. Chain Gang’s never subtle, but the closest would be its characterization of Watson’s religiosity. He’s a Bible-thumping, drunken murderer and rapist; the film only ever quietly acknowledges the ostensible hypocrisy (but he is, actually, just reading his Bible), like Gross knows he can’t be too nasty about the Christianity.

In the first act of the film seems like Ange and her friends will be the leads. Ron Segal plays the white guy, the most accomplished in the group (he’s going to Yale); he’s also the one who talks back to Watson and his goons, though it’s never clear if he makes those initial situations worse. The actor who plays the Black guy is uncredited, and his name seems entirely lost to history. Considering he’s the third lead for most of the movie—despite Ange being the Girl in the title, she disappears for most of the second act—one might assume the actor didn’t want his name associated with the film.

The protagonist for most of the film is the sheriff, who’s cobbling together a way to frame the trio and contending with his drunken moron staff and yokels to get the job done. There’s no one sympathetic in the small town outside Phillip Vanyon’s doctor, and he’s only sympathetic to a certain point. Gross is relentless in showcasing Watson’s villainy, with Watson perfectly marrying the mundane and obscene. Chain Gang’s got mostly bad performances and paper-thin writing, but it’s also entirely realistic. Gross unintentionally makes his exploitation picture documentary-esque just because the bad guys are so human and so conventional.

Watson’s captivating. He’s always revolting, always horrifying, always transfixing. He disappears at the end of the second act, after the film following him for probably an hour. Chain Gang runs a very long ninety-six minutes. The first hour zooms along, but it conks out as it moves through the second act. It’s already been puttering when Watson vanishes.

Ange’s sympathetic but not good. She suffers misogyny not just from the bad guys, but even the not bad guys, even her friends. Well, Segal. Segal being a selfish asshole is another one of Chain Gang’s seemingly unintentional truths. He’s also bad, acting-wise. The uncredited Black actor doesn’t do well in his big scene, but it’s terrible, so it’s hard to hold it against him. He otherwise is fine. Or at least, in the better lot of the film’s performances.

The film’s reasonably good looking for its low budget. The photography declines in the third act, but so does the direction.

There’s also a strange, upbeat jazzy score by Steve Karmen, which works in the film’s favor most of the time.

Outside the terrifyingly good performance by Watson, Girl on a Chain Gang has the most to offer as a historical object. It could be worse, it probably couldn’t be better, but it definitely could be shorter. Shorter would help.

Frasier (1993) s04e17 – Roz’s Turn

I’m still waiting for the great Roz episode for Peri Gilpin. It’s actually her second one in the last handful of episodes but, just like before, she gets upstaged by a guest star. This time it’s going to be it’s going to be Harriet Sansom Harris as agent-from-Hell Bebe Glazer and not the voice of Darth Vader.

Harris shows up in the second half of the episode, throwing a wrench in Gilpin’s plans to apply for to do her own show—with Kelsey Grammer’s full support—and while the episode still manages to give Gilpin a lot to do… it’s as support for Grammer. It’s a deft move (Jeff Keenan gets the writing credit) and it leverages the heck out of Harris (who once again I’m shocked didn’t ever get an Emmy for this part). But it still takes episode away from Gilpin, who gets a lot to do until she all of a sudden doesn’t. But, that initial takeaway is to showcase Jane Leeves and John Mahoney doing things they don’t usually get to do—and giving David Hyde Pierce a chance to play so horny he could die (while maintaining decorum)—but it’s still a downgrade.

The cast is helping Gilpin prepare her demo tape—a call-in show without being boring like Grammer’s, basically—and so everyone gets to do a persona. Mahoney’s a Casanova, Leeves is a vixen. It’s all really good showcasing. Keenan’s got funny stuff. It just doesn’t have a good narrative flow. Because once Harris shows up, nothing can compete. The material isn’t even the best, the delivery’s what matters and Harris is great.

We even get to see what Harris’s office looks like (her machinations end up being the A plot, more than anything stemming from Gilpin’s audio tape).

It just would’ve been nice if the episode had tried a little harder and didn’t just rely the cast being able to make the material sparkle. There have been easy episodes before, but this one just seems a little bit too easy. Like Keenan (and the room, obviously) did a fine job plotting, just not refining. If everything in the front half is just going to be prologue to a Harris tour-de-force, maybe don’t have it be one where the gags are all relying a little too often on silly absurdity. Again, Harris is awesome—and everyone’s good, with the great Mahoney and Leeves spotlights (and Hyde Pierce)—but it’s a little too self-satisfied.

Some great one-liners though. Just awesome. It’s a mixed bag with a lot of good candies.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018, Terry Gilliam)

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote opens with a “twenty-five years in the making” title card; it seems for every year it took director Gilliam to get the film made, he added another ending. Don has a troubled third act, with Gilliam and co-writer Tony Grisoni tacking on false ending after false ending, trying to get the story where it needs to go for the film to get its finish. Is it an effective finish… no. The finish looks pretty–Don always at least looks pretty thanks to Nicola Pecorini’s photography, even if some of Gilliam’s Panavision aspect shots are a little boring. Another thing you’d think he might’ve been more ready with—especially since there’s a plot point about storyboards in the first act.

The first act is less successful than the second act and better than the third act; it’s a little lazy, a little disingenuous, but it doesn’t have the herky-jerk narrative of the third act (when the film moves from ending to ending). Don is about wunderkind commercial director Adam Driver, who’s having a disastrous shoot on his latest project. He’s doing some kind of commercial—either the product isn’t mentioned or it isn’t repeated enough for me to remember—and he’s using a Don Quixote character, filming on location in Spain. Why Spain? Not sure. I mean, we soon find out Driver shot a student film in the area (about Don Quixote) but apparently forgot about it until confronted with a bootleg of said film. He’s just a whiny prima donna director, surrounded by a sniveling entourage. If Driver’s got enough charm to get through this portion of the film, Gilliam didn’t have him use it. The leads’ ineffectiveness ends up playing a big part in why Don fails.

Anyway. Pretty soon Driver’s remembering he spent two months making a zero budget Don Quixote film and goes off to visit the village where he shot it. There are a bunch of flashbacks to the first film’s production, with the moppy-headed Driver far more likable than his slick commercial auteur; it softens Driver up enough to get him sympathetic for the second act. It also introduces Don Quixote himself, Jonathan Pryce, and impressionable, vivacious teenage girl, Joana Ribeiro. Before the film, Pryce was a shoemaker and Ribeiro was just daughter of the restaurant owner. When Driver gets to the village, he finds out Ribeiro has—in the ten years since—become a fallen woman and Pryce has gone insane and thinks he’s actually Don Quixote.

After Driver reunites with Pryce, sees what’s happened, and flees, there’s a little bit more with the commercial-making—the film relies heavily on a subplot involving Stellan Skarsgård as Driver’s boss, Olga Kurylenko as Skarsgård’s wife and Driver’s occasional lover, and Jordi Mollà as the Russian oligarch who Skarsgård’s wooing—but it’s all water treading to finally team Driver up with Pryce. So they can go on great adventures.

Are the adventures great?

Eh.

There are moments during the adventures when Driver and Pryce click. Not enough of them. And not after Ribeiro returns to the story and Driver decides he’s got to save her from the really bad situation she’s in. Don is very paternalistic with its female characters, which is rather unfortunate since Ribeiro and Kurylenko are much better than the male actors in the film.

Neither Driver or Pryce have enough star wattage for the film. Not the way Gilliam directs it or writes it. Neither of them command the screen. They’re constantly upstaged by supporting players. They also have a lack of rapport they really need. Again, some of it is the script, some of it is the direction, but more compelling leads would get Don where it wants to go a little more smoothly.

Mollà’s either miscast, poorly directed, or bad; he doesn’t actually have enough material for it to matter. But he certainly doesn’t have the heft the part seems to require. Skarsgård’s in a similar situation, but he’s at least affable and enthused.

What else… oh, the ostensible political asides. Gilliam doesn’t want to commit to any of them but he does want to acknowledge “reality.” Not sure why. It just tacks needless minutes onto the film’s laborious runtime.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote could be a lot worse. Driver and Pryce are never bad, they’re just not… good enough. Ribeiro and Kurylenko are good enough, they just never get enough material. Though, to be fair, neither of them belong in the film. Without their subplots, maybe Driver and Pryce would spend enough time together to find some rhythm.

But given that twenty-five year lead time, you’d think it’d be a lot tighter of a production.

I, Tonya (2017, Craig Gillespie)

Despite the rather declarative I in the title, I, Tonya, Margot Robbie’s Tonya Harding is not the protagonist of the film. Writer Steven Rogers avoids making her the protagonist as long as he can–really, until the third act–and instead splits it between Robbie and Sebastian Stan (as her husband). Allison Janney, as her mother, has a lot to do the first hour, not so much the second. So little, in fact, Janney–in the present-day interview clips (with the actors in old age makeup and a perplexing 4:3 aspect ratio despite, you know, digital video)–comments on how she’s not in the story much anymore.

The distance from Robbie (and Harding) lets I, Tonya get away with things like Robbie making fun of Nancy Kerrigan (played by Caitlin Carver, who literally has no audible dialogue other than moaning “why” over and over again after her assault, which the film plays for a laugh). Kerrigan, Harding (Robbie) opines, only got hit once. Harding had been constantly beaten first by Janney and then Stan her whole life until that point. What’s Kerrigan got to be so upset about. Ha. Funny.

Whether or not Harding actually made that statement–the script is based, in part, on interviews with Harding and the real-life Stan–is immaterial. Rogers and director Gillespie play it for a shock laugh. But I, Tonya is hardly sympathetic to Harding; Robbie will recount abuse in voiceover–or in scene; the characters occasionally break the fourth wall for effect–and then, next scene, I, Tonya will play her being assaulted for a laugh. Not so much with Stan, whose casual vicious abuse is presented utterly matter-of-fact, but with Janney. Janney’s abuse, physical and psychological, is always good for a chuckle.

Because I, Tonya wants the audience to laugh at its subjects. Bobby Cannavale, in the present day interview clips as a Hard Copy producer (the film doesn’t do anywhere near enough with explaining the Hard Copy coverage for people not somewhat familiar with the actual events), talks about how some of the participants–maybe the guys who actually attack Kerrigan–are the biggest boobs in a story made up entirely of boobs. I, Tonya, despite Harding’s participation, feels no differently about it.

Robbie’s Harding is terrorized and terrified, without an ounce of joy or even the capacity for it. The script’s got to follow a historical timeline–there’s accomplishment the first time Robbie gets away from abusive Stan, but then when she goes back to him, the movie skips ahead instead of examining. Robbie’s not just not the protagonist, she’s not even a good subject. You can’t get too many laughs out of it if you chart her descent into (apparent) alcoholism after returning to the abusive relationship.

Meanwhile, Stan’s a little bit closer to the protagonist. See, the ice-skating stuff–despite a solid performance by Julianne Nicholson as Robbie’s trainer (who simultaneously champions her for her ability and loathes her for being poor)–barely figures in. Robbie doesn’t get to essay accomplishment, just abuse, whether from Janney or Stan. Her character is completely defined by other people. Not much I in it.

But Stan. Until he starts hitting Robbie, he’s a cute boyfriend. Then he’s a scumbag one, but he’s always around in the story. Now, Stan is eight years older than Robbie, but the actual age difference was three years. Even though Stan’s performance is excellent, it might have worked better age appropriate. Because I, Tonya’s Stan is a different kind of creep than the real guy. Of course, they’re both playing characters far younger–starting at fifteen for Robbie–and, well, it’s not like the film’s going for verisimilitude. It’s going for laughs. Often really easy ones.

Like Paul Walter Hauser, as the guy who orchestrated the attack on Kerrigan and Stan’s buddy. Hauser’s great. Maybe the movie’s best performance. Because he doesn’t bring any glamour to the part. Janney, despite the makeup and the funny hair and all the affect, is still doing a movie star turn. Hauser’s just this schlub.

He also gets to be the butt of some of the film’s working class poverty jokes. Though there’s a truly stunning one in Robbie’s voice over where you wonder how craven Rogers and Gillespie have to be to spit on the real-life Harding to characterize her as such. And they’re far from gracious to the character–the film conveys Harding’s assertion she knew nothing about the attack and doesn’t directly contradict it… just strongly implies there are possible unknowns. It does the same for Stan. Hauser’s character–the real-life person having died ten years before the film–gets to be the film’s single premeditating villain.

Performance-wise, outside Hauser’s kickass supporting (practically bit) turn, Stan, Robbie, and Janney are all excellent. They’re all caricatures to some degree, though Stan gets to be super-likable in the interview sections, which is problematic. Especially since, initially, Robbie doesn’t. And even after Robbie gets to be more sympathetic, she never gets to be likable. The end credits of the film exemplify three of the film’s major fails. First, the real Tonya Harding–in Hard Copy footage perhaps–is immediately more likable and sympathetic than Robbie ever gets to be. Worse, than Robbie ever tries to be. A sincere smile wouldn’t hurt. Similarly, when the film shows Harding’s heavy metal skate recitals? It’s unimaginable why Robbie, as Harding, would make that creative choice. She’s utterly joyless. The real Harding, in footage, is clearly exuberant.

Final big fail? The skating. Director Gillespie uses a lot of digital help with the editing–so again, why does the film pretend contemporary cameras for the interviews would be 4:3, but whatever–so lots of digital help for editing. He gets these long, obviously digitally-aided shots–Tatiana S. Riegel’s editing is technically outstanding, regardless of content. He also uses digital help for the skating. Presumably to put Robbie’s face on a figure skater, but also to recreate Harding’s actual skating.

You’d think, given CGI technology, they would’ve been able to make that skating a tenth as impressive as Tonya Harding’s actual skating ability. They don’t. All the camerawork, all the digital help, all the editing… it’s nothing compared to the television footage of Harding skating during the end credits. I, Tonya’s Harding is as feckless about her skating as the film is about presenting her story. It would’ve been nice if the film didn’t do a constant, active disservice to itself just for some laughs.

The Meaning of Life (1983, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones)

Terry Jones’s The Meaning of Life is a seven-part rumination on The Meaning of Life. At least the title cards for each part suggest its a seven-part rumination on the Meaning of Life. Not to spoil anything, but if the film does get around to addressing said meaning… well, it acknowledges you don’t need to be a philosopher with an S in your name to figure certain things out.

Instead, The Meaning of Life is some very controlled lunacy from the Monty Python troupe. Terrys Jones and Gilliam direct (Jones the feature, Gilliam a prologuing short), everyone writes, everyone actings (though barely Gilliam). There aren’t many standouts in the cast. Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, and sort of Jones do the best. But no one’s got a great part. Eric Idle’s problem is he just has bad parts, time and again. Except one waiter bit and it’s just a scene. And he does headline a nice musical number. His acting roles are always competently done… they’re just slight.

John Cleese has an entirely different, though at first seemingly opposite, problem. Cleese has all these big parts–(British) public school teacher, British empire officer, extremely American waiter–and none of them are great. Even when Cleese is good, the parts are thin. As the films progress, things even out–Cleese’s performance and the parts get to an equal thinness.

Some of it could be Jones’s direction. He’s far more interested in the filmmaking of Meaning of Life than the humor of it. There’s a lot of special effects, there’s a lot of narrative devices in moving from sketch-to-sketch, moving around in sketches. He loves the theatricality of the film, dropping a big musical number in, but he’s not particularly invested in the sketches themselves. Sometimes the writing is just poorly timed, sometimes the punchline isn’t enough. Director Jones, cinematographer Peter Hannan, and editor Julian Doyle do some rather cool stuff in Meaning of Life; one minute it feels like a British crime cheapie, then French New Wave, then Bergman. Jones throws a lot of spaghetti on the wall and most of it sticks.

Except not really when it comes to the “narrative.” The sketches aren’t good enough for the MacGuffin not to function. It’s a bumpy almost too hours. It moves well, but it’s really bumpy. Right after a gross-out sequence Jones highlights as an effective, if icky segue into the third act, it becomes obvious Life’s never smoothing out. It’s not all building up to a grand finale. In fact, Jones cuts away from the grand finale, which might actually be the better move.

That Gilliam-directed prologue is a weird bit of early eighties yuppie bashing and old British men wearing Road Warrior outfits. It’s dramatically inert and the joke isn’t funny enough, but it’s a beautifully executed piece of work. Great Roger Pratt photography on it.

Anyway.

Meaning of Life has enough laughs to leave a positive impression; Jones’s decision not to get ambitious with the material seems to be a correct one. It’s a shame Idle and Cleese–who should be standouts–aren’t.

2.5/4★★½

CREDITS

Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones; written by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Gilliam, Eric Idle, Jones, and Michael Palin; directors of photography, Roger Pratt and Peter Hannan; edited by Julian Doyle; music by John Du Prez; production designer, Harry Lange; produced by John Goldstone; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Graham Chapman (Tony Bennett), John Cleese (Death), Terry Gilliam (Howard Katzenberg), Eric Idle (Angela), Terry Jones (Mrs. Brown), and Michael Palin (Lady Presenter).

RELATED

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones)

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is an excellent collection of very funny sketches on a theme. It’s really funny. It’s often exceptionally well performed–acted is a bit of a stretch–and it’s got a wonderful tone. It also lacks narrative momentum, which is kind of extraordinary since it’s about the quest for the Holy Grail. The Pythons sort of drain any epical structure. It’s a fine approach. It leads to some great sketches, but it just doesn’t connect all its pieces.

Did I say “it” enough? We needed to get past some things.

There’s a certain meta thing the film does–from the opening titles and the end credits–but it’s just filler between the sketches. The meta element is conceptually amusing, never funny, while the sketches are always funny without having much conceptual amusement. I think one of the transitory cartoons has more depth in a pun than anything in the film proper.

Unfortunately for Holy Grail, the comedic intensity of the sketches is unsteady. The finale is nowhere near funny enough to finish the film. There’s spectacle to it–extremely well done spectacle, probably directors Jones and Gilliam’s best work in the film–but there’s not the right kind of humor. Is everything before it great? No, especially not some of the stuff in the second half of the film when the quest gets more underway. But the first half is pretty spectacular and there’s still some strong material in the second half, just not as much as in the first. And there are some pacing issues with the sketches.

Holy Grail’s other problem is it’s too well-produced. Terry Bedford’s photography is exceptional, John Hackney’s editing is better. The fine production design is part of the joke–these six jackasses are funnier in a realistic tenth century than they’d be in a stagy one–but the editing almost gets distracting at times. It’s too good.

As far as the aforementioned jackasses go–and Holy Grail is jackass humor more than anything else; the idea being you act like a jackass long enough, eventually it’s funny. And Grail waits. Directors Jones and Gilliam take their sweet time waiting for the pay-off. They even joke about it after a while. Because jackasses make you wait to laugh.

Anyway, Graham Chapman’s a fine King Arthur. He’s the straightest man in the picture. John Cleese’s good. Eric Idle’s good. Terry Jones is kind of annoying. Michael Palin’s great, of course. Terry Gilliam’s actually not annoying. I always assume I’ll find him annoying but I don’t.

Connie Booth’s got a nice part in one of the sketches.

Holy Grail is a funny effort. It’s not quite successful–if only because it’s disinterested in trying to be anything but funny, even if it’s smart funny. But not always. Smart, I mean. It’s always funny. Even when it’s annoying.

2.5/4★★½

CREDITS

Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones; written by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Gilliam, Jones, and Michael Palin; director of photography, Terry Bedford; edited by John Hackney; production designer, Roy Forge Smith; produced by Mark Forstater and Michael White; released by EMI Films.

Starring Graham Chapman (King Arthur), John Cleese (Sir Lancelot the Brave), Eric Idle (Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir Launcelot), Terry Gilliam (Patsy), Terry Jones (Sir Bedevere), Michael Palin (Sir Galahad the Pure), and Connie Booth (The Witch).

RELATED

Tarzan and His Mate (1934, Cedric Gibbons)

For a film called Tarzan and His Mate, Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan doesn’t get much to do. He spends the film rescuing Maureen O’Sullivan (which is one of the more frustrating aspects of the film–she doesn’t exhibit any jungle survival skills until the finale) from a variety of animals. These sequences are often exciting, especially since the film doesn’t have any music. It’s just the sound of the jungle battle, expertly cut together by editor Tom Held.

The film opens with Neil Hamilton and Paul Cavanagh as ivory hunters mounting an expedition. Hamilton’s O’Sullivan’s ex, Cavanagh is his blue blood gone poor best friend. Cavanagh’s delightfully scummy, though director Gibbons makes the audience sorry for enjoying it once they meet up with Weissmuller and O’Sullivan.

O’Sullivan’s been living in wild Africa for a year (since the previous film) and she’s left the world of high society and so on. She runs around the jungle in skimpy (but functional) attire and, after spending at least twenty minutes objectifying O’Sullivan (from Cavanagh and Hamilton’s perspective, the film’s actually rather complex in how it presents her), Gibbons is able to get over it to some degree. He and O’Sullivan (and Weissmuller) sell it. Maybe the nude swimming scene just overwhelms enough.

Except then O’Sullivan (and Weissmuller) fall out of the plot and the excellent wildlife effects take over.

Neither the finish (or her scripted helplessness) do justice to O’Sullivan’s performance. Its handling of the extant sexuality, however, is as impressive as its action.

This post is part of the Sex! (now that I have your attention) Blogathon hosted by Steve of Movie Movie Blog Blog.

Journey to the Unknown (1968) s01e02 – Jane Brown’s Body

Jane Brown’s Body uses resurrection science to explore a melodrama. Anthony Skene’s teleplay isn’t bad, it’s just a little obvious in its plotting. But there’s a definite, subconscious patriarchy thing playing out and it makes for an interesting time.

Stefanie Powers has lost her memory (after being brought back from the dead). The doctor–Alan MacNaughton–isn’t a mad scientist, but a busy doctor who cares for Powers even though he isn’t good at it. Jane is strange because of MacNaughton and wife Sarah Lawson’s sincerity. Even though Lawson isn’t in it enough.

But then Powers has a suitor–David Buck as her tutor. And he’s more a stalker, something Skene doesn’t take any responsibility for.

Powers is great in the lead. Her performance is calculated but very well-calculated. Buck’s a good creep, MacNaughton’s got a nice complex role.

Jane has many problems, but its qualities mostly outweigh them.