The Great Ziegfeld (1936, Robert Z. Leonard)

Second-billed Myrna Loy shows up in The Great Ziegfeld at around the two-hour mark. The film runs three hours. The about a half-hour of it is musical numbers; they’re presumably recreations of the actual Ziegfeld stage productions, but even without having read the Wikipedia article first, it’s obvious Ziegfeld’s a glorifying tribute. Loy’s most significant scene is when she—playing stage, film, and radio star Billie Burke—tells husband Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. (played by William Powell) she’s okay with him cheating on her to get his mojo back. The way Loy sees it, Powell needs to cat around with his showgirls to make a show a hit. Unlike Powell’s other ingenues in the film, he’s not trying to star-make Loy; she knows the showbiz score. At least when it comes to brilliant men.

Of course, even with Hayes Code constraints, Ziegfeld goes out of its way to show Powell as a better husband than his wives realize. First wife Luise Rainer is the protagonist in the first half of the picture and gets so shafted in the second we don’t even find out she died, spending her life after leaving Powell miserably pining for him. He was supposed to run back to her, and we see him start that process, then the film cuts ahead. The film successfully obfuscates the actual couple’s common-law marriage and then their common-law divorce. It also drops the most important mistress, instead turning Virginia Bruce’s pursuit of Powell into a drunken jealousy (of Rainer) arc for Bruce. Powell’s just a hapless victim; Bruce kisses him once, Rainer sees it, leaves him. In the dialogue, Powell explains he’s just got to keep the girls happy, and sometimes the only way is for them to drunkenly maul him.

He had been grooming Bruce earlier, but it could’ve very well just been for stardom.

Because for Powell to get really excited about a woman, he’s got to steal her from best friend, alter ego, and rival Frank Morgan. They start together at the Chicago’s World’s Fair, with Morgan hawking Egyptian bellydancers and Powell trying to play it straight with strongman Nat Pendleton. Once some horny bored housewife notices Pendleton’s pecs, however, Powell realizes he’s got some premium beefcake to sell, and he starts making it big.

Even though selling beef—literally what Powell’s disappointed musical teacher dad Joseph Cawthorn says to him—isn’t what Powell wants to do with his life long-term, he does realize if he sells cheesecake, he can make a fortune. Not just chorus girls, but glamorous chorus girls, ostensibly the average American girl (so many of them look exactly the same; it’s quickly uncanny). There are never any casting sessions—other than Powell proving his fidelity to the audience and resisting nubile Jean Chatburn–and there’s little insight into Ziegfeld’s actual creative process. Director Leonard only seems interested in the musical numbers, not even feigning interest in the characters.

Outside Rainer for the first half.

Heck, the movie even fudges the ending, even though the film came out only three years after the story ends. Nothing matters as much as the musical numbers.

There’s an impressively mounted one with a giant staircase. But it’s impressive as a technical feat, not because Leonard all of a sudden gets better at directing the numbers. Then there’s a great Harriet Hoctor ballet number. Oh, and Fanny Brice (as herself) is all right. Though it sort of douses her in misogyny. The film’s wading in it—and with a delayed bit of racism thrown in too—but Ziegfeld’s intentionally cruel to Brice and leans in on it. Everyone must suffer for the Ziegfeld genius.

Powell’s fine. It’s a very flat part, but he’s likable. Loy’s okay. It’s an extended cameo, and they should’ve created the unbilled major supporting role with Ziegfeld. Plus, she gets a crap part. Not crappier than Rainer, obviously, because Ziegfeld tosses Rainer for Bruce, but then it turns out it isn’t actually promoting Bruce. It’s just getting rid of Rainer.

Oh, the Ray Bolger number is good.

A.A. Trimble is a lousy Will Rogers.

Morgan’s easily the best performance, but it’s also the least complicated role.

Incredible photography from Oliver T. Marsh, George J. Folsey, Karl Freund, Merritt B. Gerstad, and Ray June. Sometimes bad editing from William S. Gray; some of it is lacking coverage or just weak direction from Leonard, but not all of it.

Subtracting out the musical numbers, Great Ziegfeld’s a middling, lengthy studio programmer with some good stars. With the musical numbers… it’s the same, just with unimaginatively presented, grandiose musical numbers. While they don’t add anything to the film, they would look great on the big screen.

Frasier (1993) s06e18 – Taps at the Montana

Sometimes marathoning “hurts” a traditional broadcast show. They were meant to be watched weeks or months apart, with commercial breaks distracting and obfuscating tropes. They’re not meant to be strung together. But even with those caveats, it’s kind of weird “Frasier” did an episode about a dinner party right after doing an episode called The Dinner Party. Okay, this episode’s party is a cocktail party. However, it still involves Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce lying to Peri Gilpin to get her to attend to perform menial labor.

It’s also another “Frasier” familiar episode with a script credit for David Lloyd. He wasn’t on the last episode, but he did a riff on a series classic a couple ago. In this episode, he goes more general—though I swear parties going wrong at Hyde Pierce’s swank condo have happened before; there’s also a ridiculous screwball gag amping up one they used towards the beginning of the season… when Hyde Pierce was having a different party. So it’s a riff on a riff on a riff, and everyone seems appropriately resigned to it.

Especially since no one ever gets too much to do. There are plenty of guest stars, but none of them stand out; even when someone’s funny, like Bill Morey as Hyde Pierce’s most irate neighbor, he’s just funny, not really good. Part of the episode is a party game—Murder—and Grammer wants to play detective first. But there’s nothing to it, just a few minutes of filler until the next disaster. Wait, does it rip off an episode of “Fawlty Towers” too? Maybe. Or it rips off an episode “Fawlty” ripped off from someone else. It’s just a series of disasters, sight gags, and bad jokes.

The bad jokes are even a subplot—Hyde Pierce tries punning his way into the angry condo board’s heart.

The main cast is mostly on auto-pilot, particularly Grammer and John Mahoney, but they’ve still got their timing. Similarly, David Lee’s direction is passively nimble. He never tries, never tasks, and it all works out fine, so why bother doing any more.

Of the main cast, Jane Leeves actually gets the closest thing to compelling material, but it cuts away from her scenes before she gets to do anything with them.

“Frasier”’s seemed somewhat listless since Hyde Pierce’s divorce arc finished; this episode seems like they reenacted a combination clip and outtake show, stringing it all together with a skinny, new plotline. The show feels so incredibly lost all of a sudden.

Frasier (1993) s06e17 – The Dinner Party

Turns out I’ve been bullish episodes where Jeffrey Richman gets the script credit. I thought his name was on my unenumerated list of problematic “Frasier” writers. And this episode certainly has a bunch of problematic elements. Lots of misogynistic jokes, some fat-shaming, and I think some other ableism. It’s also a “sitcom as continuous” play episode, with Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce doing one of their bickering brothers’ adventures without actually having an adventure.

David Lee directs. He doesn’t seem as into the concept as the script.

The episode begins with Grammer deciding he’s going to have a dinner party. Hyde Pierce is there, and they agree he will cohost. They want to get a specific couple to hang out with them, which will require wheeling and dealing with the guest list—so lots of jokes about rich white drunkards—finding a caterer, and convincing John Mahoney to move his poker night.

In the background, Peri Gilpin and Jane Leeves are going to a fancy dance, except Leeves can’t find anything to wear, so they keep trying on different dresses and having arguments. Having Gilpin in the apartment means Grammer can involve her in the dinner party, which has him manipulating and lying to her like any good friend and boss would do. There is a very amusing moment where Gilpin gets to comment on Hyde Pierce crushing on Leeves—he stops her in time—but Gilpin being in on that joke has a lot of possibilities.

But Gilpin and Leeves fighting about whether or not a dress is too slutty or whatever? It’s not good. Mahoney popping in and out? Not good. Even if Lee were into the concept of an episode about nothing in real-time, the script doesn’t have enough punch to get it through. There’s not enough drama in the party planning to get halfway, so there’s a voicemail twist thrown in to kill a few more minutes before the Gilpin and Leeves subplot has cooked long enough to help end the episode.

Ostensibly, the episode wants to be about Hyde Pierce hanging out at Grammer’s too much after his divorce, but Hyde Pierce has been hanging out at Grammer’s for almost the entire run of the show. They’ve already had episodes where Hyde Pierce and Grammer spending too much time together was a plot point, and they didn’t resolve with pat, forecasted twists.

Maybe if the acting were better—Grammer and Hyde Pierce are both okay, but Hyde Pierce seems very bored (his two-and-a-half-season character arc with the divorce is not paying dividends), so Grammer’s having to hold it up. Maybe if it were a live episode. As is, it’s a little too tedious, and a little too mean.

Frasier (1993) s06e15 – To Tell the Truth

In terms of "Frasier"'s concept, To Tell the Truth is the most significant episode they've ever done. They've irrevocably changed something about one of the characters. When you watch the show in reruns, there's before and after this episode, six and a half years into the show's run, and resolving a story arc starting in the third season. The divorce of Niles (David Hyde Pierce) and Maris (Maris Crane) is finally resolved, something the show's been boiling on a back burner this entire season and brewing the last two. Started in season three, decides in season six. It's a three-year episode arc.

And they do it in one episode. It's a great episode—I'm guessing director David Lee's best; he's done plenty of the larger scale episodes, but I never think of him as a particularly successful director. The first scene with Kelsey Grammer talking to Hyde Pierce about getting new lawyers leads to Peri Gilpin recommending an ex-boyfriend, they meet the lawyer (a perfect Saul Rubinek, I really hope he and Gilpin get to interact going forward), there's a crisis for Grammer because it's his show still, they wrap it all up, and they give it an epilogue. It's an awesome twenty-two minutes. In a season of strong episodes—and one really shitty one, not ready to forget that one yet—it's far and away the best. It just gets better and better as it goes, ending on a bittersweet and beautifully acted moment from Hyde Pierce.

Everyone gets a lengthy showcase, except Gilpin, who's only in the first scene. She's good, but it's a Hyde Pierce episode, and they're still in a reasonably distant orbit. Hyde Pierce gets a whole range of things to do, comedy and drama, as Rubinek's effective lawyering appears to be rushing the inevitable—Jane Leeves is going to find out about Hyde Pierce's crush on her. Maris's lawyers watched Moon Dance back in season three and are… wait a second; Moon Dance is episode thirteen of season three, Hyde Pierce leaves Maris in episode eight.

Anyway.

Even though Leeves doesn't know about the crush, Grammer does, and they've already established he can't lie. His ethics, you see, which Hyde Pierce accepts but John Mahoney doesn't. So then there's a great father and son scene for Grammer and Mahoney before Mahoney gets a great bit on his own stemming from it too. It's a fantastic family episode, lots of frustrated Crane boys.

But then there's also Rubinek, whose first scene is a comedy goldmine, mixing dialogue and physical comedy. It might be Lee's best-directed scene in the episode, and all of them are well-directed. It's a great introduction to the character, with Rubinek ably putting it all out there.

Rob Hanning gets the credit on the script, which is obviously phenomenal.

To Tell the Truth's one hell of a sitcom episode. Not just a "Frasier," but it's one of the great twenty-two minutes of television.

Passing Strange (2009, Annie Dorsen and Spike Lee)

From the start, Passing Strange is a spectacular filming and presentation of a stage production. Lee’s direction, Barry Alexander Brown’s editing, Matthew Libatique’s photography, they’re all great from go. Lee and Libatique have highlights throughout—and Brown’s cutting excels during the busiest sections—but it’s clear Strange will look great no matter the content. Of course, Lee directs for the actors’ performances, which I’ll get to in a bit, so again, he still gets occasional peaks thanks to them.

Strange is the story of a young Black man (Daniel Breaker) who moves from Los Angeles to Europe in his late teens, searching for a place where he can be himself. Narrating the story is Stew; Stew and his band have songs throughout; it’s a narrated memoir rock musical, with Stew, Lee, and stage director Annie Dorsen all taking big swings with the medium. Stew isn’t just the narrator; he’s also the critical viewer; we’re watching him watch his remembered past unfold to music, a Technicolor dream. Dorsen’s staging—which has the musical cast interact with the band—is incredible. Then Lee’s direction just adds another layer. Passing Strange is so good at making the experience feel like watching a live performance, it’s weird not to stand and applaud at the end, especially as Stew—in terms of performance (he’s got the narrator and musician hats on especially for the third act, as he interrogates himself)—keeps upping the dramatic ante. Passing Strange is about a lot, being a Black man in the United States, being a Black man raised in Christianity, being a son, being a parent, being a friend, being an artist, being a white European girl, being a gay, closeted preacher’s son, the list goes on and on because almost everyone ends up getting a spotlight. There are only six cast members, and only Breaker and Eisa Davis (as his mother) play one part; the other four create multiple distinct characters throughout, which turns Strange into a showcase for the exceptionally talented cast. For the first act, it seems like the performances are going to be the best part. It changes once Stew—as writer—takes more significant swings, but the performances are always singular.

The first act takes place in L.A., with teenage Breaker arguing with Davis about going to church. However, he changes his mind once he sees pastor Chad Goodridge do a rockabilly sermon. Breaker’s enthusiasm for the music lands him in the youth choir, which seems terrible until he finds out preacher’s son Colman Domingo, who runs it, starts every choir practice with a good smoke out. Domingo and Breaker bond over unrealized dreams. But while Domingo is resigned to his private trap, Breaker’s able to get out of his—he saves up and moves away to Europe, abandoning mom Davis and the punk rock band he made out of the church choir.

His first stop is Amsterdam, in search of public weed-smoking, espresso, and European freedom. There he immediately finds a community who simultaneously sees the color of his skin but assigns no fear to it. The piece about new friend De’Adre Aziza letting him crash at her place is the first singular song, play, and film combination. Aziza’s first part in Strange is as a fellow (Black) teen at the church, but she’s now a Dutch girl. Goodridge, Domingo, and Rebecca Naomi Jones all play Dutch or at least European roles now. They’re all going to do fantastic work, with both Aziza and Jones showing off until Domingo turns in the most eighties German rock performance ever.

But first, it’s time for Aziza to show off. Everyone’s going to get their chance, though Goodridge’s best sequence is the rockabilly church performance; his acting’s good, his characters are never integral to the plot. Aziza and Jones both play love interests, with Jones as a West German girl. Breaker’s a bad artist boyfriend to both of them, which gives them lots of acting and singing material. Aziza’s so good it seems unimaginable Jones is going to be able to compare, but then she’s phenomenal as well. There’s always good interaction between the actors—particularly during the musical numbers—so there’s never any one-upping quality about it.

Though the third act belongs to Breaker, Davis, and Stew. At the beginning of the film, when Lee’s establishing the camera’s narrative distance, Davis sets the bar for acting in close-up. She acts the hell out of it when, since it’s a stage production, she really doesn’t have to act the hell out of it. But everyone’s going to do it. It makes the performances all the more impressive when you see the supporting cast still working even though no one, not even the camera really, can see them.

Wonderful acting. Wonderful music. Wonderful everything.

The third act has some exceptional emotional heft, which the play heaps on, starting with Davis, then adding it to Breaker, while revealing Stew’s got the sum total of it all. Then once he confronts “himself,” there’s a whole other level. And Stew’s not done. After the first set bows, when it feels like there should be an encore—any encore—he goes with one to add yet another layer onto Passing Strange.

It’s superlative work from all involved.

Frasier (1993) s06e08 – The Seal Who Came to Dinner

The second half of the episode is such accomplished screwball I totally forget the first half ranges from problematic to cringe, with way too much self-awareness. The episode opens at the cafe, with Kelsey Grammer and Peri Gilpin talking about being out of work and David Hyde Pierce showing up to whine about not being able to have a fancy dinner party at his shitty bachelor pad. Next, Gilpin goes into a rant about how hard life is having a newborn as a single mom while being unemployed.

Grammer and Hyde Pierce instinctively ignore her because what do women even say and then wonder why she storms out. Exit Gilpin from the episode.

Then there’s John Mahoney perving on live-in employee Jane Leeves’s friend, Susie Park, because she’s Asian. And during the war (presumably Korean), Mahoney dated a lot of Korean girls. Though Leeves points out the power imbalance, Mahoney and the episode don’t care. They repeat the joke a little later, with Grammer and Hyde Pierce talking about geisha girls and Mahoney having a fit. They’re bad jokes, and there’s no way to do them “well,” but they could’ve been done a lot better.

Joe Keenan gets the script credit, and it feels like it’s been a while. Maybe he—or the room—was rusty. Or just particularly misogynist and predatory. Leeves is good at yelling at Mahoney, though. So whoever wrote her dialogue got it. Then again, maybe it was all good in the script, and director David Lee fumbled it.

So. Problems. Multiple, layered problems.

Until the actual dinner party, which has Grammer and Hyde Pierce breaking into his soon-to-be ex-wife’s beach house to throw the party. Only there’s a dead seal on the beach, and they’ve got to take care of it. Throw in a nosey neighbor (Marilyn Child), a demanding caterer (Arnie Burton), and the head of a syndicated radio network (Catherine Dent), and it’s a winner. Lots of good physical comedy for both Grammer and Hyde Pierce, lots of good dialogue humor for both of them. It’s spectacular stuff.

Just a rocky road to get there. The script characterizes Grammer and Hyde Pierce as inherently rude and shallow and leaves the actors responsible for making them still likable. Though it’s probably better they ignore Gilpin for a joke instead of stalk various women through the first scene like Mahoney’d apparently be doing.

The second half’s excellent, though. The ideal would be missing the first ten minutes, being confused for a couple minutes, then getting the glory of the dinner party. Particularly great work from Hyde Pierce throughout.

BlacKkKlansman (2018, Spike Lee)

I’m late on BlacKkKlansman. It plays a little differently in 2021 versus 2018 (or even 2019), because now there’s no difference in the rhetoric of the seventies racist garbage and today’s Republicans. The film opens with Alec Baldwin playing the host of a KKK newsreel and doing multiple takes as to take the racism up a notch. The prologue does a couple things. First, it establishes the language of the film. It’s set in the early 1970s in Colorado. White people resent not being able to say the N word so they have all sorts of euphemisms. Baldwin’s opening draws attention to the word replacements and how intent changes content. Second, director Lee does a bunch with historical pop culture imagery—Gone with the Wind, Birth of a Nation—throughout the film and the prologue sets it up. It’s a jarring, grotesque, transfixing opening.

The film proper kicks off with lead John David Washington interviewing for a job at the Colorado Springs police department. They’re trying to get with the times and the times say they need at least one Black police officer. Washington interviews with unidentified Black man Isiah Whitlock Jr. (somehow the film gets away with a meta-“Wire” reference for Whitlock) and very white police chief Robert John Burke before getting sent off to the records room for a bit.

Washington’s ambitious but Burke doesn’t care, not until Kwame Ture comes to town for a speaking gig and Burke wants someone to see how much the local Black people is getting riled up and ready for armed revolt.

The film’s got a very methodical first act, with Lee taking the time to establish Washington so when Ture’s speech hits him, the result is visible. Washington’s there undercover, spying on Black college students—and flirting with Black Student Union president Laura Harrier—and when he hears Corey Hawkins (as Ture) speak, something changes. It’s not even clear what changes because Washington is affably inscrutable. Based on his interactions with his fellow cops—Burke in particular—he conveys there being a definite limit to how much nonsense about Black people he’ll tolerate without comment, but he’s very intentionally deceiving Harrier.

So BlacKkKlansman is about some bad guys and some problematic guys. The only heroes are the students, which kind of spoils the ending but I won’t go any further into it. Lee makes a very big swing with the ending—eschewing an epilogue—and instead offers a capstone about the danger of trying to capstone “history.”

Anyway.

On a whim, Washington calls the KKK (they advertise in the Colorado Springs newspaper; maybe don’t Google to see if they still do, why upset yourself) and pretends to be a white guy. But not a stupid, overly violent racist white guy, just a regular calm reasonable white guy. So he’s a hot prospect. Only problem is Washington can’t go in person. Oh, and he uses his own name.

The former is more immediately important and so they get Adam Driver to play Washington in person with the Klan guys.

The movie’s then a fairly straightforward procedural about cops Washington, Driver, and Michael Buscemi investigating the local Klan, led by Ryan Eggold, who’s got a loose cannon sidekick, Jasper Pääkkönen, and a drunk and dumb enough to be dangerous Paul Walter Hauser. Eggold’s the pseudo-intellectual white supremacist, so Washington and Driver are able to play to his vanity. Washington will also be really good at manipulating Klan national leader David Duke (Topher Grace) when they become phone buddies. Because racist white men just want other racist white men to validate them. Ashlie Atkinson, as Pääkkönen’s true believer wife, also plays a big part in the Klan stuff. The action mostly sticks close to events Washington and Driver participate in or witness, but then all of a sudden Pääkkönen becomes a second tier protagonist and the film becomes a whole lot more dangerous. Because more than anything else BlacKkKlansman is about taking racist white people seriously (and what happens when you don’t).

It’s great. Washington is a fantastic lead, likable even when he shouldn’t be, and his gentle romance with Harrier is an outstanding subplot. Also good but less important is his relationship with Driver, who’s doing his best to hide his Jewish heritage around his racist fellow cops. BlacKkKlansman isn’t a buddy cop movie or a juxtaposition piece, it’s the story of this case, with Washington’s experience as a Black man being a cop in Colorado Springs in 1972 riding the momentum. Only Lee’s going to make it about the way they’re telling that story, working a fantastic narrative distance and perspective sort of over Washington’s shoulder but also much broader, maybe even documentarian (BlacKkKlansman observes its way too real villains almost entirely without comment, cut it differently and Driver, Pääkkönen, Eggold, even Atkinson, could easily be the protagonist). And there’s a big finish to the procedural, there’s a big crowd pleaser for the more comedic elements (Washington does get to be buddies with fellow cops Driver, Buscemi, and Ken Garito, who know other cops are racist murderers but blue lives matter more or whatever), but then it’s time to look at what we’ve learned and what the characters have learned and what it all means. And it’s a great ending. It’s nauseating. But it’s great. Lee never lets up on the pressure either. He gives the film one release and then he sits down to get serious. He even rightfully retracts the second, bigger release.

The best performance is probably Pääkkönen, who’s never not terrifying, never not real. Everyone’s great though. Harrier, Eggold, Driver, Grace, Hauser, Atkinson, Burke, Garito, Buscemi. Plus a fantastic character actor background cast. And then Hawkins. He’s phenomenal. Harry Belafonte has an excellent cameo, so does Nicholas Turturro, on completely different ends of multiple spectrums.

It’s a phenomenal film; always haunting, sometimes hilarious, it’s particularly outstanding streamlined (read: mainstream) work from Lee. And then so much good acting. Great soundtrack, music by Terence Blanchard, photography by Chayse Irvin, edited by Barry Alexander Brown—Curt Beech’s production design and Marci Rodgers’s costumes are great too—BlacKkKlansman is superlative filmmaking start to finish.

Frasier (1993) s06e04 – Hot Ticket

It’s an outdoor episode for the most part, with the main action being Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce trying to get into a play. So it’s the two of them outside the theater—presumably on location, though I suppose there might be a big theater exterior on the Paramount backlot—trying to avoid looking desperate for tickets and getting embarrassed whenever they see someone from society around.

The episode opens with what seems to be a narrative non sequitur about Jane Leeves getting photographed “mooning” (it’s punny because her character’s name is Daphne Moon) for the Seattle newspaper lifestyle column. Then it quickly becomes a Grammer and Hyde Pierce snob team-up episode. Only we’re in season six now and disappointed dad John Mahoney has gotten used to it and now offers them plot perturbing advice instead of shamed observations.

The talk of the town is the new play starring legendary actor Fritz Weaver—seriously, if society snobs and legendary actor tropes continue to age at current rate viewers in another twenty years are going to be wondering why there aren’t any guillotines in the episode—and so the boys need to see it. Not because they really care about the play, of course, but so Hyde Pierce doesn’t feel like he’s being left out of society even though he’s divorcing his society wife.

Grammer’s along because it’s funnier when they’re snobby together. The weirdest part of the episode comes when Grammer doesn’t try calling his talent agent to get tickets to the show, instead relying on vague connections so the script can make ablest, sexist jokes at offscreen women’s expenses. They’re not even easy jokes, just mean ones—Jeffrey Richman gets the script credit, which has the occasional lows (those jokes) but also some great material for the actors once they’re outside. There’s something even more magical about Hyde Pierce’s physical comedy off set.

Weaver’s solid for what he’s got to do as the actor (believably narcissistically pontificate) and there’s a nice small part for Natalija Nogulich. Francis X. McCarthy’s okay as her husband but he gets maybe three lines, all unimportant. They’re the society folks Hyde Pierce so desperately wants to impress.

Peri Gilpin shows up for a single scene (on par with Leeves) and it’s pretty good, until the script goes misogynist for the finish, which doesn’t play well outside in the “real world,” but the episode recovers.

Director David Lee has some bad choices—ditto editor Ron Volk—but he keeps a great pace to the episode; it’s another strong season six outing, definitely bumpier than it needs to be, but very successful when the sailing’s smooth.

Frasier (1993) s05e21 – Roz and the Schnoz

I’m not sure how to talk about this episode. How much emphasis to place on the mean-spirited body-shaming of it all. After trying to dodge them, Peri Gilpin finally meets the parents of her baby daddy. The age difference (the not-in-the-episode baby daddy is twenty) doesn’t come up because everyone’s way too busy trying not to react to the parents’ big noses. Kevin Kilner and Jordan Baker play the parents. Prosthetics play the noses.

The episode gives itself the pass on the nose jokes with a wholesome resolution for Gilpin, who also almost gets to pass Bechdel with Jane Leeves, a “Frasier” rarity (and also note the use of “almost”) and with having Kelsey Grammar chastising everyone else for laughing about the noses. Jeffrey Richman gets the script credit, Ken Levine directs. Levine’s direction is better than the episode deserves in some scenes—usually with Gilpin—but also the blocking of the shots is terrible to the point there’s got to be a story. John Mahoney stands off camera for an entire scene.

And the episode gets away from Gilpin. After everyone starts reacting to the noses, it’s about Grammar trying not to laugh and the rest of the cast trying not to get caught laughing. Again, wanting composition so Gilpin literally disappears from the episode for long stretches (also making it more impressive when Levine and Gilpin recenter the episode on her for the last scene). But then it’s all about Grammar lying to Leeves about something and not wanting to get caught.

It’s a stagy episode, almost entirely set in the apartment in continuous action, but it works. The energy of the cast works in the format and even when Levine’s not pointing the camera at them enough, he does get how their energy makes the staginess work. So it’s stagy but as a compliment.

Partially because of the ruthless efficiency of the script; every joke—good, great, cheap, easy—lands.

Really good performance from Leeves and Gilpin this episode. Grammar, David Hyde Pierce, John Mahoney, they all get some solid laughs thanks to their performances but Leeves and Gilpin are able to elevate the material. The boys just maintain; they succeed, but not excel.

Though, wait a second—the writing for Hyde Pierce is oddly cruel at times, which is appropriate for the episode. It’s just he’s de facto mocking Leeves (but only in dialogue, in action he’s supportive).

Plus it’s just a series of jokes about being shitty to nice people. There’s only so much you can do with it.

Avalon (1990, Barry Levinson)

Avalon is not a success.

It very frustratingly waits until the very end of the picture to clearly not succeed. After trying real hard, there’s just nothing to it. Writer and director Levinson makes a whole bunch of big swings in how he directs the narrative, which is an attempt at doing lyrical structure–just one based on sort of protagonist Elijah Wood’s experience over three momentous years in his childhood—while still keeping some big epical trappings. There’s a rising action but only to get certain kinds of drama. Levinson also drops Wood as the even pseudo-protagonist like a hot potato in the third act, as his relationship with grandpa Armin Mueller-Stahl makes way for Aidan Quinn (as Wood’s dad and Mueller-Stahl’s son), but only barely. The film’s strength was Levinson’s way of orbiting these characters and finding imaginative ways into the scenes, particularly with Joan Plowright (who gives the film’s best performance as the matriarch of the family), and then he completely fumbles it for the hurried conclusion.

Avalon is really good throughout. The remembrance stuff Levinson gets away with is great. He’s got this ode to television tracking shot; he stops the story to do it, showing the way life was for these people before they’d be glued to the tube, and it’s beautifully melancholic. Levinson is sentimental about everything, he picks no favorites—but he does choose very carefully what he’ll showcase. The coming of television sequence has no bearing on the story—Quinn and cousin Kevin Pollak start their eventual discount department store with a TV-only storefront, but it’s a detail along the way in the story, not an ongoing theme, even though it’s a recurring detail. Very weird.

Instead the tracking sequence is just what Levinson did with this particular footage, what he very intentionally did with it, begging for attention. The sequence would seem a lot less intentional if the first act weren’t full of visualized flashbacks. The film opens with Mueller-Stahl telling the story of how he came to the United States, Fourth of July, 1914, Baltimore. Levinson, cinematographer Allen Daviau, editor Stu Linder, and composer Randy Newman create this distinct style for the flashbacks. You can feel the silent movie influence more than you can see it, though Daviau never loves color anywhere else near as much in those sequences. The vividness of memory.

The flashbacks are an indulgence, then a shortcut as Quinn has one to set up a couple other scenes later on, but then they’re nothing in the finale. Levinson gives up on them, but still tries to leverage them. It’s such a rushed finish. Levinson runs screaming from the narrative promises, all of a sudden desperate to make them vignettes. Avalon is a vignettes movie in its third act, but not in the first and second acts. The flashback sequences don’t work with the vignettes. Conceptually. Basically it’s just got a bad third act and it’s bad enough it’s kind of disrespectful to the cast. Levinson shafts every actor in the movie, leaving it all for a tepid stunt cast.

In just a few minutes, Levinson pulls the rug out from under Mueller-Stahl and Plowright, demoting them in what’s been equal share their film. In their place… he puts in filler, taking advantage of the lovely wistful techniques they discover earlier, using them to skip along. Levinson doesn’t want there to be any voice in Avalon except Mueller-Stahl’s, but he goes so extreme he doesn’t just end up silencing Mueller-Stahl, he straggles the narrative distance. Avalon has a point of view from jump, an unspeaking narrator guiding us through the experience; Levinson can’t make it work in the finish and doesn’t even try. It’s an incomplete.

Albeit one with some beautiful filmmaking and great performances. Even Quinn—whose Baltimore accent comes and goes. But it’s Plowright and Mueller-Stahl’s show. Elizabeth Perkins and Eve Gordon are good as Quinn and Pollak’s wives, respectively, but they don’t get anything to do themselves. Wood’s good. He gets a good arc and then gets chucked just like everyone else.

Wood’s absence is actually the most notable, because as Avalon has just become his story, Levinson immediately wrestles it back from him.

Gorgeous editing from Linder, just wonderful cuts. He and Levinson do nostalgia well.

Avalon’s almost kind of great. Excellent pieces. Real bad ending.

This post is part of the American Experience on Film Blogathon hosted by Debbie of Moon in Gemini.