Category: Directed by Joel Schumacher

Flatliners (1990, Joel Schumacher)

I spent much of Flatliners’s first half trying to figure out if there was anything technically redeeming about Jan de Bont’s photography. While it’s easy to qualify certain failings—with Schumacher’s bad directing, with Eugenio Zanetti’s obnoxiously ostentatious production design, could de Bont actually shoot it well? No, he couldn’t. But it also doesn’t somehow excuse the photography, which doesn’t improve on any of Schumacher’s bad ideas. The nearest I can get to a compliment is to say it also doesn’t worsen any of Schumacher’s bad ideas; it’s also impossible to imagine Schumacher’s bad ideas being worse so it’s all a wash.

We get a sense of Flatliners’s race towards the bottom from the first scene, which has “star” Kiefer Sutherland unable to essay talking to Lake Michigan on the morning he’s going to die. Peter Filardi’s hack script skips the first act where medical student Sutherland decides he’s going to shock himself to death to see what’s on the other side. Instead, the film starts in the second act with Sutherland ready to go ahead with his plan and trying to cajole his classmates into helping him (basically combination grooming and guilting them, or threatening them with vague sexual assault in Julia Roberts’s case). Though, on that last one, it’s not like Sutherland’s an outlier in predatory behavior towards only girl on in the club Roberts, all the other guys—William Baldwin, Oliver Platt, and Kevin Bacon—treat her similarly. It’s just a question of who’s going to successfully coerce her into the sack.

I think even “good guy” Bacon is the one who tells her it’s not okay for her to be friends with dudes and not hook up with at least one of them.

Bacon ends up being the good guy because after Sutherland dies and comes back—the Museum of Science & Industry stands in for the extremely unsanitary medical school (there’s no medical advisor in the credits, not sure if they couldn’t find one or Schumacher thought he knew all the possible doctor stuff) and the “lab” where they’ll be killing each other and bringing each other back to life looks like a thirties Frankenstein set, albeit with a bunch of wall-size Rembrandt reproductions. But when Sutherland comes back, he doesn’t tell his friends the truth—they all want to be on “60 Minutes” talking about proving Heaven is for real—because the truth is a ghostly little kid, Joshua Rudoy, has followed Sutherland out of the afterlife to beat the shit out of him on the regular.

The only good thing about Flatliners is Rudoy’s scenes where he beats the crap out of Sutherland. Everything else is one kind of garbage or another, with the only not incompetent performances coming from Roberts, Bacon, and Platt, though it’s a stretch with all of them. Overall Roberts is probably best because she’s got the least bad to do, while Bacon’s lousy for the first quarter of the film but gets better once he’s got to play hero opposite Sutherland’s jackass villain. Platt’s just around for occasional comic relief and to drop expository hints from the things we missed in the absent first act of the story.

Baldwin’s bad but Sutherland’s terrible. Baldwin’s just playing a sexual predator himbo, which he can handle through his impressions of his older brother(s)—his hair’s a trip though—whereas Sutherland’s supposed to be complicated and complex but is really just a potentially murderous dick (he wants to screw with Bacon’s afterlife experience because Bacon’s better at conning Roberts into the sack than Sutherland, who’s just creepy and threatening with her, not charmingly grooming her).

It’s a very long, very stupid movie with hilariously bad composition from Schumacher—who shoots it Panavision but composes it for the VHS pan-and-scan transfer—with bad music from James Newton Howard, bad editing from Robert Brown, atrocious writing from Filardi, and that unfortunately indefensible photography from de Bont.

Flatliners “flatlines” from the first scene. Waiting to see if it somehow improves from rancid garbage is on the audience.

Batman & Robin (1997, Joel Schumacher)

I’m not going to defend Batman & Robin. It’s not so much a matter of the film being indefensible, it’s just a matter of it being a pointless exercise. And, by defend, I don’t mean identifying who gives the least embarrassing performance (Michael Gough) or who is just jaw-droppingly bad (Chris O’Donnell). Watching Batman & Robin, you can see the trailer moments, you can see the toy commercial moments, you can see the Happy Meal commercial moments. These moments aren’t hidden–Batman & Robin invites the audience to reveal in its brand possibilities.

It’s so blissfully unaware of itself, I almost don’t want to disturb that delusion. At the time of the film’s release, a friend of mine said, “if Schumacher wanted to do the TV show, they should’ve just done the TV show.” He was correct. Throw in the Neal Hefti “Batman Theme” and Batman & Robin would’ve been… well, it would’ve still been awful, because director Schumacher is making a movie for kids and trying to throw in adult stuff to make it appear grown-up.

Sure, the film’s objectively bad. Arnold Schwarzenegger is awful. Akiva Goldsman’s script is awful. Stephen Goldblatt’s photography is flat and boring (though everything except establishing shots being done on sets might have something to do with that boredom). The film’s so bad, you can’t even tell if it’s poorly edited or if it’s everything else about it. Elliot Goldenthal’s music’s awful though.

I should do a word count on “awful” for this post. But, see, I didn’t defend it. The film is a perfectly natural extension of where the franchise was going. It’s not about franchise fatigue or anything lofty; suspension of disbelief isn’t just plot holes and bad casting, it’s also about the work’s basic agreement. With Batman & Robin, Schumacher and company just told the viewers what they thought of them.

There’s nothing interesting to watch in Batman & Robin. I was sort of hoping Alicia Silverstone secretly gave a good performance or something wacky, but not really. She’s better than O’Donnell but so’s the guy who played Bane and he didn’t even have any dialogue. And it is interesting to compare George Clooney in this film to his later work. But none of those expectations or inquiries have anything to do with the film.

When you gaze long at Batman & Robin (and you do, because it’s endlessly long), Batman & Robin also gazes into you.

The Lost Boys (1987, Joel Schumacher)

Not being a girl, I never really got The Lost Boys. I didn’t even see it until I was in my late teens, hunting down Jeffrey Boam’s screenwriting credits. Seeing it now, it’s not just clear how much the film wastes wasted Michael Chapman’s cinematography or how Schumacher makes Corey Haim the only gay leading character in a major Hollywood film I can think of, but also how impossible it would have been to identify with the film as a boy. It’s not like The Monster Squad or The Goonies; Schumacher’s gearing this film specifically for the teenager girl audience. Its infinite depths of gay subtext, while amusing during the more tedious stretches, are really meaningless.

I also can’t remember many other popular vampire films where the rules of vampirism aren’t fetishized. There’s lip service paid to them here, but The Lost Boys plays it pretty loose with the rules (like when Jami Gertz enters Haim’s house uninvited or antlers killing a vampire).

Haim’s not good. He’s not even personable enough to be obnoxious. Corey Feldman’s bad too. Jamison Newlander’s fine, so much so, it’s surprising he didn’t go on to more.

Jason Patric, Dianne Wiest, Edward Herrmann and Barnard Hughes are all great. Patric’s got some lame scenes too, so when he does good work, it’s impressive–he’s got a lot to overcome.

The vampires are mostly lame, Alex Winter being the lamest. Their makeup is from the Cat People remake….

Still, it’s not as bad as I remembered.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Joel Schumacher; screenplay by Janice Fischer, James Jeremias and Jeffrey Boam, based on a story by Fischer and Jeremias; director of photography, Michael Chapman; edited by Robert Brown; music by Thomas Newman; production designer, Bo Welch; produced by Harvey Bernhard; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Jason Patric (Michael), Corey Haim (Sam), Dianne Wiest (Lucy), Barnard Hughes (Grandpa), Edward Herrmann (Max), Kiefer Sutherland (David), Jami Gertz (Star), Corey Feldman (Edgar Frog), Jamison Newlander (Alan Frog), Brooke McCarter (Paul), Billy Wirth (Dwayne), Alex Winter (Marko) and Chance Michael Corbitt (Laddie).

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Phone Booth (2002, Joel Schumacher)

IMDb doesn’t mention it, but I thought one of the problems with getting Phone Booth made (it went through countless potential leading men) was the script and screenwriter Larry Cohen’s contract–i.e. no one could be brought in to make it, you know, good.

The film’s a piece of crap and it’s too bad because some of the acting is amazing. Colin Farrell’s great until he says he’s from the Bronx, then that image falls apart–Cohen’s script, not surprisingly, is set in the seedier 1980s New York, but with some updates for modernity. It’s almost exactly like it would have played out if Cohen had made it himself on a hundred thousand back when he was making his own pictures for theatrical release. I don’t know how many Larry Cohen movies I’ve seen, but all of a sudden, I remembered his schlock when watching Phone Booth.

Schumacher doesn’t bring anything to the picture except mediocre composition and annoying split screen shots. He knows he’s getting a great performance out of Farrell and he lets him run with it. Unfortunately, none of the other principals are any good. They aren’t bad, but it’s the kind of role Forest Whitaker has been playing since The Color of Money, only without the reveal of the hustle. Radha Mitchell and Katie Holmes have both done much, much better work (it’s the atrocious writing).

However, John Enos III gives a spectacular performance in a small role.

At least it runs less than eighty minutes.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Joel Schumacher; written by Larry Cohen; director of photography, Matthew Libatique; edited by Mark Stevens; music by Harry Gregson-Williams; production designer, Andrew Laws; produced by Gil Netter and David Zucker; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Colin Farrell (Stu Shepard), Kiefer Sutherland (the Caller), Forest Whitaker (Captain Ramey), Radha Mitchell (Kelly Shepard), Katie Holmes (Pamela McFadden), Paula Jai Parker (Felicia), John Enos III (Leon) and Ben Foster as the Big Q.

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The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981, Joel Schumacher)

I’m not sure I have the vocabulary to properly discuss The Incredible Shrinking Woman. It’s an experience–Ned Beatty was in Network and he appeared in this one? Sorry. Anyway, according the IMDb, the movie might have made money–in fact, it might have even been a hit. I always assumed it was an enormous failure, but if it was a success… well, first, I’m very confused. Second–there is no second. I’m still perplexed by the idea The Incredible Shrinking Woman was a hit.

Apparently, there were some really bad comedies in the late 1970s and early 1980s and Shrinking Woman is one of them. It’s a gimmick comedy, but the idea of Lily Tomlin shrinking isn’t even the gimmick–her adventures at one foot tall are pretty tame–wow, a talk show. Instead, the gimmick is Lily Tomlin appearing in multiple roles. Besides the main character, she also plays the main character’s best friend. Or the neighbor lady who annoys her until she’s shrinking, then she relies on. The movie doesn’t really have character relationships–much less development–so you have to kind of guess what it’s trying to say.

But Tomlin’s bored with her roles. She’s visibly phoning in her performance on both of them, obtuse to the goings on–it’d be hard for her to be engaged with the material, but still… she’s sleepwalking through her own vanity project.

The script’s atrocious. I don’t think it got a single laugh out of me, only because it’s condemning materialistic American culture–but it’s doing so by making everyone emotionally removed. It’s impossible to care about the characters, much less their problems. They don’t even have real problems, because Beatty and John Glover aren’t just regular businessmen, they’re about to take over the world. It’s absurdist humor without much humor.

Glover mugs through his performance, which means he doesn’t appear to be exerting or embarrassing himself. Beatty doesn’t get away clean though. His character is terribly written and he’s in it a lot.

Charles Grodin plays Tomlin’s husband and his part in the narrative is one of the bigger defects. He kind of becomes the protagonist for a while, but not long enough for it to matter, which means it was all a waste of time–and Shrinking Woman is a less than ninety-minute movie. If it has to tread water to make its running time, there’s something wrong.

Joel Schumacher–making his theatrical, directorial debut–has a few good shots. It’s pretty bland, but the sets look cheap and unfinished, so what was he going to do. He starts it–relatively–strong; I was surprised when the mediocrity set in.

I’d heard of Shrinking Woman many, many years ago. Maybe even when I was a kid–probably then, because I still would have wanted to see it because of the title. Bad idea.

Batman Forever (1995, Joel Schumacher)

Joel Schumacher once commented he was first credited with saving the Batman franchise (with Batman Forever), then destroying it (with Batman & Robin). I think I’d watched his second venture (or tried to watch it) more recently than I had seen Forever… anyway, it isn’t like Schumacher made one good one and one bad one. He made two bad ones and the second one just happened to be worse, but Batman Forever is atrocious in its own right. When Drew Barrymore gives a film’s best performance, it’s trouble.

The problems with the film are a list of its cast (with the except of Barrymore, Val Kilmer–who isn’t good but isn’t bad either, it’s not like he could do anything with the role–and maybe Alfred Gough), its crew (whoever did the composites should be blacklisted and Elliot Goldenthal’s score is an offense to the ears) and particularly Schumacher and the writers.

I’ve long been under the impression the Batchlers worked on “Batman: The Animated Series,” explaining some of the more cartoon-like elements of the plot (particularly the Statue of Liberty stand-in), but I can’t find that credit on IMDb so they’re probably just Warner Bros. in-house writers… Forever’s other credited writer, Akiva Goldsman, is, of course, the guy who has somehow gotten respectable in modernity, though it’s probably because he helped dumb down theatergoers so much in the 1990s… I’m not sure who is responsible for each of the terrible scenes–Batman Forever’s most interesting in its inability to have a single honest frame of celluloid, and it might be my new candidate for the turning point of Hollywood, when everything started its descent into garbage (I need to admit, right now, I used to like Batman Forever, but I was a teenager and apparently a dumb one).

Another possible reason for a genial defense of the film is Jim Carrey. People used to love him, though it’s hard to remember those days. He’s absolutely terrible, as is Tommy Lee Jones (Nicole Kidman and Chris O’Donnell are as well, but no one should expect anything from either of them). But Jones… it’s painful to watch him. I thought he took the role for his kids (but, again, can’t find any online citation of it).

Schumacher’s direction of the film is both incompetent and incredibly interesting. Besides the terrible composites (I sort of remember them always looking poorly lighted), Schumacher appears to have been shooting unfinished sets. Or it was stylistic–a bad style–never shooting any establishing shots, never setting up anything in the film (with the possible except of Wayne Manor) as believable. But, it’s still interesting how he can keep up such a visually unintelligible film.

Schumacher got a lot of crap for making the next one as a toy commercial, but this one is just the same… it even looks like an old toy commercial, the kind with the toys shot as though they were life-size, which pretty much sums up Batman Forever… It’s so bad, I’m surprised I–as the teenager who thought it was good–was literate.

Falling Down (1993, Joel Schumacher)

When the film started, I sort of marveled at how absurd it was–Joel Schumacher and Michael Douglas making a subversive movie, then I quickly realized Falling Down isn’t subversive… it’s “controversial.” Obviously, Schumacher doesn’t have a controversial bone in his body–and neither does Douglas–so Falling Down gets repetitive and boring before too long. I suppose one can enjoy watching Douglas only hurt bad people in his “everyman” gone psycho role. Everyman is in quotes because I’m sure they used it in the promotional material for the film.

Douglas is terrible, playing Michael Douglas playing a psycho (a really, really stupid one–my fiancée asked if he was mentally ill, before we started the film and I told her no, but watching it, it’s obvious Douglas’s character has the mental processes of a nine-year old. A dumb one). Schumacher’s direction is also pretty bad, both of his actors and just composition-wise. He has this whole LA in orange smug thing going for Falling Down and it makes the film ugly, not realistic.

There are a handful of good things about Falling Down, however–though certainly not the music. I can’t forget the music. The film is, again, supposed to be mainstream gone indie, pre-Miramax, and James Newton Howard contributes the score to a Predator movie, possibly even lifting some of the themes. It’s laughable.

Anyway, good things about the film. I’d like to say Tuesday Weld, but the script runs her in such a dumb direction, I don’t get to say it. However, Robert Duvall’s fantastic. Wonderful in fact. His part is poorly written, but seeing Duvall act in such a big role is still a treat. Barbara Hershey’s also all right, so is Lois Smith (in the film’s second or third worst role). Frederic Forrest is terrible in his role, easily the film’s worst.

The terrible script was written by Ebbe Roe Smith. I’d actually list his other screenwriting credits to let you know what to avoid, but I’ll just assume anyone would avoid Car 54, Where Are You? on his or her own.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Joel Schumacher; written by Ebbe Roe Smith; director of photography, Andrzej Bartkowiak; edited by Paul Hirsch; music by James Newton Howard; production designer, Barbara Ling; produced by Arnold Kopelson, Herschel Weingrod and Timothy Harris; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Michael Douglas (D-Fens), Robert Duvall (Prendergast), Barbara Hershey (Beth), Rachel Ticotin (Sandra), Tuesday Weld (Mrs. Prendergast), Frederic Forrest (Surplus Store Owner), Lois Smith (D-Fens’s Mother), Joey Hope Singer (Adele), Ebbe Roe Smith (Guy on Freeway) and Michael Paul Chan (Mr. Lee).

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