Category: Directors Sm

The Tall Guy (1989, Mel Smith)

Mel Smith is a stunningly inept director. Especially for comedy. Though, given its awkward flashback montages, lack of supporting character resolutions, impromptu musical number, and just over ninety minute runtime, it sure seems like there might be a longer version of The Tall Guy out there. As is, The Tall Guy is way too skinny. So maybe it’s not all Smith’s fault. Or maybe it’s just editor Dan Rae’s fault. Maybe Smith directed a bunch of good comedy and Rae just screwed it all up. Maybe there’s some explanation for why it doesn’t work.

Because lead Jeff Goldblum is really cute. He’s really cute with romantic interest Emma Thompson. The movie’s not cute, but they’re cute. They carry a lot with this movie and don’t get anything in return. Richard Curtis’s script short changes them just as much as everyone else. Including third-billed Rowan Atkinson, who’s an inflated cameo. It’s weird. So maybe there’s a good reason for it.

It’s the fairly familiar tale of American actor Goldblum trying to make it in London. He can’t get any parts because he’s too tall apparently, which isn’t clear for a while because he’s employed at the start of the movie. He works for Atkinson, who’s a bastard physical comedian with a hit stage show. Goldblum’s his sidekick. And Goldblum doesn’t seem to have any ambition past being Atkinson’s sidekick. He just wishes Atkinson would be nice to him. And he wishes his roommate Geraldine James would at least have the courtesy of bringing home a dude to buff who isn’t going to drink Goldblum’s orange juice. Goldblum’s a man of few pleasures, orange juice is one of them.

Until Goldblum has to get his seasonal allergies resolved because it’s screwing up his performance—only it’s not, it’s just getting him laughs and Atkinson is a prima donna who can’t handle anyone else getting laughs. That single tidbit of character motivation for Atkinson is more than Goldblum or anyone else in the film gets. Anyway, Goldblum has to go to the doctor, there he meets nurse Thompson and falls for her immediately. The reminder of the first act is Goldblum getting shots for his allergies from Thompson, not asking her out, whining about not asking her out to roommate James, cue comic bit about what James’s lover of the moment is doing (usually hidden from view and humorously contorted), repeat.

Once Goldblum does go out with Thompson, they immediately get physical in a raucous love-making scene you know is supposed to be funny but it’s really more just dumb. It also results in Goldblum losing his job with Atkinson, which kicks off the second act proper as Thompson will soon tell Goldlbum he’s got to get another job because she’s not dating some bum actor.

Now all of a sudden it’s supposed to be believable Goldblum’s employable as a professional stage actor. This time the absurdity of his potential projects generates the charm, as the film phases out Thompson and Goldbum’s romance, then Thompson almost entirely. How’s Goldblum feel about it? Who knows. He doesn’t have the depth of a head shot.

Affable performances all around, though by the third act you’ve got to wonder how Goldblum and Thompson kept a straight-face through the disastrous third act. Professionalism, pass it on.

Atkinson always seems like he’s about to be really funny and it never pays off.

Anna Massey is fun as Goldblum’s agent.

There’s a poppy score from Peter Brewis. It’s rather energetic, which is something since the film manages to drag even at ninety-two minutes.

Adrian Biddle’s photography is solid.

Smith could be worse at composing shots. He could be as bad at it as he is directing actors.

The Tall Guy’s problematic execution give the film its charm through the first half plus a few, but then once it shatters that charm—intentionally—it’s got nothing to replace it with. Not in the acting, writing, or directing. It’s a bummer for Goldblum, Thompson, and Atkinson; they deserve something for keeping the film afloat. Against some considerable odds.

This post is part of the Jeff Goldblum Blogathon 2019 hosted by Emma of Emma K Wall, Explains it All and Gill of Realweegiemidget Reviews.

Triangle (2009, Christopher Smith)

Triangle suffers. It suffers from a bad script, it suffers from wanting performances, it suffers… bad hair continuity. There’s just something off about lead Melissa George’s bangs. Not just she doesn’t seem to acknowledge when they’re in the way, but when she turns around (in an obvious cut because there’s so much post-production on the lighting you can tell) and the position doesn’t quite match. Or the length.

There’s just something… off about them.

Kind of like George’s performance.

The film relies on a lot of twists and turns to get through. I was going to say to justify itself but the twists and turns aren’t really for narrative justification, they’re to kill time. Triangle builds towards reveals, it doesn’t build characters. Even when character development is intricately tied to the reveals, well, writer and director Smith still isn’t going to build character. Though it wouldn’t exactly be easy with his cast. Because something feels a little off about them too.

One might guess it’s because they’re a bunch of Aussies pretending to do an American movie. They’ve all got “American” accents, which don’t ever drop out but they also exaggerate the narrative distance from the characters. Not a good thing in a horror movie where you’re ostensibly supposed to care once they start dropping like flies.

The film starts with George going on a yacht day with local rich guy (presumably) Michael Dorman. She’s a waitress he knows, so he invites her for this annual yachting trip. He always takes friends Henry Nixon and Rachael Carpani, who always bring a girl to fix him up with (this time it’s Emma Lung). Except, of course, Dorman wants George along. Carpani doesn’t like it because single mom George must be a gold digger. Carpani’s character is odious, which makes it all the less fun to have her around once she’s in danger, because Smith doesn’t care if you empathize with any of the cast. And most of them aren’t sympathetic.

Also along for the trip is young stud Liam Hemsworth, who was homeless but now lives on Dorman’s yacht with him and knows how to tie knots and do all the other important yachting stuff. There’s some confusion about why Dorman needs a hunk around but at least Hemsworth is likable. There’s something creepy about Dorman and his Robin Hood beard and something’s clearly going on with George and the movie is obviously manipulating the audience about it.

So is it worth it?

Heck no.

Smith knocks off a couple famous movies for Triangle; visually, The Shining, narratively… well, if I told you it’d be too much of a spoiler. Suffice it to say, Smith’s not just not reinventing the wheel with his tricky story, he’s not even worried about keeping the tire inflated. He’s really lazy with the logic. Really lazy. He goes for visual shock value and often gets it; his special effects team, lighting mismatches aside, is phenomenal. More than half the movie takes place on this old, abandoned cruise ship with Shining hallways and Triangle makes it look real big, even when it’s kind of clear it’s not and they’re just adjusting the lighting to lens flare for emphasis.

So technically it’s fine. It’s just got a dumb script and an either not trying hard enough or just not able to do it lead with George. After a while you wish George’s bangs would do the acting heavy lifting because George obviously isn’t up for it. She does fear well like twice, then never again. And her messy arc, even with Smith’s questionable scripting, does have a lot of potential for the right performance.

George’s isn’t it.

Clerks (1994, Kevin Smith)

Clerks operates on intensity. But it’s mostly dialogue and there’s not a lot of action. So director Smith relies on surprises, whether visual, in dialogue, in plot. At its best, Clerks is creative with its constraints. At its worst, Clerks is lead Brian O’Halloran whining (badly, I might add). There’s a lot of whining. Only O’Halloran is supposed to be the viewer’s POV; Smith structures the narrative from this negative place. That POV allows for a lot of the humor–and it gives Jeff Anderson’s sidekick character more implied depth than O’Halloran gets–but it does get annoying at times. As Clerks progresses, Smith gets a lot less inventive and not just with the filmmaking, but with the narrative.

The film ends up being about O’Halloran and his place in the universe. While it does start with O’Halloran, it’s more about his juvenile behavior in his relationship with his girlfriend, Marilyn Ghigliotti in the film’s best performance. O’Halloran isn’t good and Smith doesn’t know how to direct him to be better. The script requires a lot of charm for the part to work and O’Halloran doesn’t have it. He even gets less likable as the movie goes on and he becomes less and less imposing a protagonist.

Maybe if O’Halloran were actually structured to have everything go on around him, but Smith doesn’t set things up well. Clerks is a lot of solid creative impulses running out of steam before they’re anywhere near finished. Same goes for Smith’s script–he’s got some interesting questions but the answers never surpass mediocre.

Anderson’s fantastic, O’Halloran isn’t. There’s amusing support from Jason Mewes, problematic–but earnest–support from Lisa Spoonauer (in the film’s most problematic role).

Great photography from David Klein, great editing (for the most part) from Smith and Scott Mosier.

Clerks goes from better to worse to a little bit better, but having a strong sense of itself for the finale doesn’t make up for all the time it spends floundering.

Bean (1997, Mel Smith)

I’m trying to imagine how Bean would play to someone unfamiliar with the television show. Depending on one’s tolerance for bland family comedy-dramas, it might actually play better. Because Bean, the movie, removes a lot of Bean, Rowan Atkinson’s character, and instead fills the time with Peter MacNicol and his problems.

His job is on the line and his wife of presumably sixteen plus years has decided their marriage is on the rocks because of those problems with his job. Pamela Reed plays the wife and she’s exceptionally unsympathetic in her anger. Screenwriters Richard Curtis and Robin Driscoll don’t just do a hatch job with the characterizations, they keep it going and going.

Some of the problem is director Mel Smith. He resists ever shooting the film from Atkinson’s perspective, except in the longer slapstick sequences, but he also doesn’t direct the film around him well. Harris Yulin especially stumbles around looking for direction. The supporting cast is mostly indistinct, though Burt Reynolds gets a smile or two and Larry Drake gets an actual laugh.

With all the celebrity cameos, Bean should feel bigger. But Smith doesn’t know how to direct it big. Or small. Until the ludicrous finish, the script’s tolerable. Tepid, but tolerable. The finish is atrocious though.

So why’s Bean all right, even with the finish? Because Atkinson is really, really funny and he never acts like there’s anything wrong with the film. He’s fully committed, even though his character’s constantly changing.

The film shamefully fails him.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Directed by Mel Smith; screenplay by Richard Curtis and Robin Driscoll, based on characters created by Rowan Atkinson and Curtis; director of photography, Francis Kenny; edited by Chris Blunden; music by Howard Goodall; production designer, Peter S. Larkin; produced by Peter Bennett-Jones, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner; released by Polygram Filmed Entertainment.

Starring Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean), Peter MacNicol (David Langley), Pamela Reed (Alison Langley), Harris Yulin (George Grierson), Burt Reynolds (General Newton), Larry Drake (Elmer), Chris Ellis (Det. Butler), Johnny Galecki (Stingo Wheelie), Richard Gant (Lt. Brutus), Danny Goldring (Security Buck), Andrew Lawrence (Kevin Langley), Tom McGowan (Walter Merchandise), Sandra Oh (Bernice Schimmel), Tricia Vessey (Jennifer Langley) and John Mills (Chairman).

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The Flying Car (2002, Kevin Smith)

Maybe halfway through The Flying Car, I noticed one of the retakes of Jeff Anderson. The short takes place while Anderson and Brian O’Halloran are stuck in a traffic jam. Smith is setting up the viewer for a joke while Anderson sets up O’Halloran for the same one. Great dialogue, excellent performance from Anderson. It’s a fine little thing.

Except then there’s the retake. There are a few of them, two on Anderson, maybe two on O’Halloran. The entire short is unimaginatively shot–Smith either shoots one or the other. No rapid fire exchanges in the same framing (which only happens twice).

Anyway, that retake. Smith shoots it from outside the car, showing the windshield and–presumably–reflections of the world outside. It immediately gives Car a different, better feel. It seems less gimmicky, more natural.

The dialogue and joke are great, but Smith’s lack of imagination hurts Car bad.

Number One with a Bullet (1987, Jack Smight)

With a larger budget–and a different director–Number One with a Bullet might succeed. It’s a wry spoof of cop movies and TV shows, pairing crazy man Robert Carradine and urbane Billy Dee Williams. One has to assume Carradine’s casting against Revenge of the Nerds-type is part of the joke, but Williams seems to be there because he can do the humor straight faced. He’s essential to Bullet‘s limited success.

Most of the problems are technical. For whatever reason, even though cinematographer Álex Phillips Jr. does a wholly competent job lighting, he can’t do any of Smight’s (simple) Steadicam shots. They’re disastrous. He and Smight do come up with a very low key Los Angeles, which is rather nice.

As for Smight… one has to wonder if the lame close-ups are budgetary restrictions. He knows to hold Williams’s reaction shots though, since the length adds depth to the scene.

Carradine’s amusing and endearing, Williams is great. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is weak. Except Mykelti Williamson. He’s awesome. Even Jon Gries is tepid in his small role. Valerie Bertinelli isn’t any good as Carradine’s reluctant love interest and Doris Roberts is inexplicable as Carradine’s nagging mother. Bullet often veers into sitcom territory, only with Smight giving it a slightly more cinematic frame.

Alf Clausen’s jazz score is another of the jokes, but it’s too slow for the action sequences.

Bullet is likable and has good qualities; they don’t add up to a good movie though.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by Jack Smight; screenplay by Gail Morgan Hickman, Andrew Kurtzman, Rob Riley and James Belushi, based on a story by Hickman; director of photography, Álex Phillips Jr.; edited by Michael J. Duthie; music by Alf Clausen; production designer, Norm Baron; produced by Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan; released by Cannon Films.

Starring Robert Carradine (Det. Barzak), Billy Dee Williams (Det. Hazeltine), Valerie Bertinelli (Teresa Barzak), Peter Graves (Capt. Ferris), Doris Roberts (Mrs. Barzak), Bobby Di Cicco (Malcolm), Ray Girardin (Lt. Kaminski), Barry Sattels (DeCosta), Mykelti Williamson (Casey) and Jon Gries (Bobby Sweet).

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Cop Out (2010, Kevin Smith)

It might be funny to kick Kevin Smith when he’s down–Cop Out, his first attempt at directing someone else’s script (after fifteen years of doing his own projects), bombed and then there was that whole thing with the airplane seating–but Cop Out‘s not his fault. Well, maybe Seann William Scott is Smith’s fault, but he makes up for him with Adam Brody and Kevin Pollak….

The two biggest problems with the film are the script and Tracy Morgan. The script’s unbearably stupid, like it’s intended to be a spoof of buddy cop movies and someone forgot to make it funny. Morgan’s playing a variation on his character from “30 Rock.” It’s never believable for a second he could hold a job (much less be a cop), have a friend (Willis comes off more like a babysitter) or a wife (I’m not sure if Rashida Jones is wasted in Cop Out or useless). During Morgan’s scenes, I kept wanting to slam my head against something, thinking a concussion might get me in the frame of mind to appreciate his performance.

But back to Brody and Pollak. The movie should have been about them. Smith’s trying to do some kind of a throwback to the eighties cop comedies, like Beverly Hills Cop–he even brings in Harold Faltermeyer to regurgitate his Fletch score. Brody’s young and eager and Pollak’s old and cynical. They banter, they have antics. It would have been great.

Instead, it’s not great. Instead, it’s completely insipid.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed and edited by Kevin Smith; written by Robb Cullen and Mark Cullen; director of photography, David Klein; music by Harold Faltermeyer; production designer, Michael Shaw; produced by Marc Platt, Polly Johnsen and Michael Tadross; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Bruce Willis (Jimmy), Tracy Morgan (Paul), Adam Brody (Barry Mangold), Kevin Pollak (Hunsaker), Ana de la Reguera (Gabriela), Guillermo Diaz (Poh Boy), Michelle Trachtenberg (Ava), Jason Lee (Roy), Francie Swift (Pam), Rashida Jones (Debbie) and Seann William Scott (Dave).

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Dogma (1999, Kevin Smith)

I have a hard time identifying my biggest problem with Dogma. Is it the lack of good narrative? Smith’s script, which does have some very funny scenes in it, is one of the worst attempts at an epical plot I’ve ever seen. It’s inept. It’s pat. Combined with some of the terrible performances, the whole thing feels like a made-for-the-internet video, the kind of thing someone would have done for cheap as an online video, but with his or her famous friends (giving bad performances). The big dramatic scenes are terrible, the one liners tend to work… a lot of the problem is the acting, and Smith’s inability to recognize his own terrible direction. He shoots Dogma widescreen (sort of, he shot in Super 35 and framed it to his liking… maybe a less wide presentation would have been better) and doesn’t know how to compose for it. With Dogma, Smith was directing his fourth feature film. One would think he would know at least how to do a decent composition with that aspect ratio. At least a workman composition. He doesn’t.

The acting. Maybe the way to start is listing the people who give an okay or better performance in Dogma. Matt Damon, Jason Mewes, Alan Rickman, Janeane Garofalo and George Carlin. I supposed Bud Cort does a fine job, as do Clerks stars Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson. The rest? The rest of the cast give terrible, pedestrian, amateurish performances. Dogma‘s a disaster in terms of acting. Of the remainder, Chris Rock’s at least funny. He gives a terrible performance, it’s hard to even call what he’s doing acting, but at least he’s funny. Ben Affleck’s awful. How Smith didn’t notice he was terrible during filming is beyond belief. Affleck’s just mugging–the problem is mostly with Smith’s script, which is a bunch of speeches, there are no characters, except Damon’s. Smith also gets a bad performance out of Linda Fiorentino, which I wasn’t sure was possible, but he does it. Gold star for him that day! Jason Lee’s terrible. He’s so unfunny I watched his scenes wondering if his agent used clips from Dogma on audition reels. I doubt it. Salma Hayek’s performance is one of the worst in any major motion picture I can think of. I suppose Alanis Morissette’s fine, thinking about it.

Robert D. Yeoman’s photography is atrocious. He’s actually a great cinematographer and has shot a lot of far more complex films–for Wes Anderson for instance–so obviously the problem’s Smith. Big shock. Can’t compose for Panavision aspect ratio nor can he properly convey instructions to his cinematographer–Dogma, which wasn’t shot on a credit card, looks cheaper than many horror directors’ early projects (for example, The Evil Dead and Braindead look a lot more finished).

My wife says I don’t like Dogma because I don’t get all the religious references. Those are fine, but they’re parsley. They’re parsley on a moldy corn dog.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Written and directed by Kevin Smith; director of photography, Robert D. Yeoman; edited by Scott Mosier and Smith; music by Howard Shore; production designer, Robert Holtzman; produced by Mosier; released by Lions Gate Films.

Starring Ben Affleck (Bartleby), Matt Damon (Loki), Linda Fiorentino (Bethany Sloane), Jason Mewes (Jay), Chris Rock (Rufus), Alan Rickman (Metatron), Jason Lee (Azrael), Salma Hayek (Serendipity), Kevin Smith (Silent Bob), Janeane Garofalo (Liz), George Carlin (Cardinal Ignatius Glick), Alanis Morissette (God), Brian O’Halloran (Grant Hicks) and Bud Cort (John Doe Jersey).

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The Secret War of Harry Frigg (1968, Jack Smight)

Paul Newman can’t play stupid. Harry Frigg is, for the first thirty to forty minutes of the movie, stupid. Even after he’s not stupid anymore–Sylva Koscina, quite believably, inspires him to improve himself–Newman’s stuck with the dumb, New Jersey from a Planters Peanut commercial accent. It doesn’t bother much in the scenes with Koscina, since the pair have great chemistry (though hearing Newman talk about going to college and having the Depression take the opportunity away is goofy sounding).

The Secret War of Harry Frigg is a war farce. Newman’s trying to rescue a quintet of generals from an Italian resort, where the guards are friends, et cetera, et cetera. He’s also pretending to be a general himself, so there’s plenty of opportunity for humor. Except the film’s not very funny, because Newman’s too good an actor for such a slight script. And his scenes with Koscina suggest a straightforward take on their relationship would be much more rewarding.

The problem–trying to do a screwball comedy in 1968 in Panavision and Technicolor–is no surprise. Even though Smight doesn’t screw up as much as usual (because Frigg doesn’t have the script for him to hijack), it’s obvious the film needed a far better director. Smight gets the absurdist comedy well-enough–like if it were a mistaken identity comedy with Abbott and Costello–but he doesn’t get the nuances of setting a comedy in World War II with the Nazis about to torture people… though the scene with Newman spitting, repeatedly, on a Hitler portrait is amusing.

The supporting cast is fine, with Charles Gray giving the best performance of the generals and Vito Scotti is good as the hotel manager turned warden… but there’s really so little going on and the movie’s incredibly long. It’s over halfway through–right after Newman gets a history–and the rest is just waiting for the reels to run out. Even the ending, which would be incredibly hard to screw up, gets screwed up.

It could have been a lot better with a fixed up script, but it wouldn’t have taken much to be just a little bit better and a little bit would have gone a long way here.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by Jack Smight; screenplay by Peter Stone and Frank Tarloff, based on a story by Tarloff; director of photography, Russell Metty; edited by J. Terry Williams; music by Carlo Rustichelli; produced by Hal E. Chester; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Paul Newman (Pvt. Harry Frigg), Sylva Koscina (Countess Francesca De Montefiore), Andrew Duggan (Gen. Newton Armstrong), Tom Bosley (Gen. Roscoe Pennypacker), John Williams (Gen. Francis Mayhew), Charles Gray (Gen. Adrian Cox-Roberts), Vito Scotti (Col. Enrico Ferrucci), Jacques Roux (Gen. Andre Rochambeau), Werner Peters (Maj. von Steignitz), James Gregory (Gen. Homer Prentiss), Fabrizio Mioni (Lt. Rossano), Johnny Haymer (Sgt. Pozzallo) and Norman Fell (Capt. Stanley).

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Clerks II (2006, Kevin Smith)

I was going to start this post with a comment about how, even with all its problems, Clerks II is easily Kevin Smith’s best film. I guess I’ll still start with some of those remarks–Smith’s editing is excellent here, not to mention the traditional romantic comedy between Brian O’Halloran and Rosario Dawson–which is incredibly movie traditional and well-done by Dawson and Smith (O’Halloran is awful in the scenes). There’s a musical number in the film and, as I watched it, I realized, whether he acknowledges it or not, whether he ever utilizes the skills again, Smith’s finally become a good filmmaker.

A lot of Clerks II is an attempt to gross out and shock the audience. It’s not particularly tied to the existing Kevin Smith universe and when the characters finally reveal what they’d been up to for ten years, it’s a surprise. Even though the film opens with some direct references to the first movie, it does not feel like much a sequel… and it might be the most impressive sequel, in terms of artistic achievement, I’ve seen in a long time. There doesn’t need to be a Clerks for there to be a Clerks II. The film doesn’t “stand on it’s own” or whatever, it succeeds where the first film could not. Listless thirties angst versus listless twenties angst… there’s no contest.

I’m going to try to go through the bad stuff here and then bring around the last paragraph to–try to–express the film’s success (I’ll fail). Smith as Silent Bob–but not Jason Mewes–is unbearable. He plays the part like a cartoon, whereas his own script calls for a semblance of reality. And as incredibly embarrassed as he should be for himself (so embarrassed I started the sentence with an “and”), nothing should compare to the embarrassment over (his wife) Jennifer Schwalbach’s performance. She and O’Halloran’s scenes are bad high school level acting. It really reminds of the terrible acting in the first film, which at least had the excuse of not having a budget (Clerks II should also have been black and white… kind of… it should have had exaggerated colors maybe, since Smith does use the black and white in parts and to extraordinary success). But anyway, she’s atrocious. In fact, writing about her has made me forget a lot of my other comments.

The first half of the film has a lot of missteps, because it’s hard to get used to Rosario Dawson acting and Brian O’Halloran doing his thing, it’s hard to get used to Schwalbach being treated like she’s not awful. It’s also very obvious how Smith is giving Dawson and the romantic comedy a lot of screen time and shoving Jeff Anderson off on anti-fanboy rants. Anderson’s great at those, but, like in the first one, he’s capable of acting and acting well and in one sequence, where Smith works the editing and the music, he and Anderson pull the movie around.

Then, the film goes through an odd third act, featuring all the scenes meant to enrage the MPAA (not really, Smith seems to have tried that one early on)–but disgust the MPAA and realize an R-rated “Family Guy”–and ends up in an amazing resolution. A mature, thoughtful resolution….

I was expecting something self-referential–especially during the cameo scenes–but Smith avoids all those traps… if it weren’t for Rocky Balboa, I’d say it’s the most successful delayed sequel in a long time… but even with Rocky (and some of Clerks II’s successes are artistically similar), it’s one heck of an achievement for Smith.

If only he could fire his wife (I can understand O’Halloran–he kind of has to be in it, but there’s no good reason for Schwalbach).