Category: Directors Va

The Thin Man (1934, W.S. Van Dyke)

While enough cannot be said about the efficiency of W.S. Van Dyke’s direction of the The Thin Man, the efficiency of the script deserves an equal amount of praise. Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich get in so much little character stuff for the supporting cast, it’s hard to imagine how the film could possibly function without it. Robert Kern’s editing is essential for it to work too–the pace of reaction shots is fabulous.

Of course, the script’s structure is also peculiar. Until their second big scene–their first one alone–William Powell and Myrna Loy aren’t the leads of the story. Instead, it’s Maureen O’Sullivan. She starts out the film and it then moves to introduce various people into her story. Even at the end, after O’Sullivan has long since given up the primary supporting role to Nat Pendleton’s police inspector, she’s still integral.

From Powell and Loy’s first scene, their chemistry commands the film. The script has the banter, but it’s the way the actors play off each other (under Van Dyke’s able direction). Also wonderful is how the intercuts of their dog enhances the scenes. Van Dyke cuts to these reaction shots of Asta the terrier and it makes the viewer feel part of this peculiar family.

It’s important too, since much of the film takes place in Powell and Loy’s hotel suite.

The leads are great, the supporting cast is excellent–Edward Brophy, Harold Huber, Minna Gombell, Porter Hall being the standouts.

The Thin Man’s a masterpiece; it’s brilliant filmmaking.

Frankenstein (2011, Danny Boyle and Tim Van Someren), the second version

Maybe Danny Boyle isn’t the right guy to direct a stage play of Frankenstein. When he goes to close-ups–this Frankenstein being a filmed performance, with a lot of overhead shots and close-ups to make it somewhat filmic (along with terrible music choices)–he doesn’t seem to recognize some of his actors aren’t really doing enough emoting for a close-up.

Jonny Lee Miller does fine emoting. Miller plays the Creature. Miller’s captivating. Phenomenal. Breathtaking. Every nice adjective one could come up with. Even when he’s got some really weak dialogue, Miller nails it.

Nick Dear’s play–loosely adapted from the novel with some familiar movie details thrown in–gives the Creature a lot to do. It doesn’t give Frankenstein much of a character, but Benedict Cumberbatch doesn’t put much into the performance so it evens out. Otherwise, he just stands around waiting for Miller to finish something amazing.

There are some cute nods to the Universal films, set design, a really cute music one. Also the humor. There’s a lot of humor in Frankenstein, presumably to compensate for the darkness. Except Dear (and Boyle in his filming choices) go real dark. So why not own it?

Well, they don’t own their good choices so why should own their bad ones. Bad choices like George Harris as Frankenstein’s father. He’s awful.

Naomie Harris is excellent as Elizabeth though. She and Miller’s scene together is heart-wrenching.

Cumberbatch’s disinterest aside, the script’s the problem. But Miller gloriously overcomes it.

Frankenstein (2011, Danny Boyle and Tim Van Someren), the first version

Maybe the National Theatre Live just recorded a cruddy night for the Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature performance of Frankenstein. Maybe there was some immediate reason that night to explain why Cumberbatch’s performance consists of little more than speaking when inhaling and occasionally giving an angry look.

It’s not like Nick Dear’s play is good enough to compensate for a bad performance in the lead. The first act, introducing Cumberbatch’s monster to the world, is tedious. There’s no chemistry between Cumberbatch and Karl Johnson as his mentor. I won’t even get into Cumberbatch’s lack of glee during the gleeful discovery of the world sequence.

But then Jonny Lee Miller shows up and the play gets a whole lot more tolerable. He’s exhausted, tortured, selfish, shallow. He and Naomie Harris are excellent together, especially during the comic relief portions. Not so much during the dramatic parts, just because Dear’s script is really weak on them… but on maybe half of them.

Cumberbatch is best during a few of his scenes with Miller. Not all of them, not even the most important ones–Dear’s lukewarm ending is even worse since Cumberbatch runs the scene. But some of them. Maybe it’s just Miller bringing actual energy to the production.

Thanks to Dear’s writing–Miller has to fight for good moments as Frankenstein, while Cumberbatch wastes all the good ones for the Creature–there’s only so far this production can go. It’s unfortunate, since Harris and Miller do some excellent work.

Otherwise, it’s exceedingly pointless.

Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out (2012, Guy Vasilovich)

Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out gleefully turns the Star Wars characters into caricatures–it’s a mix of Empire and Episode One, apparently because that combination works out funniest. Darth Vader is upset when Darth Maul gets more of the Emperor’s attention, C–3PO (actually voiced by Anthony Daniels) annoys everyone, Luke is all of a sudden a heartthrob.

What’s impressive about Michael Price’s script is how well he tells the jokes. Lego Star Wars doesn’t revere its source material, but does appreciate it and all the pop culture hubbub it’s caused. The result’s far smarter for that approach. Price tells a lot of jokes I assumed he’d avoid.

The CG’s all fantastic; the shadowing makes some of the static LEGO figures appear to be physical rather than rendered. The John Williams music works well (and is the only thing used sincerely).

As expected, it’s fun, but smart too.

X-Men: First Class (2011, Matthew Vaughn)

When the best thing in a 132-minute movie is a thirty-second cameo… it’s not a good sign.

X-Men: First Class is self-important dreck. The four credited screenwriters do a bad job with everything except the one-liners; they do some of those quite well.

There are a lot of goofy sixties details. Bad guy Kevin Bacon has a submarine he travels around in like a Bond villain, but Vaughn doesn’t know how to direct it like a flashy Technicolor picture. His direction’s adequate, nothing more.

Except his direction of actors. It’s terrible. Zoë Kravitz, January Jones, Caleb Landry Jones and Lucas Till are all atrocious, though their roles are small. Well, except January Jones, she’s exceptionally bad in her somewhat larger part.

But Jennifer Lawrence has a big role and, while she’s not as bad as the rest, she’s too weak to carry it. Nicholas Hoult is pretty good.

Still, the acting’s not all bad. Bacon’s having a great time. The two leads are mostly good. Michael Fassbender gives a great performance for a lot of the film, but then awkwardly adopts a Welsh accent in the last few scenes. James McAvoy’s sturdy, but never anything more.

Poor Rose Byrne (a mildly competent screenwriter would’ve known to tell the story from her perspective) is wasted.

The endless character actor stunt casting gets old fast, though it’s nice to see them working.

Henry Jackman’s music might be worse than anything else in First Class. Even January Jones.

Two Ambassadors (2008) s01e05 – Maternal Death by Coincidence

Maternal Death by Coincidence is one of a series of mock documentaries about two Dutch morons in Africa. It’s unclear from the episode itself it’s part of a series.

But finding out about its format, its part in a series, does slightly change my opinion of it. Coincidence succeeds because the public service announcement bit at the very end comes as a surprise. If it’s just a feature of the episodes, it becomes too familiar and it changes the humor.

On my viewing though—if I can remember back twenty minutes before I read about the rest—it worked fine. It presents itself as being absurdity anti-Africa, only to reveal itself it’s anti-African men and pro-African women. And it sticks to its guns on that issue, which is something.

The acting’s mediocre and the runtime’s way too long. Otherwise, Coincidence is informative and amusing.

Great soundtrack too.

Kick-Ass (2010, Matthew Vaughn)

Is Kick-Ass any good? Um. That question is somewhat complicated, because there are very good things about it–Chloë Grace Moretz’s fantastic as a foulmouthed twelve-year-old version of the Punisher, with some Jackie Chan thrown in, and so is “lead” Aaron Johnson, who manages not to look like he’s lost the movie he’s top-lining to every single other cast member, whether it’s Moretz, Nic Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse (whose squinty nerd thing, identical to Superbad, is just annoying here) or Mark Strong, even though he does at one point or another in the film.

It’s never clear if the filmmakers realize the lead of the movie doesn’t even get to really end it (there’s a big scene between Johnson and girlfriend Lyndsy Fonseca missing) so they can set up the sequel or not.

But it doesn’t matter much, because Vaughn realizes the gleeful violence of Kick-Ass (not, however, when Johnson gets constantly beaten up while trying to do good)–it’s all about Cage and Moretz–is the selling point. Kick-Ass feels a little like one part Dirty Harry, one part inspiring father-daughter movie, half part Superbad and a little Spider-Man thrown in. I’m not sure if Vaughn was mimicking Raimi or unaware, but the film’s general incompetence with plotting resembles that movie quite a bit….

Cage is great, playing the impossible script straight, with his Adam West impression a real plus.

And the music–seemingly entirely lifted from other scores–is fine.

Layer Cake (2004, Matthew Vaughn)

I tried. I really did try.

It’s absurd, in a lot of ways, to even give Layer Cake any kind of chance at all. It’s one of these hipster British crime movies.

I don’t remember why I thought it might be all right–there was no empirical evidence to influence that thinking. The direction is CG aided Tarantino–well, Tarantino of the 1990s. I doubt Tarantino is as static as his emulators. He really ought to get a cut of any hipster crime movie.

What’s so crappy about Layer Cake is it pretends it’s something original. It lifts lines and scenes from Scarface–made some twenty years before–and thinks its revolutionary. And these aren’t the popular Scarface scenes, these are the drab procedural scenes–which means “The Streets of San Francisco” probably did them eight years before Scarface.

Now, I love a lot of British cinema. Well, I like a lot of it and I love some of it. A bit of it. But the lack of originality is distressing. Did every British director from 1992 on try to make something so Miramax would pick it up for U.S. distribution?

Layer Cake makes me wish Panavision had never been invented, much less popularized. Vaughn’s a pretentious director, but he’s nowhere near as atrocious as the narration.

Yes, get the author of the hipster novel to write the script of the hipster movie. It works out so well.

I loathe this film.

I loathe myself for giving it twenty minutes.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Matthew Vaughn; screenplay by J.J. Connolly, based on his novel; director of photography, Ben Davis; edited by Jon Harris; music by Lisa Gerrard and Ilan Eshkeri; production designer, Kave Quinn; produced by Adam Bohling, David Reid and Vaughan; released by Sony Pictures Classics.

Starring Daniel Craig (XXXX), Colm Meaney (Gene), Kenneth Cranham (Jimmy Price), George Harris (Morty), Jamie Foreman (The Duke), Sienna Miller (Tammy), Michael Gambon (Eddie Temple), Marcel Iureş (Slavo), Tom Hardy (Clarkie), Tamer Hassan (Terry), Ben Whishaw (Sidney), Burn Gorman (Gazza), Sally Hawkins (Slasher), Dexter Fletcher (Cody), Steve John Shepherd (Tiptoes), Louis Emerick (Trevor), Stephen Walters (Shanks), Paul Orchard (Lucky), Dragan Mićanović (Dragan), Nick Thomas-Webster (Dragan’s henchman), Nathalie Lunghi (Charlie) and Jason Flemyng (Crazy Larry).

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The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933, W.S. Van Dyke)

The Prizefighter and the Lady mixes a couple genres–the philandering husband whose wife can’t stop loving him standard and, additionally, stunt casting. Heavyweight contender Max Baer stars as a heavyweight contender, who fights the champ, played by champ Primo Carnera. Myrna Loy plays the suffering wife, while Walter Huston and Otto Kruger finish the supporting cast. There are boxing and wrestling cameos–the biggest being Jack Dempsey.

The film culminates with the fight between Baer and Carnera. Loy’s supposed to be cheering for Baer’s defeat, while Huston–Baer’s boxer is an almost unparalleled narcissist–I can’t remember a feature with a more despicable protagonist who the viewer is supposed to adore and admire–is quietly cheering his fighter on. Kruger sort of stands around, looking doe-eyed, as former love Loy can’t resist the manliness of Baer.

What’s strangest about the scene is the film’s relationship with the viewer–it certainly appears the audience is supposed to be cheering Baer win, after spending forty minutes of him acting like a complete jerk and however much time before with him acting like a moderate jerk. The film opens strong because of Huston, whose performance as a broken down, drunken boxing manager who gets another shot, is utterly fantastic. Every line Huston delivers is perfect. He’s marvelous.

The big fight isn’t even directed with an emphasis on the exhibition. Instead, the film cuts between fight shots and reactions in the crowd and among the main cast. The sequence has great sound, with the background rumble overpowering everything else. Van Dyke has some excellent shots here, but the emotional impact is obviously more important.

Except it’s not, because Baer’s a jerk. The conclusion’s even ambiguous as to the future of his philandering. Whatever lesson Baer’s supposed to have learned through the running time, whatever change he’s going to make to his life, whatever development… the film’s indifferent. He’s a hero because he’s a real-life boxer; he’s not accountable for his actions.

Van Dyke’s got some great shots and some fine moments throughout the picture. Kruger’s gangster with a heart of gold is okay–he and Loy have some good scenes together. She’s fine, if completely unbelievable in the role as it gets towards the end. Like I said before, Huston’s superb. There’s some nice work from Vince Barnett and Robert McWade. Carnera shows more charisma in his practically wordless performance than Baer does as the protagonist.

There’s a lot of filler–musical numbers, mostly, trying to obscure the lack of story. Baer isn’t terrible–he can’t emote, of course–which might have been from Howard Hawks working with him… or not (Hawks was going to direct before MGM signed Baer, then may or may not have stuck around to work with him while Van Dyke finished up a different picture). He can’t make the character likable, which makes the whole premise fail. But he could be worse….

A lot like the film itself. It could be worse–and I had to keep reminding myself of that one.

Milk (2008, Gus Van Sant)

As Milk‘s opening titles ran, it occurred to me Danny Elfman scored it. It doesn’t sound anything like Elfman’s norm–you know, the modified Batman music–but it sounded like the kind of score Danny Elfman should be doing (and should have been doing for years). Milk‘s a biopic–and always feels like one, thanks in great part to Van Sant’s reliance on contemporary news footage for storytelling. It’s a solid move, but it makes me think of Good Night, and Good Luck–which isn’t a bad thing, since Milk‘s an entry in that same genre. The dramatic, filmic biography… but not quite biography, since none of Harvey Milk’s life before the present action begins gets covered. Milk‘s Harvey Milk spends the eight years of the film’s present action becoming someone the man in the opening couldn’t have imagined. Where Milk succeeds so greatly is in the surprise–even knowing the story (or some of it, or just paying attention to the news footage at the beginning of the film), it’s impossible to forecast how the film’s Milk is going to develop.

It’s not Sean Penn’s best performance, but it’s got to be the only one of his best performances where he’s likable. He creates an almost magical character–the scenes with him giving speeches for unions or handing out a bouquet of flowers in a black barbershop–these should be unbelievable scenes (even if the real Milk did exactly the same things), but Penn makes them work. But the character is far from perfect–Van Sant could have easily approached Milk with some kind of destiny angle, but he doesn’t. Penn’s character is a human being, full of mistakes, full of regret, even if he does have a positive disposition. Penn’s played lots of protagonists–he hasn’t done anything in a long time–but in Milk, he plays a hero (his first?). No shock, he’s great at it.

Van Sant’s got an amazing supporting cast. Milk‘s got a huge cast, but the principal supporting actors–Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, Diego Luna–all standout. Hirsch and Brolin probably have an easier time (though both of them have a couple fantastic scenes), but only when I list them next to Luna, who’s got the film’s most difficult role. He plays an annoying, clingy drama queen (sorry, is there a PC term for drama queen); he’s got to irritate the viewer, cause some eye-rolling, but still be a sympathetic person. It’s a very difficult performance and, at the beginning, it doesn’t seem like Luna’s going to pull it off… but then he does.

Actually, a lot of Milk is in a similar situation. It’s always a solid motion picture, but it doesn’t skyrocket until after the halfway mark. The quiet introduction of Brolin, the deepening of Penn’s character, it all takes off. Before, Van Sant feels like he’s experimenting, trying to get the tone right. As it turns out, he is getting the tone right (presumably, it’s not an experiment, but a procedure to get the film to the right place). It’s easily Van Sant’s best film, but Dustin Lance Black’s script doesn’t hurt at all–the script’s mostly passive, but Black has a couple great approaches. Brolin’s place in the plot, for example, is great.

I haven’t mentioned James Franco yet. He deserves a better paragraph than this one will be. He’s astounding–it’s hard to imagine eight years ago I dreaded the very sight of his name–he keeps getting better as an actor. At its most successful, he and Penn make Milk.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Gus Van Sant; written by Dustin Lance Black; director of photography, Harris Savides; edited by Elliot Graham; music by Danny Elfman; production designer, Bill Groom; produced by Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen; released by Focus Features.

Starring Sean Penn (Harvey Milk), Emile Hirsch (Cleve Jones), Josh Brolin (Dan White), Diego Luna (Jack Lira), Alison Pill (Anne Kronenberg), Victor Garber (Mayor George Moscone), Denis O’Hare (John Briggs), Joseph Cross (Dick Pabich), Stephen Spinella (Rick Stokes), Lucas Grabeel (Danny Nicoletta), Brandon Boyce (Jim Rivaldo), Zvi Howard Rosenman (David Goodstein), Kelvin Yu (Michael Wong) and James Franco (Scott Smith).

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