Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)

Quite appropriately, Everything Everywhere All at Once is all the things. At once. And more. The film’s a relatively simply told multiverse comic book action-comedy-family-drama-romance-horror story with time to do a traditional hero arc, then deconstruct it. The film gives stars Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, and Ke Huy Quan constantly changing roles as we meet various versions of them from across the multiverse. Everything takes it one step further, turning the momentum of meeting alternate versions of the same character (so alternate versions of the same performer but not the same performance) into a main story arc.

Everything employs an interesting structure—three identified parts, with the first part ending on a cliffhanger and the third part more an epilogue. But there’s a three-act structure to the parts. So the stakes are entirely different in the second part than the first, even though the overall threat is the same—the multiverse is in danger, and only Yeoh can save it.

Directors Kwan and Scheinert toggle through various styles in the film. Too many to count—while there’s an infinite number of Yeohs out there, the film only really asks the viewer to remember ten. Maybe not even ten. There’s an action movie Yeoh, there’s a family drama Yeoh, there’s an absurd romantic drama Yeoh, there’s a Wong Kar-wai movie Yeoh, and then a handful of sight gag universe Yeohs. In all these other universes, Yeoh’s somehow spectacular. There’s one thing she does better than anyone else.

But Yeoh Prime’s one thing she’s better than anyone else at is being a failure. No matter what she tries, it eventually doesn’t work out. The film’s present action in the Prime universe is about Yeoh and husband Quan in trouble with the IRS—specifically relentless auditor Jamie Lee Curtis—at the same time, Yeoh has to take in her father, James Hong. Yeoh and Quan left China as rebellious young adults and came to the United States and opened a laundromat, where they never made enough money, but also never too little they gave up on it. Also, it’s Chinese New Year. Also, Hsu, as their daughter, wants to introduce girlfriend Tallie Medel to grandpa Hong as her girlfriend, and Yeoh’s not sure it’s the right time for Hsu to be herself.

As Yeoh starts universe-hopping, she’s going to see how her life changed and how it didn’t, which exposes her to insights. What’s so wild—I mean, it’s already wild, it’s a Hong Kong cinema homage kung fu family drama absurdist comedy—but what’s also so wild is how the second part is then all about Yeoh taking agency and learning from those other lives. Everything is about the story’s protagonist taking an active role in how their story progresses.

The first part has Yeoh and Quan together most of the time, with Yeoh’s relationship with Hsu providing a lot of narrative turmoil but not affecting the action. The second part flips that situation, partnering Yeoh and Hsu most of the time, but Quan’s consequentially bound to the narrative. It’s delicate and detailed, with the directors changing aspect ratios and cameras (or at least good filters) between the various different movies Yeoh finds herself in. Because it’s always a movie, and she’s just watching her life go by.

Even as Yeoh Prime begins to realize her potential, one of her splinter arcs involves the “good guys” trying to keep her in a passive role. Or at least subordinate, even as she’s discovering she can break free from all constraint. Yeoh’s got a beautiful story arc, which she performs flawlessly. After all the big comparisons between universes in the first half, the film gets more subtle in the second. By the finale, it’s practically gentle, with almost indistinguishable–but still very distinct—differences between the universes.

The film’s a technical marvel throughout, with cinematographer Larkin Seiple and editor Paul Rogers doing superlative work (in addition to outstanding work from costumes designer Shirley Kurata and production designer Jason Kisvarday). But there’s something even more special about the finale: Seiple and Rogers are no longer trying to wow with the audiovisual but lower the intensity so the performances take center stage. It’s subtle, breathtaking work.

Phenomenal performances from Yeoh, Hsu, and Quan. Curtis is great too—ditto Hong—but they’re orbiting the stars, not doing these inconceivably gigantic character arcs. Quan gets a little less to do than Yeoh and Hsu, but his presence itself is enough to inform some of Yeoh’s arc. The scenes where she and Hsu really get to act opposite each other are mesmerizing.

Everything about Everything comes together—the shifts in pacing, the sometimes over-the-top sight gags or references, not to mention Quan. While he doesn’t get the central character relationship, he does get the peripheral one, but he also gets to do a variety of other versions of the character. There’s his sexy WKW guy, there’s the action hero, there’s the concerned dad. Yeoh and Hsu give these momentous performances, but those arcs are part of the plot. Quan gets to do these different characters, and the oomph is in his performance, not the narrative momentum.

That said, it’s obviously Yeoh’s showcase.

The film’s a significant accomplishment for cast and crew. Everything’s an exhilarating, emotionally enthralling experience.

City Lights (1931, Charles Chaplin)

About halfway through City Lights, I realized most of the gags repeat. Especially when it’s Chaplin and his de facto sidekick, Harry Myers. But instead of making the bits seem rote, the repeat value just makes them funnier. There are some differences in how the jokes work, but not very much; Chaplin also lays into the repeat imagery. In the third act, it all makes sense when there’s finally a different reaction to a repeated narrative bit. The way Chaplin brings it all together is sublimely delightful.

The film opens with the most outdoor sequence in the film, with Chaplin—playing the Tramp—interfering with some city occasion. What sets it apart—besides people having audible (but distorted) voices in an otherwise silent picture. There’s diegetic sound and a musical score (by Chaplin), but all the dialogue’s in intertitles. Immediately after the opening scene, Chaplin meets beautiful blind girl flower seller Virginia Cherrill. He’s smitten with her and buys a flower—she doesn’t realize he’s a tramp; she thinks he’s a rich guy.

Luckily for the Tramp, he almost immediately makes the acquaintance of actual rich guy Myers. Well, luckily, in the big picture sense. In the immediate picture sense, Chaplin and Myers have a very disconcerting friendship (from Chaplin’s perspective, anyway). Myers is a drunk; his wife has run off to Europe and isn’t coming back. He’s a wild man when drunk, but when he sobers up, he can’t remember he’s made a new pal in Chaplin. So Chaplin keeps getting the boot.

But whenever he’s got Myers’s inebriated support, Chaplin thinks about how he can help Cherrill, which cements the idea he’s wealthy (he’s driving Myers’s Rolls Royce). Just as someone in Switzerland (maybe Fredonia) develops a cure for blindness, Cherill’s grandmother (Florence Lee) gets a letter from the landlord. Pay up or get kicked out. Tomorrow.

Will Chaplin be able to keep Myers drunk enough, long enough, to be able to hit him up for some cash? Cherill and Lee owe twenty-two dollars; Myers carries thousand dollar bills (and some hundreds, I think). So it’s not like it’d be a problem. Except whenever Myers gets the slightest bit sober, he completely forgets bestie Chaplin.

Myers’s unreliablity leads to some occasionally drastic measures for Chaplin, such as a fantastic boxing match. Chaplin fights badass Hank Mann, whose slightest slap can knock out a real boxer—so, Chaplin’s in real danger. And the third act’s pretty dark. City Lights isn’t a tragedy overall, but it’s mostly a tragedy. The opening bit doesn’t have much tragic subtext, but pretty much everything else is soaked in it. There’s a suicide attempt—with nooses around the neck are one of Chaplin’s repeat sight “gags”—there’s destructive drinking, which the Tramp pretty early on acknowledges is way too much. But he’s got to get drunk to get to be friends with Myers.

Most of the comedy set pieces in the first half involve their drunken carousing. They’re hilarious together too. Chaplin and Myers have great timing together; Myers’s performance as constantly stupefied drunk is superlative. A lot of it is Chaplin’s direction. He’s got just the right pacing for Myers to slowly realized what’s going on in the scene and then rush to get involved (making things worse). Except the Tramp’s rarely asking him for help in these scenes. It’s usually just Myers barging in. It’s always very funny.

Then the third act’s emotionally rending, as the Tramp finally seems to be on the way to a win—or at least not a loss—only to fail thanks to cruel people. It’s a lot, especially since Chaplin also breaks one of his repeat cycles to make the narrative change happen. Even with the finale involving another repeat cycle, the only way to know if the move will work is to do it. And they work beautifully both times. So good.

Chaplin’s performance is exquisite. The Tramp’s navigating hostile, turbulent waters in hanging out with Myers. Then he’s basically got a courtship arc with Cherrill, with her blindness being integral to Chaplin being able to pull off the ending.

Myers is also great. Not so much when he’s sober. He’s fine when he’s sober—like he’s doing the part, and it’s good—but when he’s drunk, he really gets to have some fun. Cherrill doesn’t get any fun. She gets small joys, usually with caveats related to her blindness (and poverty—if Cherrill had any money, the blindness wouldn’t be such a detriment to her success). But she does get a full character arc, something no one else in the film besides the Tramp is even in the picture long enough to attempt. Myers doesn’t get a character arc, for instance.

City Lights is a fantastic mix of slapstick and sincerity. Chaplin finds the heart in every situation—Myers’s alcoholism is a reaction to intense depression—without ignoring the various unjustifiable cruelties people inflict on one another.

It’s a lovely, singular motion picture.

Bride of the Incredible Hulk (1978, Kenneth Johnson)

Bride of the Incredible Hulk is just the season two two-part opener, “Married,” as a theatrical release (for overseas). But it’s also a remarkably self-contained outing for Bill Bixby (and even more so for series costar Jack Colvin, who gets a single scene). The movie opens with Bixby arriving in Hawaii to consult with preeminent psychologist Mariette Hartley. Hartley’s developed new applications for hypnosis to combat physical ailments, and Bixby thinks he can use it to keep Lou Ferrigno at bay.

Unfortunately, just as Bixby gets to Hartley’s office (some lovely California location shooting filling in for Hawaii), she’s headed onto permanent sabbatical. She’s got a fatal illness, which the audience knows about because the episode opens with the teaser, and it gives away Hartley’s condition, messing up the first act. It’s a shame the Bride version doesn’t have a release, so at least there aren’t spoilers from the “Next On.”

Bixby eventually convinces Hartley to help him, revealing his secret identity—he’s using “Benton” as his last name in this episode, but once Hartley finds out he’s David Banner, she can’t stop saying his name loudly in public. Even though Colvin’s around looking for the Hulk after he shows up, though—wisely—Colvin’s story goes entirely untold. Because Bride’s staying very busy with Hartley. The movie’s mostly her ruminating on her condition, which is similar to ALS, but director Johnson didn’t want to come up with a whole fake name for the disease. Not when Hartley is mooning over Bixby using big medical words to describe stubbed toes and so on.

If she agrees to help him with the big green guy, he’ll try to help her cure her own mitochondrial-based disease in the six to eight weeks she has left to live. She starts mooning over him after a couple of days. He reciprocates after she proves she can handle herself with his Ferrigno outbursts, including Ferrigno breaking up a luau. An incredibly problematic luau on at least two fronts. First, the cultural one—though Bride’s entirely unaware; it’s frequently racist, with one of Bixby and Hartley’s couple bits being mocking Japanese people. Then there’s third lead Meeno Peluce. He’s the little boy who lives nearby and shares a beach with Hartley. When Ferrigno breaks up the luau, everyone abandons Peluce to watch in awe. He’ll go on to emulate Ferrigno’s outbursts, which Bixby thinks is adorable and seemingly doesn’t connect the behaviors.

Given how strange it is to watch Bixby in therapy sessions with Hartley and realize he’s just got garden variety anger management issues. He tells Hartley so many flashbacks, Lara Parker should’ve gotten credit for her pilot movie footage (regardless of her not having any lines). Poor Susan Sullivan (the actual love interest from the pilot movie) is forgotten or maybe even retconned. Bixby leaves her contributions to his work out entirely when recapping the show premise for Hartley.

It’s a pretty good episode for Bixby. The racist stuff hurts his demeanor, and his pressuring Hartley to put a ring on it is very strange (and entirely unexplored). But they do have great chemistry. His stuff with trying to control Ferrigno goes completely unresolved, even in terms of episode arcs, and Johnson’s too worried about getting the thing done on budget to tie the final action sequence to Bixby mediating his way into the desert of his mind, population two: him and Ferrigno. Those “dream” sequences are visually striking. They’re somewhat inert, narratively, but they’re cool looking. Bixby gets it really bad at the end when he’s got to have a heart-to-heart with Peluce about the morale of the story, and Peluce is godawful, and Bixby just can’t make it work.

But Hartley—and her processing of her impending death—is the star. She’s fantastic. And she’s the star of Bride (and “Married,” which is a weird way to do a season opener, but it was the seventies). Even when she’s got weaker material—not just her being a racist shit but also when she daydreams Peluce is she and Bixby’s kid, instead of them both giving their lives to science and denying the only fulfilling human experience, raising a child actor.

Johnson does well with a lot of the direction. John McPherson’s photography is nice. Doesn’t match all the stock footage, but it’s nice.

Bride has problems, but it’s a damn good TV melodrama with superhero action accouterment.

The Lineup (1958, Don Siegel)

The Lineup is a spin-off of a TV series, an adaptation of a radio show. What is the difference between spin-off and adaptation? The movie has some of the same actors as the TV show, while the radio show didn’t share stars with the TV series. The movie came out before the series was even done running. It went on for a whole other season after the movie. I’m guessing the show didn’t tie into the movie’s events, but maybe there was a whole fallout episode where lead Warner Anderson tracks down whoever hired psychopathic hitmen Eli Wallach and Robert Keith.

The movie runs about eighty-six minutes—so three episodes of the show (until the final season, which went to hour-long)—but the police procedural part barely figures in once Wallach shows up. The Lineup opens with a taxi driver bumping a truck, then running over the traffic cop who tries to flag him down—before the taxi driver dies, shot through the window by another cop. There’s a lot of noise about how a passenger liner porter threw a suitcase in the cab before it raced off—without the suitcase’s owner (an incredibly game Raymond Bailey). Coppers Anderson and Emile Meyer investigate (Meyer wasn’t on the show—and didn’t join after the movie). Lots and lots of talk about the line-up; if only Bailey can identify the porter, they’ll be able to solve the case.

Except Bailey can’t identify the porter, which complicates the investigation because Anderson and Meyer found a bunch of heroin in Bailey’s suitcase. It looks like he’s just an unintentional mule for the real criminals, but they’ve got to be sure.

The entire investigation into Bailey, which involves Anderson and Meyer not just interviewing him but also having plenty of procedural scenes and consultations (including a quick appearance from series co-star Marshall Reed), has absolutely nothing to do with the movie itself. In fact, it’s never definitive Bailey wasn’t involved because we never find out anything about the original smuggling bit. Wallach and Keith are in town for a day; they’re supposed to get the heroin the bad guy—The Man—has had put into their luggage without their knowledge. Their driver was supposed to be the cabbie, who’s dead, so instead, it’s new guy Richard Jaeckel.

Wallach and Keith are vicious and cruel. Keith eggs Wallach on for most of the film, directing Wallach’s violent rage, but there’s a give and take to it. Keith wants Wallach to be an erudite hitman, just to show he’s better than their colleagues. It’s underbaked, but at least it’s personality. They’ve got three targets—a sailor, a wealthy couple, and a mother and daughter. It’s eight hours of work for the pair, and the film follows them from start to finish. The cops get lucky tracking them down, showcasing the benefits of living in a police state—when the bad men kidnap your daughter for her doll, you can thank the omnipresent, occupying police force for her rescue.

Though not in this case because, again, the investigation doesn’t have any bearing on the resolution. Even after multiple related homicides, the best they come up with is a couple of tan white guys. Sure, they’re in Frisco, but maybe somebody’s up from L.A. with a tan. And there aren’t any people of color in the movie at all, so they’re just looking for two guys. Swell detective work. When Anderson and Meyer show up for the finish, the movie doesn’t even pretend they’re interesting. Director Siegel (who also directed the first episode of “The Lineup” TV show) is having way too much fun with Wallach, Keith, and Jaeckel. And the locations. Siegel loves shooting on location, all over San Francisco, with some gorgeous sequences–great black and white photography from Hal Mohr.

The Lineup’s a solid programmer. Wallach’s great, Keith’s great. Mary LaRoche’s good as the mom. The front stuff with Anderson and Meyer drags, with the locations doing the heavy lifting, but Wallach is captivating. Keith’s transfixing, but it’s one of those “what’s the bad guy going to do next” type pictures for Wallach. Siegel really leans into it.

It never made me curious about the show, however. And the resolution’s grandiose but a little pat, narratively speaking. Stirling Silliphant gets the sole writer credit, even though it feels very Many Hands. But it’s a solid programmer.

One Touch of Venus (1948, William A. Seiter)

While One Touch of Venus only runs eighty-two minutes, it manages to do three sets of romantic arcs. It’s able to fit them all because lukewarm towel and ostensible lead Robert Walker disappears for long stretches of the movie. Sometimes Walker goes so Dick Haymes can serenade Olga San Juan; sometimes he goes so the actual A plot involving department store owner Tim Conway can take precedence. But he’s gone enough Venus shows it functions better without him, specifically when it’s focused on Ava Gardner. It takes Gardner a while to show some agency in the film—and she’s only really utilizing it to save (or seduce) Walker—but once she gets the chance, she doesn’t stop until the ship has righted for everyone involved.

Well, righted well enough for her and Walker, and San Juan disappears, which isn’t great, but Conway and Arden finish superbly.

The film begins with department store window dresser Walker setting up a Roman ruins diorama. It’s unclear it’s a diorama during the titles, which works out really well. It’s a good start. Then the film immediately sputters, introducing San Juan. She’s Walker’s girlfriend. She wants to get married. Isn’t she the absolute worst? You know who doesn’t think she’s the worst, though? Haymes. He thinks she’s great. But Walker thinks she’s the worst, but he’s on his way up to see department store owner Conway for a special assignment, so he doesn’t have time to dawdle.

Walker asks Haymes to babysit San Juan. It eventually includes San Juan and Haymes making soup in Walker’s apartment because the film—if it addressed the living situation—wasn’t forceful enough about Haymes and Walker being roommates. Also, everyone lives within two blocks of the department store.

I’m getting distracted with the more interesting second act, sorry.

Walker goes up to the boss’s, only to discover Conway just needs him to fix a pulley to smoothly reveal his latest purchase—a statue of Venus. The movie mentions some backstory to the statue, but it’s never important. It’s just to give Conway and Eve Arden something to talk about besides bickering about him being a womanizer and her being unappreciated for doing all the actual work of running his business. It’s the forties, after all. Conway and Arden are great together. They start with Conway relying on Arden, then the bickering, so it’s clear when it counts, Conway shuts up and listens.

After some middling physical comedy work, Walker kisses a statue, turning it into Gardner. She’s the actual Venus, somehow freed from the statue by her father, Jupiter. If the curse is only lifted when some guy gets too frisky with her saucy statue, I feel like it’d have been a franchise. Walker ostensibly has had a glass of champagne, and it’s gone to his head, but he and Haymes are lushes, so, no. We never find out the rules of Gardner’s human form. Walker can’t do the scenes with her. He’s initially freaked out by the transformation, then Conway sics the cops on Walker for stealing the statue, so there’s an additional layer to everything. Suffering detective James Flavin investigates.

The first act is trying to be screwball, except Walker’s an ass. It’s also a musical. Haymes and San Juan frequently go from musical interlude to musical interlude, and Gardner’s (dubbed) singing affects the libidos of all the lovers in the city. Sounds like it’d make a great montage, except we only find out about it in a dialogue aside. The film’s entirely focused on the department store and the handful of people involved, even though they have the perfect opportunity to mention it when there’s a mass making out in the park scene. The movie doesn’t establish it’s not the norm.

It’s also where director Seiter shows off his proficiency at directing the musical number. Venus is always fine. Walker’s not good at the slapstick and cruel in the screwball, but he’s not bad. He’s a twerp. And then he’s a twerp with Gardner, except she loves him unconditionally for smooching the marble. And he’s not interested in Gardner because he’s got a girl already—San Juan, who he doesn’t want anything to do with when they’re in scenes together. Until—about halfway through the second act—he just falls for Gardner, even though she’s been super seductive, even though Conway’s met her for a minute and is also pursuing her. Walker’s characterization—script and performance—fizzle their potential—and necessary–chemistry.

So it’s a good thing once Gardner gets going on her own, everyone gets along beautifully. It even works in musical numbers (where Gardner’s not actually singing). She has one with San Juan and Arden—it’s a trio number about looking good for your man or something while making him dinner—and (again, thanks to the musical staging) it kind of just works. There ought to be a bunch of subtexts, except the movie can’t get too into the details of San Juan and Walker’s relationship (or he and Gardner’s).

Everyone, even Walker, to some degree, is appealing. By the end of the picture, his pursuit of Gardner in their romantic comedy is enthusiastic enough—and there’s enough distance between them—it’s compelling. But Gardner’s best with Conway and Arden. Arden gets fourth billing (presumably below Haymes because he’s singing more), but she walks off with the movie in the first act. In the second act, she makes a bunch of jokes at the expense of her own appearance (what with a goddess like Gardner around), and it’s not great, but the film then gives Arden a great third act. Based on her girl powering with Gardner. So it all works out.

Much of the tepid romantic subplot elements could be a result of the Code; Venus is a Broadway adaptation; they could get away with more on stage than they could on screen.

Conway’s awesome. He’s sixth billed, but since Walker disappears, Conway’s the de facto main love interest for the third act. It’s a brisk, assured transition; once Gardner’s in charge, Venus finds the confidence it’d been missing from the start.

Lovely photography from Franz Planer, okay enough songs—the singing’s better than the songs but okay enough—competent, assured, meat and potatoes direction from Seiter. Fabulous gowns for Gardner by Orry-Kelly—it’s glamorous without being too glamorous, with a bit of Code-acceptable and barely problematic cheesecake thrown in. Arden image-shaming herself is much worse stuff.

Gardner saves Venus from a mediocre start. Conway and Arden make a big difference too, but it’s all about Gardner.

This post is part of the Sixth Broadway Bound Blogathon hosted by Rebecca of Taking Up Room.

Wild Life (2023, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin)

Wild Life has a “what if Douglas Sirk did an epic filmed over multiple years” feel to it. And Wild Life, though the film never acknowledges it, was filmed over multiple years. And not by directors Vasarhelyi and Chin. The subject of the film—Douglas Tompkins (the lead is his widow, Kris Tompkins, but it’s all about him)—made a movie about being a mountaineering adventurer. So they use a bunch of the footage in Life, but never mention Tompkins’s interest in being the Carl Denham of extreme sports.

It’s a strange omission, though, as maybe not because Wild Life’s filmmakers are so disinterested in filmmaking they use an oil painting filter on Tompkins’s death scene recreation to make it look classy. But all of Life has some weird omissions.

First, it’s a single-sided commercial for Tompkins’s work, which is really easy because they seem pretty great for rich people? They’re conservationists who protected a bunch of land; they did do it in Chile, which might complicate things. But these are likable—albeit exceptionally wealthy—folks.

So, when Douglas Tompkins got divorced, he had a bunch of money because he co-founded Espirit with his ex-wife—the film sets him up like the fashion Steve Jobs for ten minutes, then completely forgets it. It’s a Sirk melodrama, just a really upbeat one about good-looking blue-blood boomers saving South America from the South Americans through their love of skiing, hiking, and surfing. It’s privileged (and knows it enough it avoid mentioning high school dropout Douglas Tompkins was dropping out from prep schools) and colonial. But since the people are right, does it matter?

I mean, it doesn’t matter to Vasarhelyi and Chin. They obfuscate the entire movie, opening with Douglas Tompkins’s death but waiting until the end to reveal its dramatic potential. They also do these really cheesy diary-writing sequences with Kris Tompkins. For all the Wild, the film always feels controlled, like there’s a thumb always holding it in place.

It also does a bad job balancing the movie adaptation-ready relationship between the Tompkins with Kris Tompkins continuing the work after her husband’s death. They’d been partners, but buying up Chilean wilderness to donate to the country (as protected national parkland), was Douglas Tompkins’s idea. The movie’s got this frame about Kris Tompkins climbing the highest mountain in their parks, which her husband named after her, but it’s completely unimportant. Except to show how white saviors boomers still get it done. But for the film? Nothing. Good shots of everyone pensive on peaks.

Because Wild Life’s a commercial. Just say it, though.

It’s an incredibly manipulative commercial too. I’m fascinated with how they edited footage. They’ve got someone weeping but then someone else sitting in front of the person consoling that person, making the consoling person anonymous. Did Vasarhelyi and Chin film a funeral making sure to block out the people who didn’t sign waivers? Did they do an Eyes Wide Shut composite? Wild Life’s a lionizing bit of propaganda, arguably less impressive than a Wikipedia article, but the construction’s intriguing.

Great editing from Bob Eisenhardt and Adam Kurnitz. The cutting is so good—and the integration of the uncredited footage is so impressive—they get a pass on the silly filters the film uses at times–even oil-painted tragedies.

Director Chin’s also got a photography credit—he’s also a character in the picture, never mentioning he was making the movie at the time—along with Clair Popkin, and the footage is absolutely stunning. There’s nowhere near enough of it, but it is gorgeous.

When in Chile, visit the Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park. There, saved you ninety minutes.

Wait, wait, wait. I’m not forgetting these bits. Sorry.

The film’s real bad at portraying how Chileans feel about the Tompkins’s work. Everyone in the film is pro—one guy says the way they acted before was nationally embarrassing—and the ex-president, Michelle Bachelet, might be the only time the movie passes Bechdel (emphasis on the might; everyone else definitely fails). But then Life keeps subtitling Chileans speaking English because their accents are… too accent-y? It’s condescending. Then when Kris Tompkins dedicates something to all the Chilean staff, she mentions her husband (deceased) and someone else. The someone else gets all the cheers from the audience.

So, little weird.

But, depending on the cast, I’d probably watch the mini-series. Douglas and Kris Tompkins are absurdly photogenic, which Douglas seems to have leveraged his entire careers, so it’ll be a difficult casting.

Actually, no, wait. Sam Rockwell and Sarah Paulson.

Spider-Man: Night of the Clones and Escort to Danger (1978, Fernando Lamas and Dennis Donnelly)

Night of the Clones and Escort to Danger is a strange way to watch a couple episodes of “The Amazing Spider-Man.” Without anywhere near enough episodes for syndication, the show’s producers packaged a couple episodes together so they would have TV movies for syndication. Well, TV movie length, anyway. Some of these duets would come with newly shot footage to tie the episodes together; not so for Clones and Escort. One episode ends, the next begins. Seemingly the next day?

Night ends at a costume ball for the not-Nobel Prize committee; Danger begins with Robert F. Simon chastising Nicholas Hammond for spending the whole night at a party with a glamorous movie star and not getting any pictures. The unseen and in the compilation seems potentially more interesting than the rest of it. In addition to no connective tissue between the first and second halves of Clones and Escort, there’s also no character development. In the first half, Simon is mentoring Hammond. In the second half, Simon is pissed at Hammond (presumably about the movie star thing, but there’s lots more as the episode—sorry, half—progresses). Cop Michael Pataki is down on Hammond the first half, then turns around and defends him twice in the second. But it also ends up being a not-bad way to watch “Spider-Man,” if only because you can see things improving.

In particular, whiny know-it-all Hammond becomes far more likable in the second half. The first half has him puppy-dogging around mad scientist Lloyd Bochner, who’s perfected cloning and gets to play two parts. Bochner’s evil clone taking over happens pretty early on, so it’s hard to know how Bochner would be as the “good” guy. He’s occasionally camping as the villain, but he’s got his moments. He’s particularly terrifying when the Mr. Hyde version targets Morgan Fairchild, who grew up with Bochner Prime as a surrogate father.

Fairchild’s atrocious. Almost comically. She gets through the part—and the writing (script credit to John W. Bloch is terrible)—but she’s really bad. It’s a complicated bad too. First, she’s playing Karl Swenson’s granddaughter and the de facto event coordinator for the not-Nobel Committee. They’ve looked Bochner over for five years because they thought his cloning experiments would end with him cloning an evil version of himself. The evil Bochner is going to kill them all in retribution, including Fairchild. It’s unclear. Once Bochner attacks her and locks her and Spider-Man in an abandoned building’s still-working bank vault, we get much less of his perspective.

At least until he clones himself another Hammond, who hates regular Hammond, which is hilarious, and makes Hammond more sympathetic, carrying over to the second episode. But Hammond’s also sympathetic because Fairchild—after being saved by Spider-Man—capes for Bochner, even as the police investigate. She’s sure it’s all a misunderstanding, and Spider-Man… chased her into the vault. It’s a nonsensical part with lousy writing. There’s nothing Fairchild could do. But she’s still pretty bad.

In fact, her dialogue seems to be written for someone with a Swedish accent. It’s so strange.

Or maybe it’s just worse than it seems.

Danger is all about Hammond getting involved with a South American dissident BarBara Luna’s attempt to avenge herself (and her recently deceased displaced despot brother) on the new democratic president, played by Alejandro Rey. Rey’s in New York because his Stanford coed daughter (Madeleine Stowe) wants to be the next Miss Galaxy. Luna wants their country—Tavilia—to return to a dictatorship under her rule and has hired infamous international assassin Oddjob (no, really, it’s Harold Sakata, and he’s got a hat thing going) to kidnap Stowe to force Rey to abdicate. Not sure it’s how transfers of power work, but it does turn out no one really knows how those work.

“Spider-Man” aged well thanks to the world being so much stupider than anyone thought back in the late seventies.

Anyway.

Can Hammond save Stowe in time? It makes for a decent enough episode—with a phenomenal car chase (the stunt drivers)–primarily thanks to the cast. Rey’s not good, but he’s earnest and sympathetic. Ditto Stowe (who somehow gets even less to do than Fairchild). And Pataki’s fun. Sakata and sidekick assassin Bob Minor aren’t great (Minor’s better than Sakata), but it’s fine. It’s a “Spider-Man” show; it’s fine. And Hammond’s likable. After seeing him get shit for trying to save Fairchild’s life (and never getting thanked), having him get positive reinforcement ain’t bad.

Plus, Chip Fields gets more to do in the second half. She’s in the first episode a little—sort of taking over Fairchild’s screen time for the conclusion (Fairchild seems miserable in the episode, and her negative chemistry with Hammond is awkward to watch)—but then in the second, she and Hammond get to do hijinks. She’s Simon’s assistant, and outside some “I get to give him sass because affirmative action” framing, she’s a delight. And she’s fun with Hammond.

I’m curious to see how these compilations work when the second episode isn’t such a noticeable improvement, making for a bullish viewing experience, but Clones and Escort is way more successful than it ought to be. Especially since the show reused footage between the episodes (the not-Nobel hotel is the same as Rey’s hotel, with no one remembering they’d been there yesterday for another episode). Lots of reused Spider-Man stunt footage too. Lots. And editors John A. Barton and Thomas Fries—despite that fantastic car chase—are lost with fight scenes. They misapply good ideas. It’s very frustrating.

But, by the end of a very eventful week for Hammond, it’s not bad.

Oh, also—Irene Tedrow as Aunt May (there was an Uncle Max in CBS’s Marvel Television Universe, but no mention of Uncle Ben, foreshadowing the MCU, no doubt). Tedrow’s replacing Jeff Donnell from the pilot movie, and, well, imagining growing up with Tedrow… Hammond’s whiny, know-it-all persona makes sense. So, bad, but only from a particular point of view.

Kind of like the rest of it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959, Ranald MacDougall)

The World, the Flesh and the Devil is one of those rare films where even the opening titles are spoilers. Devil is an end-of-the-world picture, all about coal miner Harry Belafonte emerging from a cave-in to discover he’s the last man alive. Except we’ve had the titles, so we know we’re also watching a movie with Inger Stevens and Mel Ferrer. They really should’ve asked SAG for an exception. Or filled the picture with cameos, like Belafonte watches a very special clip from “Bonanza,” and they can get some more names in the credits.

The first act is all Belafonte, starting with the cave-in drama. Devil only runs ninety-five minutes, but they could’ve gotten another four good minutes in montage of Belafonte waiting to be rescued especially since he appears to run out of food at some point. On the other hand, it might’ve just been another Belafonte singing sequence, so maybe not. Director MacDougall often does quite well within constraints—and his suspense finale is spectacular—but he can’t figure out a way to shoehorn in Belafonte’s singing. The sequences are usually charming—Belafonte’s a great lead when he’s the lead—but they’re practically commercial breaks. They could be commercial breaks. He could sing jingles.

What I’m saying is apparently World, the Flesh and the Devil didn’t have enough corporate or brand synergy in 1959, and they should remake it as an ongoing streaming series with integrated commercials and so on.

Or not.

Anyway.

Belafonte comes out of the mine to discover everyone’s gone. He was in the mine five days. The bad guys poisoned the atmosphere, and the nuclear war-obsessed populace all went into their shelters. They came out on the second day. And all got poisoned and evaporated (there’s nary a corpse in Devil, something they really should have addressed). If you stayed in until five days, you survived. Presumably. We never find out Ferrer’s story. Devil tries to be a human drama in a sci-fi setting without much sci-fi, but MacDougall’s approach is to entirely avoid the subject, even when there’s pronounced details. So the film—and its characters—need to pretend they’re not sitting right on the table.

When you’re the last man on Earth, there’s only one place to go: New York City. It makes sense from a movie perspective—Belafonte running through the city’s empty streets provides many a striking visual—but we never find out why Belafonte’s going there. Is he from there? Family? Doesn’t matter. He finds a nice apartment building and some transport and starts setting up the new world, complete with a radio transmitter to broadcast to other survivors.

Like Stevens, who enters the picture in the second act, which is when Devil becomes a very strange race drama. The film was banned in the South, but it certainly seems like the distributors were still hopeful. Stevens and Belafonte are the last people alive. She likes him, likes him, but she’s a young white woman, and he’s a Black man. White supremacy might not exist right now, but add another white person, and it will. Some of it is subtext—Belafonte never really gets to talk about what he’s saying, and Stevens always seems super ignorant—but there are some honest moments in their burgeoning relationship.

And they’re both incredibly sympathetic and likable.

So when Ferrer arrives—the harbinger of the third act—and all of a sudden, there is another white person, and it’s a white man, it’s clear the film’s headed towards some kind of conclusion. It just takes the movie forever to get there, as Ferrer and Belafonte keep avoiding the potential for conflict and instead mope around. Belafonte mopes productively, saving relics of the old world like books and paintings—it’s not even a subplot, just something for Belafonte to be doing as he exits scenes with Ferrer and Stevens. Meanwhile, Ferrer keeps telling Stevens the clock is ticking on when he cares whether or not she’s at all enthusiastic about her consent.

The third act’s suspense finale on the rooftops of New York City almost saves Devil. The movie cops out, but the sequence itself is superb. It’s also where the film’s always admirable, but only sometimes successful matte paintings shine, and editor Harold F. Kress doesn’t have any bad cuts. Devil usually looks fine or better—Harold J. Marzorati’s black and white photography is solid—but either MacDougall didn’t get enough coverage, or Kress’s got no cutting rhythm because sometimes the editing is way too jumpy.

The Miklós Rózsa could be better at times, but it’s not like it breaks anything.

Belafonte’s always good; Stevens’s is usually good (in a tricky role; while she doesn’t consciously acknowledge white supremacy, she does realize she doesn’t like the patriarchy much), and Ferrer’s solid… enough. Ferrer’s successful as far as the part goes, but there’s nothing else to it. The part’s got more subtext than Belafonte’s or Stevens’s, so Ferrer doesn’t have to flex. And he doesn’t.

Devil’s okay. It’s trying too hard to be milquetoast, but it’s far from a failure.

The Zero Theorem (2013, Terry Gilliam)

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

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

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

The movie’s layers of pointless stacked.

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

It’s not, but nearly.

And better than anyone else.

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

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

She’s also awful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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