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As Good as It Gets (1997, James L. Brooks)
As I recall, there were lots of production issues with As Good as It Gets, specifically in terms of boosting Cuba Gooding Jr.’s role (after winning his Oscar) and maybe shortening Skeet Ulrich’s. It all shows, as does the uneasy rewrite Brooks did of Mark Andrus’s script. I have no idea what Andrus’s original script read like, but the filmed version is a confused mess. A lot of As Good as It Gets feels like the filmmakers grafted the Helen Hunt character and plot on to the Jack Nicholson, Greg Kinnear, and cute dog plot–especially given how there’s a natural flow to that plot, but not a natural one to the romance. The final scenes with Kinnear and Nicholson play really well, while the final scene with Nicholson and Hunt plays like a romantic comedy unsure how to finish and doing the best it can.
The problem with As Good as It Gets–one encompassing the script problems too–is the lack of atmosphere. It’s competently directed, but artlessly made (John Bailey’s photography is dull and Hans Zimmer’s score is trying for cute). A lot of it filmed in California–sitting in for New York–and while it doesn’t quite show, the tone is wrong. It feels like a sitcom, especially in the first hour with the scenes at the restaurant. It’s as real as an episode of “Friends” and a lot of the pseudo-quirky casting lends itself to that tone–Jamie Kennedy in a practically dialogue-less role, Harold Ramis popping in (even if Ramis is really funny). And the lack of weight to Hunt’s kid’s medical problems. Seven and a half years of dire medical problems get wiped away in order to make for an easy movie. The lack of any real medical reasoning for Nicholson’s condition (he’s a bigot, where’s he get the pill to fix that one?). The absence of resolution to Kinnear’s assault… As Good as It Gets wipes them all away.
The (very) general filmmaking competence and good performances carry it. Gooding is a lot of fun and any additional scenes for him are welcome. Ulrich is awful, but he’s barely there. The Oscar-winners… well, neither of them deserved them, especially not Hunt. She’s fine, but all of her acting tricks are the same she used on “Mad About You.” And her sometimes implied Brooklyn accent is mistake. Nicholson’s good, but it’s kind of pointless. It’s not an ambitious performance for him–and the scene where he talks about playing the piano, bringing up Five Easy Pieces, just reminds he should have been doing something much better. Then there’s the one who didn’t win, Kinnear, who certainly deserved it. Kinnear’s performance is fantastic, as he brings this cookie cutter character to a real level. Only Kinnear manages to convince he’s not a sitcom character.
Given James L. Brooks’s pedigree, As Good as It Gets ought to be a lot better. But it’s amiable and well-paced for two hours plus and occasionally real funny. And a lot of the acting makes it worthwhile… but it’s a shame about Brooks.
★★CREDITS
Directed by James L. Brooks; screenplay by Mark Andrus and Brooks, based on a story by Andrus; director of photography, John Bailey; edited by Richard Marks; music by Hans Zimmer; production designer, Bill Brzeski; produced by Bridget Johnson, Kristi Zea and Brooks; released by Tri-Star Pictures.
Starring Jack Nicholson (Melvin Udall), Helen Hunt (Carol Connelly), Greg Kinnear (Simon Bishop), Cuba Gooding Jr. (Frank Sachs), Skeet Ulrich (Vincent), Shirley Knight (Beverly), Yeardley Smith (Jackie) and Lupe Ontiveros (Nora).
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Invincible Enforcer (1979, Cheng Gang)
Even with rats doing cute tricks–and maybe because of it–Invincible Enforcer is an unwatchable piece of… of something. I’m not even sure the correct noun. It’s my first or second attempt at a Shaw Brothers production and what’s really amazing about it is the editing. It’s got all the fast edits of a modern Hollywood crap-fest, except the director only has three kinds of shots–besides inserts, which I’ll get to in a second. Either Cheng pans and zooms, zooms and pans, or pans and zooms and pans again. Unless he’s doing some of those inserts, which don’t have the actors in the same position or expression. In fact, there’s one where the actor has grown a beard during a scene. I thought I was wrong, until he grew a five o’clock shadow in a subsequent one.
The music is intense and expressive and goofy, much like the writing. Oddly, for a movie featuring a super-intelligent Disney rat–smart enough to grab on to the bottom of a bucket when the villain is on to him–the subject matter isn’t at all funny. Invincible Enforcer is about prison abuses. The main character, played by Tony Liu (in an exceptionally indistinct performance, he practically fades into the background), is the only innocent man in a prison of scoundrels. He’s up against the cell block boss and a corrupt guard and every inmate, the only person on his side is the pretty young probation officer. The acting is uniformly awful, but not just because of the bad actors–the filmmakers seem to have casted for caricature.
The only possibly interesting element is the inclusion of foreign nationals as being complicit with the human rights violations going on in the prisons. I can understand the white dude–I mean, Hong Kong was a British protectorate and all–but the Sikh? Even the film’s attempt at being gritty–goofy, over-produced gross out violence (and not even bloody violence, just lots of spitting up)–is an abject misfire. All I could think, as the film started and I watched somewhat incredulous at the ardent incompetence in filmmaking–it’s like a live action “Looney Tunes”–was I understand why people rallied around John Woo back in the late 1980s. If these films were the examples of Hong Kong cinema, Woo would be some kind of an improvement.
As for the cute scenes with the rats… yep, the rats are cute, but… come on. A serious drama about prison abuses (the movie cops out, blaming it all on one guard–who was a collaborator with the Japanese during World War II no less) with a Disney rat. If the movie had any credibility at that point (it didn’t), it wouldn’t just be shot… it’d be flushed away.*
* That one was too much, wasn’t it?
ⓏⒺⓇⓄCREDITS
Directed by Cheng Gang; written by Hsin Han Pai; director of photography, Peter Ao; edited by Chiang Hsing-lung and Fang Pao Hua; music by Eddie Wang; produced by Mona Fong; released by Shaw Brothers.
Starring Tony Liu (Jiang Chai), Fanny Fen-ni (Probation Officer Lin), Wang Lung (Brother Meng Tian Long), Chen Kuan Tai (Min) and Helen Poon (Xia Lin).
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Count Dracula (1977, Philip Saville)
The biggest problems with Count Dracula are completely unrelated. First, the obvious–the source material. Bram Stoker’s novel is, apparently, unadaptable. To date, no film version has been successful. The problem lies with Stoker’s plotting. After the compelling opening with Dracula in Transylvania, his subsequent disappearance leaves the reader or viewer with a bunch of rubes. Many of the characters are unlikable, not because they’re bad people, but because Stoker did such a bad job creating them. For example, in this version, Harker–played to mediocrity (sort of appropriate for the character) by Bosco Hogan–is immediately unsympathetic. He’s a rube. Richard Barnes plays the Texan and is awful. Susan Penhaligon and Judi Bowker play the damsels in distress to some success, but when Penhaligon needs to go nuts, she’s silly looking. On the other hand, for the first two acts, Bowker is unsensational, only to get good at the end.
I’ve left a few characters and actors out because the rest are pretty good. Frank Finlay is a fantastic Abraham van Helsing and the script’s flourishes for his character are nice (Francis Ford Coppola has apparently seen this version). Mark Burns is fine as the other doctor. He and Finlay have a good chemistry. But Jack Shepherd brings some–as far as I can remember, totally unseen before–humanity to crazy Renfield. Shepherd’s really the most exciting one to watch, because his performance isn’t as flashy as Finlay’s and has to work on less pronounced level. As Dracula, Louis Jordan has his good scenes and his bad. A lot of the problems aren’t his fault, but the director’s. The scene with Jordan and Van Helsing is quite good, but the third act scenes are when Dracula is at its best.
The problem–the other problem–with Count Dracula is the production. When he’s shooting on film, Philip Saville creates an atmospheric, haunting film (even if the music is always a little too much). Except most of Count Dracula is shot on video–nearly every indoor scene, on set, is shot on video–and Saville is not a good video director. Well, given he shot the film in 1977, it’s possible no one was a good video director yet. But he’s a bad one. All of the indoor scenes are obvious, all the compositions uninspired. It’s a shame, because otherwise, this version is the finest adaptation of the novel I’ve seen. It just follows too close to the novel and so there’s a boring midsection, one where some plot liberties could have made things a lot more interesting.
Still, even at a long two and a half hours, Count Dracula is worth at least one viewing–both for the acting and the generally competent storytelling.
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Boys Town (1938, Norman Taurog)
I can’t figure out–past being an inspiring melodrama–if the filmmakers were trying for anything with Boys Town. The question of its success as that inspiring melodrama is easily answered… it fails. The first act of the film deals with Spencer Tracy trying to get Boys Town, starting just as a home, started. It works pretty well, especially since there’s the heavily comedic interplay between Tracy and grudging benefactor Henry Hull. The Tracy and Hull relationship keeps up throughout the movie, which is nice, since Hull’s occasional presence in the late second act makes a lot of difference.
The problems start with the arrival of Mickey Rooney. It isn’t just Rooney, whose performance is affected and exaggerated (at times, it seems like he inspired Jack Nicholson’s Joker performance), but the present action’s lapse as well. An indeterminate period of time passes from the first act to the second and after the public service tour of Boys Town, the movie centers itself entirely around Rooney. Oh, there are some scenes with Tracy in there, worrying about the finances (which would have made a far more interesting story), but mostly Tracy’s just around to try to reform Rooney.
There’s also a significant problem with neon foreshadowing. When Edward Norris shows up what ought to be a brief presence, it’s very clear he’ll be important later on, so there’s nothing to do but wait for him to come back (and he does in an exceptionally contrived manner). Or precious Boys Town mascot Bobs Watson… he’s destined, from his second or third scene, to end up in a hospital bed for something.
A lot of the cheap storytelling undoes some fine acting. Tracy’s excellent, of course, though after a while, there’s nothing for him to do. Norris is good in his part and a number of the kids are good, particularly Frankie Thomas and Sidney Miller. There are no credited female performers (though some nuns eventually show up–another of the movie’s problems, establishing just how Boys Town actually runs) and their absence is felt.
Norman Taurog brings little in way of direction, but it doesn’t matter if he did, since editing miscreant Elmo Veron cut the film. Veron does an awful job, one so bad–even given Boys Town‘s other problems with artifice–he brings the production down a notch.
At some point in the film’s production timeline, it might have been a good idea (unless it was always just supposed to be a vehicle for Rooney) in addition to a well-intentioned one. But as it is, Boys Town is a failure. It misses telling the story it should and it doesn’t do a good job of telling the one it has (and shouldn’t bother telling).
★½CREDITS
Directed by Norman Taurog; screenplay by John Meehan and Dore Schary, from a story by Schary and Eleanore Griffin; director of photography, Sidney Wagner; edited by Elmo Veron; music by Edward Ward; produced by John W. Considine Jr.; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Starring Spencer Tracy (Father Flanagan), Mickey Rooney (Whitey Marsh), Henry Hull (Dave Morris), Leslie Fenton (Dan Farrow), Gene Reynolds (Tony Ponessa), Edward Norris (Joe Marsh), Addison Richards (The Judge), Minor Watson (The Bishop), Jonathan Hale (John Hargraves), Bobs Watson (Pee Wee), Martin Spellman (Skinny), Mickey Rentschler (Tommy Anderson), Frankie Thomas (Freddie Fuller), Jimmy Butler (Paul Ferguson), Sidney Miller (Mo Kahn), Robert Emmett Keane (Burton) and Victor Kilian (The Sheriff).
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Nobody’s the Greatest (1975, Damiano Damiani)
According to Wikipedia, Sergio Leone was so unhappy with Nobody’s the Greatest, he had his name taken off. He directed the first scene, which is a standard Leone Western opener and is quite good, he co-produced and he came up with the story. The movie’s a tedious, at times painful attempt at comedy–Terence Hill smiles a lot and is quite affable, but the script’s just terrible. The plotting is bad, the resolution makes no sense… I’m not sure if the dialogue is bad in just the English language version or in every language too, but it’s awful.
The biggest problem, besides a genuine lack of scope–director Damiani manages to make Monument Valley look like rear screen projection–is the dubbing on the English version. The goofy voices Leone usually reserved for one or two comic roles in his films are now the leads. So it might be difficult to say Robert Charlebois and Patrick McGoohan are both terrible, given a great deal of the terribleness comes from their voices, but it’s probably a safe bet they are in any language.
The majority of the film, though boring, is never awful. Ennio Morricone’s score is silly and playful, qualities one doesn’t usually associate with him. And there is a nice bit, at the beginning, with Klaus Kinski. The conclusion to that sequence, actually, is where the film starts to tumble. It falls apart more rapidly at the end, when the red herrings and double-crosses dissolve and the viewer is left without any resolution to the story. The ending makes little sense, but, by that time, it’s such a relief to have the movie end, it doesn’t matter.
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