Tag: Annette Bening

Richard III (1995, Richard Loncraine)

Richard III takes place in an alternate history where the British are five hundred years late with their royal wars, but still in the 1940s for technology and rising fascism. The film doesn’t update Shakespeare’s dialogue, so it’s the cast performing while dressed—increasingly—as Nazis. Except they’re British.

Well, not Annette Bening or Robert Downey Jr. Bening and Downey don’t do accents, implying there’s an accent-free United States out there. The people they’re playing in the play (who are people from history) were not American. There wasn’t a United States when the events took place. So I thought there might be some subtext to them being American. Nope. Richard III doesn’t do subtext, but it especially doesn’t do it with Bening and Downey.

Bening is not good, but she tries. Downey’s terrible. It’s unclear how hard he’s trying. He performatively fidgets in the backgrounds occasionally, presumably to keep himself in the movie, since it doesn’t do anything for his character development. Bening tries with the character development.

Doesn’t go anywhere, but again, she does try. And there are hints of better scenes. For example, in the second half of the film, when Ian McKellen is taking over, Bening gets together with the other women for an establishing shot and then a cutaway, but presumably, they’re very upset.

No one in the movie gets a good part except McKellen, but it’s not like Richard doesn’t fail him too. The first act’s dynamite, with McKellen plotting against brothers John Wood and Nigel Hawthorne and forcing the audience to conspire with him. They handle the plays asides with McKellen directly addressing the camera, tickled pink with his plotting. This device almost entirely disappears by the finish, apparently an appropriate adaptation of the source play.

But it’s not a good adaptation of it.

Similarly, no one really thought through the third act’s visual clashes—attempted usurper Dominic West (not good, not too bad) is dressed as a British commando from a WWII movie, complete with beret, off to fight… the British Nazis. Director Loncraine is initially bad at the war action but gets much worse for the finale. Richard III coasts through most of its run time on McKellen, trying to keep ahead of the film being entirely out of steam. It seems like it’ll make it; then comes the battle finish and Loncraine’s terrible work on it.

The film has big visual problems throughout, but Loncraine at least seemed to be trying to do something. Unfortunately, the finish is a smorgasbord of thoughtless bad.

Other than McKellen, who’s great when the film lets him be, the best performances are Kristin Scott Thomas (who should’ve had Bening’s part for sure) and Maggie Smith. Smith’s got about three scenes and seven lines. Scott Thomas has about double. Nowhere near enough for either.

Jim Broadbent plays McKellen’s chief sidekick and is relatively bland and obvious. It should be a better performance. There are excellent supporting players like Wood and Hawthorne, but also Jim Carter, Bill Paterson, Tim McInnerny, and Edward Hardwicke. All the actors are game (well, not Downey); it’s just Loncraine and company doesn’t put it together.

Peter Biziou’s photography is okay. Not the occasional composite shots. But Paul Green’s editing is jerky, and then Trevor Jones’s smooth jazz score is a (bad) choice.

Also, real quick—they reuse the same slamming door sound for about three minutes straight, regardless of door, and I’m wondering if it sounds so familiar because it’s from DOOM or something. DOORSLAM.WAV.

Anyway.

Richard III’s a slightly interesting but quickly pointless staging of the play. It’s never stagy, I suppose, but whatever they do instead doesn’t work either. McKellen’s first-act performance is singular, though. The rest is okay to good, but he has a unique first act.

Open Range (2003, Kevin Costner)

Because I’m a cynic, I have to point out the following–in order to revive the Western, that most American of genres (sort of), Costner had to film Open Range in Canada.

It’s hard to think of a more traditional Western than Open Range. But the way Costner films it, it’s nouveau-Technicolor–the sky impossibly blue, the prairie impossibly green. There’s a subtle thread running through Range about progress and participating in it and not participating in it… but the film’s not about that collision.

Instead, it’s a straightforward Western–some drama, some action, some comedy. There’s even Costner putting in an unexpected Waterworld reference, as Michael Jeter swings around.

Most of the film takes place over a day and a half. It’s not real time, but there’s a deliberate pace and Costner’s able to keep every plot development significant. It makes the film speed through its two hours and twenty minutes. The first act, with this delicate introduction to Costner, Robert Duvall, Diego Luna and Abraham Benrubi, is exceptional filmic storytelling.

The acting’s all great. Costner and Annette Bening have their gentle romance–the most un-Western thing about the film is Costner casting someone his age as his love interest. Then there’s Costner and Duvall’s friendship–these two awkward, asocial men bonding–it’s all very thoughtful and very special. Luna’s good as their sidekick.

Plus, James Russo is fantastic as the corrupt marshal.

Open Range is a quietly spectacular film; it’s tragic Costner’s not recognized for it.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Kevin Costner; screenplay by Craig Storper, based on a novel by Lauran Paine; director of photography, J. Michael Muro; edited by Michael J. Duthie and Miklos Wright; music by Michael Kamen; production designer, Gae S. Buckley; produced by David Valdes, Costner and Jake Eberts; released by Touchstone Pictures.

Starring Robert Duvall (Boss Spearman), Kevin Costner (Charley Waite), Annette Bening (Sue Barlow), Michael Gambon (Denton Baxter), Michael Jeter (Percy), Diego Luna (Button), James Russo (Sheriff Poole), Abraham Benrubi (Mose), Dean McDermott (Doc Barlow) and Kim Coates (Butler).

RELATED

Mars Attacks! (1996, Tim Burton)

I remember seeing Mars Attacks! in the theater–in those days, the pre-Sleepy Hollow days, I was quite the Tim Burton aficionado. That affection has changed (changed is the polite word) in the last fourteen years, but Mars Attacks! has just gotten better and better on each viewing. At present, it’s my vote for Burton’s most accomplished film (Ed Wood being the other contender).

In fact, it’s almost unbelievable Burton made the film–during the war room sequences, one could feel Strangelove, something I don’t think of with Burton, and his handling of the cast is magnificent. In a lot of ways, Burton does here what Soderbergh tries to do with his populist films and can’t achieve fully–Burton makes a great time, but for himself. The film’s completely indifferent to its potential audience (something I sort of remember from the response when it came out) and just… enraptured with itself.

The Martians don’t show up for at least a half hour–it might be forty minutes–so the cast is instead given the opportunity to create these fantastic characters who may or may not matter later on. I think only Danny DeVito really gets to define himself after the invasion begins.

Everyone in the film is fantastic (I always forget Natalie Portman used to be good), but standouts are Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening… oh, wait, I’m just listing the cast.

Jim Brown’s really good.

Burton’s direction–his first Panavision, I think–is singular.

Simply put, it’s awesome.

Bugsy (1991, Barry Levinson), the extended cut

It’s amazing what can be done with cinematography and makeup. In Bugsy, specially lighted and caked with makeup, fifty-something Warren Beatty can play late thirties something Ben Siegel, albeit specially lighted and caked in makeup. The lighting is incredibly distracting, particularly in the scenes where Beatty is the only one getting the attempt at age-defying light. It gives the film a bright orange hue and it really doesn’t need any further attention drawn to Levinson’s almost indifference to its place as a period piece. There’s no texture to Bugsy‘s early 1940s Hollywood. It seems like there should be–had the film been shot on sound stages, it would have added a lot.

The problems are pretty simple. It’s boring and unrewarding. Not in the conclusion, but minute-to-minute. Bugsy is about someone who’s a little nuts and his romance with someone who’s either a little nuts, a lot stupid or deceptive and manipulative. The pair–Beatty and Annette Bening–do not make for a charismatic pair. Bening is mediocre at best. Beatty’s best scenes are with Harvey Keitel (who probably gives the film’s best performance as Mickey Cohen), Ben Kingsley (also mediocre, but his writing is better than Bening’s), Joe Mantegna and, in particular, Elliott Gould. I’ll partially retract my Keitel statement–Gould gives the film’s best performance. As Siegel, Beatty really doesn’t have much to do. When the film tries to give some weight to his suffering, it’s desperate.

The real problem, then, is the script. James Toback, little shock, doesn’t write interesting people and he doesn’t write interesting historical fiction. With such unappealing character arcs, all Bugsy has going for it is the chance at being really good historical fiction. It isn’t. The whole film is based on the premise the movie stars are going to make the uninteresting story–I mean, really, a paragraph could summarize the pertinent action in the film–interesting. It’s also based on the premise, but only at the end and somewhat ludicrously, the audience is supposed to be upset mobster Siegel got a raw deal from the mob. Whoop de doo.

If Levinson had pushed and given the film some visual flare… it wouldn’t have done much good. The Ennio Morricone score, which sounds a lot like all of his other scores from the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties, is a poor fit to the material. It’s distracting and goofy.

Still, it’s a competently made Hollywood vanity project (I don’t know who’s vanity, Beatty’s I guess). But it’s an excruciating two and a half hours.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Directed by Barry Levinson; screenplay by James Toback, based on a book by Dean Jennings; director of photography, Allen Daviau; edited by Stu Linder; music by Ennio Morricone; production designer, Dennis Gassner; produced by Levinson, Beatty and Mark Johnson; released by Tri-Star Pictures.

Starring Warren Beatty (Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel), Annette Bening (Virginia Hill), Harvey Keitel (Mickey Cohen), Ben Kingsley (Meyer Lansky), Elliott Gould (Harry Greenberg), Joe Mantegna (George Raft), Richard C. Sarafian (Jack Dragna), Bebe Neuwirth (Countess di Frasso), Gian-Carlo Scandiuzzi (Count di Frasso), Wendy Phillips (Esta Siegel), Stefanie Mason (Millicent Siegel), Kimberly McCullough (Barbara Siegel), Andy Romano (Del Webb), Robert Beltran (Alejandro), Bill Graham (Charlie Luciano) and Lewis Van Bergen (Joey Adonis).

RELATED