Tag: Donna Murphy

Michael Hayes (1997) s01e02

It makes sense they did another episode to run as the first episode instead of this pilot. What doesn’t make sense is CBS green-lighting the series based on this pilot episode. It’s also interesting to see who they got to come back for the previous episode after they clearly didn’t work out in the pilot; Sam Coppola as star David Caruso’s cop mentor has a surprise twist here, so maybe it was good to bring him in before… but they really could’ve used Dina Meyer. She’s an investigator at the U.S. Attorney’s office and has been dating Caruso for long enough other investigator Ruben Santiago-Hudson teases him about it them talking flirty over the radio, but apparently she was out of town two weeks before in the first episode.

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting from the pilot—I’d forgotten the hook of the show is former cop Caruso becomes acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and not just former cop Caruso becomes a deputy U.S. Attorney or whatever—but they really try to cram it all in here. The episode opens with a mob hit (so did the previous episode, sort of) and then we get Caruso meeting with dead guy’s attorney Donna Murphy, Meyer, and Philip Baker Hall. Hall takes Murphy’s car, which goes boom—leading to Caruso saving Hall from the burning car while a line of cops stand around and do nothing (again, it’s pre-9/11). Eventually Caruso gets the job, which would presumably cause some problems for Meyer, who doesn’t sleep with bosses. If only they can think of a way to exit her from the show while being low-key misogynist about it.

Caruso’s not initially on Murphy’s case because he’s busy getting Joe Grifasi in trouble. The episode’s got a handful of solid character actor guest stars—Murphy, Grifasi, Josef Sommer—and it’s scary to think how the show would play if it weren’t them. Tom Amandes is on as another deputy U.S. Attorney whose job it is to tell Caruso he’s going too far with the working class hero takes on the blue bloods stuff (Peter Outerbridge has a filler scene, presumably shot after they decided they needed him—or Amandes found steadier work). None of the previously mentioned guest stars appear on the IMDb page, apparently because none of their agents think anyone would care they were once on “Michael Hayes.”

Anyway.

Wouldn’t you know Grifasi’s case is going to end up having to do with Murphy’s case, but then it’s going to turn out there’s an even simpler explanation to it all so they can do a bad sirens-on cop car sequence and giving Caruso—at the time the acting U.S. Attorney—a burner handgun so he can be macho.

Along the way we get some more with Caruso’s family problems—nephew Jimmy Galeota needs recently released ex-con dad David Cubitt (credited as a guest star, which makes you wonder what’s going to happen to him in the series) to pay him some attention while the relationship between Caruso and suffering sister-in-law Mary B. Ward is different than in the previous episode. Especially since last time Caruso was trying to convince her to take Cubitt, hashtag family values, while this time he’s telling her to stay away from his deadbeat brother.

John Romano’s teleplay is fairly bad—the show has Romano and Nicholas Pileggi as creators but Pileggi doesn’t have a writing credit, just a story one, which is telling. Thomas Carter’s direction is fairly good for a nineties TV show (it’s interesting to be able to compare to the previous but subsequent episode just for Carter’s ability to compose for 4:3).

Maybe ten percent of Caruso’s performance is good and better. Most of it’s middling. Some of it’s “CSI: Miami.” All of the bad is Romano’s fault. He writes rather trite dialogue. The most important performance ends up being Mary Lou Rosato as Coppola’s wife and she doesn’t even get a credit in the opening titles.

Grifasi’s the biggest disappointment; not even he can accomplish Romano’s script. He’s only in it for a scene and doesn’t have the weird baked-in misogyny Murphy ends up with. She’s fine, just wasted. I was hoping for more obviously because what kind of shit stain wastes Donna Murphy.

I have no idea what to expect from “Michael Hayes” going forward, which must’ve done wonders for it back during original airings when you had a whole week to decide if you wanted to come back.

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998, Jonathan Frakes)

Star Trek: Insurrection has a lot of problems, but they’re peculiar ones. None of them affect the film’s overall quality. Sure, it’d be nice if the sci-fi action sequences worked out better, but they aren’t the point. Even though director Frakes clearly has some set pieces in the film, he always relies on his actors instead of the effects.

Given Insurrection has some terribly pedestrian CG, it’s a good move.

Characters disappear for long stretches of film–Gates McFadden gets a couple lines at the beginning, a kicker later on, and does hang out, she has nothing to do. LeVar Burton gets a tiny bit more. Michael Dorn gets to hang around Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner. Frakes does give himself an amusing romantic subplot with Marina Sirtis. But, in the end, Insurrection gives everyone enough to do. The characters are appealing, have chemistry, make the plot work well.

Michael Piller’s script is this gentle, “extended” episode of the “Next Generation” show with Spiner going renegade and Stewart and company showing up to figure out what’s going on. It all leads to Stewart going renegade too (and cavorting around with the fetching Donna Murphy). Stewart and Murphy are great together, though Stewart’s just strong throughout. He has a fun time with the film. The light tone helps the film get through some of its other problems, like Herman F. Zimmerman’s questionable production design and Matthew F. Leonetti’s too crisp photography, which never matches the digital composites.

And villain F. Murray Abraham isn’t good. He’s goofy. Gregg Henry’s good as his sidekick though.

The film moves. It never runs long, never has to hurry through anything. It’s not good because it’s likable, it’s likable because it’s good. It’s just a shame the production values are so wonky, because Insurrection would be one heck of a Star Trek picture if the visual tone were right.

Jerry Goldsmith’s score, regardless of it heavily borrowing from his previous Trek scores, is good.

Insurrection stumbles all over the place, but always ends up firmly footed.

Spider-Man 2 (2004, Sam Raimi), the extended version

Ah, so the only other film Raimi directed Panavision was the unwatchable For Love of the Game. His Panavision composition here–with Bill Pope shooting it–is exquisite. Raimi and Pope correct, from the first scene in the film, the problem Raimi had with the original–Spider-Man 2 takes place in New York City. When a bunch of New Yorkers help Spider-Man here–regardless of if they filmed the sequence in Chicago–it’s an honest scene, not some kind of jingoistic garbage.

For the majority of the film–there are some transitional missteps when it has to be a regular action movie again, third act (but the end recovers beautifully)–it’s about a bunch of miserable people. Tobey Maguire’s miserable because being Spider-Man’s ruining his life, Kirsten Dunst is miserable because she doesn’t have Maguire, James Franco’s miserable because his dad’s been murdered, Rosemary Harris’s miserable because she’s a widow. For about seventy minutes, it’s a bunch of unhappy people being unhappy. It’s luscious.

The acting helps. Harris was barely in the first film, but here she develops into a character. Alfred Molina’s a good villain (Raimi doesn’t overuse the villain here, like he did before). Franco’s really good. Maguire’s great, sort of shockingly great. Dunst is fine. She’s effective without being good. J.K. Simmons and Donna Murphy are also fantastic.

Two problems besides the transitional stumble–there’s an awful “talking to himself” scene with Molina and then a dream sequence–otherwise, it’s perfect (except Elfman’s music).

The Fountain (2006, Darren Aronofsky)

If you were to tell me I was going to react the way I did to The Fountain, Aronofsky’s dream project, I wouldn’t have believed you. While The Wrestler succeeded, Aronofsky didn’t write it. All my experience with his screenplays is negative.

In terms of how the film works, The Fountain is somewhat singular. It’s a rather straightforward narrative masquerading as a sci-fi event picture. It’s insane to think anyone would have given Aronofsky seventy-five million dollars to make this picture (with Brad Pitt, no less, who couldn’t have handled the acting). Hugh Jackman has to be three different people who are occasionally the same person, but don’t know about the other people, but are aware of the other people. It’s probably Jackman’s best performance.

I sat and waited for The Fountain‘s ending to fail, since the whole thing is about the ending. It never does.

Aronofsky’s direction is fantastic, as he incorporates special effects into his shots and to the way Jackman’s character experiences those special effects. Simply because what happens to Dave Bowman doesn’t matter to anyone but Dave Bowman and the viewer, The Fountain and its treatment of Jackman’s experiences is the first film to do it in this manner since 2001.

It seems like a great waste of budget to have these big space scenes with only one character experiencing them.

The Fountain is an experience for the character and the individual viewer. It’s hostile to the idea of an audience or communal reaction.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Darren Aronofsky; screenplay by Aronofsky, based on a story by Aronofsky and Ari Handel; director of photography, Matthew Libatique; edited by Jay Rabinowitz; music by Clint Mansell; production designer, James Chinlund; produced by Arnon Milchan, Iain Smith and Eric Watson; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Hugh Jackman (Tommy), Rachel Weisz (Izzi), Ellen Burstyn (Dr. Lillian Guzetti), Mark Margolis (Father Avila), Stephen McHattie (Grand Inquisitor Silecio), Fernando Hernandez (Lord of Xibalba), Cliff Curtis (Captain Ariel), Sean Patrick Thomas (Antonio), Donna Murphy (Betty), Ethan Suplee (Manny), Richard McMillan (Henry) and Lorne Brass (Dr. Alan Lipper).

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Jade (1995, William Friedkin), the director’s cut

Jade not only ended David Caruso’s leading man career, it also ended Chazz Palminteri’s mid-1990s upswing, and probably slowed down Linda Fiorentino’s post-Last Seduction career as it started (she never had a lead in a major studio production). Amusingly, when Paramount started making the film, back in 1995, they had no idea who to cast in the female lead, so they asked film critics, who, of course, were raving about Fiorentino at the time. All three of these actors–at times–do a lot of good work in Jade, but the film’s so poorly written, so poorly produced (by Robert Evans of all people, in his comeback attempt), it’s all for nothing.

The story could have been an update on Manhattan Melodrama, the love triangle with civic complications, but instead, Joe Eszterhas recycles Basic Instinct. There’s a lot of recycling going on in Jade–Friedkin fills it with chase scenes (I’d totally forgotten he’d done The French Connection, I thought it was Frankenheimer… I guess a good script does help, doesn’t it?) and James Horner recycles a lot of his older material in the score, including the end title from Aliens, which is cute since Michael Biehn is in Jade. Except Biehn turns in one of his incredibly bad performances. It’s hard to believe he was ever good (in Aliens) and I wonder if the continued exposure to Friedkin (starting in 1988) ruined his acting. Seeing Jade, it’s certainly a possibility.

I watched Jade because I remembered it a few weeks ago. Friedkin did a director’s cut for cable and VHS, which Paramount did not release on DVD, and I got it off eBay for a couple bucks. I remember when it came out–I probably saw it at a Suncoast, the release was so long ago I still went to Suncoast–the director’s cut was an improvement over the original version, which I had seen in the theater. Well, if the director’s cut truly is an improvement, the original must be really terrible. Besides Biehn, Angie Everhart turns up for a few minutes, starting her assault on the sanctity of acting, but Donna Murphy is really good. She and Caruso should do a family drama or something.

The last tidbit of Jade trivia I have is about the home video presentation. I wasn’t going to get it, but I remember talking to a Ken Crane’s LaserDisc operator on the phone about the laserdisc. Friedkin had Paramount release it pan and scan only–just like the VHS, just like the DVD. Now, Jade was not matted for theatrical release, so, apparently, Friedkin is a big supporter of pan and scan for the film (but none of the others in his oeuvre, even his eating tree classic, The Guardian, is available widescreen). Eszterhas amusingly blames the whole mess on Friedkin, who he says only got the directing gig because his wife was running Paramount at the time. It’s a load of crap–Eszterhas has never written a good line in his life–but it’s rare to see such hacks acting against each other to create a piece of garbage… all of it ruining some of Fiorentino’s best work… potentially best work… she was really good–unspeakably wonderful–for like a minute… in fifteen second sequences….

I can’t believe I just watched Jade. More, I can’t believe I just watched the whole thing.