Tag: Liev Schreiber

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018, Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman)

Like most superhero origin stories, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse suffers from some third-act problems. It doesn’t just have a lengthy final fight scene between new Spider-Man (voiced by Shameik Moore) and Kingpin (Liev Schreiber in maybe the film’s only pointless voice casting), it’s got some inherently reduced stakes being an animated movie with a PG rating (i.e., it’s doubtful Moore’s going to die), but also no particular animus between Moore and Schreiber. The film starts with Schreiber disposing of the original Spider-Man (Chris Pine) while Moore watches. Pine isn’t in it long enough to make an impact, but he also isn’t in it so much he’s clearly not making an impact like Schreiber. Pine’s Peter Parker Spider-Man, Moore’s Miles Morales Spider-Man.

But Moore’s just met Pine, and while they do have a quick banter about Pine training Moore, they don’t have a relationship. Not like Moore and pretty much every other character in the movie, including one who’s got a significant relationship with Schreiber and could have a major third act pay-off… but doesn’t because Schreiber’s unaware of it.

Unlike most superhero origin stories, Spider-Verse can pull out of the tailspin for a nice set of epilogues. It’s a montage setting up Moore as the new Spider-Man, which the movie’s been setting up since a few minutes in, so it saves the day.

Kingpin might just be a bad villain, outside Vincent D’Onofrio anyway. He’s also not the point of the story here. Sure, he’s trying to open a portal to other universes to get back his family, unintentionally ripping the fabric of the multiverse and letting various Spider-People in from alternate dimensions, only for Moore’s universe to reject their cells and slowly destroy them. So while Schreiber’s responsible for the stakes, he’s really got nothing to do with them.

Enough complaining, however, because Spider-Verse is otherwise a joyful, heartbreaking trip through the Spider-Man mythos. Yes, there’s Moore’s journey to taking up the mantle, but there’s also a bunch of other Spider-People who all inform the mythos one way or another. Principally, there’s Jake Johnson as a forty-something loser version of Spider-Man; he’s like the Pine variant gone wrong, which made me assume he did the voice for the first Peter Parker Spider-Man too. Pine’s seriously not in it enough for it to matter. Johnson reluctantly becomes Moore’s mentor and has the best character arc of the Spider-People.

Mainly because no one else has any stakes other than surviving the movie. Johnson’s learned to love the web again thanks to his adventures with Moore. Plus, Johnson’s from a universe where he’s lost people, and they’re still around in this one.

Then there’s Hailee Steinfeld’s Spider-Woman (or Spider-Gwen). She’s the “What If the Spider Bit Gwen Stacy and Not Peter Parker” issue. Steinfeld’s delightful, probably the second-best performance in the film—Moore’s far and away the best—she just doesn’t have any conflict. The film presents short origin stories for all the Spider-People, starting with Pine’s Spider-Man, and Steinfeld’s gives her some gravitas just nowhere to use it. She’s trapped in another universe, nothing else.

Ditto Nicolas Cage’s Spider-Man Noir, who’s a gag turned into an exemplary supporting cast member—he gets played for laughs the entire time—Kimiko Glenn’s Peni Parker (she’s from a manga future), and then John Mulaney’s Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham. He’s from a cartoon universe. Except it’s an animated movie where the very fabric of reality is tearing so it’s frequently cartoony even when Mulaney’s not around. Glenn’s sympathetic, Mulaney’s fine, Cage’s fun. But the best of the Spider-Friends outside the central trio (who don’t get to be the central trio for long enough) is Lily Tomlin’s Aunt May. She’s the tech brains behind Spider-Man, and it’s a wonderful turn.

So all those Spider-People need to get home and stop Schreiber from destroying this universe while Moore’s also dealing with family issues. Dad Brian Tyree Henry is pressuring Moore to go to an elite private school, where Moore’s class and race set him apart from the rest of the students. He just wishes he could stay in Brooklyn and hang out with his uncle, played by Mahershala Ali. Mom Luna Lauren Velez is in the movie so little you’d think Christopher Nolan wrote it.

Henry makes it known right off he doesn’t like web-slinging vigilantes, making him the wrong person for Moore to consult about his new spider-powers. Worse, Ali’s got a complicated relationship with Spider-Man, too, cutting Moore off from his family.

The movie tries to play up the family angle at the end, but it doesn’t work. It’s another third act stumble to recover from, and it does.

Great direction and animation—it almost always emphasizes the emotionality of the situations the characters find themselves in, finding the sadness at the core of the Spider-Man character and relating it not just between inter-dimensional Spider-People, but also to the core of regular people. It’s an incredibly thoughtful, deliberate exploration of the character through variants of that character. Like, very cool work from writers Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman. They discover something exceptional in Spider-Verse.

The direction and animation are also crucial. Particularly for the pacing. Spider-Verse gets to speed up and slow down using devices not just from film and animation but also incorporating comic book techniques. The comic book style stuff works out great, which is another reason the busy, neat, action-packed, and dramatic finale still comes up short. It doesn’t fulfill the creative ambitions in the rest of the picture.

Excellent music from Daniel Pemberton and then the soundtrack selections as well. And not just because they use the St. Elmo’s Fire song for some reason; it’s kind of awesome when they do.

Spider-Verse is so one of a kind and wonderful, I’ve forgotten to mention Kathryn Hahn until this point. She’s the scientist who’s trying to unlock the multiverse and turns out to be more tied to the Spider-People than it first appears. She goes from being Schreiber’a seemingly unwitting flunky to being the best villain in the movie. It’s not a particularly high bar, of course, but there’s an excellent surprise runner-up to her before it’s all the way down the hill to Schreiber.

Tombstone shows up for a bit, which is cool, but he’s background more than an actual villain.

Spider-Verse is a fantastic motion picture. Moore, Stenfield, and—to a lesser extent—Johnson create some very special characters. Well, along with the animation team, who do phenomenal work on the performances. The voice acting’s great, but the animators make sure the visuals are equal in caliber. Maybe another reason Schreiber’s Kingpin is so wanting, they don’t give him anywhere near the expressiveness of the rest of the characters.

It’s great. Especially since they’re able to save the end… though the end credits tag is utterly skippable. It’s technically and culturally amusing but too slight after the main action.

The Daytrippers (1996, Greg Mottola)

There are two profoundly well-directed scenes in the third act of The Daytrippers, including the last one, so you really want to give what you can of it a pass. Daytrippers is very straightforward, even through the various complexities of the third act, but just because Mottola (who wrote as well as directed) knows what he needs to do with the characters at a given point in the story doesn’t mean he knows how to do it with them. The film spends most of its runtime promising to give Anne Meara and Pat McNamara these great roles but instead reduces them both to caricature. Sure, not the initially implied caricatures—she’s an overbearing Long Island housewife and he’s the hen-pecked husband—but changing from one caricature to another isn’t character development. Because Mottola asks for a lot of leeway on Meara, who’s shown as terrible person throughout and one not even deserving of empathy, implying along the way any woman over a certain age are raving harpies, only to make her even worse than predicted.

It’s a lot.

And then Mottola’s done with her because she’s just a distraction. She’s been distracting the film from Hope Davis, the ostensible lead, for the previous seventy minutes or so and then all of a sudden it’s like… oh, yeah, she’s just MacGuffin. Because we couldn’t get Stanley Tucci for anything but a supporting role. Tucci is Davis’s husband. The film opens with them coming home from Thanksgiving and having an intimate moment. The next day, Tucci goes off to work in the city and Davis discovers what appears to be a love letter on the floor. Presumably fell out of his briefcase. So she heads over to mom Meara’s, where we’ve already met the rest of the cast. We get introduced to Meara and McNamara as they make as much noise as possible to wake other daughter Parker Posey, who’s home from college for the holiday with boyfriend Liev Schreiber. Posey and Schreiber are going into the city and waiting for McNamara to give them a ride to the train.

But then Davis arrives with her problems and, counseling against her calling Tucci, Meara decides McNamara is going to drive everyone into the city. Hence The Daytrippers.

The family has various misadventures getting into the city, their journey set to Schreiber summarizing his novel to the mostly disinterested audience. Watching Posey and Schreiber’s relationship slowly implode over the film as the pressure in the car keeps on ratcheting up is one of Daytrippers’s most deliberate and least successful subplots. Eventually Posey meets author Campbell Scott—Tucci’s a literary agent or something—and he’s everything Schreiber wishes he could be—published, self-confident, smarter. The scene where Scott takes Schreiber’s insipid political philosophy out back and beats it with a stick until it crumbles is something else. The Daytrippers always feels very indie, with John Inwood’s realistic (and gorgeous) photography, Richard Martinez’s score, Mottola’s long takes… but the story’s basically a sitcom episode and a lot of the characterizations are similarly shallow. Even Meara’s performance works more appropriately in that context.

Only Mottola is very clearly not directing a sitcom. He directs against the script, which somehow works, but the script’s still got its problems. And then there’s Schreiber, who’s too tall to be puppy dog and a little bit too absurd. Six foot three, Cambridge-educated, mama’s boy fops who work construction in Michigan require a lot of… something. And neither Mottola or Schreiber know how to do that something.

Davis gets very little to do in the first half of the film—see, they can’t find Tucci so they have to traverse the city through the runtime with the aforementioned adventures, which are have limited budgets and often involve parties or at least social gatherings with food and alcohol present—but then she gets a bunch in the third act. Only not a lot of dialogue, just a lot of long takes of Davis thinking. She’s awesome at them and you wish Mottola had been doing them the whole time because they add up while the stuff he had been focusing on did not.

McNamara’s okay. I was expecting more from him, but he’s solid. Posey’s good. Not a great part overall (which is a big problem), but she’s good. Tucci’s great. Great cameo from Marcia Gay Harden.

The Daytrippers is a well-made picture, with a few moments of inspired brilliance. In the end those moments just make you wish Mottola had figured out how to do them sooner. And more frequently.

Sphere (1998, Barry Levinson)

Sphere is not a justifiable use of eighty million dollars. I don’t think you could justify spending a dollar to rent a copy to watch, much less eighty million of them to make the thing.

The big problem is the script. Whatever Kurt Wimmer (ominously credited with “adaptation”), Stephen Hauser, and Paul Attanasio did to adapt the Michael Crichton source novel does not a successful script make. It’s got ludicrous character development and bad pacing, and is artificially bewildering and exceptionally crappy to women, specifically Sharon Stone. But there’s so much to fix, so much to compensate for, director Levinson just gives up on even trying. Script’s a big problem but Levinson’s inability to crack any aspect of the project is the biggest. It’s not incompetently directed. It’s incompetently written, incompetently produced, but Levinson’s direction isn’t actually incompetent. It’s just vapid.

Vapid is the word for Levinson’s direction. He’s not interested in executing the film successfully, just executing it. At 134 minutes, it’s a bit of a chore to watch but I imagine it was even more of a chore to make with so little investment whatsoever. Amusingly lead Dustin Hoffman has a bit—apparently ad-libbed—where he explains to Samuel L. Jackson, before the government submarines them to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean to meet space aliens, Hoffman bullshitted a report about how he, Jackson, Stone, and physics whiz kid Liev Schreiber should be the ones to first contact with any space aliens. He used the money to pay for the downpayment on his house, making one wonder what everyone involved with Sphere did with their paychecks before turning in their bullshit….

Okay, that one is a little unfair. Schreiber busts his ass to show-off in a bad part. There’s also these weird optics about competitiveness between Jackson and Schreiber and it’s inexplicable why Schreiber’s got it out for Jackson. Jackson doesn’t like Schreiber because he thinks he’s obnoxious, which is fine—though Schreiber gets intentionally less obnoxious in the second act and it backfires. Schreiber’s a lot better being annoying and doing exposition dumps than not being as annoying and giving them. Of course, the second act stuff isn’t his fault exactly because the film needs its eggheads—Jackson’s a mathematician, Schreiber’s physics, Hoffman’s a psychologist, Stone’s a biochemist-to do all sorts of things you’re not sure they’d know how to do… like setting explosives, repairing underwater habitats, on the fly code-cracking—Stone’s basically a medic, they all know how to get into their underwater suits and go for solo strolls. On and on. Sphere’s got a very limited cast—seven people in a habitat next to a giant spaceship, crash landed 300 years ago, but you’d need a support crew of a dozen to get everything done in the movie you need to get done considering they’re a bunch of narcissistic academics.

But back to the Schreiber vs. Jackson thing—it feels like there are some optics. Jackson’s the Black guy in what turns into a horror movie. He’s got a predicted part in the film.

See, once they go inside the spaceship they find all sorts of weird things, including a giant gold ball and they all become obsessed with it. Except Schreiber and Man in Black boss of the mission Peter Coyote. Oh, if only Peter Coyote were good in the movie. I really think a good performance in that part would at least keep Sphere somewhat buoyant.

Because Coyote, Jackson, and Schreiber have the film’s most important parts. Hoffman’s a terrible leading man. His part seems inflated and Stone’s decreased, which is concerning. Sphere feels very poorly assembled. Stu Linder’s cuts are fine, but the pace of the film, the focus of the narrative impulse? Not good. Whatever Levinson needed to crack with Sphere in terms of characters, plotting, scares, science fictions, musics, whatever… he doesn’t. He’s got no more idea what to do with Sphere at the end than he does at the beginning.

Except to crap on Stone whenever possible. See, she was once Hoffman’s patient and so they had an affair. But he forgot to mention he was married, so he was lying to her while treating her medically. When she felt bad after their breakup and took a bunch of pills, sounds like Hoffman had her sent to electro-shock. Like, he’s a criminal. He shouldn’t just lose his license, he should be charged with something. It’s messed up.

But it’s not the subplot—the subplot is Stone is a crazy woman and no one should trust her, something Coyote rails about, Jackson rails about, Hoffman has an arc about. A vague, vague, vague arc but he definitely goes from thinking he can trust Stone in the beginning to thinking she’s psychotic by the end. With Coyote and Jackson at multiple times counseling Hoffman not to trust Stone because she’s a crazy woman.

It’s really icky.

And even more unfortunate because Stone’s really not good.

She’s got a crap part—such a crap part, just guys violently gaslighting her scene after scene—the writing’s terrible, whatever… and there’s still just something Stone doesn’t bring. Jackson’s got his part down, problematic as some of his scenes get when they think he’s Brett after Ripley let him back into the ship; he’s still got it down. When something goes wrong with Jackson’s performance, it’s the script. Schreiber’s working. Coyote and Hoffman, to differing success, just aim low in every scene and always hit that effectiveness. The least effort possible. Hoffman’s just wrong for it. You wish he weren’t wrong for it because it’d be cool if he could do it, but he can’t do it. Not with how the film’s set up, not with the bad writing, not with Hoffman’s maximum level of effort for this project.

Queen Latifah gets fifth billing and is in what ends up being the film’s best looking visual sequence. Adam Greenberg’s photography is boring, but it’s not his fault. Levinson refuses to give Sphere a visual style, horror, wonder, drama—the second act showdowns between Stone and Hoffman, better written and directed, are Bergman-esque—but it’s not a cheap looking film (save the late nineties CGI) and so it occasionally looks quite good. Latifah’s effect scene’s the one where they spend the time. Shame it’s early on and the film never tries to top it.

Because Levinson’s not trying to ape Kubrick. Worse he doesn’t even seem to acknowledge he should. A bunch of failed homage would make Sphere at least a little fun, instead of frequently upsetting. It’s a drain to watch characters start dying off during the haunted house portion of the film and no one care about it. It’s actually impossible to have less empathy for another character than the characters in Sphere have for one another. Multiple times people get informed of someone dying and the reaction not even warranting a shrug. The biggest question the film raises is, “Is the writing right now bad or lazy and how could you tell the difference?”

Of course, if Sphere were an inevitable fail, it might be fun. But there’s no reason, with a better script, with better direction, with someone else in for Peter Coyote because Coyote’s not showy enough for the part, the film couldn’t be a success. But Levinson’s not the one to do it. It’s clearly the wrong kind of dumb idea for him to fix.

This post is part of the Out To Sea Blogathon hosted by Debbie of Moon in Gemini.

The Last Days on Mars (2013, Ruairi Robinson)

The Last Days on Mars is nothing if not bold in what it rips off. Director Robinson and screenwriter Clive Dawson don’t even bother disguising the primary influences–Alien, Aliens, The Thing, Ghosts of Mars–the last one is probably coincidental. You can only do so many stories about zombies on Mars and have it be original.

The film does have extraordinary special effects, great music from Max Richter (who also borrows from the mentioned films in tone, without abject plagiarism) and decent photography from Robbie Ryan . A lot of Mars is set in the dark and Ryan does well giving the audience just enough to see.

Oh, I forgot. Star Trek II. They rip off Star Trek II a little bit.

Sadly, Robinson isn’t even creative enough to turn these lifts from other, very famous science fiction films, which makes them odd choices for such obvious lifts, into a wink to the audience. He fully seems to expect his audience not to have seen a film before this one.

Even if one had never seen a single film before, Mars would still be lame. Robinson’s not just unoriginal when it comes to his compositions, he can’t direct actors and Dawson’s script doesn’t give them anything to do either.

I suppose Liev Schreiber and Romola Garai are okay in the leads. Elias Koteas is good as the captain, Olivia Williams is decent as a determined scientist. None of the acting’s actually bad except Yusra Warsama.

Mars’s just a bad film.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Ruairi Robinson; screenplay by Clive Dawson, based on a short story by Sydney J. Bounds; director of photography, Robbie Ryan; edited by Peter Lambert; music by Max Richter; production designer, Jon Henson; produced by Andrea Cornwell and Michael Kuhn; released by Magnet Releasing.

Starring Liev Schreiber (Vincent Campbell), Romola Garai (Rebecca Lane), Olivia Williams (Kim Aldrich), Johnny Harris (Robert Irwin), Goran Kostic (Marko Petrovic), Tom Cullen (Richard Harrington), Yusra Warsama (Lauren Dalby) and Elias Koteas (Charles Brunel).

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Clear History (2013, Greg Mottola)

Besides J.B. Smoove, Clear History does not reunite Larry David with any of his “Curb Your Enthusiasm” costars. David and Smoove have their fantastic chemistry and it’s a little strange not to see them hanging out in the film. Instead, David hangs out with Danny McBride, who probably gives the film’s must mundane performance. He’s fine… he just doesn’t get any of the laugh lines.

The first third of Clear sets the scene. In an alternate reality where the electric car catches on like hotcakes, David’s character gives up a stake in the company. Destitute, he creates a new life in Martha’s Vineyard–unlikely location maybe, but it’s very pretty scenery. Everything goes well until Jon Hamm–as David’s former boss–arrives on the island.

Antics ensue. With a relaxed plotting structure, Clear feels a lot like three episodes of a TV show strung together. David and his co-writers, Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer, do put in a lot of subplots, but they’re all for joke payoff throughout. Heck, they even miss one involving Liev Schreiber, which is too bad. He’s hilarious.

Great work from Hamm, Kate Hudson and especially Michael Keaton. Keaton gets to do his wacky thing as a local mad at all the changes to the Vineyard. Very funny. Nice smaller turns from Eva Mendes and Amy Ryan. It’s perfectly cast and performed, it’s just slight.

Greg Mottola’s directorial fingerprints are invisible. Besides transition shots, he just lets the actors act.

Clear’s pleasantly mediocre.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Directed by Greg Mottola; written by Larry David, Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer; director of photography, Jim Denault; edited by Steven Rausch; music by Ludovic Bource; production designer, Sarah Knowles; produced by Monica Levinson, David, Berg, Mandel and Schaffer; aired by Home Box Office.

Starring Larry David (Rolly), Danny McBride (Frank), Kate Hudson (Rhonda), Jon Hamm (Will Haney), Michael Keaton (Joe Stumpo), Bill Hader (Rags), J.B. Smoove (Jaspar), Eva Mendes (Jennifer), Amy Ryan (Wendy), Philip Baker Hall (McKenzie) and Liev Schreiber (Tibor).

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Scream 3 (2000, Wes Craven)

Neve Campbell wanted a reduced presence in Scream 3—she doesn’t really show up in the film’s plot until an hour in—but by not participating, she’s in a worse film.

Her performance is fine. Ehren Kruger’s script is so lame, she can’t do much with the role—especially since she’s got to be suspecting everyone. Except Courtney Cox and David Arquette, of course, and when the three are on screen together it’s the closest Scream 3 comes to working.

Cox gives the film’s best performance. Arquette’s only good opposite her or Campbell. Replacing Campbell for some of the run time is Parker Posey, who’s playing Cox’s character in a movie. Parker and Cox are great together. How Kruger and Craven didn’t realize it is beyond belief.

Craven’s got a couple good set pieces (not the final sequence, unfortunately… it drags forever) but he’s clearly disinterested. Though it’s not like he can be held responsible for the terrible acting.

In no particular order, the laundry list of horrific acting… Jenny McCarthy, Emily Mortimer (she’s real bad), Scott Foley, Patrick Dempsey (he tries to act with his hair) and Josh Pais. Pais is barely in the film but is so bad he’s memorable.

As for good acting? Matt Keeslar is good and Patrick Warburton is funny. And a decent Carrie Fisher cameo. Poor Liev Schreiber looks embarrassed.

The good parts of the film show there’s potential—even with the setting and set pieces.

Terrible Marco Beltrami score too.

It’s surprisingly disappointing.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Wes Craven; screenplay by Ehren Kruger, based on characters created by Kevin Williamson; director of photography, Peter Deming; edited by Patrick Lussier; music by Marco Beltrami; production designer, Bruce Alan Miller; produced by Cathy Konrad, Marianne Maddalena and Williamson; released by Dimension Films.

Starring Neve Campbell (Sidney Prescott), Courteney Cox (Gale Weathers), David Arquette (Dewey Riley), Emily Mortimer (Angelina Tyler), Parker Posey (Jennifer Jolie), Matt Keeslar (Tom Prinze), Jenny McCarthy (Sarah Darling), Deon Richmond (Tyson Fox), Scott Foley (Roman Bridger), Lance Henriksen (John Milton), Patrick Dempsey (Mark Kincaid), Josh Pais (Wallace), Patrick Warburton (Steven Stone), Carrie Fisher (Bianca), Heather Matarazzo (Martha Meeks), Kelly Rutherford (Christine Hamilton) and Liev Schreiber (Cotton Weary).

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009, Gavin Hood)

One has to wonder if, had things worked out differently, Harrison Ford would have made a Han Solo prequel in the mid-1980s. I mean, he did reprise Bob Falfa. While the X-Men movies did make Hugh Jackman a star, they didn’t really make him the biggest star in the world. But X-Men Origins: Wolverine does offer something else–it’s gives Jackman a chance to be charming and athletic–it’s got to be the only franchise where the target audiences are teenage boys and women of the age of reason.

The film doesn’t feature Jackman’s best performance by far, but it does reveal exactly why he’s such a singularity. He’s a movie star, one who can make this silly action movie (which is, to be fair, pretty darn violent for a PG-13) seem like a real movie. It doesn’t hurt he’s got Liev Schreiber as his nemesis. The movie could have been–should have been–framed in a long fight scene between the two of them, flashbacks playing through. Schreiber somehow manages to turn in a textured performance and gnaw through the scenery.

There are some bright spots in the supporting cast–Will.i.am is surprisingly good and Danny Huston can make his atrocious dialogue sound all right–and no one’s terrible. There’s not enough personality in the script for the actors to do any better.

The direction’s good, if a little bland. It’s PG-13 gritty.

The special effects are bad. They bring it down.

Scream 2 (1997, Wes Craven)

This year (2007), I saw more summer movies than I have in at least five years. I avoid big Hollywood franchises (the modern ones, the revitalization attempts… it’s fifty-fifty), so I really don’t know how bad the acting is in most of those films–from what I saw this summer, it’s probably atrocious. But there’s a special place for Scream 2, because not a single new cast member gives an acceptable performance. All of them, almost uniformly, are terrible. I suppose an order can be arranged–Elise Neal is worse than Jerry O’Connell, who is worse than Timothy Olyphant… though no one can compare to Sarah Michelle Gellar. Her performance is so incompetent, even her facial expressions are ludicrous. The lesser supporting case members–Laurie Metcalf, Duane Martin, Rebecca Gayheart and Portia de Rossi–all terrible. Of the new additions, only Jada Pinkett and Omar Epps–who have nothing to do with the actual film–are acceptable. And I suppose Lewis Arquette isn’t too bad.

Though she’s the “star,” Neve Campbell is barely in the film, entirely overshadowed by all the terrible acting going on around her. When she is around Courteney Cox, David Arquette and Liev Schreiber, things really work. Cox and Arquette are great together, Schreiber is great with anyone… only Jamie Kennedy (of the returning cast members) is lame. Oddly, the film ends on a high point–establishing a wonderful chemistry between Cox, Campbell and Schreiber… which might be why I remember the third one being disappointing, regardless of it being lousy–the potential for something of particular merit is certainly established by this one’s conclusion.

Most of the problems are because of the acting. A dumb horror movie can survive with decent acting, but Scream 2 also lacks charm. The college setting is stupid, the writing is dull–Williamson goes overboard with his pop culture references to hide there being nothing going on for any of the characters (except Cox and Arquette and Schreiber, so their scenes are better). Wes Craven’s direction is framed for a pan and scanned VHS–possibly the worst case of framing for home video since The Untouchables. He has two good shots in the entire movie, both near the end anbd one of them is only funny (it’s an Evil Dead 2 slash Nosferatu reference).

Scream 2 doesn’t work because everyone who dies is a welcome victim (except the two opening deaths), because they’re such terrible actors. When Gellar goes, it’s a reward to the audience for having to sit through her. If anything, her death wasn’t gratuitous enough (as opposed to the opening, when Scream 2 really felt exploitative). But having to tolerate Neal for the whole movie… argh. I’d forgotten Miramax recycled bad actors through their movies, trying to build them up into… well, into something.

Maybe if Craven had directed some of the actors, or composed the shots with some dignity, it’d be better. It has a great conclusion–all the likable characters, played by all the decent actors, have nice exits. Except then the lame music for the Miramax Records (or whatever they called it) soundtrack kicks in and helps one remember the piece of crap he or she just sat through.

And Luke Wilson’s cameo is fantastic–but they really shouldn’t have mocked Skeet Ulrich so brutally if they were going to cast worse actors then him in the movie.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Wes Craven; written by Kevin Williamson; director of photography, Peter Deming; edited by Patrick Lussier; music by Marco Beltrami; production designer, Bob Ziembicki; produced by Cathy Konrad and Marianne Maddalena; released by Dimension Films.

Starring David Arquette (Dewey Riley), Neve Campbell (Sidney Prescott), Courteney Cox (Gale Weathers), Jamie Kennedy (Randy Meeks), Laurie Metcalf (Debbie Salt), Elise Neal (Hallie), Jerry O’Connell (Derek), Jada Pinkett (Maureen), Omar Epps (Phil), Liev Schreiber (Cotton Weary) and Duane Martin (Joel).

Ransom (1996, Ron Howard), the extended version

Ransom is not Richard Price’s only “big Hollywood” movie (and it’s probably not his most anomalous one either), but there’s something very particular about the film. You’re watching a mix of various 1990s genres–a Mel Gibson movie, a Richard Price cop movie, and a Ron Howard movie. Except not the current Oscar-bait Ron Howard, the incredibly sturdy and wonderful Ron Howard of that brief period in the 1990s. I’ve seen the original Ransom! and while it is different, most of what the remake adds is the Price-written Gary Sinise material. And it’s a Richard Price cop thing being used for the most Hollywood, blockbuster aspect of the film too, which might be why Ransom is so weird. You’d expect Price to contribute something a little off kilter, but instead, he’s building up toward the rousing finale.

I haven’t seen Ransom in years, mostly because I kept waiting for the as yet still missing DVD release of the extended edition. The longer version adds a lot for Delroy Lindo and, I think, Rene Russo to do. Because the majority of Ransom, the first hour and forty-five minutes of the two-twenty extended version is all Mel Gibson. It’s at least half character study and Gibson does a fantastic job. Mel the actor is always forgotten or ignored (today probably forgotten), but once he hit his 1990s stride (and it’s a spotty stride, but it’s a definite stride), he was giving excellent performances. Just some of his scenes in here, they’re fantastic. I sat and realized Mel Gibson of this era could do anything, he has some perfect scenes. You also get Gibson in contrast to Gary Sinise, who was still somewhat indie at this stage (appreciated only in TV movies) and Mel runs circles around him. Delroy Lindo’s great–the extended version adding significant layers of complexity to his character–and Rene Russo is good too. For about half the movie, she doesn’t have anything to do and then all of a sudden, she has to do everything for a ten minute stretch and she carries it. She and Gibson have a perfect chemistry too.

As for Ron Howard… the Ron Howard who made Ransom was about the most exciting filmmaker in Hollywood. I have no idea what happened (I can guess–pet project Edtv bombed–bombing pet projects often deter great careers, but Howard’s probably will never recover, which is a tragedy). He maintains a sense of coldness, of space-heater heating–he creates a physical temperature with Ransom (his cinematographer helps, of course)–and the attention he gives Mel Gibson, and just the way the film moves from character to character, kidnapper to parents, parents to cops, everything just moves perfectly. It never gets lost, which is amazing.

I always forget the 1990s really did have a bunch of great people making a bunch of really good movies. I mistrust my memory of it, but then I go back and look and I see these films again and think about the people making them and what they were making and something very definite happened and capital-f film suffered. I was about to blame it on Lucas and Episode I (with no basis other than he closed a loop of quality opened in 1977) then I was going to blame it on James Cameron and Titanic (Blockbuster-maker wins Oscar, inspires others to get insipid), but I’d rather close off with something more on Ransom. The last shot. It’s short and it’s over the end credits and it’s a time lapse of a screen corner and it doesn’t belong. Beautiful James Horner music (before he too became a joke) and just this confusing shot, which you get only after it’s moments from being totally black, and there’s something striking about beautiful about how Howard closes the story off for the viewer. It’s quick and graceful, but it’s a ‘thank you’ for watching my film. Other films having such ‘thank yous,’ but it’s inappropriate in Ransom and it’s nice for just that reason.

Denise Calls Up (1995, Hal Salwen)

About ten years ago, the best independent movies–as Fox Searchlight wasn’t around yet–were coming out of Sony Pictures Classics. Denise Calls Up has disappeared. It’s not out on DVD and the VHS is out of print. Hal Salwen is similarly gone–his last film is available, pan and scanned, on DVD, but the one he made after Denise has never been released. The New York independent filmmakers of the 1990s–the only good independent industry of the 1990s–have mostly disappeared….

Denise is an odd film. It’s structured around phone calls. The film is, watched today, a monument to the call waiting-era, which is now mostly replaced by e-mail. Except a film about a bunch of people e-mailing each other doesn’t allow dialogue, which means there wouldn’t be much for the actors to do. Denise gives its actors a lot to do. I think this film is the first one I ever saw Liev Schreiber in. Schreiber–to some degree–caught on and managed to resist Hollywood crap for a while, always doing smaller work. But this film is also the first place I saw Alanna Ubach, who was around for a minute (particularly Clockwatchers), then disappeared. These two are the only ones I’m going to mention, but everyone in the film is great. I can’t figure out how Salwen got such good performances out of them, given the telephone-only talking nature of the film.

While the telephone-specific elements of the film may or may not be outdated, Denise‘s theme of isolation in American culture is more than valid, probably moreso today. Salwen’s an exceptional filmmaker too–Denise is particularly well-edited and the location manager is my hero–it’s unthinkable that he hasn’t gone on to anything more. I hope Sony gets around to releasing it on DVD, just so more people can see it.