Tag: Matthew Broderick

WarGames (1983, John Badham)

All WarGames really needs to be better is a good script rewrite, a better director (apparently there are some leftover shots from when Martin Brest tried directing it but got fired), and more John Wood. The Arthur B. Rubinstein music is a little iffy too but has its charms.

And WarGames has its charms. Matthew Broderick is often nearly charming in the lead; he’s a teenage computer hacker who tries to impress a girl (Ally Sheedy) by changing her grades only to get them involved in… well, not espionage. Basically Sheedy helps Broderick convince a lonely computer it wants to play a game; she gives him the big clue, which is regular people love their children. Based on Broderick’s parents in the film—an oblivious William Bogert and a nagging vitamin-obsessed eighties working movie mom Susan Davis—it makes sense he wouldn’t know to try the programmer’s dead son’s name.

They play a quick game of Global Thermonuclear War, then Broderick has to go clean up after his dog. The computer keeps playing—they hook it up to a voice box but Douglas Rain it ain’t, though—and I know John Badham had seen 2001, watching WarGames, you’d think he’d proudly declare he hadn’t—anyway. The Feds figure out Broderick hacked them, kidnap him off the street, and take him to NORAD. Where they do regular tours.

We’ve already been to NORAD because the movie opens with this hook—General Barry Corbin, who’s so proudly ignorant and backwards he’s probably an accurate depiction of an Air Force general (when they have him on the phone with the President and you realize it’s Reagan, WarGames becomes absurdist comedy), doesn’t have enough men willing to kill Russian babies. Now, eighty percent will do it, but twenty percent are wusses. So Dabney Coleman says they should let a computer do it. Said computer, housed in Colorado at NORAD, is hooked up to an outside phone line somewhere in California so Broderick can happen across it.

Pretty soon Broderick’s not only got to convince the adults he’s not a Russian spy, he’s also got to find a way to stop World War III. Luckily he’s got his best gal Sheedy, though they have very little chemistry and their kisses on the cheek are the most natural parts of their relationship, and she’s got enough money and her own car to keep the plot going. Also Broderick is able to MacGyver his way out of any situation thanks to his hacker skills. Though he doesn’t know anything about anything except those things. We see his grades and he’s ever ignorant of things he’d know from watching any modern television drama.

Though it’s a little better than Sheedy, who seems to be around to decorate and be decorative.

Outside a flashing light sequence at the end, William A. Fraker’s (surprisingly Oscar-nominated but so was the script so whatever, she don’t lie, cocaine) cinematography is fairly tepid, which matches Badham’s direction. Tom Rolf’s editing is not an asset either. Again, WarGames just needed a better director and a good script rewrite.

Broderick and Sheedy are fine. They both have solid moments, Broderick more but because they stumble upon how to make Broderick a movie star and occasionally repeat.

Besides the surprisingly effective third act and trying to figure out what computer programmer Wood is thinking when he’s acting so goofy, the most amusing part of WarGames is spotting the character actors in the cast. I’m going to miss a few because I don’t recognize their names just their faces but this movie’s got… John Spencer, Michael Madsen, James Tolkan (didn’t that guy ever have hair, sadly he doesn’t call Broderick a slacker), Jason Bernard, Alan Blumenfeld, Maury Chaykin, Eddie Deezen, Stephen Lee, and Art LaFleur. I’m leaving out a bunch of the military guys but it’s like, Michael Ensign from Ghostbusters (but not Raiders, so I’m confused). But the listed folks, those I’m sure about.

Oh. And Broderick’s joke at teacher Blumenfeld’s expense is great, actually.

Biloxi Blues (1988, Mike Nichols)

Biloxi Blues has some rather peculiar, rather significant third act problems. Like, it doesn’t have a third act. Did they cut a bunch to keep the PG rating or something? Because at a certain point the rising action stalls out and the film goes into montage summary overdrive. After giving lead Matthew Broderick and ostensible love interest Penelope Ann Miller an amazing “meet cute” first dance, full of chemistry and energy, Miller never gets another line. She’s in a few montage shots, as Broderick romances her, but she’s not even present in the film, just visible. It’s a very weird development, especially considering how phenomenally director Nichols shoots that dance scene.

And Nichols has a lot of very thoughtful direction in the film, which is another reason it feels like it doesn’t have a third act. None of the direction is thoughtful. In fact, it’s tonally regressive. The end of the film—the last real scene—turns everything into a smile, with writer Neil Simon and Nichols running as far away from every question or difficult thought they raised as fast as they can. It just doesn’t make any sense. Unless Simon didn’t have an ending to the movie and for some reason everyone—Nichols, the producer, the studio—just shrugged and said, “Yeah, Matthew Broderick can sell it with narration, he’s Ferris Bueller, it’ll be fine.”

Is Broderick’s narration read good? Yeah… it’s not bad. It’s not great, but it’s not bad. It’s also not his fault because Simon doesn’t give him anything to say really. Whatever lessons Broderick learned from his time in boot camp in 1945 Biloxi don’t come through in the narration. Or Broderick’s onscreen performance. It also turns out he’s supposed to be narrating it from the present, which seems weird with the accompanying shots. There’s got to be a story behind Blues’s production. There’s just got to be.

Because no one has a full character arc in the entire film. Not even Christopher Walken, who’s about one great scene away from a fantastic performance. He never gets his great scene, never unconditionally. It’s usually a combination of script and Broderick; Broderick, not in performance or in role as written, never gets to honestly react to Walken. Walken hounds Broderick for much of the film, because Broderick’s a New York smart-ass and, well, he’s also Jewish. Walken’s not going to take a cheap shot about the Jewish thing, but it’s there. Anytime Walken and Broderick have some kind of showdown where you want to see Broderick’s reaction—or, hell, Walken’s—the action goes to the rest of the platoon.

The rest of the platoon is alpha Matt Mulhern, wannabe alpha Markus Flanagan, average guy Casey Siemaszko, popular but good guy Michael Dolan, and super-nerd (and fellow Jewish guy) Corey Parker. All of the performances are good. It’s exceptional Parker’s able to get away with such an exaggerated stereotype, especially since there’s not a lot of consistency with the character in the script. He starts the film constantly farting and having to take a crap. Apparently it stops being a problem after he starts eating the army food. He’s also supposedly having all sorts of run-ins with Walken; we see some of them, but never the fallout. It’s just like with Broderick… Simon’s not interested in the characters developing from their experiences in Blues.

But Nichols directs for it. The way he positions the actors—Broderick, Parker, Mulhern, Flanagan, Siemaszko, Dolan—Nichols has got a distinct focus. Only then the script goes somewhere else and Nichols lets the film lose that focus. As a result, it always feels like something’s missing. Especially with Walken; especially after the “third act” reveals on Walken. Biloxi Blues should given Walken a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and doesn’t.

Mulhern’s really good. Dolan’s really good. Flanagan and Siemaszko are sort of flat good; the script doesn’t really give them enough. In Siemaszko’s case, Simon forgets about him too.

Great cameo from Park Overall. Good photography from Bill Butler, good music from Georges Delerue, great production design from Paul Sylbert. The forties soundtrack selections aren’t great and tend to be during the ill-advised “for laughs” sections, but they also make the film seem artificial and vaguely insincere, which is definitely not what it ought to be doing.

Biloxi Blues should be really good. It’s got the pieces to be really good. Instead, it’s decent, but a misfire.

Ladyhawke (1985, Richard Donner)

Two things about Ladyhawke without getting to the script or some of the acting. First, Andrew Powell’s music. It’s godawful; it’s stunning to see a director as competent as Richard Donner put something so godawful in a film. Intentionally put it in a film. It’s silly. It sounds like a disco cover of the “Dallas” theme song at its best and it tends to get much, much worse from that low peak.

Second, Vittorio Storaro’s photography. Not all of it, but the day for night stuff is terrible. Again, it seems like Donner and Storaro should know better, especially since there’s actual fine nighttime photography in other parts. Just not when the film needs it to visually make sense.

Now for the script. The film’s about Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer. They were carefree young lovers in Northern Italy after the Crusades, even though lots of people have French names, which gets confusing. I don’t think the location really matters. The evil bishop of this castle and settlement–John Wood in a really lame performance–curses them because he’s a Catholic bishop in the Middle Ages so he’s perving after Pfeiffer. By day, she lives as hawk. By night, he lives as a wolf. Both animals mate for life, something it seems unlikely anyone would know about in the Middle Ages, but the occasionally lamer than it needs to be script feels the need to point out.

But, Hauer’s not the lead and neither is Pfeiffer. Instead, it’s Matthew Broderick. He plays a young thief who escapes Wood’s prison and finds himself basically squiring for Hauer’s knight. He meets Pfeiffer and soon learns their tragic fate. The script doesn’t give anyone enough to do–except Wood and he’s got too much to do given his performance–but there’s a lot of trying. Broderick tries, Hauer tries, Pfeiffer tries. Pfeiffer’s the most successful, not because the writing is better for her, but because the plotting isn’t as bad for her scenes. Just the day for night photography. Hauer has it the worst. Any time he starts to show personality, it’s nightfall and he disappears for a bit.

The music and photography mess up quite a bit of what otherwise seems like a good production. There’s some wonky editing from Stuart Baird, like Donner didn’t get enough coverage, which isn’t a surprise, but it’s mostly fine. It’s not great, but it’s fine.

Leo McKern is all right as the disgraced priest who has the plan to reunite the lovers. Ken Hutchison’s kind of okay as Wood’s henchman. Better than Wood anyway, even if his part’s lame.

Even without the terrible music and the problematic photography, Ladyhawke would still have that script. All it’s got going for it is likability, which Broderick, Hauer and Pfeiffer all have; Donner just doesn’t utilize it. Instead, he relies on the script, the music, the photography and Ladyhawke’s… well, it’s too lukewarm to be a disaster. It should be a disappointment, but there’s not enough wasted potential to be one.

CREDITS

Directed by Richard Donner; screenplay by Edward Khmara, Michael Thomas and Tom Mankiewicz, based on a story by Khmara; director of photography, Vittorio Storaro; edited by Stuart Baird; music by Andrew Powell; production designer, Wolf Kroeger; produced by Donner and Lauren Shuler Donner; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Matthew Broderick (Gaston), Rutger Hauer (Navarre), Michelle Pfeiffer (Isabeau), Leo McKern (Imperius), Ken Hutchison (Marquet), Alfred Molina (Cezar) and John Wood (The Bishop).

RELATED

Godzilla (1998, Roland Emmerich)

Godzilla is tolerably bad for about the first half, then it takes a turn for the far worse as the characters start having longer conversations. Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich’s dialogue would be hilariously bad if it were in small parts, but they string together these scenes. There’s no action, just a lot of bad dialogue and bad acting. Only Hank Azaria seems immune; giving Godzilla‘s best performance isn’t a difficult achievement however.

Worst performance is a little more difficult to ascertain. Doug Savant’s an easy target, but it isn’t his fault Devlin and Emmerich wrote his character to have stuttering as comic relief (really, they did). Harry Shearer, Michael Lerner and Arabella Field are easier targets, but none are in the picture for very long. Maria Pitillo’s worst of the primary cast, but Matthew Broderick doesn’t trail too far behind.

As for Jean Reno… he’s okay.

Besides the crappy script and the awful CG, Godzilla‘s biggest problem is Emmerich. For the first half hour (only twenty percent of the runtime), Emmerich concentrates on ripping off Spielberg. Close Encounters, Raiders, Jurassic Park, Jaws. Emmerich’s unoriginality is at least distracting. Once he just directs the picture straight… it’s so much worse. He can’t figure out how to shoot a giant monster running through New York. It shouldn’t be hard. An establishing shot or two.

But maybe the CG composites just looked too weak.

The only competent thing in Godzilla is David Arnold’s score. Or half of it. The other half’s lousy.

The Last Shot (2004, Jeff Nathanson)

The Last Shot is a comedy–and a funny one–but I’m not sure it qualifies as a story. It’s an idea for a movie–the FBI fakes producing a movie to catch mobsters, hiring Hollywood wannabes without telling them–but Nathanson’s execution of the idea is flawed. Alec Baldwin’s FBI agent is lying to would-be director Matthew Broderick for the entire movie and Nathanson expects the audience to think it’s funny. He mistreats his characters, not because they deserve it (though he does give Broderick an unimportant deception late in the film–Baldwin’s clear except the whole faking a movie production), but because he can move the story and get laughs out of it. The beginning, thanks to Baldwin’s excellent performance, suggests the film’s going to be a lot better than it turns out, but once Calista Flockhart shows up screaming obscenities (look everyone, Ally McBeal swearing), it’s pretty obvious Nathanson’s really cheap.

But it’s still a Hollywood comedy–that inane (but watchable) genre, which has produced maybe one good film in the last twenty years–and Nathanson is funny. He gets Joan Cusack to be funny, not hard, but she’s real funny. He’s got Robert Evans offering wacky cut-in commentary on the story. Every time Evans breaks in, it cuts a scene (Evans is wearing some great clothes, but I assume they’re just his) awkwardly and it becomes clear Nathanson doesn’t have any regard for his own movie either, at least not in terms of it being a worthwhile narrative. As a series of jokes and tricks, he seems to respect it.

Tony Shalhoub is also good, but lots of the supporting cast misfires. Tim Blake Nelson is never believable as Broderick’s brother and Buck Henry’s small part would have been much more interesting if someone besides Buck Henry had been playing it. Broderick’s no good, but the character’s supposed to be lame (see, he has friends who play the guitar and sing songs about him, we’re supposed to laugh at him… the only way Nathanson could have done anything halfway honest with this film was to give it a Beaver Trilogy viewer self-awareness moment, but those aren’t funny, so no way Nathanson’s doing it). Toni Collette’s funny here too, real good even, in terms of acting, even though her character’s moronic. I think it was when Collette showed up, I really started feeling bad for The Last Shot. The cast list sounds good, but watching it… it’s embarrassingly pointless.

Nathanson’s got some other funny things–except he can’t seem to keep it set in 1985, not when he drops Sundance references and the like–but he ends it on a sentimental tone and the movie certainly never earned it. The music by Rolfe Kent’s a constant annoyance and, otherwise, the film’s technically uninteresting. But Baldwin’s real good and it’s so funny at times, it’s practically acceptable. Though, given Nathanson’s history as a blockbuster ghostwriter, one might think he’d know it doesn’t make any sense to have Baldwin be movie crazy in the third act without establishing it in the first. Rifle on the wall and all.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Jeff Nathanson; screenplay by Nathanson, based on a magazine article by Steve Fishman; director of photography, John Lindley; edited by David Rosenbloom; music by Rolfe Kent; production designer, William Arnold; produced by Larry Brezner and David Hoberman; released by Touchstone Pictures.

Starring Alec Baldwin (Joe Devine), Matthew Broderick (Steven Schats), Toni Collette (Emily French), Tony Shalhoub (Tommy Sanz), Calista Flockhart (Valerie Weston), Tim Blake Nelson (Marshal Paris), Buck Henry (Lonnie Bosco) and Ray Liotta (Jack Devine).

RELATED