Tag: Teri Garr

Mr. Mom (1983, Stan Dragoti)

Approximately three-quarters of the way through Mr. Mom (approximately because the movie is a series of sitcom set pieces, not necessarily in sound narrative order), I realized it wasn’t just about sitcom set pieces; the whole thing is a situation comedy. With very low stakes. When the third act has to gin up the big drama, each resolution is a little more pat than the last, with Mom putting the whole weight on Teri Garr.

Sort of sums up the entire picture.

Mr. Mom opens with its pilot episode—Detroit auto engineer Michael Keaton gets laid off, even though his boss and carpool driver Jeffrey Tambor said it wasn’t happening. Keaton also works with Christopher Lloyd and Tom Leopold; Lloyd must’ve been doing someone a favor. Mom plays like a prestige sitcom in an era where the concept was before its time… except the script’s bad and the direction’s terrible.

Anyway.

Keaton’s laid off, so both he and Garr are going to look for work. They bet on it. After a commercial break, Garr’s got a job, and Keaton doesn’t. We get a little of their characters’ backstories throughout, without any actual insight, obviously. Garr went to college for something advertising-like and worked for two years before leaving to homemake for Keaton. Keaton was in the Army, then went to college, then got a job in Detroit designing cars. They can’t afford actual cars, just filming at the plant, so it’s not like there’s a failed supercar subplot. “Tonight on NBC Mr. Mom” doesn’t have supercar money.

Garr goes to work for Martin Mull, Keaton starts hanging out with her housewife friends. Mull’s a sleaze, but Garr doesn’t acknowledge it because it’s the eighties and it’s messed up. Garr’s Mom’s secret weapon. Like, it’s Keaton’s test run for sure—is Michael Keaton ready for his own “The Michael Keaton Show”? Most of his scenes are like he’s doing stand-up, presumably because director Dragoti hasn’t given him any other instruction or input. Mr. Mom has a lot of pitfalls—spoiler, the screenplay (credited to John Hughes) was worked on by a room of Aaron Spelling TV writers. And Hughes’s screenplay was only ever intended for television anyway, in that weird era of TVM comedies.

So Mom’s got a lot riding against it.

But nothing compares to Dragoti’s abjectly bad direction.

Obviously, some of the fault lies with Victor J. Kemper’s photography. Kemper’s not incompetent, just generic. But there’s better generic than what Kemper shoots for Dragoti. And Patrick Kennedy doesn’t know what he’s doing with his cutting, either. The technicals on the movie, outside Garr’s work outfits (they get the only costuming credit), are rough. I forgot about the hair and makeup on the housewives.

So why isn’t Mr. Mom the worst, then? Keaton and Garr are likable. Keaton never has to be particularly cute with the kids—any parenting mishap scenes are short, and the biggest plot arc for any of the kids is middle child Taliesin Jaffe having to give up his blankie. Though even it’s an incomplete plot arc, with Mom skipping the middle section. The movie does multiple montage sequences to cover the lack of story, including one involving Keaton growing a beard and being a layabout. The problem is the anti-beard coding doesn’t age well. Luckily he’s slobbing out in other ways… at least until Garr tells him a homemaker has to take pride in the home.

Plus divorced housewife Ann Jillian is hot to trot and after Keaton for absolutely no reason other than there aren’t any other men in the movie.

Garr’s coworkers don’t even get names.

And, of course, despite having such a limited cast of fellas… Mr. Mom doesn’t pass Bechdel. It fails proudly.

Do Keaton and Garr save it? No. But there aren’t any casualties among the cast—even with lousy sitcom bits and Dragoti’s bad direction, everyone makes it through. Eldest son Frederick Koehler gets less than Jaffe but is perfectly solid. Koehler and Jaffe are professional kid actors. They can do this job. Mull’s fine. It’s not a standout performance, but it’s not bad. Jillian’s fine. Not sure about that hair. After them, everyone else is basically just a guest star.

Nice cameo from Edie McClurg. Miriam Flynn’s good for barely having a name (it’s also unclear how well Garr knows the other housewives or if Keaton joined someone else’s gang).

I wish it were better. And not just because it’s somehow a long ninety-one minutes—you’re being forced to marathon a sitcom you didn’t agree to marathon. But there are some really obvious misses—Keaton and Garr never get to be together, which I know is a feature, not a bug, but it’d have been nice to see how they worked together. Especially since they’re then left running their own shows without reward.

Also… the final joke is dreadfully unfunny. There’s a good reason Aaron Spelling didn’t make sitcoms.

The Black Stallion (1979, Carroll Ballard)

The Black Stallion is two separate, subsequent narratives. The filmmakers utilize two different but related styles for them. The first narrative, with 1940s tween Kelly Reno, shipwrecked on a desert island off the coast of North Africa with a wild Arabian stallion. The second is after Reno’s rescue when he and the stallion have to adjust to “real” life back home in the United States. That adjustment will lead to ex-jockey and current unsuccessful farmer Mickey Rooney taking an interest in Reno and the horse, who don’t do well in town.

The first narrative takes just under an hour, starting with Reno and dad Hoyt Aston on the ship, with a bored Reno discovering the horse onboard. There’s not a lot of dialogue, with director Ballard immediately establishing the film’s distinct narrative distance to protagonist Reno. The first part of Stallion’s more visual, the second part’s more audial, but Ballard and his crew maintain techniques throughout, including this deliberate angle on Reno. Ballard focuses on Reno’s experience of events but without showing his reaction to those events. Sometimes the film will catch Reno as he reacts; it just does so while the reaction’s already in progress. The film gives Reno his privacy.

The film’s got almost a half hour without any dialogue. Reno makes some noises at the horse in attempts to ingratiate himself—to limited success—but otherwise, most of the desert island sequence is no diegetic sound, just Carmine Coppola’s score. Coppola’s score is often ethereal, moving between styles, then focusing in for exact dramatic effect. The Black Stallion is a technically precise film. It’s exquisite too, but the precision is on a whole other level. Ballard, cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, editor Robert Dalva, and composer Coppola create these sublime sequences, each distinct but building off one another. The film tracks this relationship between Reno and the horse, their developing friendship and companionship, and gives them space to separately experience their desert island plight. The only word for it is divine.

And it takes Stallion until the film’s third act (and of the second narrative) to get back to that level. The second part is technically superb and quite charming (Rooney’s adorable, Teri Garr’s extremely sympathetic as Reno’s mom, and the period production design is excellent), but it’s not the first part. It’s not about Reno and the horse as pals anymore; it’s about Reno trying to figure out how to have an Arabian stallion somewhere in Rockwellian America. Rooney and the potential of racing glory give Reno some idea, though.

Since the film started on the ship, the film never establishes Reno before his exciting and tragic adventure. He’s always quiet and reflective, even on the boat, so one can assume he’s not less exuberant than before, but once he’s home, it’s still all about the horse. They’ve just lost the context for their friendship, with Rooney becoming—if not a surrogate dad—then at least a male role model for Reno. Rooney can understand some of Reno’s relationship with the horse. Despite the intense dangers the two experienced, Reno still has boyish dreams for him and his horse.

Good thing he lives in a place where male wish-fulfillment is a cornerstone of the culture because he’ll get his chance. Though the film will let Reno verbalize his dreams, the closest is when he breaks down and tells mom Garr about his experiences, which the film showed without sharing his internal experience. It did an excellent job of conveying that experience visually, but it’s not until much later Reno finally gets to talk about them.

The film’s terse with all its actors; Axton gets a great, staring straight in the camera (Reno’s perspective) monologue at the beginning, but he doesn’t talk much otherwise. It takes until the end of the second act for Reno to get his big moment. Garr gets hers in the same scene. Both Rooney and Clarence Muse have already had their big scenes, despite coming in after Garr. And big comes with an asterisk. They’re just longer passages of dialogue, maybe monologues. Ballard’s not interested in listening to people talk, instead showing how they act and interact.

The sound editing’s the thing in the second part. The sound of the horse running, hooves now on grass and pavement. Although there were lengthy horse-riding sequences in the first part, those sequences all had Coppola’s music accompanying them, not the actual sound. Ballard and the sound editors (Todd Boekelheide, Richard Burrow, Diana Pellegrini, and Stephen Stept) very deliberately refine the sound through the second part until the exceptional finale, when the sound becomes the most important technical. Albeit amid the exceptional other technicals. Stallion’s finale is gorgeous filmmaking. The photography, the editing, the directing, all stellar. And then the sound is even more impressive.

It’s transcendent, and when Stallion ties the epical (if stylishly lyrical) second part back to that lyrical, divine first part.

The film has several phenomenal sequences (in addition to the finale). Heck, the end credits are a remarkable flashback sequence. But most of the scenes on the island are fantastic, particularly the underwater dance and riding sequence. Reno chasing the horse through town is also great. But, again, nothing compares to the finale. Well, some of the island stuff, but it literally compares, not figuratively.

The Black Stallion is exquisite and masterful, occasionally divine. It’s a magnificent film.

Tootsie (1982, Sydney Pollack)

Tootsie opens with Dustin Hoffman giving acting classes. He’s a failed New York actor–but a well-employed waiter–who must be giving these classes on spec. It seems like Hoffman being a beloved acting teacher might end up having something to do with the plot of Tootsie, which has Hoffman pretending to be a female actor in order to get a part, but it doesn’t. Save a throwaway scene where he’s helping love interest Jessica Lange work on her part.

The film, with its two (credited) screenwriters and two story concocters (though Larry Gelbart is both), is a narrative mess. Teri Garr, as Hoffman’s student and good friend, disappears somewhere in the second act, once Lange gets more to do. Bill Murray (in an uncredited, main supporting role) at least provides some continuity, which not even director Pollack (who also acts as Hoffman’s agent) gets to do. The conclusion of the movie is this swirl of contrivances, all forcefully introduced earlier in the picture, and no one who should be there for it has a scene. Tootsie just ignores the previous couple hours to get the coda to work.

And it does. Tootsie does, despite all the narrative problems and missed opportunities and dropped characters, come through for the finish. It helps having Owen Roizman’s photography, it helps being shot in New York City, it needs stars Hoffman and Lange. No matter what story problems, Tootsie never fails its actors. Even with it’s Pollack–Tootsie, the film, never fails Pollack, the actor, even if Pollack, the director, doesn’t quite have the film under control. Pollack’s got a great rant towards the end.

I’ll start from the bottom of the cast and work up just because I’m not really sure what I’m going to say about Hoffman yet.

George Gaynes is hilarious as this lech actor on the soap opera where Hoffman gets his job (as a woman). Gaynes just has to be a believable buffoon, but he does it with such ease, he calms Tootsie a bit. It never seems too extreme just because Gaynes’s so sturdy. He tempers it, along with Dabney Coleman. Coleman’s the jerk director of the soap. He’s also dating Lange. He also doesn’t have a big enough part in the story during the second half. Coleman’s still good though. He’s got the right energy–and right buffoonery–to keep it going.

Charles Durning is about the only actor who doesn’t get anything to do overall. He gets a lot to do in the story, he’s just poorly written. He’s Lange’s dad, who gets a crush on Hoffman when Hoffman’s “in character” as the female actor. It’s a sitcom foil, which wastes Durning; there’s also some continuity issues regarding Durning’s supportive dad when Lange’s character is initially introduced as an alcoholic because of being an orphan? Maybe I missed some exposition, but I was paying attention.

Murray’s good. He’s dry, he’s funny, he’s Hoffman’s conscience if Hoffman had a somewhat disinterested, bemused conscience. He’s present through most of the film, though, which is important. Most other characters just evaporate when the story doesn’t need them. Tootsie keeps Murray around even when it doesn’t.

Now, Teri Garr. She’s great. She also gets one good scene and it’s after the movie’s been ignoring her for an hour. It’s not a great part, either. She’s such a function in the script, she and Hoffman’s subplot literally kicks off just because his particular lie to her. Any other lie and it would’ve been fine. But her great scene is great. It’s a shame she’s not around more.

The same sort of goes for Jessica Lange, who shares the same space in the film as Garr, at least until Garr leaves. Then Lange gets to be around and sometimes she gets stuff to do, sometimes she just gets to sit around. Lange’s best acting moments are far superior to the script’s moments for her as an actor. Pollack works on directing Lange more than anyone else in the film.

Including Hoffman, who Pollack sort of lets do his own thing, to great success. Hoffman’s performance, as an example of comedy Method acting, is outstanding. There’s not much of a role past the MacGuffin–Pollack relies way too heavily on montages after a certain point, including a completely nonsensical one–but it’s an outstanding performance. The film positions Hoffman front and center, then transforms him into his new role–an actor playing this female actor–on screen. It’s awesome. It also is nowhere near enough to fix the script problems because Tootsie’s a fairly shallow movie overall.

And it shouldn’t be. There’s so much potential, not just for Hoffman, but for everyone in the cast. Lange, Garr, Murray, Coleman… okay, not Durning, but everyone else and a lot with them. And maybe even Durning if the film remembered Lange’s alcoholism subplot instead of forgetting it immediately.

Tootsie’s all right. It should be better, it could’ve been a lot worse. It’s well made, has a nice pace, has a nice Dave Grusin score–and a nice original song from Stephen Bishop–and some phenomenal acting. Hoffman and Lange are excellent and Garr ought to be. She just doesn’t have enough material. Because Tootsie’s a tad thin.

After Hours (1985, Martin Scorsese)

After Hours is meticulous. Director Scorsese, editor Thelma Schoonmaker and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus work with exacting precision throughout, with the first third of the film serving to prepare the viewer for the rest. The film follows boring, regular guy Griffin Dunne as he impetuously pursues an attractive mystery woman (Rosanna Arquette) in Soho in the middle of the night.

Scorsese, Dunne and writer Joseph Minion never spend any time establishing Dunne beyond his office drone existence–the viewer comes to sympathize with him due to the strangeness of the events unfolding around him. And the events in the first third are strange in a far more reasonable way than later in the film. Dunne has to maintain sympathy even after he reveals himself to be shallow and callous.

Also during the first third of the film, Scorsese uses a lot of obvious, repeated stylizing to force the viewer to pay attention. So many of the later coincidences and occurrences are fast and just in dialogue, the viewer has to be ready to grab them.

Amid all the noise–After Hours moves very fast and often loud–there are quiet moments of startling humanity, both good and bad. It's a concentrated whirlwind.

Fantastic supporting turns from John Heard, Teri Garr and, especially, Linda Fiorentino. As the ostensible love interest, Arquette manages to be a different person multiple times in a scene while still maintaining consistency. She's essential. Dunne's great.

Scorsese's direction is often breathtaking, especially in how he makes Ballhaus's graceful camera movements unsettling.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Martin Scorsese; written by Joseph Minion; director of photography, Michael Ballhaus; edited by Thelma Schoonmaker; music by Howard Shore; production designer, Jeffrey Townsend; produced by Amy Robinson, Griffin Dunne and Robert F. Colesberry; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Griffin Dunne (Paul Hackett), Rosanna Arquette (Marcy), Verna Bloom (June), Tommy Chong (Pepe), Linda Fiorentino (Kiki Bridges), Teri Garr (Julie), John Heard (Tom), Cheech Marin (Neil), Catherine O’Hara (Gail), Dick Miller (Diner Waiter), Will Patton (Horst) and Robert Plunket (Street Pickup).

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Let It Ride (1989, Joe Pytka)

I wonder how Let It Ride would play if it were competently made. Pytka’s not a terrible director, but he’s not any good either. His mediocre composition is undone by the absolutely atrocious song choices for the soundtrack. The film would probably be better with no changes other than that track excised. Not that Giorgio Moroder’s score is anything special; it’s mildly okay, just because it basically plagiarizes Danny Elfman’s score for Midnight Run.

The biggest shame is Pytka doesn’t give editor Dede Allen anything to work with. One of the best editors in Hollywood and she’s got nothing….

Oh, and Curtis Wehr’s photography is awful.

Now, on to the rest—i.e. the acting and Nancy Dowd’s script.

Let It Ride takes place over a day at the races where Richard Dreyfuss all of a sudden starts winning. The tension of whether or not he’ll keep winning eventually gets mildly nerve-wracking (a good director would have made it excruciating) in last half hour.

Dowd’s story is really small. It serves as a showcase for actors… in an easy comedy. Dreyfuss has almost nothing to do until the end. Still, he manages a solid lead performance.

Lots of great supporting performances. Teri Garr’s excellent as his wife (maybe the best performance). David Johansen and Jennifer Tilly are both good. Robbie Coltrane, Michelle Phillips and Cynthia Nixon, all good.

The weakest performance is Richard Edson and he’s not terrible.

It should have been better; not heavier or more serious, just better.

2.5/4★★½

CREDITS

Directed by Joe Pytka; screenplay by Nancy Dowd, based on a novel by Jay Cronley; director of photography, Curtis Wehr; edited by Dede Allen and Jim Allen; music by Giorgio Moroder; production designer, Wolf Kroeger; produced by David Giler; released by Paramount Pictures.

Starring Richard Dreyfuss (Jay Trotter), David Johansen (Looney), Teri Garr (Pam), Jennifer Tilly (Vicki), Allen Garfield (Greenberg), Richard Edson (Johnny Casino), Ralph Seymour (Sid), Cynthia Nixon (Evangeline), Richard Dimitri (Tony Cheeseburger), Michelle Phillips (Mrs. Davis) and Robbie Coltrane (Ticket Seller).

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Young Frankenstein (1974, Mel Brooks)

Young Frankenstein does not feel like a Mel Brooks film. It’s so startlingly well-directed, one could almost believe he didn’t direct it himself. Brooks, for the film, has this way of keeping the camera mostly stationary and letting his actors and the sets do all the work–one can’t forget Gerald Hirschfeld’s amazing cinematography either.

Brooks–and Wilder, who co-wrote and runs wild with the film in the lead–have a sizable accomplishment here.

Wilder’s performance–and Brooks puts him in these insanely tight close-ups with an unwavering shot–is unbelievably good. Probably his best performance. He does so well alone, but also so perfectly with everyone else (Teri Garr, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn). It’s almost unfortunate when Young Frankenstein has to get moving with its plot, because it means it’s going to end.

Kahn’s got some hilarious moments in an extrovert role, while Garr’s a lot quieter but just as good. Garr might give the best straight acting performance. Feldman’s got maybe the flashiest role; Brooks’s tight direction keeps him from taking over the film, making sure it’s him, Garr and Wilder.

As the Monster, Peter Boyle does a fine job. It’s an almost entirely physical performance, but his facial expressions–even exaggerated–are ideal. It’s impossible to think of anyone else in the role.

Same goes for Gene Hackman’s cameo. It’s incredibly small, but it’s one of Hackman’s most memorable performances.

Reiterating, the only thing wrong with Young Frankenstein is it eventually has to end.

3.5/4★★★½

CREDITS

Directed by Mel Brooks; screenplay by Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks, based on their story and a novel by Mary Shelley; director of photography, Gerald Hirschfeld; edited by John C. Howard; music by John Morris; production designer, Dale Hennesy; produced by Michael Gruskoff; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Gene Wilder (Dr. Frankenstein), Peter Boyle (The Monster), Marty Feldman (Igor), Cloris Leachman (Frau Blücher), Teri Garr (Inga), Madeline Kahn (Elizabeth), Gene Hackman (Blindman), Kenneth Mars (Inspector Kemp), Richard Haydn (Herr Falkstein), Liam Dunn (Mr. Hilltop) and Danny Goldman (Medical Student).

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Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977, Steven Spielberg), the director's cut

This version–now called ‘The Director’s Cut’–originally came out as ‘The Collector’s Edition’ maybe ten years ago (maybe less). The most striking thing about this cut is Dreyfuss’s insanity. In this version, he’s totally nuts… Spielberg edits back in (from the original, excised from the Special Edition) a couple significant scenes. First, showing off Roberts Blossom–one of Dreyfuss’s initial peers–as a complete nut, which is a discreet foreshadowing of when–in the second major addition–Dreyfuss goes completely insane.

One of the significant dilemmas of Close Encounters has always been Roy Neary and his being a bad guy. He goes nuts and drives his family away. In this version, Teri Garr’s put-upon wife is even more put-upon. Where Close Encounters enters in to the unreadable is… well, Dreyfuss isn’t nuts. There isn’t a big reveal at the end when the viewer finds out the UFOs are real and all the pain he’s caused and all the pain he’s suffered are–mildly–justified….

The viewer knows all along Dreyfuss is right and Spielberg manages, in the scenes with the Neary family, to remain impartial. If one stops to think about it, obviously Dreyfuss is a monster. But the film shares his wonder with the viewer and his actions, while indefensible, are completely understandable.

There’s also a lot more ominousness in this version. When Cary Guffey gets taken, it seems a lot scarier, but not for any reasons of addition or subtraction. This echoes at the end, with the silent entrance of the mothership.

The additional scenes give Teri Garr more of an onscreen presence and she’s really great. Melinda Dillon, I probably said it in the Special Edition post, also great. I noticed Truffaut a lot this time too–I don’t think he’s got any extra scenes, but he’s so effective in the last act, it’s a perfect use of him. I’m not sure if Spielberg necessarily got a great performance out of him or just cast him perfectly.

As for Spielberg’s removal of the mothership interior… it really doesn’t change the end result. Close Encounters is on such firm ground, the mothership interior is just a matter of preference….

For example, I’m not actually sure if this cut is better than the special edition.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Written and directed by Steven Spielberg; director of photography, Vilmos Zsigmond; edited by Michael Kahn; music by John Williams; production designer, Joe Alves; produced by Julia Phillips and Michael Phillips; released by Columbia Pictures.

Starring Richard Dreyfuss (Roy Neary), François Truffaut (Claude Lacombe), Teri Garr (Ronnie Neary), Melinda Dillon (Gillian Guiler), Bob Balaban (David Laughlin), J. Patrick McNamara (Project Leader), Warren J. Kemmerling (Wild Bill), Roberts Blossom (Farmer), Philip Dodds (Jean Claude), Cary Guffey (Barry Guiler), Shawn Bishop (Brad Neary), Adrienne Campbell (Sylvia Neary) and Justin Dreyfuss (Toby Neary).

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Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977, Steven Spielberg), the special edition

I don’t know where to start with Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The jokey open would be something about listing the defects and not having any, but then flipping it and not being able to list everything Spielberg does right because his successes are so difficult to work out, particularly in to an easy-to-read, bullet-pointed list. Spielberg makes strange narrative choices in Close Encounters–to a point of confusion regarding the main storyline of the film… is it Richard Dreyfuss and his personal involvement or is it Francois Truffaut and his official involvement? While Dreyfuss probably has more screen time, quite a bit of that time is spent in expository scenes–introducing the UFOs to the audience, showing the experience of those affected–and then the ending is mostly told from the official point of view. But it never feels funny; Spielberg slaps the two stories together and makes it work–even after, at least for the first two-thirds of the film, it becomes clear we aren’t following Dreyfuss because he’s unique in his experience or even his dedication. Instead, we’re following Dreyfuss because there’s something… I can’t resist… important about his particular experience. It’s something to take a loving family man and remove those components and make him… I don’t know the word. Sympathetic isn’t right, heroic isn’t right. If there’s a word for undeniably correct, that one would be it.

The end of the film–I find it odd it takes place over such a short period of time… the last hour takes place over a day and the first hour probably only a few weeks (something about the readiness of the international response makes it feel like it happens every day)–doesn’t exactly belong somewhere else (it’s a natural conclusion to the story) but there’s an aesthetic beauty to it, a sense of absolute wonderment, missing from the earlier encounter scenes. By the end credits shots of the ship going through space, Spielberg overflows the viewer’s imagination. He shuts it down with too much stimuli, too much possibility–to the point, one can do nothing but sit back and let the film do its work.

Part of–I guess I’ll get to it now–Spielberg’s success, in the 1970s, in his first three films, has to do with his approach to people and how they interact with other people. Sugarland, Jaws, Close Encounters–all of them are visually distinctive in how Spielberg shoots people together at home… People spend time together and, especially in Close Encounters, that time spent is more important to the character than it is to the film. Spielberg shows us people in fantastic situations who are still regular people and it endears them quite significantly. He also has that style to the scenes, deep focus, the composition of the shots, the editing. It’s craftsmanship he seems to have forgotten.

It’s also very big–Close Encounters is very big. The ideas in it are very big and here’s the big change in Spielberg, this film being the best example. Very much like Soderbergh does today, Spielberg used to play to a hypothetical audience–and in Close Encounters, he doesn’t worry about anything. And now all he does is worry….

Have I already said glib in this post? No, it’s the first time. Yay. Close Encounters is Spielberg’s best film and, while watching it, it became acutely obvious how good a filmmaker made this film. At times it reminds of Kane and–nothing specific obviously–I never, even when he’s good or great, tend of Spielberg in those artistic terms… but with Close Encounters, I certainly do.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Written and directed by Steven Spielberg; director of photography, Vilmos Zsigmond; edited by Michael Kahn; music by John Williams; production designer, Joe Alves; produced by Julia Phillips and Michael Phillips; released by Columbia Pictures.

Starring Richard Dreyfuss (Roy Neary), François Truffaut (Claude Lacombe), Teri Garr (Ronnie Neary), Melinda Dillon (Gillian Guiler), Bob Balaban (David Laughlin), J. Patrick McNamara (Project Leader), Warren J. Kemmerling (Wild Bill), Roberts Blossom (Farmer), Philip Dodds (Jean Claude), Cary Guffey (Barry Guiler), Shawn Bishop (Brad Neary), Adrienne Campbell (Sylvia Neary) and Justin Dreyfuss (Toby Neary).

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Dick (1999, Andrew Fleming)

Andrew Fleming’s Dick has an irresistible premise (slow-witted teenage girls take down Nixon, not Woodward and Bernstein), but it turns out not to be enough for a movie. Not even a ninety-four minute movie. Besides inspired casting of Watergate figures (Dave Foley as Haldeman is probably my favorite, but Saul Rubinek’s Kissinger is the best–and Dan Hedaya’s a perfect Nixon), Fleming doesn’t really know what to do with his story. He covers some of the Watergate stuff, but not enough. He dumbs down the revelation of evidence and so on, not really taking advantage of it for his story. Once he’s established Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams in the White House, he does a couple montages and throws in Williams’s positively icky on Nixon, but the movie’s mostly on its way toward the end. Neither Dunst or Williams really have characters–which is fine, given Dick is a farcical comedy–but Fleming doesn’t have ninety-four minutes of story either.

Dick gets long after a while, once the laughing out loud stops–usually whenever Dunst and Williams are in charge of their scenes, instead of Foley, Hedeya, or Rubinek–and I don’t think there’s a single big laugh for the film’s last hour. There’s a good Foley scene, but it’s amusing, not laugh out loud. Given the lousy pacing of that last hour, I wonder if Fleming cut some stuff out to make the movie shorter, but I doubt it. Kirsten Dunst’s character doesn’t have a story, she has a brother. Devon Gummersall, as the brother, is good. Except he’s just a funny pot-head and the film’s better when he’s around because he says funny pot-head stuff. Dunst ranges from awful to bad. She’s worse when she’s alone. Michelle Williams, halfway through, goes from dumb to not-so dumb and she’s fine in the second half. The contrast between her and Dusnt’s acting prowess is stunning. One also gets the feeling Williams heard the word ‘Watergate’ before filming the movie.

We rented Dick because a) we’d just watched All the President’s Men and b) I thought it was funnier. I remembered it being funnier. But it isn’t. The film only makes it through the second half because of Hedeya, Williams, and Will Ferrell and Bruce McCulloch as Woodward and Bernstein (Bernstein’s such a jackass I wonder if Fleming consulted with Nora Ephron). The film also benefits–more than it deserves–from the great use of the 1970s music. The end is–as I remembered while watching it–a real kicker set to Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain.”