grunin Reviews

Bright Young Things (2003)

The book must have been better than this

[6 September 2004]

The source material is presumably satire, but it's been adapted as a drama, which is a mistake: the characters don't have the depth, nor does their situation, and we end up watching foolish people doing unamusing things. If they spoke with Wildean wit, or if the they had significant effects on those around them it would have been more interesting. When bad things happen to people in a satire, we laugh, and in a drama we cry; here, we wonder what the point is.

One thing that was surprisingly obtrusive: the script seemed to simultaneously take place in the Roaring 20s (the wild parties) and 1936.

As a side note, Stockard Channing and Dan Ackroyd do their best but are both horribly miscast.

Quills (2000)

Good acting and direction, so-so script (and not really about Sade)

[25 November 2000]

Let's just say the plot was inspired by de Sade's life, rather than based on it. One nice point, this "Sade" is just as antireligious as the original, but his quips are better: "Your god hung up his own son like a side of veal -- I can only imagine what he'd do to me."

In any case, the character here is a writer locked up in a madhouse, who above all must keep on telling stories (in this case pornographic and/or violent) to live; and an establishment which simultaneously condemns his writing and (very literally) profits from it. The authorities keep taking away his writing instruments (the 'quills' of the title), but he perseveres, using wine, blood, even feces to keep scribbling away.

I realize they're trying to make some political points here, but they're not well thought out. For example, the virginal Madeline says "If I wasn't such a bad woman on the page, I couldn't be such a good woman in life." This sounds clever but it's not at all true: virgins don't read pornography as part of a program of self-restraint, nor does it seem plausible that it would have this effect. The screenwriter knows this, too, as shown by the carryings-on of some of the minor characters.

Better served is the idea that Sade's writing is no more horrific than the world he lived in, specifically the Terror which followed the French Revolution. This is reflected both in the opening scene (which I won't divulge, but is quite well done) and Sade's excellent line (to Coulmier), "I've been to Hell. You've only read about it in books."

The characters are not particularly complex, but the actors do an excellent job of hiding this. The hardest job is given to Michael Caine, whose character is really a cartoon villain, but he carries it off.

I think I can warn you without 'spoiling' that the film has a nice 'madmen playing telephone through the prison walls' sequence about two-thirds of the way through, but the plot goes disappointingly awry after that.

It should be noted that film owes much -- perhaps too much, there are many near-quotations -- to such wildly diverse sources as "Silence of the Lambs" (gore, mayhem, an imprisoned mad genius), "The Pillow Book" (a mania for writing and reading made flesh), and, most expectably, "Marat/Sade" (the politics of nihilism vs. revolution). It's unfortunate that "Quills" is not as good as any of them.

Goodbye Lover (1998)

Rent it for the one good scene...

[4/10 · 4 November 2000]

A forgettable flick, except for one sequence: Ellen DeGeneres & Patricia Arquette play an extended scene which is a deadpan allusion to lesbian B&D. If this sort of thing sounds amusing to you, rent it; otherwise keep looking.

The Kid (2000)

I was expecting superficial junk, but it was actually pretty good.

[6/10 · 3 July 2000]

Turns out it's not really a kids' movie - it's the story of a guy's mid-life crisis - but my kids (9 & 4) didn't seem bored. There were a couple of scenes where I expected the worst kind of saccharine cliches, but they actually turned out okay.

Willis is above average, Lily Tomlin is basically perfect, and even the kid (Spencer Breslin) doesn't make you cringe.

As far as the writer (Audrey Wells), it was about as good as her 'The Truth About Cats & Dogs' and better than 'George of the Jungle'. It will appeal to people who liked director Turteltaub's other big films (Phenomenon, While You Were Sleeping, Cool Runnings).

Pennies from Heaven (1981)

A dark masterpiece

[8/10 · 23 February 2000]

I still remember how shocked and disturbed I was the first time I saw this film. Seeing it again (for the first time since 1981) it's still just as powerful, but for different reasons.

First of all, the script takes one's genre expectations and turns them violently inside out. For example, an exploitative seduction scene -- the kind where you cringe at the lies being told -- ends with the tritest of '30s cliches, the heart-shaped frame. In the same way, the ending (which you can't possibly guess) is a better example of Brecht's "alienation effect" than anything by Brecht himself.

This is not just Potter showing off writerly virtuosity. True to the (Brechtian) model, he is using the music of the period to illuminate its despair. Not that it's saying something new -- we all know the Depression was a tough time -- but I for one felt like I had never before understood it quite this way. I don't know to what extent this might be Potter's response to Thatcher and Reagan, but it's worth considering.

It does lose a few points for me because there are moments when Arthur's delusions and cruelties are too painful to witness, but the acting can't be faulted. Particularly good are Bernadette Peters and Christopher Walken (only one scene, but wow!).

Topsy-Turvy (1999)

Thought-provoking but flawed

[7/10 · 22 December 1999]

First the good news: so far as his storytelling is concerned, Leigh has gone out on a limb here, and I'm glad he did it. One expected a straight double-biopic; but instead we get perhaps a dozen real people, each with clear virtues and weaknesses, each with concerns and modes of living that are by turns familiar or alien. The acting is uniformly memorable -- some scenes apparently improvised, and brilliantly.

But alas and alack! Leigh (or his music director) has made a terrible botch of the music -- all but a few numbers are virtually destroyed by impossibly slow tempi. There is really no way the actors can do anything to give the material the necessary lightness. It may seem hard to believe if you've never heard it done properly, but if the Mikado were really this dull, how could have it been such a success all these years?

In sum: see it for the acting, or if you already know you like Gilbert & Sullivan. Though it pains me to say it, don't bring a friend in the hopes of introducing them to G&S, because it might well discourage them.

The Designated Mourner (1997)

Yes, it's all talk, but what talk!

[10/10 · 22 September 1999]

Three characters sit at table, taking turns speaking directly to the camera, talking of courage and cowardice in a time of repression, in an unspecified yet intuitively recognizable place and time not far from our own.

Shawn's virtuoso writing (far more nuanced than a short summary can convey) meditates on the hairsplitting liberal in us all, as 'the last people who really understand John Donne' are casually wiped out in the interest of 'fighting terrorism'.

As for the lack of action: yes, maybe it's really a radio play, but every actor or actress should *see* Mike Nichols, who gives an extraordinary, one-of-a-kind performance. Particularly, he breaks all the rules of "actor's diction," so he sounds just like a *real* person (say, being interviewed for a documentary). Not an effect you can use just anywhere, but brilliant here.

Red-Headed Woman (1932)

Nearly perfect, perfectly amoral comedy

[2 September 1999]

Last night, this film had a packed house of jaded New Yorkers in stitches. Beyond the risque story (girl tries to sleep her way to riches), there are a full complement of brilliant performances, with a script of (nearly) Wildean wit. Probably would be far better known if not for the Hayes office...