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The Dude Versus Hitchcock

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So the devious, sexy spy of North by Northwest, Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), is trying to elude dupe Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant). She gets a secret call from her evil lover, Phillip Vandamm (James Mason), while she and Roger are together and writes down an address for their rendezvous.

She carefully tears off the paper with the address, places it in her purse, and then—ready for this?—walks away without the notepad.

There’s that notepad, just a pencil trick away from exposing that address. Will she remember to bring it with her? Roger is watching!

Alas. She walks away.

Will she remember before she sneaks away? Of course, right? It was just a momentary oversight, her wits clouded by the sexiness of her target, Roger.

We see her pick up several other things.

(Oh, that sly Hitchcock.)

Then she leaves the room, SANS NOTEPAD.

Roger, having watched five minutes of television/film in his life, of course knows the pencil trick. He holds the paper this way and that….(Why? What does he think he’ll see?)

Cary Grant holds notepad with clue, North by Northwest

He takes out his pencil. He does the trick pant-less (in a kind gesture of Hitchcock’s, who knows his female fans).

Cary Grant does the pencil trick with his clue.

There the address is. The super-secret address Eve was so anxious to hide.

Invisible address exposed thanks to pencil.

How long have you known this trick?  Were you six? Maybe seven? I’m pretty sure Encyclopedia Brown taught me. It’s the kind of spy craft a child can understand and appears in every detective/noir/suspense film or TV episode that assumes its audience is young/dumb/abysmally ignorant of pop culture. Frankly, I would have thought such a plot device beneath Hitchcock. But he never did like giving his heroines much credit, so of course, this spy who has supposedly fooled JAMES MASON must be outsmarted by a different man. Who has a background in….advertising. And lives with his mother.

Yes, our sexy spy was outfoxed by a trick that Micky Mouse might have taught me in the 80s, back when Disney was hawking his image on magic trick books, and I thought that a wand that lifted a playing card with a hidden piece of string was really something.

True, the pencil maneuver wasn’t QUITE as old of a trick when Hitchcock used it, but it wasn’t exactly fresh in 1959. (Though, as my friend points out, today it might become new again, with so few people using pencils.)

I used to roll my eyes when I saw this pencil-and-notepad trick, annoyed by the lazy writing. But now I laugh. Because the Coens offered a send-up of this trite scenario in their—appropriately enough—satire of/tribute to The Big Sleep, The Big Lebowski. The Dude tries to outsmart a villain using the pencil trick. His excitement is intense at his own cleverness. But alas for the Dude, the “secret” isn’t what he expected. If you are of delicate sensibility, I wouldn’t advise it, but if you don’t mind some crude humor, enjoy this film clip and Jeff Bridges’ brilliance in it. (Watch that loopy run of his! And his “just acting natural” look at the end!)

There are many, many jokes about detectives in The Big Lebowksi. One of the most evident is that unlike those brilliant sleuths who with scant clues manage to figure out everything, the Dude can’t figure out anything—the mystery, which people are manipulating him, where his rug is. And unlike the driven fictional detectives who will sacrifice anything for the job, the Dude is pathologically lazy, sharing with them only some loose sense of ethics, questionable associates, and a love for alcohol (but with the Dude, of course, it’s not a hardboiled choice like whisky, but instead White Russians).

Yes, the Dude is not a good detective, and would be an even worse spy. But guess what, Hitchcock?

Even the Dude knows the pencil trick.

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Psych 2: Lassie Come Home: The Banter I Was Missing

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I think it was about five minutes into Psych‘s new movie that I realized just how much I was smiling.

How to explain the effects of Psych? It’s my emotional yoga. When I can’t sleep, I lie on the couch and play episodes till I do. It’s my white noise when I’m doing mindless busy work. And when I really need a pick-me-up (and who doesn’t right now?), I can put on an episode–even my least favorite–and laugh so much. (This despite the fact that I’m surely close to having the whole show memorized by now.) It doesn’t matter if I’m sad, worried, stressed; Psych‘s hilarious dialogue and antics always makes me smile. And the movies are no exception.

Lassie Come Home is both a typical episode and a tribute to Timothy Omundson (Lassie), whose stroke prevented his full participation in Psych: The Movie. But sweet as the tribute to Lassie is, it’s the Shawn and Gus team-up that’s the highlight, as always. I could listen to them banter all day long. This is still the best bromance I’ve seen on TV.

A favorite moment is when Shawn and Gus are trying to get a man to admit he’s faking an illness by tickling him. Shawn (James Roday Rodriguez) begins the badgering of the man like this: “Tough guy from the old neighborhood. Probably didn’t even cry when Liz Berkley got addicted to speed in Saved by the Bell.“

Now that’s a pop culture reference!

As usual, there were some funny cameos, with Sarah Chalke, Scrubs alum, directly referencing her scrubs, and Kadeem Harison from A Different World showing up, reminding fans that Dwayne Wayne was Gus’s (Dulé Hill) early hero (see that bizarre werewolf episode, “Let’s Get Hairy”–Season 4, Episode 8). Chalke was an inspired addition–she fits right in. My other favorite new character was Morrissey, Chief Vick’s (Kirsten Nelson) dog. And current fan or not, you will love a wonderful breaking the third wall moment, when Shawn refers to Psych fans (Psychos), and Gus rips him in response.

Way back when I started this blog, I recommended The Thin Man to Psych fans. But that recommendation goes both ways. Are you a fan of delicious flavor–i.e., funny dialogue? Do you love pop culture references? Do you prefer the relationship between detectives (and their loved ones) to the mystery itself? Do you enjoy some childishness in your leads, as long as it’s funny? (If you’ve forgotten how immature Nick Charles is, watch his classic performance at his in-law’s house in After the Thin Man.)

If you share my preferences, why are you waiting to watch the series, much less Lassie Come Home? I envy you the eight seasons and three films (if you include the musical) you have yet to watch! And if you’re already a Psych fan, you’ll be so happy to have Shawn and Gus back–even for a little while.

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Silly Feel-Good Classic Films

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A NIght at the Opera stateroom scene

As the pandemic length has grown and your patience has seeped away, what spells a “comfort” movie to you may have changed. If you’re single and alone, the rom-com, usually a fallback, may make you cringe about the horror of dating dangers post-opening (as if dating usually weren’t bad enough!) If you’re huddled inside with TOO MANY PEOPLE, you may find yourself enjoying dull footage of peaceful lakes.

But for all of us in times of stress, the truly, deeply silly movie remains a staple, and so in the long-delayed follow-up to my earlier post, “Classic Feel-Good Movies for Shut-Ins,” I’m going full-on silly with my next set of suggestions. I’m joining my peers at the Classic Movie Blog Association, who are sponsoring a great blogathon event on comfy favorites. So here are five comfy classic films, chosen for silliness and enjoyment–and listed in no particular order. (You will note that I’ve rated the silliness level, so not all here are full madcap in style. BUT I’m thinking that a list of films with silliness at level eleven, and eleven only, may be my next project.)

5. The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1943/4). Silliness Quotient–11 out of 10.

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek wedding

I could have easily chosen ANY Preston Sturges flick obviously, but I recently discovered this on my library’s Kanopy streaming service, and just seeing the listing made me grin. For those of you who DON’T know writer/director Sturges, he was a big Coen brothers influence, thus the name of their film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a reference to Sturges’ classic, Sullivan’s Travels. (In fact, the Coens’ film title ONLY makes sense if you have see the Sturges flick.) This early writer/director’s delirious combination of madcap physical comedy, witty banter, and sheer improbability in his plotting make Sturges a favorite of any Coen brothers’ diehards (which I definitely am).

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek actually thrives on denying information to its audience, who know that a scandal/miracle is about to erupt in Morgan’s Creek, and many stratagems are in play to contain it. Betty Hutton is adorable as the center of the scandal, and Eddie Bracken plays her lovesick friend/maybe-more (think Ducky in Pretty in Pink). Basically, it all begins when Hutton has too good of a night with liquor and a bunch of soldiers and sleeps with one of them. The thing is, she can’t remember his name. Yes, you read that right. It gets much more complicated as it goes. Bracken has the silliest role, and he captures his character’s constant befuddlement to the hilt—and just escapes going too far. Since the writing is in Sturges’ hands, it’s brilliant, of course (I have a set of his scripts on my bookshelf, trying to see how he does it).

4. Auntie Mame (1958). Silliness Quotient–7 /10.

Auntie Mame (Rosalind Russell)

I haven’t yet done a full post on Auntie Mame, but that’s because I love it too much, not too little. An unconventional, fun-loving aunt in the city (Rosalind Russell) takes in her dead brother’s prim child, and many hilarious scenes ensue. If you don’t end the film wishing Auntie Mame were your aunt, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Rosalind Russell’s acerbic edge keeps the film from ever treading into maudlin territory, and she so fully embodies Mame’s significant lust for life that it’s very confusing to find Russell cowed and sad in other films (Picnic, for example).

A favorite scene in the film is when Mame takes a sales job after the market crash. She only knows how to do COD (cash on delivery), and therefore is urging everyone to pay that way. Her dismay when they don’t is ALL OF US in every job when we’re out of our depth. COD isn’t really a thing you hear much anymore, but any time I do hear it, I think, “Oh, Mame.”

3. The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942). Silliness Quotient–7/10.

Monty Woolley as Sheridan Whiteside

“Guests, like fish,” penned Ben Franklin, “begin to smell after three days.” No movie has ever captured that sentiment better than The Man Who Came to Dinner, and no actor has ever improved on Monty Woolley’s commanding performance of entitlement personified. He’s playing radio star/personality Sheridan Whiteside on a lecture tour, and the unlucky family once so proud of his appearance at their dinner table learns to rue the day they agreed to it. A little accident on their stoop, and they’re stuck waiting hand and foot on Whiteside’s prodigious ego.

George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart created the witty script, and Billie Burke plays the unwilling hostess to Whiteside. (Bette Davis may have helped the film get made, but her role here is one of her most flavorless. You know it’s not a Davis vehicle when Ann Sheridan outshines her.) Watch the film for the script and for brilliant Woolley, who must have been something to see on the stage (where he originated the role). Unfortunately, I have delayed writing about this film because it seems to be always unavailable for streaming on Amazon, but the DVD is available. If you know a good source for streaming it, please mention that in the comments!

2. Ball of Fire (1941). Silliness Quotient–7/10.

Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper in Ball of Fire

No list of silly movies would be complete without my favorite classic comedy, with Barbara Stanywck as the moll and Gary Cooper as the hapless encyclopedia writer who falls for her. And then there are the “dwarves”–the older encyclopedia writers who ALSO fall for her. I see that the film’s available on the Criterion Channel, which I’m shocked I don’t belong to yet. (No worries for me–I own two DVDs of this movie–the 2nd for when mine inevitably breaks from overviewing.)

With the dizzyingly talented combination of Howard Hawks as director and Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder as writers, this film’s dialogue can be almost as breathtaking as His Girl Friday‘s (also Hawks), but the writing/directing team leaves room for endearingly slow sequences as well. You actually watch Cooper’s character studying how to box in a book before his big fight scene, showing how goofy this story is. And for extra fun, you get favorites Dana Andrews, Dan Duryea, and S.Z. Sakall simultaneously embracing and mocking their typical roles.

1. A Night at the Opera (1935). Silliness Quotient–11/10.

A Night at the Opera-Otis (Groucho) is introduced.

Did you honestly think you’d get through this list without a Marx brothers appearance? I didn’t think so. (As with The Man Who Came to Dinner, the screenplay is co-written by Pulitzer-Prize-winning Kaufman.)

Here are just a few quick early bites: We get Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho) yelling at his driver for not traveling slowly enough to miss the whole opera they’ve driven to see. We have Fiorello (Chico) and Otis tearing apart the bits of a contract they don’t understand (i.e., all of it). We have Tomasso (Harpo) interrupting a typical movie romance trope (one lover onshore, the other on the ship, crooning about her love) by attack-kissing strangers for no reason. That’s just a small sampling of the joys you get before the glorious comedy of the ocean voyage, which includes such a monstrously over-the-top buffet that I wondered just how old the joke about gaining weight on cruises was….

During a strange but enchanting musical sequence starring Chico and Harpo, the two entertain a crowd of children with a deft combo of lunacy and calm, making me think, “Doesn’t every parent stuck at home with children for weeks want these two as babysitters right now?”

So there you have it–five wonderful, comforting films to get you through this trying time. NOTE: You may notice that neither Mae West nor Cary Grant has appeared on this list. That’s because 1. I already discussed Mae in my previous comfort list, and 2. I figured you’d already thought of Cary–and if you haven’t, why not?

Bonus: Kedi (2016).

I know–it’s not a classic film. It’s a recent documentary about the cats of Istanbul. But I have literally recommended it to every cat lover I know, and when I found it streaming on my library’s Kanopy service, played it on repeat for a day. The film focuses on several stray cats, telling their stories (the hunter, the crazy one, the player, etc.). The cats are certainly endearing, but surprisingly, the shopkeepers, artists, and others who love and care for them are just as likeable. And the cinematography of Istanbul is often gasp worthy, especially when you see those cats on some tall balconies and rooftops! My friend described the film as human catnip. How right she is. Next time you experience one of those anger/grief/anxiety spirals that all of us are prone to during this pandemic, play Kedi. Trust me. It’s healing.

This post is part of the Classic Movie Blog Association’s Classics for Comfort blogathon, so you can find many more suggestions on feel-good films there if mine don’t meet your needs—or, which is even more likely, you need more. Enjoy!

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Books that Make Bad Films: My Cousin Rachel

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I had hopes for My Cousin Rachel (2017). I don’t know why. I’d already discovered–despite my enjoyment of the 50s version–that the book wouldn’t translate well to film without a big overhaul. I guess I hoped a director smart enough to cast Rachel Weisz in the key role would know to make such changes. (She had added complexity to Definitely, Maybe for crying out loud. Who better to take on the mysterious, unreadable Rachel?) But within minutes, it was evident this director of slight rom-coms lacked the imagination to even equal the previous film’s quality. The 2017 take is incomprehensible, just short of laughably bad. I had flashbacks of Season 3 of Bloodline. What the ksljfkjslkfj! is even going on?

***Mild spoilers–I won’t give away the end. Here’s the plot: a sheltered young man, Philip, is taught to hate women by his cousin/foster father Ambrose. He discovers his cousin has fallen in love with and married a woman while abroad in Italy. Philip’s jealous, angry, anxious. Then he receives strange letters indicating Ambrose is afraid of his wife and quite ill. On arriving in Italy to save his beloved cousin, Philip discovers him dead, with shady characters delivering the news.

Back home in England, he vows revenge on the widow, just on time for her arrival for a visit. The story takes off from there, as Philip falls for the widow and acts completely besotted right away.

Unfortunately, he can’t determine whether Ambrose died of a brain tumor (making his suspicions delusions) or by his wife’s hand. Is the widow just mercenary in this visit, trying to get her late husband’s estate by wooing Philip? Or is she an independent woman who means well but is reluctant to yoke herself to a silly boy who can’t distinguish between sex and marriage? And regardless of which she is, is that dreaded tea she’s making poisonous? And when he’s ill, will she help Philip get well, or attempt to slowly kill him off?

The lure of the book is the constant back and forth of the reader’s (and Philip’s) suspicions about whether she’s a killer. The did-she, didn’t she is brilliantly developed by Du Maurier. Philip, the narrator, is, by any definition, a dupe. Suspecting Rachel as he does, offering her all of his worldly possessions because she smiles at him isn’t exactly a bright move. What redeems the narrator for the reader is that he’s telling this story AFTER THE FACT, and we understand he’s not quite so foolhardy now. We also get inside his head, understanding why he trusts when he does. We also know more of the sheltered background that explains (as it turns out) his dangerous lack of experience with women. How else could we understand his dogged pursuit of a woman who is not attracted to him?

Without this context, the narrator comes across on film as not only unlikable, but unhinged. In the 1952 version, he acts like a dangerous stalker after Rachel stops allowing his seductions.

Luckily, the role is played with such relish by Richard Burton that you enjoy it even as you know the book’s intent has been completely overthrown. (Philip HAS to be the enemy, with behavior like this.) In the 2017 version, far less ably played by Sam Claflin, Philip is so pathological in his pursuit of Rachel that you see her possible poisoning of him as an act of self-defense. How else can she ensure he won’t kill her, he’s so obsessed? That attack on her throat is just the beginning!

With this upending of villain roles, the did-she, didn’t-she becomes, “Who cares what you did, lady. RUN!!” I don’t have a problem with changing a book’s focus, but as it turns out, that uncertainty about Rachel was also the narrative’s greatest appeal. Without it, we’re stuck watching an unlikable dupe turn into a psycho, which isn’t interesting viewing. I also don’t think voiceover from Philip would have worked; the story needs more nuance and he’s not intelligent enough to provide it.

As I see it, the only way of salvaging the story on film was to change the lead. What about his godfather’s daughter, who likes Philip for some unaccountable reason? We’d see Rachel’s behavior more clearly from her eyes; she may be biased, but she’s perceptive. Again, no need for voiceover, but she’d notice different details, like Rachel’s manipulative ways. (Though let’s stop the anachronisms, please, 2017 version; I can’t see this young lady frankly talking about homosexuality with Philip.) Or what about the godfather as the lead? He’s protective and smart.

Or you could go full-tilt into unreliable narrator mode, and make Rachel–the most interesting character–the lead. She could be like the riveting James Cain narrator in The Cocktail Waitress. With Rachel, I wouldn’t even mind a bit of voiceover.

It’s funny that the 2017 version completely dropped the notion that Rachel was foreign in her ways—and yet that foreignness helps explain her greater independence, her unknowability to Philip, and her tenuous status in the community (who, like Philip, are a bit entrenched in their xenophobia and rigid biases).

And it also helps show her confusion. She’s lived a cosmopolitan life in Italy, and Philip’s (and his community’s) rigid morals about sexuality don’t make sense to her. With more of her character unfiltered through Philip’s perspective, we viewers might come to understand her better.

As it is, the 1952 version is entertaining at least. The 2017 version, alas, is not, with Claflin making even histrionics dull to watch. Only some pretty cinematography redeems it at all. The 2017 version adds a dumb ending and strips away much of the questioning of Rachel’s motives. Rachel seems delicate rather than arch at all times and her character is so terribly underdeveloped that Weisz–for once–is tedious to watch. View the 1952 version for Burton’s high drama and Olivia de Havilland’s riveting confidence as Rachel. But if you love the book, be prepared for disappointment: your beloved psychological thriller is now a crush-gone-bad procedural.

This post is part of the Classic Literature On Film Blogathon, hosted by Silver Screen Classics. Check out all the great posts!

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The Academy Loves Directors Who Play It Safe

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I watched Marriage Story with excitement. I’ve been following Noah Baumbach’s career since Kicking and Screaming (1995), a hilarious movie about East Coast college men’s arrested development and how their romantic immaturity interferes with their happiness.

The déjà vu happened immediately: This new, supposedly innovative film was about a New Yorker’s arrested development and how his romantic immaturity interferes with his happiness.

Sigh.

Had I seen growth in the treatment of this subject matter, I wouldn’t have been so troubled, but the earlier film, though rough around the edges, was twice as entertaining and unique as Marriage Story, which felt like a weak combination of Baumbach’s old themes and Kramer versus Kramer. Yet the Academy awarded Baumbach for this water treading with a Best Picture nod. They then gave a Supporting Actress nom to Laura Dern for the worst caricature of a woman I’ve seen outside of an action flick in years, a Rush Limbaugh characterization of a female divorce lawyer if ever I saw one. That nod alone says a lot about Academy voters.

This worrying backward movement extended to The Irishman as well. Academy voters rewarded Martin Scorsese for returning to mob territory, even though he made no attempt to switch the perspective away from the mobsters, or to include one female character whose personality existed outside of men’s treatment of her. True, there are some changes—he replaced the flashy narrator of Goodfellas with a quiet, suffering cog, who supposedly played a pivotal role in Hoffa’s death in real life as well as in the film. Only he didn’t: his involvement in Hoffa’s death was a fabrication, which was the most interesting thing about him. What would cause a man to lie about such a thing, knowing his family would condemn him for it? THAT’s a topic for a movie! Instead the film presents his lie as true; the plot focuses on how the hero has gotten himself caught up in this miserable mob life, which is a story line expressed in a much more interesting way in Goodfellas.

Now let’s turn to Quentin Tarantino. His material is always imaginative, violent, unique. His films are exciting to watch, but typically, he treats his characters as paper dolls rather than humans. In Jackie Brown, he turned down his jets and humanized his middle-aged hero and heroine. He gave them regrets and nostalgia, which imbued that film with insight as well as style. For the adolescent Tarantino, that’s some serious growth. So why is anyone impressed with his depiction of Sharon Tate as a wide-eyed viewer of her own movies, a woman who loves nothing more than sexy dancing at the Playboy Mansion, who throws her hair flowing behind her before riding in an open-topped car?* Why, in a film about opportunity cut short, pretend that Tate’s real opportunity loss was that of continuing to be a schoolboy’s fantasy, and not a mature mother? Do we honestly find it good storytelling to continue to pretend that the sexual playground of the 60s was so very fun for the women who didn’t have the biological option of being so carefree?

I don’t know how we can expect male directors (let alone female, who have so few opportunities) to be innovative, to embrace perspectives beyond their own, when they’re rewarded with nominations for circling and re-circling the same tired subject matter and stereotyped characterizations while their finer, fresher films go unnoticed.

This year Clint Eastwood was the director with a real breakthrough. His career was founded on celebrating renegade men with authority. To have him suddenly turn the tables on that legacy in Richard Jewell was groundbreaking. What happens, he asks in the film, if the man who grew up revering lawmen as heroes is suddenly victimized by them? In other words, Jewell could have been, probably was, a fan of Dirty Harry—and that very love destroyed his life. For all this talk of the Oscars and male rage, the real-life Richard Jewell EARNED his rage, and yet his film, the most interesting exploration of white male anger this year, was left out of the running.

Usually, I dislike Eastwood’s films, finding his sexist heroes annoying and his overwrought storytelling verging on silly. But in Richard Jewell, Eastwood even toned down his considerable love for melodrama and sky-high messaging. The result is a brilliant, affecting, subtle film. (One scene—Kathy Bates sadly rubbing her Tupperware after a police warrant destroys it—is more affecting than almost every moment in the Oscar-nominated films; the diner scene beats them all.) This is what great filmmakers do: they surprise us with what they have to say about life, with technical and storytelling techniques that have some kind of direction or point beyond divorce sucks or mobsters’ lives are bad.

I enjoyed all of the Oscar-nominated films I’ve seen, but I’ve been disappointed in most of them as well. With this kind of talent, why play it so safe? Why not fully humanize Tate, as Tarantino did the fictional Jackie Brown? Greta Gerwig didn’t play it safe; she tampered with a beloved story and came up with something truer to Louisa May Alcott’s vision and intent than any previous cinematic version of Little Women. (If you don’t think that’s risky, you haven’t met any fans of classic novels.)

What if Scorsese had called into question his own legacy of celebrating violent men, as Eastwood did with lawmen? What a brilliant film The Irishman could have been!

Unfortunately, there’s an answer to why these directors didn’t make their films more innovative, nuanced, surprising—especially Scorsese. He knew his Academy too well. He anticipated what would happen to Gerwig, to Eastwood. (Only directors the Academy doesn’t know are allowed to take those types of chances.) So he put his head down and gave the voters what they wanted of him, same-old, same-old. And he got his nomination.

*I think we all know from Bridget Jones how well that turns out, but not in Tarantino’s world, where all sexy women can throw their hair back without any falling into their eyes.

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Richard Jewell’s Awful Snub…and Other Golden Globe Gaffes

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Richard Jewell is taking a hit at the box office, due in large part to an angry campaign by the Atlanta newspaper who employed reporter Kathy Scruggs, the real-life journalist in the film who broke the story that Jewell was a suspect in the Olympic bombing. I agree that besmirching a real person—in this case, suggesting that Scruggs traded sex for information—is unacceptable. But it’s hard not to see the hypocrisy here, as the paper who helped destroy Jewell’s life is besmirching a belated tribute to his character.

I watched this film with reluctance. I worried about supporting it after reading about its treatment of Scruggs. I dislike Clint Eastwood and most of the films he directs, which I find heavy handed and troubling in their messaging. But after all, this film was about Jewell, and I admired Eastwood’s choice to tell his story.

To my surprise, I barely noticed the reporter’s sex favor scene (which I would have assumed to be Hollywood exaggeration anyway, had I read nothing beforehand). I wish the reviews had focused instead on Scrugg’s quiet regret in the film when she discovers the impossibility of Jewell’s involvement in the bombing. The real-life Scruggs didn’t do anything that unusual: reporting that Jewell was a suspect before investigating the likelihood of his guilt or the bias of her source/s. She serves as a stand-in for any reporter rushing to get the story out; that rush carries with it significant risk to others, as any viewer of Absence of Malice (or really, anyone who has lived through the twentieth century) will remember.

Used to Eastwood’s usual loud themes, I was struck by this movie’s quiet grace. It’s a rare film, one that relies on understated eloquence, realistic performances, and a stirring portrayal by Paul Walter Hauser. The film slowly reveals how Jewell’s admiration for authority helped contribute to his undoing. Hauser’s performance is nuanced, powerful, and ultimately heartbreaking. While at first, we viewers wonder if he’s simply a dupe, we soon discover he’s more self-aware than he seems, and the betrayal he feels at his idols treating him as a terrorist—even after they know better—is devastating. The way society (led by the media) went along with this faulty judgment—generalizing him as an overweight, friendless guy living with his mom, and therefore sketchy—didn’t even jibe with his real-life actions or social personality. I read a number of articles after watching the film and was struck by the accuracy of the movie’s characterizations and storytelling. The Scruggs sex claim (which apparently was also in the book that was the film’s source) was an anomaly in a film that otherwise hewed surprisingly close to the true events and characters, including Scrugg’s.

The skill of the man portraying Jewell isn’t being touted, any more than the film is. Why nominate someone who is playing an everyman, real-life hero with pitch-perfect realism and heart, when you can nominate folks playing popes or super-villains? Why pay attention to an actor who has played minor roles when you can celebrate the movie stars you always celebrate? He may have made an impression as an exceedingly dumb criminal in I, Tonya, but Hauser barely registered in Late Night, given the stereotypical nature of his role, and he lacks the glamour of the well-known figures who were nominated. So no one will say anything when you leave him off your nomination roster, right, HFPA? Sigh.

I would have given nods to Eastwood, the film, Hauser, Sam Rockwell (charming and very likable here), and the always-wonderful Kathy Bates, but only the latter has received any credit from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. I could see the organization thinking the film too controversial and backing away from it, but that doesn’t explain all the nods for The Irishman, which is based on the confessions of a man whose claims have been universally condemned as false by mob authorities-–and by logic. I guess the nominators thought real-life mobsters and teamsters didn’t deserve fair treatment. Or that entertainment was a good value in a film, a bar The Irishman clearly failed to meet. (Only Al Pacino succeeded in stifling my snores during that tedious endurance test.) And it’s hard to believe an association who yet again nominated no female film directors had concerns about a faulty portrayal of a woman in Richard Jewell.

Alas, the Hollywood Foreign Press seems to be on a roll this year in dismissing creative content and good acting. There are the shut-outs of The Good Place and Schitt’s Creek and the group’s admiration for the bland The Kominsky Method. The gutting, visceral When They See Us and its director and largely unknown actors are ignored, but superstar Jennifer Lopez gets a nod. Killing Eve was very weak this year, but it and the star-laden Big Little Lies (which I couldn’t even get through this season) are up on their nomination lists, while Veep is ignored for its weakest season (which is still better than these shows’ best). At least Unbelievable is getting its due.

I hope that some of you will ignore the nominators’ seriously questionable taste and celebrity pandering, and watch Richard Jewell. After viewing it, I stayed in the theater’s tight seats as others filed out, taking it in. I kept thinking of another favorite film, Searching for Bobby Fischer, and how its subtle messages stayed with me for years to come. I kept pondering the dangers of small assumptions, and how pernicious they could become. I wondered what kind of faith could sustain what Jewell had gone through. I looked at my sister, another disliker of Eastwood’s, who was also failing to stir; she was as surprised and moved as I was. 

I don’t think these kinds of films often get much credit, even when they lack controversy. They’re not splashy enough. They don’t involve mob hits or distinctive villains; they don’t feature many actors who look like supermodels. But they stick to you, change you, sometimes make you wiser than you were before. I regret every minute I put into The Irishman. I am ready to watch Richard Jewell again and again, if only to bring others along.  

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The Director of Kingpin Just Won Best Pic

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Let’s review:
Best film Oscar for the director of Kingpin and Dumb and Dumber? 1
Best film Oscar for the director of Do the Right Thing: 0
1990: Do the Right Thing: No Oscar; Driving Miss Daisy: Oscar.
2019: We have two strong films up for best picture by black directors about what it means to be black, Black Panther and BlacKkKlansman–one director a promising newcomer who even made a deep-into-the-Rocky-franchise film memorable, the other one of the most original and gifted directors of our time. And who beats them? A white Farrelly brother, who once directed Kingpin (a film so stupefyingly gross even a dumb-humor fan like me was appalled). And what was this winning film about? Being black in America, a film starring, of course, a white man.

Yeah, I’m going to bed now.

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Give the Oscar to Glenn Close Already!

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So it’s time again, time to clench my teeth, hoping you don’t screw up, Academy. Don’t blow it, like you did with Thelma Ritter. Don’t blow it, like you did with Barbara Stanwyck. Don’t blow it, like you did with Cary FRICKIN Grant, the only classic movie star so many non-black-and-white film buffs even know. Don’t make her the Academy’s biggest loser, and add to that inexcusable 7 noms and 0 current wins record. GIVE GLENN CLOSE HER OSCAR ALREADY!

Would it be a consolation prize? No. She’s stunning in The Wife, mesmerizing in a deeply human performance of repression and silence and pent-up rage. This role depends on subtlety. Not many actresses of any age, of any time period, could make such a seemingly resigned, still woman look riveting. But Glenn Close? Let’s think about that for a moment…..

Did she fascinate you with her evil machinations in Dangerous Liaisons? Scare the hell out of you in Fatal Attraction? Did you love her in the criminally underrated The Paper? Were you touched by her sweetness in The Natural and The Big Chill? Did you fear for her in The Jagged Edge? Did you enjoy her bitter, yet resigned take-down of her former lover in Le Divorce? (And yes, even in a bit part, you can’t take your eyes off of her.)

I like Olivia Colman, but her weird, histrionic role in The Favourite is not the kind of part that deserves your Oscar. I adore Lady Gaga. But this was a good freshman performance, not an award-winning one. Melissa McCarthy should be your number two, with her deeply funny, deeply sad performance of a woman at the end of her resources. (I admit I have yet to see Yalitza Aparicio’s performance, but I know she’s not one of your frontrunners). But the only living actress besides Close who can show the full range of human experience with a few expressions, gestures, and lines–Meryl Streep–has been showered with THREE of your Oscars. Close? Not a one.

Here’s the thing: The Wife wasn’t watched by nearly as many people as some of the other films whose actresses are up there on the list. And yet, still nominated. WHY?

Because she’s GLENN CLOSE, Academy! The badass actress who OWNS every role she takes, who can make you watch (and yes, just try to resist it) seasons of a show you barely like just to catch her expressions, who can convince you into viewing a movie about dalmatians—dalmatians!–just to catch her take on Cruella de Ville.

Academy, don’t shame yourself, as you did with Close’s partner in non-winning Oscar noms, the wonderful Thelma Ritter (she, like Deborah Kerr, of the 6-0 record). You’ve got a chance not to wait till that lifetime oops-we-screwed-up prize. It’s an easy choice, Academy.

Just give Close the Oscar already.

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Comic Relief: A Simple Favor & Can You Ever Forgive Me?

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Need comic respite? I’m happy to report that two new dramedies featuring strong women are even better than you’ve heard.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?, starring national treasure Melissa McCarthy, is based on the memoir of real-life writer Lee Israel, who became a con artist to pay the vet bills (out in wide release on Oct. 19th). Unable to get anyone to care about the subject of her new biography, Fanny Brice, much less her dwindling finances, Israel turns to stealing letters of famous movie stars and writers, and soon begins penning fake ones herself. Classic movie lovers and bibliophiles will sympathize with her alienation from those who don’t spend their days reading Noël Coward and Dorothy Parker. (And you’ll enjoy a line about Louise Brooks, a nod to classic movie fans.)

Appreciators of one-liners will ask themselves why they haven’t bought Israel’s memoir yet: this woman could WRITE. There’s a reason she was successful at mimicking Parker and Coward. Brought to caustic life by Melissa McCarthy, Israel is sympathetic even at her darkest and lowest. Despite the depth of her despair and loneliness, she is relentlessly funny in the film. Israel and her similarly lost companion (and later conspirator), Jack Hock (Richard Grant), engage in so much snarky, on-point banter that you wish the two could have had an Algonquin Round Table of their own.


These two boozy companions are simply joyful company for anyone who doesn’t mind a bit of darkness in their humor. And McCarthy deserves the awards buzz she’s getting for a riveting performance.

McCarthy’s frequent director Paul Feig has a film of his own out this month. Feig, who has a George Cukor flair for creating great vehicles for female stars, is at it again. The only question is whether Blake Lively or Anna Kendrick gets a meatier, more complex part in A Simple Favor, a story that is tonally closer to the light cynicism of Young Adult (2011) or the campiness of Serial Mom (1994) than to the darkness of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2014), to which it’s being compared. I’m hearing references to Double Indemnity from classic movie fans due to the film’s humor. Beat the Devil (1953) is more like it. Though A Simple Favor is a bit more controlled than that messy Truman Capote delight, there’s a bit of Mrs. Gwendolen Chelm (Jennifer Jones) in both of these heroines.

Feig; the director of Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy, and Ghostbusters (the reboot); is so open about preferring female leads and so appreciative of their comedic skills that it’s unsurprising to see both stars so funny and magnetic in his film. Their profane banter is hilarious, and the casual cruelty, self-interest, and denial of these particular frenemies are a blast to watch. I won’t spoil the surprise of what becomes of Emily (Lively), whose disappearance spurs mommy blogger Stephanie (Kendrick) into amateur detective/life-stalker mode.

There are some seriously batty plot developments that seem more like old-school soap operas than big screen fare (again, like Beat the Devil). But anyone paying attention knows plausibility is not the point. Just sit back and enjoy this dark comedy fun. (And don’t miss the recent titles and commentary on Stephanie’s bizarrely eclectic blog.) Those of us who have been following Feig since his brilliant creation, Freaks and Geeks, will be glad to see his first female lead, Linda Cardellini, in a scene-chewing, funny bit part. Let’s hope the films to follow these two this fall are half as fun.

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Happy Accidents: an Underrated Rom-Com

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Few rom-coms actually manage to be both romantic AND funny. For some movies, the romance wins, but the laughs are tepid; for others, you’re laughing so hard, but not feeling any chemistry. Happy Accidents (2000) is that rare film that manages both, maybe because, like most great romances, it’s not strictly about these two people at all. It asks larger questions we heterosexual women ask of ourselves every day: Is it possible to change where we’re headed? Can we trust a man’s words when we can’t verify them? And is it worth staying with a great guy if he runs from miniature dogs and claims he’s from a future version of Dubuque, Iowa?

The film keeps us guessing whether the great guy, Sam (Vincent D’Onofrio), really IS from the future, or just hiding his mental illness and/or compulsive lying. The comedy mainly comes from Ruby’s (Marisa Tomei’s) efforts to wish away/rationalize all of his (seemingly) nonsensical statements and actions. Her past relationships make her desperate to hold onto the nicest guy she’s ever been with, someone even her parents like. Her past is summed up beautifully when Sam asks if she likes music, and Ruby answers with despairing resignation, “You’re not a drummer, are you?”

Tomei’s delivery here and throughout is so on point that you may wonder why we have so few comedies of hers to savor. I have always thought the critical consensus that she was unjustifiably given an Oscar for My Cousin Vinny (an opinion I don’t share) has tainted all of her work since. How easily she could have had Julia Roberts’s or Meg Ryan’s career otherwise! She is adorable and hilarious in this film. And D’Onofrio, who irritates me in Law and Order: Criminal Intent, reminds me in this movie of why I used to like him: he’s awkward, charming, and (seemingly) achingly sincere.


The two have a meet-cute and rush headlong into moving in together, a development that worries Ruby’s therapist, who reminds Ruby she’s falling into her usual destructive romantic pattern. That the therapist is played by this woman ensures that you’ll wish each of their sessions longer:


Sam tells Ruby various stories of why he’s here, why his backstory is so flimsy, and why the worry should be not about him, but her. It seems he’s here to protect her, though he’s cagey about why. Maybe he’s playing a funny romantic game, as her friend suggests. Maybe he really believes his stories, but is otherwise sane. Maybe he’s blocking/compensating for his sister’s death (whenever it occurred). And maybe, just maybe, he’s telling the truth.

I won’t reveal where the story goes, as you (unlike he, perhaps) cannot go back and erase the memory of my spoilers. But trust me: it’s worth it to spend some time with Sam and Ruby. Watch him calmly explaining to bystanders that he didn’t need a college education due to information being inserted into his brain as the strained Ruby tries not to hear it. Relish his attempts to seduce her with polka music. And watch Ruby’s growing love for him, and his infatuation with her. Like Ruby, you’ll start to wonder, “How bad can a fantasy about being a time traveler be anyway?”

**

This post is part of The Time Travel Blogathon, co-hosted by Ruth of Silver Screenings and Rich of Wide Screen World. Check out all the fun travels here.

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