Deborah Lipp

Does Jude Law think he’s Michael Caine?

Or what?

I heard there was a remake of Sleuth coming out, which appalls me, because it’s such a great movie and they should leave it the fuck alone. Then I watched the trailer and I saw it was Michael Caine in the Laurence Olivier role and Jude Law in the Michael Caine role. So that’s interesting in a post-modern sort of way, and it could work. (Plus, Kennth Branagh, Harold Pinter, worth an open mind, that.)

But then I remembered that Jude Law starred in a (reportedly terrible) remake of another Michael Caine classic, Alfie.

So now you have to ask, what next? Get Carter and the Italian Job have already been done. (Which leads me to wonder if there’s just a Michael Caine remake industry, of which Law happens to be a leading beneficiary.) He could go for Harry Palmer; edgy paranoid spies are in right now. The Man Who Would Be King is perhaps too ambitious, and who would co-star?

Who would co-star? Perhaps that’s a better question. Prevents me from just trailing off anyway. Obviously you could go right for the Bond connection and get Daniel Craig, but let’s at least try to be creative.

AMC’s new show Mad Men is a must-see. It’s set in 1960 in a high-pressure Madison Avenue ad agency. Other than sharp writing, gorgeous visuals, and a top-notch cast, what Mad Men has going for it is an unapologetic eye about the mores of the late 50s/early 60s (what they’re now calling “mid-century”).

The “values conservatives” of the world, David Broder, Jonah Goldberg, and other people with pseudo-brains filling their skulls, believe the 1950s were an idyllic time. Women knew their place, none of that pesky feminism to mess around with their pretty heads. Abortion was illegal. Sex was never discussed in the public sphere, and when it was alluded to, it was only the heterosexual sort. Men wore skinny ties. (I kind of agree about the skinny ties.) The notion, of course, is that mid-century was a happy, innocent time. Families were all Ozzie and Harriet or Leave It To Beaver.

The fact is, the man behind the curtain was already visible at the time. Kinsey published in 1948 and 1953. Brown vs. the Board of Education was 1954 and the Montgomery bus boycott was the following year.

What Mad Men shows is direct and uncompromising. It is a man’s world, but the show has strong female characters, struggling in a world where they must choose between career and marriage, where most opportunities are closed to them, and sexual harassment is not only legal, it’s encouraged. As oppressive as the sexism is, it’s matched by the casual, normative racism and anti-Semitism. Homophobia isn’t even mentioned, but there is one character who is clearly closeted and struggling to be ‘one of the boys.’

Maybe I’m naive to think it would make a difference for people to actually see what they’re idolizing. I’m well-informed, I know a lot about the world my mother grew up in, and yet I found it shocking. There’s something about the visual impact that can’t be denied.

The mise en scène is pretty amazing. They are very careful to get the clothing, speech and attitudes just right. And the cast, as I said, is excellent. Whedon-heads will be pleased to see Angel and Firefly regulars back on TV.

Superman Returns (2006) 4/10
Superman (Brandon Routh) returns to Metropolis after a five year absence, to find that Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has a son and a fiance (James Marsden), and that Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) is out of jail. Directed by Bryan Singer.

Superman Returns is a ponderous, overlong, uneventful bore of a movie. It reminds me a great deal of Ang Lee‘s disasterous Hulk; the same deadly sense of self-importance, preventing it even from being “so bad it’s good,” the same obsession with fathers and sons, the same occasional reminders that a usually talented director is at the helm.

Perhaps the worst flaw of this film is it has no idea what it wants to be. Singer never decides if he is continuing the Christopher Reeve Superman films, or remaking them, or perhaps doing a homage. If it is a continuation, then the many repeated scenes from Superman: The Movie are inappropriate. If it is a remake, then why the painstaking effort to fill in the gaps between the two films? And if a homage, we got it at the first repeated line, 10 minutes in, and we didn’t need the bludgeoning.

Brandon Routh in the starring role is absolutely dreadful. I mean awful. I mean he makes Andie McDowell look like she can act. It’s scary how bad this guy is. He spends a lot of time doing Christopher Reeve imitations, and he’s passably good at imitating Reeve as Clark Kent (although he has none of Reeve’s gentle dignity as Superman), but he brings nothing of his own to the role. I watched the movie with my sister, and she pointed out that they needed to trust the character, not the actor who played him definitively. Routh’s imitation kills the series in the same way that a Sean Connery imitator would have killed James Bond. Christopher Reeve remains the biggest crush I have ever had in my life, from the first time I saw Superman in 1980 in a drive-in until today, I have never loved an actor half as much. But I don’t want to see Routh or anyone else playing Reeve’s Superman, if the movie is worth making, they have to make the character their own. So maybe this one wasn’t worth making.

Kate Bosworth must be thanking her lucky stars she’s acting opposite Routh, because only in such a pairing is she the talented one. She’s all wrong for Lois Lane, a character who is angular and sharp. Her character is actually well-written though, and has more to do than most iterations of Lois, but Bosworth isn’t persuasive.

From time to time, Superman Returns has flourishes that remind you Bryan Singer really can do good things behind the camera. There’s a lovely bit where he’s flying and rolls onto his back to use his heat vision while continuing to fly. It’s the sort of clever and inventive use of character and plot that I admire in a film. If all of the little good bits were strung together with, I dunno, a script, and a cast, well, they’d really have something.

Okay, there is a cast. At least a supporting cast. Spacey is absolutely fantastic. He brings real conviction to the part. And I’m a little freaked out by how sexy I find Frank Langella. But I do, and also he can act. Sam Huntington is charming as Jimmy Olsen.

But make no mistake: None of these charms make the movie worth seeing.

Breach (2007) 9/10
FBI agent Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper) has been spying on behalf of the Russians for many years, and cost the government untold human lives, money, and secrets. Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillipe) is assigned to work as his assistant while spying on him and reporting to Kate Burroughs (Laura Linney), who is heading the investigation. Based on a true story.

Real spy stories are hard to find, and probably hard to sell as well. Throughout the course of Breach there are no explosions, no high speed car chases, no jaw-dropping stunts, no exotic women slipping themselves between the sheets of secret agents. This is a story about spies with government jobs and paychecks, whose stealth involves slipping a Palm Pilot from a briefcase and then remembering which pocket to replace it in. You can see why this might be hard to make a compelling preview for, but Breach is a fascinating movie.

The movie is largely a character study, exploring the nature of loyalty and secrecy. By the very fact of working for the FBI, Hanssen and O’Neill are expected to be loyal to their country. As O’Neill spends more and more time with Hanssen, he feels loyalty towards him as well, affection for the man, and perhaps just the natural loyalty engendered by covering your boss’s ass. Even knowing the man is a traitor, he finds he admires him.

On the opposite side of loyalty is secrecy. O’Neill’s loyalty to his job requires he keep his investigation secret from his wife (Caroline Dhavernas), and as the Hanssens and O’Neills becomes more and more involved socially, this is increasingly difficult, and strains the O’Neill’s young marriage.

The movie is also about anger and guilt. Hanssen is smart, maybe the smartest guy in his department, and he feels unappreciated and superior. He is obsessed with never having received a window office. He is angry at beaurocrats, angry at routine, angry at stupidity, and angry when his suggestions aren’t acted upon. Is he also guilty? He is a staunch Catholic, a member of Opus Dei, and eager to push religion on O’Neill and his Protestant wife. He attends mass daily and prays often, meanwhile betraying his country and making pornographic videos of his wife without her knowledge. Surely there is guilt there, and surely there is extra motivation to attend mass and confess his sins (although we never see Hanssen in confession; one wonders what, if anything, he ever confessed).

The investigation takes a toll on O’Neill, although that was the least compelling part of the story, perhaps because Phillipe isn’t doing all that much with the part (he’s very good, but I dunno, not great). It is Cooper who is the fascinating one, and Laura Linney is wonderful as usual.

Double O Section offers a good review of the DVD features, which I was unable to watch.

Dances With Wolves (1990) 10/10
Lt. John Dunbar (Kevin Costner) requests a frontier assignment after being commended for heroics during the Civil War. Sent to an abandoned outpost, he encounters a nearby Lakota tribe, and soon befriends them, falling in love with Stands With a Fist (Mary McDonnell), a white woman raised by the tribe. Directed by Kevin Costner.

The “director’s edition” of Dances With Wolves is four hours long. That’s not a movie, that’s a lifestyle. It took me a week to watch this frickin’ movie. But despite the many criticisms the film endures, it was worth it. (FYI, I saw the 180 minute version in the theater when it was new, and this was my first re-viewing.)

The basic criticism, as I understand it, is that DWW is a treacly movie that romanticizes Indians enormously, painting them with a thick coating of Noble Savage, which is dehumanizing and unrealistic. I beg to differ.

First, DWW has a lot to offer above and beyond those criticisms. It is beautiful, and manages to actually show what the American West might have looked like, in a way no other movie has done. Not even John Ford’s Monument Valley filming has conveyed this richness and detail. One could watch Dunbar approach the Lakota village and actually believe one is approaching the real thing. Like Titanic, DWW works on the level of obsessive detail that communicates the experience of living inside a particular moment in time. The authenticity of everything from teepee construction to costume to horsemanship is not an end unto itself, but a way of creating a world.

As to the criticism, first, John Dunbar is himself an intense romantic, and this is clear from the opening scenes. He wants to “see the frontier before it’s gone.” He lives inside his head, as expressed by his journal-keeping, where there is order, propriety, and honor, and the world around disappoints. With Dunbar, it’s not that he sees the Indians as “other,” it’s that he sees the whole world as “other” and sees the Indians, and himself in the process of becoming one of them, as his first hint at someone who isn’t other. I don’t think that the film gives Dunbar’s romanticism a free pass.

Second, I don’t think the Lakota we see fit the standard Noble Savage stereotype. These are people who laugh, screw up, argue with their wives, and in general are fully human. I don’t think we’re used to seeing American Indians with fully-fleshed lives in a Western.

After a while, yes, cracks appear. Mary McDonnell’s role is too convenient by half. All the whites (except McDonnell and Costner, and a general seen for a brief moment in the opening scene) are savage, cruel, cowardly, and/or slovenly. On that level, yes, this movie definitely sides with the Indians as the better and nobler people. Of course, the actual history of the American West supports a view of whites as cruel in regard to Indians. Which is why it needn’t be shown in a heavy-handed way. These are definite flaws, but the movie has such virtues, such a sweeping scope, that it is not worth downgrading, and I stand by my 10.

Kitchen Stories (2003) 8/10
In post-War Scandanavia, a group of researchers, determined to make kitchens more ergonomic, goes to Norway to observe the behavior of bachelor farmers in their kitchens. Folke Nilsson (Tomas Norström) is at first completely shut out by his “host” Isak (Joachim Calmeyer), but gradually things change. (In Swedish and Norwegian, with subtitles)

The first half of Kitchen Stories is filled with a slow, gentle visual comedy. The researchers are meant to be completely unobtrusive, never interacting or speaking with their hosts, and so Isak’s hostility towards Folke is played out in tiny gestures that make me giggle.

Part of it is funny because of the Swedish Design Science nonsense. Mapping the way women (and now men) walk in the kitchen in order to scientifically save them steps. Test kitchens. White-coated observers with stoical faces. The contrast between the scientists, perched on their ridiculous observation stools, and the farmers, eccentric, isolated, scraggly, is funny. Then there is the silent, humorous war between two men, who battle using light switches and the position of laundry.

But there is also a subtext; the film is about the relationship between Norway and Sweden. As an American, I felt I was missing a lot. At one point Folke says that he’s just meant to be an observer, and Isak responds, “You were observers in the War, too.” Later, we learn that Isak’s good friend was in a concentration camp, and no more is said about it, but Folke looks sad and guilty.

So, that’s the part I got. There’s certainly more I didn’t get. A Swedish commenter on IMDb had this to say:

The summary of Salmer fra kjokkenet in imdb places the movie in the “feel good” genre. This may be true for UK citizens, however a swede really gets the shivers alongside with incontrollable laughs while watching this movie.

The horror derives from the fact that since the thirties the Swedish politicians seriously have believed that they were able to shape society with reason and logic. Thus in the movie, there is the “Institute of private homes research”, the object being to develop the most logically structured kitchen, adapted to the average movements of the “normal” house wife.

This excellent movie made in Norway, the neighbouring country of Sweden – which up to 1905 was submitted in a state union with Sweden – makes a very convincing statement about the “swedish mentality”, that is how our welfare state has developed during the past 70 years.

But the fact that there is more content than may be immediately accessible shouldn’t be off-putting. There’s a lot here; about friendship, loneliness, and kindness, that is universal. And there’s the humor. And these charming and reserved characters. I was touched by the film and I definitely enjoyed it.

The Mighty (1998) 8/10
Max Kane (Elden Hensen) is in the seventh grade and “looks like Godzilla.” He is silent, fearful, and enormous. Then “Freak” (Kieran Culkin) moves in next door. Freak has a rare bone disorder, walks using crutches, and has a hunchback. He is also extremely bright and well-read. The two form a friendship that carries them through the threat of street gangs, Freak’s illness, and Max’s haunted past.

My friend sent me a note on Netflix saying I simply must watch this movie with my son. And so I put it on the top of my queue and it came and we kept not watching it. Travel, his home tutoring, everything ate up our movie-watching time. So finally I called Netflix and asked them if they had a way of suspending the account for the summer. Turns out they do, even though it’s nowhere on the website. So the woman said “You have The Mighty at home.” And I said “Oh, I’ll return that.” And she said “Have you watched it?” And I said no and she said “Oh, you HAVE to! You should watch it with your son. It’s so wonderful. I think I’ll watch it tonight now that you’ve reminded me.” So I watched it.

The Mighty does lovely and moving things. It shows the drama in an ordinary life. Max’s life has, perhaps, not been ordinary at all. He’s famous in his neighborhood, although the reasons for that fame are revealed slowly. What we know is that his father is a convicted murderer, and he lives with his grandparents. But for Max it’s not really about murder and newspaper headlines, it’s more about fear, and hiding under the bed, and being afraid to be looked at, and living inside a placid shell that hides the turmoil.

Freak can’t live inside a shell, because his shell doesn’t work very well for him. But he can live inside a glorious imagination and an intelligence that fuels it. He explores the world, invents toys, and believes himself to be a Knight of the Round Table. With Max’s help, he can do heroic deeds and live up to a chivalrous code, a code that begins the work of healing Max’s self-image.

There’s a lot of clever editing in which knights in armor are interspersed with Freak and Max’s adventures; it’s not overdone, instead it’s touching and fun. Despite the fantasy imagery, the movie remains pretty grounded until the end. There’s a mid-point coincidence that is very “movie” and annoyed me a little, but only in the final fifteen minutes did I feel like my chain was being yanked, and then not hard.

The cast is overloaded. Gena Rolands, Harry Dean Stanton, and Sharon Stone have almost nothing to do; there’s a little more going on with Meat Loaf, Gillian Anderson, and James Gandolfini, but the real work is done by the two “boys” (both actors were actually adults, but that’s not really apparent).

Overall, I really do recommend this movie. It was charming and gritty in odd places. My only complaint is that it is “bookbound.” That’s probably not a word, but just as a stage-to-screen adaptation can feel “stagebound,” and not “opened up” for film, I feel that some novel-to-screen adaptations are trapped inside the confines of their source material. It felt very literal, very page-by-page. I don’t know if that’s true—I haven’t read the book—but the fact that it feels that way is enough.

By the way, Hollywood just sucks at titles. The source novel was called Freak the Mighty, which is a much better title; more distinctive, more memorable, more oddball. By contrast, “The Mighty” is an utterly forgettable title for a distinctive and oddball film.