February 21, 2003

You ever see a movie that you know in your gut is going to be a lot of people’s FAVORITE film for a while, but you don’t really see the big deal and can’t really get too excited about it and feel like you need to see it again to not feel like you are being overly judgmental and not a good enough sport?

That’s how I feel about Old School.

I laughed.  It’s funny.  It’s got Ellen God-I-Need-A-Role-That-Lasts-Longer-Than-10-Minutes-Again Pompeo.  I like Luke.  I like Vince Vaughn.  I have a buddy that swears that Will Ferrell will be the next Jim Carrey.  (Maybe the next Rob Schneider.)   And I really like the premise. 

So what’s wrong?  It’s really simple.  Todd Phillips really isn’t much of a director.  I’m sure he’s a good guy and he seems to run a very relaxed set, but the skills to shoot a comedy and to get the most out if it are not easily mastered.  This doesn’t mean that the film won’t be a big hit.  But Phillips’ screenwriting and casting prowess supercede his gifts behind the camera by a long distance.  Say what you will about John Landis, but he knew how to do movies like this – not visually showy character comedies – better than anyone in his day.  Harold Ramis, as it turns out, can direct them, but doesn’t always know when his screenplays are wanting. 

What is the trick?  I’m not 100% sure.  But there is something about layering a gag so that it builds and builds and builds that is a delicate thing.  Will Ferrell getting naked and running down the street with his very amusing ass hanging out in the wind should have been the funniest sequence in any movie this year.  But it’s not.  It’s funny.  But it’s funnier in our heads than on the screen. 

I think a lot of it has to do with patience.  Set the scene.  Establish the space.  The set-up is every bit as important as the punchline and, in film, the camera is a key part of that set-up.   Move the characters in.  Let them work.  Let them build. 

The screenplay may have the joke and the set-up and some blurry idea of where it’s going.  And Will Ferrell naked, jumping in the S.U.V. with the wife who thinks he’s not drinking anymore and her girlfriends will get a laugh.  But if one of the girlfriends has a secret crush on the guy and another is talking to the woman about her sex life with the husband and the third one knew him in high school… I don’t know… something… something other than 3 random women in a car and the driver’s husband streaking.  Good comedy, naked.  Great comedy, naked, plus.  That’s all I’m sayin’.

Anyway… while Old School is a movie I liked that I was supposed to love, The Life of David Gale is a movie that keeps telling you that you are supposed to respect it that fails miserably at almost ever turn. 

Let’s start out with the basics… love Alan Parker, lover Kate Winslet, love Laura Linney, like Kevin Spacey as an actor.  I never read the book, but after seeing the film, I have to say, it seems like a ripping yarn. 

So what went sooooo wrong?

Well, to begin with, the film is well crafted enough to seem like a “real” movie.  But there are so many problems.  I’m not one that feels sympathetic leads are a requirement of any film.  But interesting characters are an absolute must.  Winslet plays Bitsy Titsy Witsy (or something like that), the world’s least realistic feature story reporter.  She is blonde.  That was okay.  After that, forget about it. 

As the commercials tell you, this is a movie with a twist ending.  I won’t spoil that ending here.  But the entire experience of the Bitsy character in the story of David Gale makes no sense.  I can imagine ways in which her relationship with David Gale could be made to make sense, in real time and in retrospect of the twist.   But nothing that is in the movie makes any sense in context.  

Without spoiling anything, Bitsy’s publisher pays Gale $500,000 for his six hour interview.  He allows no recording devices.  Why?  If she can save him, why not create a record of evidence towards that end.  If she cannot, why not have a record of the truth?  Even after the twist, this is never clear and, in fact, makes even less sense.

As for Gale, he is a putz.  A guy who tells bad limericks, cheats on his wife and then becomes a drunk is a really attractive hero.  More to the point, much of his protesting of his innocence to Bitsy is nothing but a distraction.  If you see this thing, remember his yelps of protest and then think about it later.  Misleading Bitsy is one thing.  But why?  Any reason other than screenwriting myopia?

The only truly sympathetic character in the film is Laura Linney’s Constance Hallaway.  She is mother earth.  She is kind beyond belief.  She is a true believer.  Her actions are the only ones that I believe from beginning to end.  That said, some of what occurs with her character devolves into near humiliation because the film does not live up to the bravery of Linney’s performance.

Perhaps the greatest sin of David Gale is the story structure, which probably made sense at some development stage.  This is a clock movie that has no clock.  Parker, who has proven himself in other a work to be a master of filmic time, seems to have lost his way completely here.  If the clock worked, the twist ending would be twisted to maximum effect.  But it’s almost as though he knew the twist, so he directed the rest of the film in a vacuum.  Yet the characters don’t reflect the twist from the start to the finish, as they should.

It is a quandary.

The Life of David Gale is a whodunit in which the effort to figure out whodunit is wasted.  This is a love story the revels in co-dependency instead of love.  This is a political drama that is so simplistic in its arguments that they shrivel into irrelevance. 

It’s really quite shocking, since Alan Parker has made chicken salad out of chicken shit so many times, raising the bar.  But there is something askew here.  It looks okay. It has some strong emotional moments.  And some absolutely laughable ones.  Just wait until you see Kevin Spacey pretending to be drunk or having a party where faculty and students drink together en masse or playing a parent to a young child.

But it all works out in the twist ending.  And that just adds insult to injury.  It’s really simple.  The actions of Bitsy and David Gale make absolutely no dramatic sense given the twist.  Think about the whole story and then you could come up with a variety of ways in which the story could be told and make sense without giving away the ending and be completely compelling.  All you have to do is to let the two characters have real, honest motivations.  Both characters could have real arcs, behaving like a reporter who really wants a story and a man who is reluctantly giving his story for money, and then showing each transformed by the telling of the story, not mechanical (read: fake) outside forces. 

A real shame.

Meanwhile, Kevin Spacey’s post-Oscar career consists of this, Pay It Forward, K-Pax and The Shipping News. In other words, he’s made horrible choices.  And as much as he wants to play Bobby Darin, this film will either be the first hit since American Beauty or the likely end of his career as a lead actor.  After years of lingering, the sudden greenlight for this project is probably a direct result of Chicago.  Sadly, I suspect that this will be one of the musical car wrecks in that film’s wake. 

He’d be better off playing the villain in a superhero movie. 

WEEKEND PREVIEW:

Daredevil - $20 million – decent hold
Old School - $18 million – good start… long legs coming
How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days - $14 million
Chicago - $11 million
The Life Of David Gale - $8 million – deserves less
Dark Blue - $7.8 million – could end up doing more… or less
Shanghai Knights - $7 million
Jungle Book 2 - $6 million
Gods & Generals - $4.3 million – pretty good for a Movie Of The Week.
The Recruit - $3.5 million

READER OF THE DAY:  NOT THE SHARK loses his excrement:  “Ok, so I went and saw Chicago today because it got 13 noms and of all the movies I see (over 100 yearly), I think it deserved an honest chance. I watched in amazement. I listened and understood and came to one conclusion about this film and its noms..............................................

THIS IS PURE HORSESHIT!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS COULD BE THE WORST NOMINATION FOR BEST PICTURE.............EVER!!!!!!!!! THERE WAS NO COMPELLING STORY TO FOLLOW OR CARE ABOUT AND EVERY 10 SECONDS THERE WAS A BORING MUSICAL NUMBER. RENEE ZELLWEGER WAS AWFUL AND RICHARD GERE HAS THE WORST VOICE. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING IN CASTING HIM? CZJ WAS DECENT AND LOOKED BEAUTIFUL BUT NOT ENOUGH TO KEEP THIS CRAP FROM MY WORST 10 LIST. QUEEN LATIFAH AS BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS???? WHAT AN AWFUL CHOICE. THIS IS SUCH A TOKEN NOMINATION THAT THE  REVEREND JESSE JACKSON AND JOHNNY COCHRAN SHOULD PROTEST THIS NOMINATION AS BEING JUST THAT!!!!

I REALLY ENJ0Y JOHN C. REILLY A LOT. ALTHOUGH HE DOES PLAY THE SAME CHARACTER VERY OFTEN. BUT HE IS A GREAT CHARACTER ACTOR. BUT HIS NOMINATION IS EVEN WORSE THAN LATIFAH'S. HE WAS BARELY IN THE MOVIE, HAD ONLY ONE MUSICAL NUMBER (AND CAN'T SING EITHER) AND WAS BORING.  THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN NO NOMINATION FOR HIM.

I'LL ADMIT THAT I REALLY ENJOYED MOULIN ROUGE. IT WAS ON MY TOP TEN LIST FROM LAST YEAR SO SAYING THAT I HATE MUSICALS WOULD BE UNFAIR. I GAVE IT A CHANCE AND IT'S PURE GARBAGE. MOULIN ROUGE USED MUSIC FROM THE PAST 25 YEARS AND ARRANGED IT IN A DIFFERENT USE AND FORM, MAKING IT UNIQUE AND BASICALLY ORIGINAL. CHICAGO HAD NO (COUNT THEM ZERO) MEMORABLE MUSICAL

NUMBERS. MOULIN ROUGE HAD ROUGHLY SIX MUSICAL NUMBERS WITH THE STORY SURROUNDING IT VERY COMPELLING AND ENJOYABLE. CHICAGO HAD SOMETHING LIKE 20 MUSICAL NUMBERS WITH A STORY LINE SO GENERIC AND UNORIGINAL. THIS IS A FILM NOT A BROADWAY SHOW.CHICAGO AS A BROADWAY SHOW IS PROBABLY VERY GOOD. AS A FILM, AND FILM IS WHAT IT IS, IT'S AWFUL. THIS IS A DIFFERENT MEDIUM THAN AN ON-STAGE LIVE SHOW. SO IT HAS TO BE JUDGED IN THIS MEDIUM. IT FAILS BEYOND BELIEF AS A MOVIE. TAKE AWAY THE MUSIC AND YOU HAVE A 20 MINUTE SHORT WITH NO MEMORABLE ACTING PERFORMANCES NOR SCENES. THE PERFORMANCES WERE STALE.

AND WHY WAS THE SCRIPT NOMINATED?? IF IT INCLUDES LYRICS FROM THE SONGS IN THE MOVIE, THEN PERHAPS I CAN GIVE A LITTLE HERE. BUT THE SCRIPT DURING THE REST OF THE FILM IS SO FORMULAIC. I THINK THE WORST NOMINATION FOR THIS FILM IS THE ART DIRECTION. EVERY SCENE WAS SUCH AN OBVIOUS SET. THERE IS NO SENSE OF REALITY IN ANY SCENE, UNLESS THEY ARE OUTDOORS (which is not often). MOST ARE DONE AGAINST BLACK BACKGROUNDS. HOW IS THAT SET DECORATION??? A SPOTLIGHT ON AN ACTOR IN FRONT OF A BLACK BACKGROUND???

PLEASE. PEOPLE GET SO HARD FOR A MOVIE LIKE THIS AND THEY RARELY GIVE FILMS THAT ARE EXTREMELY COMPELLING AND MAKE YOU THINK A CHANCE. THIS IS ENTERTAINMENT FOR SOME, BUT TO BE CONSIDERED THE TOP OF THE YEAR IS AN ATROCIOUS CHOICE.

By the way, I saw Chicago at the Calabasas Edwards theater, owned by the Regal Entertainment Group. I had read in Ebert's recent movie answer man column that they were implementing 20 minutes of commercials before the movie starting time. I walked in the theater five minutes before the starting time and noticed the commercials on the screen. The sound wasn't very high and the lights were still up. At the start time, they played a short ad thanking you for watching "the Twenty". That's what they called it. "The Twenty" is the 20 minutes before the start time in which they play their commercials. Instead of slides of advertisements they played on-screen commercials. And honestly this seems better. At the start time, they went directly into previews and then the movie. No commercials after the start time of the movie. Just previews. This is a good idea. If they have to have show commercials and need to make money from advertisers, then this is the best way to play them with the sound somewhat low and before the designated start time.

And one last thing:

City of God was fantastic!!!!”

E ME:  Seems a little overboard to me… except about City of God.  What about you?