Adventures In Netflix #9-Gabriel Ricard
June 2nd, 2008Adventures in Netflix #9
By Gabriel Ricard
Technically, I wouldn’t call what he was doing the Werewolves of London. But since he had a gun in his hand, I felt obligated to humor him as best I could.
And that’s the story of my senior prom.
Anyway, welcome once again to another edition of Adventures in Netflix.
By God, are we staring down the barrel of another slow month? It sure seems like it. The SAG (Screen Actor’s Guild, for those of you playing the home game) might go on strike. Which would certainly be somewhere in the neighborhood of less than awesome. But really, after everything we went through with the WGA (Writer’s Guild of America), I’m not sure I can expand enough energy to care about actors. I have a hard enough time getting my apathy to shut up long enough to worry about mass genocide and global warming.
Though I’m sure I’ll be singing a much different death-march tune when and if it actually goes down.
Well, no sense worrying about it now.
But of course, it’s almost impossible to go a full month without losing one of the good ones. This month, it was Sidney Pollack, who passed on just days ago at the age of seventy-three. I became more aware of who he was at a fairly later point from when I started caring about film entirely too much. But prior to that, I had seen and loved a number of his films and recognized him in several of the movies and television he happened to pop in as one of those great background characters who lent himself well to whatever movie he happened to be in. He was a good actor, but he was even better as a director and producer. As a director, he was responsible for a wide range of great films such as Tootsie, The Way We Were, Out of Africa (which nabbed him Best Director and Best Picture Oscars), Jeremiah Johnson, The Yakuza, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? and several others. As a producer, he was responsible in one way or another for helping to shape films like The Fabulous Baker Boys, Cold Mountain, Michael Clayton, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and The Quiet American, amongst others.
In other words, it’s a pretty damn good body of work on all fronts.
The films he made himself almost always had a particular interest in people. His films almost always had the technical side nailed down beautifully, but I think what I like about his films more than that is the way he was able to focus on the characters in even his broadest movies. He was clearly a director who knew what he wanted and how to go about getting it, but it would also seem that he was smart enough to know when to let the talent in front of the camera dictate the pace and the story. Nearly every film he made that I’ve seen had that rare quality of being able to combine the two modes of thought to great effect. He never wrote any of the screenplays he directed or produced, but that didn’t make them any less distinctive. His films always had a sense of being very specifically crafted, very tirelessly worked over in every area.
He was a great filmmaker, a talented character actor and a sharp producer.
Even at seventy-three, which isn’t all that old in my mind, it’s still a shame that he had to head out the door.
And then, of course, we had to lose Harvey Korman and Joe Pevney as well. Korman will probably best be known for his work with Mel Brooks (and if you haven’t seen Blazing Saddles yet, well, shame on you) and Carol Burnett. Pevney worked as a director, but I’ll wager he’ll be best remembered for writing many of the all-time great episodes in the original Star Trek series (including City on The Edge of Forever and The Trouble With Tribbles).
Both men were fairly up there in years (Pevney was into his 90’s), but that doesn’t make their deaths any less of a shame.
Now then, let’s get into it.
Gone, Baby, Gone (2007)
Directed by: Ben Affleck
Written by: Aaron Stockard, Ben Affleck
Starring: Casey Affleck, Morgan Freeman, Amy Ryan
When it was announced that Ben Affleck had a project coming down the pike that he was not only going to co-write but direct as well, my reaction was pretty much the same as everyone else’s. Something along the lines of “Really? No, seriously. Come on. I’m serious. This isn’t funny. No, really, you’re upsetting me. Stop it. Now. Stop it now. I’ll tell. I will. I swear to fu—”
And so on.
Because even though I’m a longtime supporter of the idea that Ben is a talented actor who just happens to have a habit of choosing really bad movies that he couldn’t save with the blessing of Christ himself, I couldn’t see him pulling this off. Yeah, he co-wrote Good Will Hunting and probably had some say in the actual shoot, but that was a whole other deal to me. This was Ben without Gus Van Sant and Matt Damon to back him up. Even when I took a look at the extremely promising cast and crew, I still didn’t like his chances.
But then the thing came out, got electrifyingly positive reviews across the board and even snagged an Oscar nomination for Amy Ryan. As such, I saw myself as having no choice but to rent the damn thing and see if it was worth all the fuss and comeback trail attention it was getting for Affleck. To my surprise, it met my paper-thin expectations head on and left them bleeding in an alley behind one of the rundown, world-weary bars that the world of the film captures so well throughout. Thanks to the incredible cinematography by John Toll (Braveheart and a number of Cameron Crowe films).
The first thing to really keep in mind, however, is that the script itself, written by Affleck and Aaron Stockard, is a damn good adaptation of the novel by Dennis Lehane (who also wrote the novel Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River comes from). Strictly going on the dialogue and pacing, Affleck clearly had something good to work with coming out of the gate. And it just seems to get better and better for him. Starting with the cast. Casey Affleck has been sort of hovering on the radar for years now, turning in good work but never getting quite the level of recognition he deserved. After this and The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, he shouldn’t have much to worry about in that department. As Patrick Kenzie, a private detective and native of the neighborhood in which the young girl of a painfully irresponsible mother (Amy Ryan), Casey delivers the kind of performance that can bring someone to the main stage and keep them there for a good, long time. Affleck has had featured roles before, but this is probably the first time he’s ever really been the main player responsible for setting a pace that the rest of the cast has to follow. Kenzie is almost viciously driven in his desire to do the right thing. You pick that up right from the beginning, watching him prove that nepotism from big brother Ben doesn’t even stand a chance of factoring into it. His journey from reluctantly accepting the job from the child’s aunt and uncle, Amy Madigan and Titus Welliver both knocking it right out of the park as the kind of lower-middle class victims of life in general who have no choice but to live as battered ghosts age forty going on ninety, to the point where he has to choose between seeing the case through to the end and risking everything he has is the core of the film. Ben obviously knew what his brother was capable of. He is never anything less than being in complete control of not only the character but our attention as well.
He has an amazing supporting cast to work with. Morgan Freeman doesn’t have a whole lot to do for most of the film, but it probably shouldn’t surprise you anyway that he still makes the absolute most of it. He’s done the weary thing before. What separates it this time is the restraint he brings to a man who is driven in much the same way Affleck is, but with an element of personal loss and countless years of experience that Freeman doesn’t even have to use words to dictate. Ed Harris does much of the same in the kind of role usually limited to playing the standard territorial cop. Both of them are perfect for the kind of veteran performance that’s essential to their characters. They are the end result of the vigilance that pushes Affleck ever forward. But the real standout of the supporting cast is almost certainly Ryan as the kind of mother you wouldn’t be comfortable leaving your goldfish with. Anyone can play a bad mother. It takes serious talent to go deeper than that and come back with a performance that encompasses a woman who is forced to face her demons and come to terms with who and what she is. Not to mention what she is willing to sacrifice to see her daughter again. Ryan nails that mark with an almost staggering clarity that is sure to echo the eerily similar losers you probably know in real life.
As good as everyone is though, such as Michelle Monaghan taking the role as Kenzie’s girlfriend well beyond its usually thankless position, it’s director Affleck who deserves credit for reining everything in. Anyone can load up a film with great talent. Surrounded by so many talented individuals, including the great editing by William Goldenberg, the confidence in his direction and in his ability to give everything just the right balance is impressive stuff for a first-timer. He knew exactly what he needed, and he understood that it was going to be the performances and the pacing that would determine if this thing sank or swam. And in capturing the run-down exhaustion of a time and place well past the point of miracles, it’s no small exaggeration to say that Gone Baby Gone swims as well as any experienced director could hope for. The devil is almost certainly in the details of the story, the cast and crew. That’s just common sense. As far as first films go, Affleck succeeds on every front. This is a film well worth examining. Just as Affleck is well worth paying attention to for whenever he decides to go for a second shot.
Michael Clayton (2007)
Directed by: Tony Gilroy
Written by: Tony Gilroy
Starring: George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton
Writing a great screenplay is fine. It’s pretty damn essential to the makings of a good movie. Michael Clayton writer/director Tony Gilroy has managed that feat a few times now. Most of all, with all three chapters in the Bourne trilogy. It’s another thing altogether though when that has to translate to good direction as well.
You have to give Gilroy credit. Much in the same way that Ben Affleck knew to surround himself with a talented cast and crew in Gone, Baby, Gone¸ Gilroy knew that his first time in the director’s chair had to have all the makings of a hell of a good team to back him up. But even with a great script, an excellent cast and the backing of people like Sidney Pollack (who pops in the supporting cast in addition to his title as one of the film’s producers), it all comes back to Gilroy and what he can make of the talent and story in front of him. And much in the same way Affleck smashed expectations and delivered a remarkable piece of filmmaking for a newcomer, Gilroy takes the opportunity to do something truly impressive and runs with it a good several hundred more miles than most of us might have been willing to guess. It went far enough for the film to score seven Oscar nominations. Including Best Picture and Best Director.
Again, it goes back to his terrific story of a man (Clooney as the title character) who has dedicated most of his life to his job. Working as “a fixer” (as in, someone who fixes problems) for the clients of one of the largest and most prestigious law firms in the world. What that’s gotten him is middle age, strained personal relationships and a hefty debt to the mob that serves as a well-executed backdrop to the main story. It’s a character study more distinctive than anything Clooney has done so far. The power of his performances comes in his understanding that the weariness of his character can come across in everything from a casual conversation with his young son to the way he walks to his car from a late-night poker game. He’s good at his job, and Clooney has always had a great movie-star knack for playing professionals who do their work better than anyone, but he adds something significant to underscore the usual confidence he lends to these people. Clooney shows that even though Clayton might be good at his job that it doesn’t really mean anything significant to anyone when it’s all said and done behind closed doors. It’s even more potent when it’s made clear that Clayton has known this sad reality for quite some time and yet chose to continue on autopilot. And pushing into his forties, it’s only getting worse. In the end, the most he has to show for his years of service is a reputation that won’t even buy him a cup of coffee and a close friendship to a man named Arthur Eden (Tom Wilkinson), a manic-depressive lawyer in the firm. Whose latest nervous breakdown inadvertently draws Clayton into a possible scandal involving the agrochemical company they happen to be defending against a family who suffered grievously at the hands of one of their products.
It’s because of this that both Clayton and Eden’s paths cross with that of an executive at the agrochemical company, Karen Chowder (Tilda Swinton), an emotionally crippled, insecure woman who will do anything to protect not only her business interests but the years of life she has surrendered in the name of her career. Though her actions occasionally suggest otherwise, she’s really no different than Clayton or Eden. Swinton is talented enough to make us see this while still allowing us hate her character for any number of the brutally underhanded things she does to get what she wants. To me, the surprising thing isn’t that she won Best Supporting Actress for the role. What surprises me is that she didn’t won one a lot sooner. She’s been that good for years, and Clayton serves as a culmination of for the brilliant performances and diverse personalities she’s stepped into in film after film.
And if you think Clooney and Swinton are good, then Wilkinson as the psychologically battered Arthur Eden will really floor your expectations. From his manic monologue that opens the film and drops us unceremoniously into its world to his meeting with Arthur at the police station, Wilkinson delivers what is easily the best performance of his consistently stellar career as one of the best character actors in the business. Playing a person like Arthur Eden is no easy task, especially when it comes to avoiding the pitfalls of turning his insanity into a one-note exercise in choking on each and every scene. Wilkinson avoids every single one of those potential moments, but still has a very obvious good time with the roller-coaster madness that overwhelms Eden from the first moment we meet him. It’s electrifying to watch and it keeps pretty good time with the A-game mentality that the rest of the cast brings to the proceedings. Pollack in particular is excellent lending his consistently solid acting talent to the film in his final acting role.
As solid a story as there is in Michael Clayton¸ Gilroy is also smart and talented enough to not let the actors get lost in the twists and turns. He knows that this is in the end a character study on a fairly large stage for that sort of thing. This stage moves briskly and wonderfully alongside the cinematography of Robert Elswit (who coincidently won an Oscar this year for another major contender, No Country For Old Men) and a memorable score by James Newton Howard. The story and all the other necessary ingredients stand strong enough to get me interested in Gilroy’s next move, but it’s the performances that give the film an air of durability that deserves to be held up as an example of the talents of its cast decades down the road. That’s something you don’t need an Oscar for.
Millennium: The Complete First Season (1996)
Directed by: David Nutter, etc.
Written by: Chris Carter, etc.
Starring: Lance Henriksen, Terry O’Quinn, Megan Gallagher
Though The X-Files was the runaway success that launched a dozen careers and became a science fiction hit whose popularity has endured long after its cancellation, my money for creator Chris Carter’s best work still goes to one of his other shows. Going into its highly anticipated debut episode, Millennium had all the ingredients necessary to make it as big as The X-Files. Unfortunately, it never caught on quite the way it should have. The series had to struggle endlessly to find a wide audience, but a far darker plot kept it out of the understanding of most viewers. Eventually, network indifference and a schizophrenic approach to its story arcs and character-development eventually crushed the show after only three seasons. But like anything that’s never quite understood or fully appreciated in its time, a devoted following to the series continues to this day.
It’s well known amongst the show’s fans that Chris Carter developed the series with genre veteran Lance Henriksen in mind. You won’t have to travel very far into the series to figure out his logic. Henriksen has always been a vastly underrated actor, proving that with great roles in everything from Aliens to Pumpkinhead to The Terminator to Powder. But his recognition never seems to go very far beyond horror and science fiction fans. Which isn’t terribly fair, given how well he carried Millennium as its star. It’s easy to see why Carter wanted him. No one else could play a character like Frank Blank, a burnt-out former FBI agent who takes on a job with a mysterious group known as MillenniuM. A sort-of fourth-branch organization dedicated to cases involving crimes connected to the possible end-of-the-world that may or may not go down in the new millennium. But it’s not just the fact that Frank is gifted forensics expert that draws this group to him. It’s his ability to see into the mind of a killer simply by visiting the crime scene, a gift that has aided and haunted Frank through his entire life.
Henriksen has always had a penchant for dark personalities, but very few of those roles ever involve a heroic element as well. Frank is also a family man with a wife (Megan Gallagher) and daughter (Brittany Tiplady), and it’s his desire to protect them from the evil of the world and the evil that may or may not be headed for their front door that forces his hand. Frank wants something for his family that he just can’t have, and it becomes the driving point of his character and the element of his personality that Henriksen brings out again and through the first season. Starting with “Pilot” and moving into other essential season one episodes such as “Force Majeure”, “Covenant”, “Lamentation”, “Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions” and numerous others. Henriksen was and still is a good enough actor to set the tone for a character like Frank Black early on and make him as real and engaging as any fictional character could hope to be. We do learn more about him through the season, but the real development of the series is in the relationships he has with both his family and the people he encounters in his work.
Like any other Chris Carter series, the supporting cast more than holds up their end of the deal. The chemistry between Henriksen and Megan Gallagher is undeniable and excellently done by both. We don’t need to see them getting it on or constantly expressing how much they care for each other to get a sense of how much they love one another, and the lengths to which Frank will go to make his wife feel safe. Gallagher would get her own chance to develop her character further in the episode “The Well-Worn Lock”, and she makes the most of it. By the excellent final season finale, Katherine Black is more than just filler and a means to push a story forward. She is just as significant a part of the show as Frank.
Terry O’Quinn, who has achieved some much-deserved success in recent years for his portrayal of John Locke on the hit series Lost also achieves a similar measure with his character, Peter Watts, Frank’s contact within MilleniuM and eventual friend. O’Quinn has had a long history with damn near everything Chris Carter ever created, appearing in not only The X-Files and the first X-Files movie but also in Harsh Realm. Millennium was probably his longest association with a Carter series. Thanks to the consistently excellent writing and O’Quinn’s own talent for playing the kind of government official you would either love to have on your side or hate to have working against you, Peter Watts becomes as important to the series overall growth and development as Frank and Katherine. Like Katherine, his character is not just there to give Frank someone to talk to. The friendship that develops between the two becomes yet another point of interest for the series. It all comes back to the talent of the cast and of course, the writers and directors as well.
Hard work that should have yielded far better results than it got. But so it goes. At least though, there’s three seasons worth of material to work with. The first season makes for some of the most under appreciated television of its time. Anyone who hasn’t given this show at least a curious glance will no doubt be pleasantly surprised at what they find.
Yojimbo (1961)
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa
Written by: Akira Kurosawa and Ryuzo Kikushima
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoko Tsukasa
It’s well known by fans and scholars alike that iconic writer/director Akira Kurosawa had a great affinity for American film. Particularly, it would seem, the western and gangster genres. And though several of the classics from his almost intimidating body of the work in the 1950’s (Seven Samurai, Ikiru, Throne of Blood and several others) possesses hints of this love, it wasn’t until he got around to the story of a wandering ronin (also known as a samurai with no master) who finds his way into a small town controlled by two vicious gangs that he was able to truly do something with both genres.
And not just slap a samurai sword on them either. Yojimbo is a film as worthy as any of Kurosawa’s heavyweight dramas because like those other movies, Yojimbo retains its classic status for not only being an immensely fun and influential but also in the way it tears into the established themes of the genres it seeks to borrow from. Kurosawa-regular Toshiro Mifune as Sanjuro is hardly the standard western hero. He’s a contract player, willing to do any job for anyone at all—for a price. But upon arriving in this small town, from his first encounter with Gonji, the tavern owner (a great gallows-humor performance from Eijiro Tono) to his initial dealings with the two gangs, Sanjuro finds his own personal code of ethics so offended by the decadently over-the-top evil of the criminals around him that he opts instead to simply wipe them both out. Though again, there’s money involved.
The trademark of most Kurosawa films is the incredible attention to humanity. The stories are always sweeping in their ability to compel us through an emotional journey as complete as any film could achieve. But here, he doesn’t go for that. Everything is stylized, packed with comic book humor wrapped in a similar sort of violence. The film is larger-than-life personalities playing out a great action-film story across a battleground small town that lends itself quite well to the camera work from Kazuo Miyagawa and the set designs by Yoshiro Muraki. Seizaburo Kawazu as Seibei is the older of the two crime lords, running a brothel with his ruthless, conniving wife Orin (Isuzu Yamada hitting all the right evil bitch notes) and installing his own handpicked mayor (Kamatari Fujiwara). Kyu Sazanka as Ushitoria is the more powerful crime boss of the two, wielding far more influence in the town with his sadistic brother (Daisuke Kato) and his own mayor-of-choice (Takashi Shimura). Both sides at certain points in the flawlessly paced film want Sanjuro to help them gain complete control. Sanjuro deals with all of them but secretly has no intention of helping any side but his own. To him, both groups are pitiful Roman-esque creatures of mindless murder and everything else he personally finds detestable. It’s this sense of honor that Mifune does so well, moving away from the subtlety of his past performances but still maintaing his reputation for being capable of a truly impressive range. There is no secret to Sanjuro’s motivations and personality. He is by far the greatest symbol of the film’s frenzied, almost light-hearted approach to its story. Sanjuro is quickly shown to be far more cunning than anyone else in the film. There is almost never a moment when he is not in complete control of his surroundings. And in those rare moments when he isn’t, he moves quickly to change that back to his favor.
There’s nothing deep to it. The key word here is fun. Mifune really doesn’t need to do anything more than stand tall with a sense of power that dominates the entire film and easily makes him a hero of considerable appeal. And much of it is laid out in casual movements and gestures. Such a simple shrug of his shoulders or the way drawing his sword to make a kill is as a common a thing to him as breathing. He goes about his job with the mindset of a man who isn’t afraid to have a good time screwing these guys over while taking the work deathly serious at the same time. It takes a very special sort of movie-star confidence to create a character like this. Mifune is perfect for it on every level. From his first appearance walking into town against Masaru Sato’s perfect score, he is already unforgettable. Enough that the influence of not only his character but also the film itself is still felt today.
Of all Kurosawa’s films, Yojimbo is the one that had the greatest influence on Western filmmaking. With its creation came Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars in 1961. An almost shot-for-shot remake of Kurosawa’s film, the movie not only created the spaghetti western genre and launched one of the most important film careers of the last thirty years (Clint Eastwood, anyone?). The film has since seen a thousand imitators, an officially endorsed depression-era gangster film starring Bruce Willis and even an Anime adaptation. Dollars though remains the most famous of the sincerest form of flattery. It still doesn’t hold a candle to its predecessor. A legendary performance from Mifune, an excellent group of supporting actors playing their full-tilt roles to perfection and all the technical tricks and tools that again and again made Kurosawa and his films a genre onto themselves. Looking to get your feet wet with one of the masters? Start here.
True Stories (1986)
Directed by: David Byrne
Written by: David Byrne, Beth Henley, Stephen Tobolowsky
Starring: David Byrne, John Goodman, Swoosie Kurtz
In a previous installment of Adventures in Netflix, I reviewed Snakes on a Plane, New Line Cinema’s attempt at a production-line cult film. I said then and still believe now that a movie like Snakes will always be doomed to fail in its ambition against movies that gained their cult-status the old-fashioned way. Earning it through years of existence in the potentially never-ending limbo of video rentals and word-of-mouth. The best ones have, anyway.
David Byrne’s writing/directing project True Stories is something of a combination of anthology storytelling and the usual offbeat social and political leanings of Byrne’s better-known endeavor. Namely, leading the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers The Talking Heads. If you’re familiar with the music, then you’ll have a little less work to do getting into the world Byrnes leads us through. Armed with a Stetson hat and a number of questions regarding the nature of people and of life itself, the film is basically Byrnes taking us on a tour of a Virgil, Texas, a fictional backdrop home to a number of strange townspeople and a “Celebration of Specialness” festival that dictates much of the film’s very loose plot.
The story, co-written by Beth Henley and Stephen Tobolowsky (who most us know best as Ned Ryerson, the irritating insurance salesman who only adds to Bill Murray’s déjà vu misery in Groundhog Day) plays like a ninety-minute long Talking Heads music video. Indeed, the musical highlight for any fan of the group will almost certainly be the scene in which the band and several members of the cast (which includes Goodman showing off his moonwalking skills) tear through the classic “Wild Wild Life”. The same scene later saw heavily airplay on MTV as the music video for the song. It really shouldn’t surprise anyone that the entire score consists of music by Byrnes and also The Talking Heads. But even if you’re not a fan of their music, it’s nothing too overwhelming.
And even if it does, the real pleasure of the film is not in the music (though people already tuned into Byrne’s brand of music will consider it a huge plus that so many great songs populate the movie throughout) but in likable and considerable talents of the diverse supporting cast. In one of his first starring roles as a shy man named Louis, Goodman is by far the standout of the film as lonely, completely decent man who loves country music and tries to put an end to his loneliness by advertising for a wife in the form of a billboard and then later in a hilarious TV commercial. Goodman would go on to utilize his sizable comedic talent and dramatic punch in such venues as Roseanne, Sea of Love¸ The Big Lebowski, and countless appearances on Saturday Night Live. But this is the place to go for a first glance at the potential he would utilize to full effect in future projects. His rendition of the classic “People Like Us” is not to be missed. Other highlights on Byrne’s freefalling trip through Virgil, interrupted only by the occasional musical interlude (most of which blend into the film quite well) include a man (Spalding Grey in one of his best roles) who hasn’t spoken to his wife in twenty years, the delightful Swoosie Kurtz as a millionaire who refuses to leave the safety of her bed, Jo Harvey Allen as a pathological who seemingly spends every moment of her day laying out the history of her completely impossible life and several others. Including Pops Staples, of The Staple Singers, as a voodoo expert who helps Louis in his love-life problems.
If you don’t care for The Talking Heads and have no interest in giving them a shot, the cast and their stories interweaving with one another to paint a fairly interesting portrait of small town oddity is pretty much all True Stories can offer you. If that doesn’t sound like it’s going to be enough, then you probably won’t miss out. Even if the movie’s deliberately wry charm and dedication to a detached sense of bemusement at its own strangeness wears out its welcome before the end, everyone else should have a pretty good time.
And that’s gonna lock up another issue of Adventures in Netflix.
Join me next month, when I detail my journey hunting down the rotten bastards responsible for canceling Back To You.
As always, thanks for sticking around.
“I have something to say about the difference between American and European cities. But I’ve forgotten what it is. I have it written down at home though.”
-David Byrne, laying down his wisdom in True Stories.
