Movie review - "Frances" (1982) **

 Key teammembers  behind Elephant Man - the writers, the producer, Mel Brooks - try another biopic, and it should be great (Frances Farmer) and there are elements of greatness (the performances of Jessica Lange and Kim Stanley) but it's boring. And annoying. And darkly lit.

The Sam Shepherd character is annoying - not real and he kept popping up to say things. It's never clear why Farmer is collapsing just that she has a bad time and has a bit of a mouth on her.

I think the filmmakers didn't "get" her. So they do "nightmarish" scenes - Frances cracking up, going nuts in the shower, being lobotomised. How is it her parents' fault?

Comes alive during the Clifford Odets bit. 

 

Kevin Costner Top Ten

 1) Silverado

2) Bull Durham - probs my favourite of his movies

3) The Bodyguard

4) Waterworld - actually a decent B picture Mad Max rip off

5) Tin Cup

6) The Untouchables

7) No Way Out

8) Open Range

9)Thirteen Days

10) Revenge

(I'm just doing films not TV

Script review - "The Big Chill" by Lawrence Kasdan and Barbara Benedeck

 At one stage this film was a Big Deal. The Soundtrack sold like gangbusters. Became a short hand - a Big Chill type gathering. Didn't invent the format. Return of the Secauscus Seven. But also plays.

It's like a play. Kasdan and Benedeck keep it visual in a way - a funeral, a visit to a bar, chasing bats, differnent rooms, sex.

The dynamic of the friends is worked out well. I'll use character names:

- William Hurt - one of best characters. Flashy role. Drug addict, dealer. Doomed, Funny, Impotent. How is being with Meg Tilly going to make him better.

- Meg Tilly. Bad character on page and screen. Just dull. I know why she's there.

- Jeff Goldblum. Terrific character. I like how Mary Kay Place went out with him but it ended badly and no one really likes him and he's a vulture but funny. He felt real.

- Glenn Close and Kevin Kline. Decent people. Some adultery. They work. Grounded centre.

- Tom Berenger. Funny. Poor little rich guy. Radical, though? No one is really radical. Danny Peary thought they old out but I get the sense they were all middle class.

- JoBeth Williams. Very believable. The love for Berenger. Her essential mediocrity. 

The Big difference the script has... a flashback to the characters in 1972. Not in the film. Way too late to bring into the film. But what this does flesh out is:

* the toxic romantic relationship between Jo beth Williams and William Hurt and William Hurt and Mary Kay Place

* Tom Berenger's radicalism

Interesting. But even on the page - I'm trying not to be smart here - it didn't work.

Movie review - "The Untouchables" (1987) ***** (warning: spoilers)

 The perfect director, the perfect writer, the perfect piece of IP, the perfect composer, the perfect new star (Costner), the perfect old star (Sean Connery) the perfect showy star (Robert de Niro).

It all works brilliantly. It helps the structure is solid - like The Fugitive it's a TV series that can be told in a film, and it was, The Scarface Mob.

Actually I will admit the scenes with the wife are treacly - but how else to do it? The scene at the border on horseback... that's a little unmemorable (Mamet didn't write it).

But the good stuff is so terrific - the Mamet arias, the murder of Charles Martin Smith (so shocking and intense), the death of Sean Connery, the finale in court.

Movie review - "The Church of Baseball" by Ron Shelton (2022)

 Terrific book, read it in one sitting. Extra good because it covers Shelton's life in the minors, and his early days of filmmaking. I knew a fair bit about the 

Loved script stuff especially:

- writing the opening monologue he made sure he after Annie's lofty speech he then went low brow at the ball park

- an Annie/Crash scene where she talks about her past was loved by everyone, on stage and on film, but held up the film - and once he cut it the film flowed - he realised it was because it was too intimate between the characters when they hadn't reached that spot yet

- his ins and outs behind various creative decisions.

The film on one hand was easy - Thom Mount liked the pitch, agreed to make it, Kevin Costner came on - but was also very difficult: it was saved solely by a good review about No Way Out. Shelton punched out a producer who told Susan Sarandon the rushes made her look bad - he was lucky not to get fired. Didn't realise Shelton was open to Anthony Michael Hall - it was Hall who blew it not reading the script. The suits sacked the DOP just to throw their weight around. Costner was a prince, the cast was divine. Laura San Giacomo was cast as Millie but had to pull out, JT Walsh was the manager but got a better offer, they wanted Charlie Sheen but he was attached to Eight Men Out. (Sheen would've given off a far less innocent vibe.)

Book review - "Revenge" by Jim Harrison

 I can see why Hollywood loved this novella. Not long, well written, lots of violence, simple story, lots of themes, great hero role, people being manly, two showy male parts (Cochrane and Tibby), sexy babe part (the wife), colourful support parts. The Mexican characters really go out of their way to help Cochrane.

The final film version was very faithful. I enjoyed it. Female part isn't much. But an emotional experience to read.

Movie review - "The Highwaymen" (2019) **

A sort of 1930s Western, the look at the pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde from the POV of the men who took them out - the part played by Denver Pyle in the 1967 version.

Here we have Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelsen as two old time-y law enforcement officers. This was written with old Paul Newman and Robert Redford in mind and they would've been better - Costner and Harrelsen are fine, I think just maybe a decade or so too young for the humour and suspense these two were going for. I spent time fantasy casting... Clint Eastwood of course but more realistically budget wise...  Gene Hackman (though he's retired), Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, de Niro, Pacino... basically, someone who became famous in the 70s.

The script also is, to use a William Goldman reference (speaking of 70s), dolphin-y... the two leads kind of dolphin along until the final climax. There are some nice moments and work, a little bit of Unforgiven style regret, but it's a bit plodding, especially at 132 minutes.

Bonnie and Clyde are pretty much depicted as mad dogs, which I guess they were - but it's a shame the scenes where they shoot dead law officers weren't done with more suspense/dread/horror, especially as we never see them (I don't mind that concept I just wish it was done better).

It's fine - like so many Netflix films it's utterly "fine" without being great.

Movie review - "Molly's Game" (2018) ****

Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut has plenty of bells and whistles - great dialogue, solid structure. It flew along for me - for the most part, I admit... I think the basic story isn't that interesting. Molly ran a poker game and... met some celebrities and... had some morals and... got busted and... wouldn't give up the names of her clients. Only she did give up some. Then she.... went about her life.

It's entertaining though and fascinating to see how Sorkin relates to Molly, who is a smurfette but is also beautiful, smart, sexy, captivating, briefly drug addicted but gets over it, idealistic... it's like he's making a film for his perfect woman and Jessica Chastain is shot like a goddess. She looks gorgeous.

Mind you she's got a lot of voice over and I don't think her voice is that great - she's no, say, Emma Stone.

Sorkin clearly invests in the father daughter stuff (the scenes with Kevin Costner are among the strongest) and the male-female mentor stuff (Idris Elba) and also men having crushes on beautiful women.

I don't really feel this was a film that had to be made but it's clearly a story with a female protagonist that Sorkin felt he could do, and he did do it, and the world is richer for its presence.

Script review - "The Untouchables" by David Mamet

Art Linson's done a lot of great things as producer, but few better than hiring David Mamet to adapt the classic TV show for the big screen. Most film fans know the classic monologues - there's plenty of them and they're all great.

There's a couple of decent characters - Capone of course, but also Ness (honorable but made interesting by loquaciousness) and Malone. The other two Untouchables and other characters weren't as good (Stone, the account) and the wife is just a wife.

Structurally it's also very solid - act one Ness tries to bust crime, act two forms untouchables, act three loses accountant and things get tough, act four Malone dies, act five the trial.

It's interesting to read this to see what didn't make the final film - there's a sequence involving a chase at a race track that feels kind of pointless (doesn't change anything). And the shootout on the steps in the film took place on a train.

But a remarkably large amount of this made it to screen, which made me really wish Mamet and Brian de Palma had worked together more often.

Movie review - "Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice" (2016) **1/2

This starts off pretty well - I enjoy the brooding Zak Snyder world and the booming Hans Zimmer score. Ben Affleck is a strong Bruce Wayne/Batman, helped by greying temples and the fact you believe he's (a) tormented (b) rich (c) a bit crazy.

The Honest Trailers version of this summed up the film better than I could - it's a good Batman film, a confusing Superman film, which features some really cool action sequences and goes on far too long. There's not enough Batman vs Superman - the conflict it set up quite well, from Batman's POV anyway, you can understand why Batman distrusts Superman. It's a bit wobbly why Superman doesn't like him, and Lex Luthor's plan is super confusing. The dispute is resolved in a famously unconvincing bit of business.

The appearance of Wonder Woman and cameos from Acquaman and the Flash were a little bit enjoyable but I get the feeling the film might've been better off without them because it felt overloaded. The last third was very loud and noisy.

It's always nice to see Oscar winners sparking up a comic book movie - Holly Hunter, Jeremy Irons - though also depressing because you know it means they don't have any other gigs going. Gal Gadot impresses as Wonder Woman but Henry Cavill really isn't killing it as Superman.

Script review - "Silverado" (1985) by Lawrence Kasdan

Kasdan's first box office disappointment after Body Heat and The Big Chill, although it was reasonably popular and very liked on video. There are so many, many great things about it, I wished I liked it more - the four heroes are fantastic (each could support their own movie), there are plenty of good situations and some decent support characters (Stella the saloon owner, the card sharp Slick).

But it's bitsy. It doesn't feel like there's an overall story - conflict comes and goes. Emmett (Scott Glenn) is getting revenge on the man who sent him to prison, Mal (Danny Glover, do wish his character had a better name) wants the man who killed his paw, Paden (Kevin Kline, character has a great name) clashes against a former fellow outlaw, English sheriff Langston appears and seems promising then disappears, it lacks a clear villain. It's like three separate movies existing uneasily alongside each other. (The stuff involving the brothers is cohesive).
So much great stuff though.

Movie review - "Man of Steel" (2013) ****

I enjoyed this so much more than I thought I would, helped by an excellent script via David Goyer who assumes we know the Superman story and so plays around with structure, shoving us right into it. Henry Cavill isn't a particularly interesting Superman/Clark Kent but he's okay and there is superb support from Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Amy Adams and Michael Shannon.

Shannon's Zod is a worthy antagonist and has some great knock-down brawls with Cavill. It looks terrific and there's a booming Hans Zimmer score which is perfect.

Movie review - "A Perfect World" (1993) ***1/2

No one seems to talk much about this movie any more but at the time it was a big deal - Kevin Costner at his peak teaming up with Clint Eastwood at his 90s peak. It's an old Eastwood favourite, the road movie, being about two crims who bust out of prison and take a small boy hostage. One of the crims is another Eastwood favourite, the black hat psycho, who enables other crim Costner to look noble by comparison, especially by killing him.

The heart of the movie is the relationship between Costner and the boy and it's very well done. It movie does amble at over two hours; the bits with Eastwood and Laura Dern in particular feel like padding. But it is not afraid to tackle a serious theme - the effect of treating kids badly - and gives the appropriate ending.

Bradley Whitford pops up as another black hat, a smarmy, sexually harrassing, gung-ho FBI sharpshooter, whose purpose is to make Eastwood seem more noble. Loving recreation of 1960s Texas. It was a throw back in many ways to boy-worshipping-outlaw Westerns like Shane and Hondo.

Movie review - "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" (2014) **

Really, really annoying movie because once upon a time I was into Jack Ryan novels in a big way and I've always enjoyed the movie adaptations, but they completely stuffed it. There was nothing wrong with the idea of doing a Ryan origin story - sure, they'd already turned the movie of The Sum of All Fears into one, but why not do it again? But instead of using one of the best selling source novels, several of which remain unfilmed, they thought they'd come up with an original story - and it's a crap one.

It feels as though this was done on the cheap, too. I guess Chris Pine isn't that cheap, and Ken Branagh could probably charge a little more after Thor, and Keira Knightley must have been paid something to hold her nose - but surely Kevin Costner doesn't cost that much? There's not really many other prominent characters in the movie. Spectacle is thin on the ground - there is a decent chase through the streets of Moscow and later one through New York, but in general television does this a lot better.

TV does story telling better too - which here is noticeably poor. The biggest flaw more me is the character of Ryan. The whole point of Jack Ryan was that he was a guy next door, a pencil pusher and family man who occasionally got caught in amazing adventures - an antidote to James Bond. He wanted to be a soldier but couldn't after being injured - he went into finance and made a quick fortune, then turned to academia, which led to a career in the CIA. He had a bad back, a fear of flying, a strong Irish Catholic influence, a keenly developed sense of intelligence and history - it's an interesting character. He's not gung ho Mr Macho killer - that job is given to John Clarke.

And the movies had done a decent enough job of depicting that until now - he wasn't really an ordinary guy but he was an action movie genre's version of an ordinary guy. (This is why Harrison Ford was so good).

Here Jack Ryan is just another super hero. Which might have worked (though what's the point?) but the filmmakers try to have their cake and eat it too by having him say "I'm just an analyst" and "I'm just an ordinary person" a few times. Well he isn't. For starters he enlists in the army after September 11, which makes him a moron and not true to character. Then he finishes his PhD and joins Wall Street and becomes part of the CIA because of his ability to... read patterns?  Then he's sent on a mission to Russia and someone tries to kill him only Ryan gets in first in a ridiculous Daniel Craig James Bond type sequence.

This for me was the turning point of the film - when it showed that the filmmakers didn't have a vision. Because after that Pine/Ryan meets mentor Kevin Costner (played someone called Thomas Harper not in the novels... why not use John Clarke? Or Admiral Greer?) and goes on about how hard it was to kill someone the first time, you think "that's not true you found it easy, you looked like a bad ass". Then there's this horrible bit where Costner talks about his first time killing someone, an innocent bystander, and you're wondering how you're meant to take that character, who is a mentor but also distant, and there's no warmth (nothing to compare to what James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman brought).

Then we see Ryan "analyse" stuff - he really seems to brain storm and kick ideas around and guess what the baddies are up to without much proof, but he always guesses right. And for all his inexperience he manages to rescue Keira from assassins and then later on stop a terrorist by engaging in a motorbike chase and a fight on a moving truck. It's ridiculous.

So much of this is dumb. Keira Knightley looks beautiful but her role is horrible; they don't even show a courtship, just them meeting and bang they're in love - and she thinks he's having an affair (he ducks away to see Sorry Wrong Number at a revival house... way to go with updating the character), then she follows him to Moscow so she can be kidnapped (the best sequence in the movie to be fair) then she is rescued and doesn't do anything in the last third.

The action stuff lacks balls. Clancy never did - he set off an atomic bomb in the US in Sum of All Fears and had a plane crash into the White House in Debt of Honour (predicting September 11) and killed off leading characters. This is all tentative - all the goodies live the baddies die Wall Street is saved. No big stakes no nothing. It's annoying - because Ryan is such a good character who's had interesting adventures. But they completely stuffed it.

Movie review - "Draft Day" (2013) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Kevin Costner raised the sports bar so high with Bull Durham that every time I see him in another sports movie I can't help going "I wish this was as good as Bull Durham". I had that reaction for about the first thirty minutes of this (along with wondering "is Kevin Costner still a film star... this movie acts as if he is") but once I shook that off and appreciated the film for what it was I enjoyed it. I'm glad I didn't pay to see it in the cinema, but it's solid pay TV fare, helped by an unusual setting - the NFL draft. I'm not super familiar with the system and even now wouldnt pass a quiz but I gather its important and involves trading players.

Costner managers a Cleveland team and is having a rough week - his dad has just died, the team owner Frank Langella doesn't really trust him, his girlfriend Jennifer Garner is pregnant, he has to pony up for the number one draft pick but doesn't suspect he's right.

The crux of the plot involves investigating the background of this quarterback and I liked the way that unfolded - uncertainty over his mental toughness, then finding out he was unpopular with teammates, and then all of a sudden he goes from being super popular with team managers to incredibly unpopular.

The film felt hampered by being too nice to people - everyone is basically good even the owner of the team; all the general managers are nice to each other. Surely there is more vindictiveness and aggression behind the scenes in professional sports? At least cut-throat competition - this seems relatively benign.

Also much of it seemed underdeveloped such as the relationship between Costner and mother Ellen Burstyn (to be honest the only-talked-about storyline of Costner having to sack his own father sounded more dramatic than this film) and Jennifer Garner has a really thankless role as Costner's girlfriend - they jazz it up by having her as the salary cap person, but she's still just the girlfriend. (She should have dumped him in the opening scene or something - might have given the movie some energy). The Greek Chorus of radio commentators is irritating, esp the guy who craps on about Cleveland.

Still it's beautifully shot with all that American NFL colour in the stadiums and the cast on the whole feel real. Not a great sports movie but a decent one and at least its different.

TV review - "The Hatfields and the McCoys" (2012) ***

It was a great idea to make a modern day mini series about this famous feud because enough time has past to approach it with the reality the true story deserves and also the longer running time can explore the complexities. It seems a combination of things led to the murderous feud - strong family links, post-war instability, warped notions of honour, a feuding culture (presumably imported from the old country), ineffective law and order, but most of all good old fashioned money and power.

Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton are both excellent as the leads - Costner surly and regal, determined to execute what he considers is fair justice; Paxton slightly more honourable, but bad to his daughter, paranoid, a poor politician. As often seems to happen in these feuds, the two leads ended up surviving and the innocent suffered, particularly poor old Paxton's daughter. The character of Costner's son is a bit too pretty and modern with his gym body - he feels like he stuck out.

Ronan Vibert is terrific as a slippery lawyer and Tom Berenger perfect as a fanatical foot soldier. It looks and smells like post Civil War America - ironic, considering it was shot in Romania. Kevin Reynolds isn't that great a visual director though. And often the story gets repetitive - shooting, revenge, shooting. Which I guess is what happened but it does drag at times.

Script review - "The Untouchables" by David Mamet

Mamet should do more action films - his dialogue and strength with men suit the genre and the TV show gave him a rich world to play with: Chicago, Depression, gangsters, Capone, Irish cops. Bold, flamboyant - I'm glad Mamet didn't direct it. The great speeches are all here, the characterisation of Malone and Capone is memorable on the page; there isn't much any writer could do with Ness but Mamet does the best he can. There's an action scene in a race track at the script which didn't make the final cut.

Script review – “Revenge” by Walter Hill and David Giler (warning: spoilers)

Jim Harrison’s novella would have seemed a natural fit for Hill, but this script (not filmed, presumably written in the early 80s) isn’t very good. It’s too long, with far too much bad dialogue. For instance, the romantic sex stuff between Cochrane and Maria clunks (continually intercut with their lovemaking) and isn’t very convincing. When Cochrane tells Eric about their affair it’s like two school girls. And the characters are given so much back story – this wasn’t normally like Hill.

It’s been a while since I saw the film but there seem to be some changes. Cochrane isn’t an old friend of Tibby, he’s just met him for three months since he got out – they get along well (which isn’t the same as being an old friend). And there’s an awful lot of chat between Cochrane and Maria around their affair (stories of them growing up, his daughter, etc). The second act seemed roughly the same: Cochrane is helped in his request for revenge by people who come across his path, including a nice religious man who nurses him back to health, a Texan, a vengeful Mexican, some random model he meets. The ending is different – he ambushes Tibby, but doesn’t kill him. He then tortures Tibby’s assistant to find where the girl is, goes to the nunnery where Maria’s still alive (but pregnant). Tibby turns up, shoots and injures Cochrane, asks him to kill him – Cochrane refuses. Everyone forgives each other. Cochrane takes the girl and walks off. So a happier ending, albeit still infused with Mexican stuff about being macho and honour and whores.

I’m surprised this is as dodgy as it was – was Hill not given a free hand? Was it rewritten by other people? Was this the combination of the John Huston/Harrison/Hill version that Ray Stark was trying to get up in the late 80s. Or maybe he was just off form? Regardless, I can't weep that this version of the story wasn't filmed.

Script review – “The Bodyguard” by Lawrence Kasdan

I never liked the film much but it was enormously popular – Kevin Costner at his peak, Whitney Huston making an impressive debut, the soundtrack. I also think there is something in the basic idea that struck a chord with men and women: men wanting to protect, be stoic and heroic; women wanting to be famous, desired, and powerful, plus be a great mother – but also be looked after by a handsome hunk who falls in love with her. “The Reagan thing” stuff sounds silly (I’d love to know what was in the 1970s drafts – the JFK thing? George Wallace thing?), but it’s a great star vehicle for a tough white guy and singer. Steve McQueen and Diana Ross would have been great; Ryan O’Neal wouldn’t have been quite right. The theme song in this script is “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted” rather than “I Will Always Love You.”

Movie review – “Field of Dreams” (1989) ***

Schmaltzy and silly - and the second and third acts basically repeat the first (i.e. man hears voices and does something crazy) but done with conviction and enthusiasm. It also benefits from the aw shucks charm of Kevin Costner in the lead role - could any other actor have pulled this off? Maybe Paul Newman. (Costner made so many interesting choices when he was a star; as a star he got puffy and went off the boil.) James Earl Jones and Burt Lancaster offer gravitas, and Amy Madigan is sparky in what is an under-written role, really. 

No matter how corny the film is I still got tingles up my spine in some scenes: "If you build it he will come", "well played played rookie", "do you want to play catch", etc.