A film made with confidence of its market and what sort of film it is. A bright, positive three girls movie - we haven't made enough of them in this country. Beresford directs with customary energy though I wish he'd worked on the dialogue with another writer - a bit of it was on the nose.
He's cast it extremely well - Angourie Rice and Rachel Taylor are especially fine and Julia Ormond adds some gravitas. Susie Porter and Shane Jacobsen feel old Australia - Jacobsen's character displays the conservatism of the time... someone who isn't bad who just lacks the leap of imagination. Ryan Corr is a good actor but his accent was distracting - this day and age I think accent acting is on the way out. I wish a genuine Hungarian had played the part.
While it was nice to watch something good hearted and positive I did wish maybe there had been more dramatic heft - the advantage of three girl movies is someone can go through a harder time. But here all the problems are easily solved - a woman worries about her husband not touching her... so he touches her (he freaks out but comes back); Taylor needs love... finds it; Rice worries about getting into uni... gets in. Couldn't, I don't know, Noni Hazlehurst have died or something.
And at the end when they all ask Rice what she wants to be and she goes "novelist.. actor.. poet.. maybe all of them" I did think "you spoilt boomer. You're going to get a heap of cool bureaucrat jobs take your super and real estate and retire to Barcelona." That is generational envy.
Still, a good movie.
Saturday, October 19, 2019
TV review - "Succession Season 1" (2018) *****
Stunningly good television. Not just the characters but the character relationships are first rate - the way everyone tries to alpha the other, the fact they are kept watchable by funny lines and genuine sense of love for each other (when the dad is ill everyone is worried).
It's been cast brilliantly - they cast the subtext: the weak boyfriend, the dogged but weak and dumb son who wants to run things, the smart and sarcastic but incompetent son, the competent and smart daughter who dates beneath herself to keep control and isn't considered a possibility for leadership because of her gender, the dopey nephew we keep expecting to prove to be smart but never does.
Utterly brilliant.
It's been cast brilliantly - they cast the subtext: the weak boyfriend, the dogged but weak and dumb son who wants to run things, the smart and sarcastic but incompetent son, the competent and smart daughter who dates beneath herself to keep control and isn't considered a possibility for leadership because of her gender, the dopey nephew we keep expecting to prove to be smart but never does.
Utterly brilliant.
Movie review - "King Cohn: The Life and Times of Harry Cohn" by Bob Thomas (1967)
Its frustrating this isn't footnoted but it was very entertaining and remains perhaps the best known book about Cohn, one of Hollywood's legendary tycoons. Like most of them he was Jewish, and admirable and terrible and missed.
Cohn's reputation has suffered in recent years along with Darryl F Zanuck because they are the tycoons probably most like Harvey Weinstein - i.e. skirt chases - which means it's highly likely they would have engaged in sexual harrasment and possibly worse. Cohn was also a bully like Weinstein who swore and was prone to fits of rage.
He could be kind and decent but also a prick. His second marriage seems to have been happy - they had three kids, lost one, adopted another. He had a lot of admirers but a lot of that was due to his business acumen.
He worked his way up the hard way like all the great tycoons. He was a song plugger and fur salesman before going into films. Columbia started as a poverty row studio but Cohn and his brother (like the Warners there was a brother) pulled it up to the majors. He was helped by the skill of Frank Capra, but a lot of it was Cohn... he was very well informed, and he had a nose for talent: Leo McCarey, George Stevens, Cary Grant, Sidney Buchman, Stanley Kramer, Daniel Taradash, Buddy Adler are among those who benefited and prospered from working for Cohn... then had to leave because there can only be one. He built some stars like Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak.
Things that were once seen to hold Columbia back like having no theatres helped it thrive in the 50s - also he got in on the ground floor with TV via Screen Gems.
People have affection for Cohn in part because he exemplified the role of Hollywood tycoon so well - lecherous, foul mouthed, cunning.
Thomas has a journo's gift for funny/scary/ touching anecdotes - there are moving accounts of his last months, funny tales of Norman Krasna teasing him, the unexpectedly strong friendship with Buchman, bullying Jean Arthur and John Wayne, enjoying fighting with Broderick Crawford. Very human, very smart, very ideal for his job, very good man to stay away from.
Cohn's reputation has suffered in recent years along with Darryl F Zanuck because they are the tycoons probably most like Harvey Weinstein - i.e. skirt chases - which means it's highly likely they would have engaged in sexual harrasment and possibly worse. Cohn was also a bully like Weinstein who swore and was prone to fits of rage.
He could be kind and decent but also a prick. His second marriage seems to have been happy - they had three kids, lost one, adopted another. He had a lot of admirers but a lot of that was due to his business acumen.
He worked his way up the hard way like all the great tycoons. He was a song plugger and fur salesman before going into films. Columbia started as a poverty row studio but Cohn and his brother (like the Warners there was a brother) pulled it up to the majors. He was helped by the skill of Frank Capra, but a lot of it was Cohn... he was very well informed, and he had a nose for talent: Leo McCarey, George Stevens, Cary Grant, Sidney Buchman, Stanley Kramer, Daniel Taradash, Buddy Adler are among those who benefited and prospered from working for Cohn... then had to leave because there can only be one. He built some stars like Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak.
Things that were once seen to hold Columbia back like having no theatres helped it thrive in the 50s - also he got in on the ground floor with TV via Screen Gems.
People have affection for Cohn in part because he exemplified the role of Hollywood tycoon so well - lecherous, foul mouthed, cunning.
Thomas has a journo's gift for funny/scary/ touching anecdotes - there are moving accounts of his last months, funny tales of Norman Krasna teasing him, the unexpectedly strong friendship with Buchman, bullying Jean Arthur and John Wayne, enjoying fighting with Broderick Crawford. Very human, very smart, very ideal for his job, very good man to stay away from.
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Play review - "Who Was That Lady I Saw You With?" by Norman Krasna (1958)
Quintessential comedy - a comedy about a lie that gets out of control - with him taking pot shots at the Cold War in this one.
In this one a college professor is caught kissing a student by his wife - he claims the student kissed him but still it's a sleazy concept. His cocky womanising TV writer friend Mike suggests to cover it up he pretend to be a FBI agent.
The complications proceed logically - Mike gets a fake badge made by a props guy who reports him to the FBI who get involved; the wife buys it and gives her husband the green light to take out two women (a suggestion of Mike who misses his old pal David coming along to pick up women); news of David being an agent breaks; the interest of real Russian agents is provoked.
The character of Ann the wife started off smart but wound up a ditz- you'd need to cast someone who seemed naive but also full of energy like Debbie Reynolds.
I'm surprised Krasna didn't bring in the girl who kissed David (why not have her get with Mike?). I also felt the Russians should have had a spy... a traitor in the FBI or the college.
But it is bright and funny.
It reads like a film script - lots of different locations and short scenes. I get the feeling Krasna wrote this as a script first.
In this one a college professor is caught kissing a student by his wife - he claims the student kissed him but still it's a sleazy concept. His cocky womanising TV writer friend Mike suggests to cover it up he pretend to be a FBI agent.
The complications proceed logically - Mike gets a fake badge made by a props guy who reports him to the FBI who get involved; the wife buys it and gives her husband the green light to take out two women (a suggestion of Mike who misses his old pal David coming along to pick up women); news of David being an agent breaks; the interest of real Russian agents is provoked.
The character of Ann the wife started off smart but wound up a ditz- you'd need to cast someone who seemed naive but also full of energy like Debbie Reynolds.
I'm surprised Krasna didn't bring in the girl who kissed David (why not have her get with Mike?). I also felt the Russians should have had a spy... a traitor in the FBI or the college.
But it is bright and funny.
It reads like a film script - lots of different locations and short scenes. I get the feeling Krasna wrote this as a script first.
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Movie review - "The Cotton Club" (1984 - original cut) ***
I watched this after seeing Encore. They cut stuff out which they should have kept - the opening credits, some gangster stuff, Gloria Swanson telling Gere he should be a star, a scene among black gangsters. This stuff should have been kept. In many ways the original is tighter. But more dance numbers and Hines is good.
Movie review - "Bachelor Mother" (1939) ****1/2
Enchanting romantic comedy, perhaps the best script Norman Krasna did, a true marvel of structure and affection for his characters. Garson Kanin directed it very well on the whole - the pacing of the early scenes is a little off.
It's the perfect Ginger Rogers movie and while David Niven isn't terribly convincing as an American or the son of Charles Coburn, and they probably would've been better off using Robert Cummings, he's most engaging - he and Rogers seem like nice people. Charles Coburn steals the show though as the tycoon desperate for a grandson.
I love this script. Every scene progresses the action - within five minutes Rogers has been fired, discovered the baby, tried to get rid of the baby, been assumed to be the mother. The complications mount - the adoption people go to Niven, who gives Rogers her job back, who realises she needs to keep up the pretense to keep her job. There's a guy keen on Rogers who wants to parlay his knowledge into a promotion, a girl keen on Niven. There are key sequences - an extended one where Niven tries to return a little duck which displays his lack of understanding of what goes on at the workplace and how Rogers can help, and one at New Years Eve where Rogers pretends to be from Hungary so Niven doesn't turn up dateless.
You get the sense Rogers and Niven like each other and feel their marriage might even work. And Coburn is lovely. It's a very good film.
It's the perfect Ginger Rogers movie and while David Niven isn't terribly convincing as an American or the son of Charles Coburn, and they probably would've been better off using Robert Cummings, he's most engaging - he and Rogers seem like nice people. Charles Coburn steals the show though as the tycoon desperate for a grandson.
I love this script. Every scene progresses the action - within five minutes Rogers has been fired, discovered the baby, tried to get rid of the baby, been assumed to be the mother. The complications mount - the adoption people go to Niven, who gives Rogers her job back, who realises she needs to keep up the pretense to keep her job. There's a guy keen on Rogers who wants to parlay his knowledge into a promotion, a girl keen on Niven. There are key sequences - an extended one where Niven tries to return a little duck which displays his lack of understanding of what goes on at the workplace and how Rogers can help, and one at New Years Eve where Rogers pretends to be from Hungary so Niven doesn't turn up dateless.
You get the sense Rogers and Niven like each other and feel their marriage might even work. And Coburn is lovely. It's a very good film.
Sunday, October 13, 2019
Movie review - "Cotton Club: Encore" (1984/2018) ***1/2
I
have an unfashionable theory that years-after-the-event director's cuts
don’t really improve a movie - eg Star Wars A New Hope, Heaven's
Gate, yes even Blade Runner - and that was the case with Cotton Club
Encore.
Sure it was lovely to see more dance numbers and
more Gregory Hines but the central problem remained - too many scenes
outside the club which should be inside the club (eg the opening
attempted assassination of Dutch Schultz, reunion of the Hines
brothers, Greg Hines wooing Lonette McKee via song and dancing).
Watching it I kept muttering to myself "just set these scenes inside the club". That opening bit where Gere meets James Remar - that could be at the Club, towards closing time. The Hines brothers getting back together - Maurice can come to see Greg perform instead of the other way around. You could establish off screen McKee is performing as white.
The other problem was the film could never simplify the connection
between Dutch Schultz (James Remar) and Dixie (Richard Gere) - "I want
you to be my trumpet player/driver/fashion adviser/mistress escort"...
just make up your mind, Coppola. Gere playing trumpet is a mistake - it forces the film to go to another club because whites didn't play. They should have just had him as a dancer like George Raft - play up the male prostitute angle. When the film starts he's basically a hooker, like Lane - so they bond. Make him a good dancer - Gere could dance - he could dance at the Club, just not in the show. Lane shouldn't want to run a club - give her a fashion line or something so she can bring fashions into the club. Or be a radio performer.
It's a shame because all the
storylines are dramatically solid (fall in love with gangster's
mistress, black singer who passes for white, dancing brothers duo who
fall out, gang war in Harlem, brother becomes gangster) and the support
cast is sensational - Bob Hoskins, Fred Gwynne, Laurence Fisburn, Nicolas Cage, Jennifer Grey, Maurice Hines, John Ryan, Joe
Dellesandro, Ed O'Ross, Julian Beck, Gwen Vernon etc...
Nice to see on the big screen, though - where it's clear Diane Lane totally kept putting in the tongue kissing Richard Gere.
My favourite bits:
- Remar stabbing John Ryan and Fred Gwynne pulling a gun
- Julian Beck's Saul explaining his backstory
- how Cage and Grey really look like 1930s people
- the reunion between the Hines brothers
- the finale where it looks like Coppola did a line of coke and went "f*ck it" and did a big musical number where the stage show is intercut with numbers in real life
- Lane's expression at the end when Gere sees her at the train
- the gold watch scene
I feel it was a mistake to change the opening credits - no longer do they cut away to a musical number. Why? That was a great way to intro the film.
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