Is this Laura Dern? And a seven-year-old gem

While three movies do not a career make - and this actress's career has had much wider and varied  scope - it was still a surprise to watch three more or less supposedly representative films of one of the contemporary film world's leading actresses. They’re featured in a Laura Dern mini retrospective on Criterion Channel. If these are representative of a character who defies stereotypes then "defy" is a misnomer. The first film, Smooth Talk (Joyce Chopra 1985), interestingly enough based on author Joyce Carol Oates's Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?  has Dern as Connie, a 15-year-old wild thing who flirts ferociously with boys at the local mall and irascibily confronts her mother (Mary Kay Place) at every turn. She is, in a word, a typical if gregarious teenager who lacks as much insight into herself as those would-be victimizers. In Rambling Rose (Martha Coolidge 1991), we again see Dern as the outrageous flirt or in a certain parlance, tramp. Set in the 1930’s Dern as Rose has a checkered background and is considered by many a "loose" woman. Her behavior alights the town in the Deep South as scandalous, as she sashays along main street in skimpy clothes to the delights of men and condemnation of women. Finally, in Citizen Ruth (Alexander Payne 1996), Dern plays a young woman 'Ruth' (photo) caught up in the abortion wars. Ruth, a drug addict, is at once fearsome and naive. After getting pregnant she ends up adopted by both sides in the abortion debate. One would think with a title like "Citizen" Ruth would undertake a commanding role of moral rectitude, whatever side that puts her on, but it isn't the case. She’s literally willing to go to the highest bidder (literally a monetary payoff) whether she chooses to have her baby or not. All this being said Dern is a splendid actress in this and the other films but her character is hardly an example to other women on screen or off. Worst of all about Citizen Ruth is its cartoonishness. Burt Reynolds plays a farcical anti-abortion leader arriving with private chauffeur. Tippi Hedren plays his opposite, swooping down in a helicopter to excavate Ruth from the opposing braying hordes. Thankfully, Ruth finds her own way. 

Meanwhile one of the better films I have seen lately is a little known gem from 1953 called Little Fugitive (Raymond Abrashkin, Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin) about seven year old Joey (Richie Andrusco) as a boy lost in Brooklyn who ends up on a summer weekend in Coney island. This film "influenced the French New Wave and is considered by modern-day critics to be a landmark film because of its naturalistic style and groundbreaking use of nonprofessional actors in lead roles,” according to Wikipedia. Who knew? But, whatever else, it’s a charming and realistic story of a kid "on the run" from his boyhood terrors and creating a world of his own amidst summer honky tonk.

Making my entrance again with my usual flair

As theaters (again) reopen - and at full capacity! - my mind wanders back to various incidents that have occurred to me over the years as I entered or was in the lobbies of theaters. Nothing particularly big or outrageous but small events, often humorous and bizarre, that have stuck in my mind….For example, there was the time long ago at the beautiful, then new and spacious Parkway cinemas in Windsor, which met a premature demise as retail took over that plaza at the corner of Tecumseh Rd. E and Lauzon Pkwy. (i.e., a Winners store). That's when I tried sneaking in with a bag containing my evening's dinner - a Big Mac, fries and a pop - under my jacket. After paying admission and walking up the hallway to the one of five cinemas, the bag dropped to the floor and splattered, just in front of an usher walking towards me…..A few years ago, I was at the recently closed and very lamented Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak, when I casually made a comment to the clerk behind the concessions stand. I’d been a devotee of the Main for decades but noticed that the lobby, with a lounge to the side, always seemed kind of empty. Expanding concessions including, say, hamburgers and other foods, or even beer, would be ideal. In short order I was denounced by the clerk for promoting hateful meat-eating values…..Then  there was the once influential Montreal World Film Festival in one of its final years, where I gathered in the lobby of the Imperial Cinema where some major star of the film was meeting the public. A friend and I moved in close. Then I heard someone behind me say, “The nerve of some people” referring to us blocking her getting close to the star; we didn't even know she was there! The next day I spotted this same woman and approached her, explaining what had happened. Without hesitation, she replied, “You’re insane!”....There was also the time at the once iconic but now closed Cumberland theatres in Toronto’s Yorkville - where you took an escalator to get upstairs to the cinemas (photo) - when, waiting my turn at the concession stand, I opened my wallet. I had just been to the ATM and it was stocked with bills. A guy standing behind me saw this and said to his friends, “We should roll this guy!”.....There was also the time in Paris, France, when I wanted to see the film, Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe. I was catching a bus for Germany that night so I toted along my suitcase. I was immediately told by an usher that I couldn’t enter the theatre. This was in the immediate aftermath (a year later) of the Bataclan nightclub terrorist attacks and I suppose a parked suitcase posed a threat. This was the only time on my European sojourn where I lost it, angrily showing my displeasure.

The Oscar noms - lost in space

I see that the Oscar nominations are out. Which means that I can’t assess the veracity of the nominations since I haven’t seen most of the films. But I’ll still comment anyway. Dune by Quebec director Denis Villeneuve, came away with 10 minimations. I haven’t seen the movie - mainly because I have no interest in the kind of sci-fi that takes place on other planets  - and tried to read the book in college but never got through the first one or two pages. Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog  got 12 nods. I had a chance to see this at Montreal’s Festival du nouveau cinema in October but deliberately passed - I’ve always found Campion’s works plodding and, like sci-fi, I’m really not that into the Wild West. Ditto for Will Smith’s King Richard. I love tennis but not keen on sports films and I hear that Denzel’s character, Serena’s dad, really wasn’t that nice a guy. Ditto most of the other films. Like Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast. I lived through that period (well, actually not in Belfast) and it was a hateful time. And I’m not keen on biopics and ones that don’t ring true, like the film’s Everlasting Love identifying soundtrack. Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story also got seven  nominations. Why, oh why, I wondered whenever I saw reference to this film, did Spielberg have to do a remake? I kind of want to see Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth even though, truth be told, Shakespearean speech seems, dare I say, a bit incomprehensible (I know I open myself to charges of Philistinism here) . But I heard the film is so great it transcends typical Shakes and I admire the Coens greatly. So we’ll see. Netflix had 27 film nominations for its stable but I cut the Netflix cord some time ago. And why would I want to watch Being the Ricardos (Aaron Sorkin.)  when the original I Love Lucy series was so great? I had no interest in seeing the House of Gucci (Ridley Scott), starring of all people Lady Gaga. I mean, really, who’d want to see a movie about nasty Italian fashion glitterati? Don’t even mention Adam Mckay’s climate change diatribe Don’t Look Up, a supposed comedy which is really a humourless look at what the director thinks will be world catastrophe in 15 years - or less - while star Dicaprio parties on his giant yacht in the Mediterranean. I did actually see - yay! - Nightmare Alley. It had its moments I suppose (see Dec. 22 review). But I'd just watched the 1947 version (Edmund Goulding) and found that truer without Guillermo del Toro’s over the top noirish veneer. I love Aretha Franklin but again I really don’t care for biopics so skipped Queen of Soul (Liesel Tommy). As or the others, ditto meh.

Easy Rider - the ultimate hippie wet dream

Easy Rider certainly was a revolutionary movie when it came out. Directed by “hippie” director Dennis Hopper (later in life a Republican) and starring Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson in his breakout role, the picture was considered a searing portrait of all that was uncool and intolerant of the America of that era. The story is about two bikers who set off from Los Angeles to New Orleans to catch Mardi Gras, and this road story is a panorama of Americana circa 1969 – the good and the bad. Wyatt (Fonda) and Billy (Hopper) have always been considered among the ultimate pop and counter-culture heroes. But really? These guys were major drug dealers. After doing a deal with Mexican cocaine lords they pocket the money in a tube in Wyatt’s chopper’s Star and Stripes-painted gas tank. Wyatt of course is Captain America with the US flag painted on his leather jacket. I was never sure about the symbolism and put it down to irony or an ideal America he wasn’t finding. Driving through smalltown America they’re met by cruel sheriffs and town rednecks. They’re locked overnight in a jail where they meet George Hanson (Nicholson) a libertarian lawyer who has nothing better to do and joins them on the road, complete with his shiny golden football helmet. Wyatt and Billy also pick up a hitch hiker who takes them to a free love commune. Billy is cynical and jumpy but Wyatt looks upon the gentle people and says, “Dig it, they’re going to make it.” (Make it in more than one way, but I digress.) More travails beset our nomads. But they finally make it to Mardi Gras, where the film turns into a visual LSD-fueled kaleidoscope of images where the whole kit and caboodle including prostitute Karen (Karen Black) drop acid. This movie – and story – is so old and well-worn I don’t think I’m breaking critic’s honor by divulging the ending. Our (anti) heroes finally get offed by a couple of hick rednecks, origin of the infamous “Easy Rider Rifle Rack” adorning the back of pickup truck cabs everywhere. A lot of the movie’s appeal had to be the soundtrack, from Steppenwolf’s Born to Be Wild to Dylan’s It’s All Right Ma to The Byrds' Wasn’t Born To Follow. The movie was definitely a reflection of its time and hardly represents today’s changed cultural landscape, where you can now find hip enclaves even in places in Oklahoma and Texas. Hell, hip is the culture that rules these days! And while the hippies are offed in this movie, the film I watched before this, 1973’s Electra Glide in Blue (James William Guercio), had Robert Blake as motorcycle officer John Wintergreen. In the final scene it isn’t the rednecks killing low lifes, it’s hippies in a VW minibus who take out a rifle and blow the cop away. 

Fear and loathing driving down Provincial Road

The closing of Cineplex’s Silver City in South Windsor has brought back some memories. In the late Nineties and early Aughts I made it a habit, almost every weekend, to watch a movie at the multiplex, the drive back downtown near where I lived afterwards through little trafficked Provincial Rd. and McDougall St., a late-night Windsor ritual. One time I went to see a film with a friend of mine, John. John had always struck me as a reasonable guy, a bright well-paid mid-level exec at a Detroit utility company. He had a wide interest in arts and culture. But this night something had simply sprung the wrong way in John’s mind, a bizarre outburst I’d never previously witnessed. We had come out of Silver City after having watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Terry Gilliam’s 1998 take on the famed Hunter S. Thompson novel, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro. The novel had long been a cult classic, and I was interested to see if the film could replicate the zaniness of the 1971 book’s over the top story. For those not in the know, the book is about a booze and drug-infused weekend in the world’s gambling capital by someone resembling Thompson - a famed “gonzo” journalist who wrote for Rolling Stone magazine - and his sidekick Raoul Duke. The novel was so emblematic of its time of the late-Sixties counterculture, packed with humor and craziness with a disreputable cast of characters who get caught up in our heroes’ mindless outrageousness. No, you didn’t have to be a druggie to enjoy it but the story was so representative of its times a huge number of people embraced it, a totemic symbol of hippiedom and lining bookshelves everywhere. So, after seeing the film that night and getting into my car, we started driving into central Windsor, the plan, as always, to grab a couple of beers at some downtown bar before John headed home stateside. But John this night was unusually quiet. I asked if something was wrong. I was sorry I did. My question unleashed a torrent of rage as John went on a non-stop rant about how vile and immoral the movie was. I tried to get in a sentence: “John, it’s only a movie.” I also said it’s a depiction of a certain era in modern American life, like it or leave it. “You don’t have to agree with it.” But John was having none of it, repeating ad infinitum how disgusting and offensive the flick was. His rant was like a funnel of water that couldn’t be turned off. I even wondered if John was part of the Moral Majority, his criticisms so bitter that he was personally afflicted. Finally, trying to change the subject, I said, “Where shall we go for a beer?” “Beer!?” he replied. “I’m not going for a beer, I’m going home!” We said goodnight – he might have grumbled it if he said anything. That wasn’t the end of our friendship; that would come a year later over an even bigger out-of-nowhere John seeming psychic meltdown.  

Silver City's demise and C'mon already

The most stunning thing about the announced closure of Cineplex’s Silver City cinemas in South Windsor is the fact the building is something like 25 years old. Has it been that long since the “new” concept of stadium seating was introduced, at least in Canada, in these mega theatres? And what does that say about my age?....Speaking of movie theatres, there’s an interesting article in December’s Commentary magazine by Wall Street Journal culture writer Terry Teachout questioning whether we even “need” movie theatres anymore. Especially post-Covid when people are scared to be in anything relatively physically close to one another. Though I must say I’ve continued to enjoy the movie going experience since theaters re-opened last year – the “event” and communal experience et al – until the Ontario Government decided to slam the doors shut again this month in the wake of the Omicron outbreak. Teachout paid homage to the “big screen” argument (as per Scorsese and Spielberg) but his argument is that theatres are limiting, especially when such a vast inventory of films is available through streaming sites like TCM, Criterion, Netflix and Amazon Prime. There may always be a younger audience for blockbuster franchises, he says. But “the future of moviegoing by adults clearly belongs to streaming. Whatever they miss by not seeing classic films in theatres, they will at least be able to see them whenever and as often as they like – and that is what matters most."

After some anticipation I was disappointed by Mike Mills C’mon C’mon. Its story opens in Detroit and there are some great overhead scenes of a wintry city (in black and white) including the People Mover winding around downtown towers. But its overall mood is glum. Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) is a radio producer travelling across the country asking kids about their lives and aspirations, kind of like a serious Art Linkletter (Kids Say the Darndest Things, the original). But his sister, Viv (Gaby Hoffmann) is a neurotic writer, pushed into more angst by the commitment of her husband Paul (Scott McNairy) into psychiatric treatment. Viv cannot handle her remarkably precocious son Jesse (“I mostly hang out with adults”). Johnny offers to take him on the road as his “sound man.” So, the movie’s a road trip. And a bit of an enlightening one at that, as Jesse often takes on, yes, the adult role, confronting Johnny on how he lives his life. “You are just terrible” at expressing his emotions, he admonishes the at times sad sack grown up. This dynamic is interesting, to a point. But there is no overriding message or theme that comes out of this, just a kind of meandering quotidian following of characters. Phoenix, consciously or unconsciously, is starting to look and sound more like Brando. The spare and probing soundtrack by Bryce Dessner and Aaron Dessner, which underlies the moody script, is very good.

Tinsel bits on a winter night

Bridget Jones’s Diary (Sharon Maguire, 2001) is one of those guilty pleasures, pure candy floss, an antidote to a winter night or any night. The problem is that it hasn’t aged well. Unless I’m missing something. Because this film, based on Helen Fielding’s 1996 novel, is so cliché ridden and even anti-feminist, it’s surprising it was made then, and would it be made now? (Though the third in the series, Bridget Jones’s Baby, was released as recently as 2016.) First, we have Jones (Renée Zellweger), pace Elizabeth in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, as the shriveling, low self-esteem heroine, belting out “(Don’t wanna be) all by myself” in her lonely room, describing herself as a “spinster.” She is awkward and disdained by Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) and is used by Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), all the while awkward and overcoming body image problems. Sure, she gets the right man in the end but her personality is not a tribute to modern womanhood…..Meanwhile, This is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984), which Kurt Cobain called “the only rock movie worth watching,” is such a brilliant satire on heavy metal bands that you could be forgiven for thinking the band in it is the real thing. Reiner plays the straight documentarian out to capture the essence of this seminal typically hedonistic group, Spinal Tap, a mashup of every metal band you’ve heard from Iron Maiden to Led Zeppelin, to hell, The Rolling Stones. In doing so it mocks a whole bunch of rock documentaries that take their subjects oh so seriously. It doesn’t necessarily take long for the satire to become obvious. But what’s great is the fake band’s seemingly real music and on-stage theatricality, with songs and absurd lyrics – though not far from the words of real bands – that sound a hell of a lot like the real thing. There’s a huge cast here, and some well-known actors and celebs like Ed Begley Jr., Fran Drescher, Patrick Macnee, Billy Crystal, Dana Carvey, Paul Shaffer and Anjelica Huston. Christopher Guest, imitating an English accent, is a hoot as main band member Nigel Tufnel…...Now, I’m all for noirs, especially of the kind made in the 1950s, but sometimes you’ve got to blow the whistle. That’s the case with Gerd Oswald’s 1957 Crime of Passion. Talk about feminism. This is a feminist prototype and a screed against marriage in the oh-so-domestic Fifties. But come on. Barbara Stanwyck as Kathy Doyle, a hard-bitten reporter, quits her job and, based on a couple of dates, marries and goes all couply bliss with hubby Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden)? And is immediately so driven out of her mind by housewives’ empty chatter she plots, highly improbably, to undermine her husband’s career? Sorry, but this has all the trappings of a rushed slapped together script.