Joe's View

With Joe Meyers, entertainment writer

Archive for January, 2011

Going beyond James Bond with the late, great John Barry

Monday, January 31, 2011 by:Joe Meyers

The obituaries for composer John Barry — who died in New York City last night at the age of 77 from a sudden heart attack — have emphasized the 11 scores he wrote for the James Bond series.

Barry did indeed create the sound of Bond which then became one of the great sounds of the 1960s — sexy, romantic, exciting music — but his scores for the 007 series are just the tip of the iceberg for this incredibly prolific and versatile composer.

In addition to the lush and stirring themes that powered two best picture Oscar winners — “Dances with Wolves” and “Out of Africa” — Barry also exceled in darker, moodier themes that were perfect for 1980s neo-noir thrillers such as “Body Heat” and “Mike’s Murder.”

The son of a movie theater operator who loved jazz, Barry was steeped in both art forms from childhood, so it’s no wonder he knew exactly how to augment the visuals in a wide variety of films, with perfect movie music.

As much as I love listening to Barry’s most popular scores, I’m fondest of the music he did for lesser known films such as “Petulia” and “Playing By Heart.”

The 1968 Richard Lester drama “Petulia” is what you might call a tragic romance set in San Francisco at the peak of the counterculture.

Julie Christie (above, in the final shot) and George C. Scott are a classic mismatch — she’s married to a handsome millionaire (Richard Chamberlain) who physically abuses her and he’s recovering from a long marriage to the mother (Shirley Knight) of his two children.

A story that mixes elements of screwball comedy with pointed social commentary received a powerful score from Barry that is both beautiful and disturbing — just like the title character.

“Playing by Heart” is a 1998 Los Angeles-set ensemble drama — revolving around an anniversary celebration being planned for a couple played by Gena Rowlands and Sean Connery — that gets an added level of emotion from one of Barry’s best scores, a mix of his own compositions with vintage recordings by the jazz trumpeter Chet Baker.

The composer gave a big boost to Chris Botti’s career — he was then an up-and-coming trumpet player — by choosing him to play most of the new Barry themes (which, in effect, anointed Botti as the heir to Baker).

Barry’s ability to underscore romantic scenes made some rather mediocre films seem much better — foremost among these, the early 1990s hit “Indecent Proposal,” which would have seemed much tawdrier without Barry’s gorgeous music.

The composer gave a big boost to what is probably the least-seen Bond picture — the 1969 “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (below) which featured the sole appearance of the much-maligned George Lazenby as 007.

“Secret Service” is the only picture in the series with genuinely tragic elements — Bond marries a smart and funny beauty played by Diana Rigg only to see her murdered in the closing scene.

Barry wrote a haunting and ironic ballad (“We Have All the Time in the World”) that ranks among his finest pieces of movie music. If Sean Connery had starred in the film, the combination of Rigg’s death and the Barry music would have been one of the high points in Bond history.

Waiting for ‘Midnight in Paris’ or, Woody Allen at low ebb

Friday, January 28, 2011 by:Joe Meyers

Nicole Kidman was supposed to star in last year’s Woody Allen movie, “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” but Kidman had to back out at the last minute due to schedule changes on “Rabbit Hole.”

Lucky actress!

“Stranger” is one of Allen’s weakest films of recent vintage.

Kidman didn’t do her friend, Naomi Watts, any favor by making it possible for her fellow Aussie to take her place. (“Rabbit Hole” scored Kidman a well-deserved Oscar nomination on Tuesday.)

Watts is part of an impressive ensemble that includes Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin (above) and Gemma Jones, but the comedy-drama is a baffling misfire — a sour, mean-spirited affair in which it appears that Allen has contempt for all of his characters.

“You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” was widely panned last fall and came and went so quickly that it was the first movie by the prolific writer-director that I wasn’t able to catch in a theater.

When I watched the new DVD last night I was shocked by the speed with which the laughs curdle in this multi-generational story of mismatched lovers.

Although “Stranger” is set in contemporary London, it feels like another variation on “Hannah and Her Sisters” or “Husbands and Wives” which also dealt with a large group of unhappy people looking for love in the wrong places.

Watts plays Sally Channing, who works in a London art gallery for Greg (Antonio Banderas), a man she has a crush on despite her marriage to Roy (Josh Brolin), an American writer who had some success with a first novel, but has been floundering ever since.

Sally’s parents — Helena (Gemma Jones) and Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) — have just split up after 40 years or marriage. Alfie is determined to live life like he’s in his 30s rather than his 70s, and has taken up with a coarse young prostitute (Lucy Punch).

Roy is trying to finish a novel but lusts for a beautiful Indian woman Dia (Freida Pinto) he spies on in an apartment across the way from his flat.

None of these ingredients are fresh, but they are the same sort of elements Allen has whipped up into such frothy recent entertainments as “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”

The puzzlement in “Stranger” is the way that Allen undercuts the comic potential in the material in favor of a nasty, almost nihilistic approach to love and romance.

The characters include the same mix of artists and would-be artists that have been in all of Allen’s films since “Annie Hall” 34 years ago. But these people are not very smart or very witty (or very sympathetic).

Sally’s concern for her parents disappears as the story progresses and her primary characteristic becomes greed for a loan from her mother. The scenes in which she pines for her boss go nowhere.

Alfie’s hooker/wife seems designed as a variation on the comic character Mira Sorvino won an Oscar for playing in “Mighty Aphrodite” — and the gangster’s moll Jennifer Tilly played in “Bullets Over Broadway” — but the rent girl here is too dumb and too nasty to inspire laughter. Alfie looks stupid to rush into marriage with an obvious golddigger just so he can be a father again.

In his earlier large ensemble films, Allen had an almost magical ability to tie all of the loose ends together in completely satisfying finales, but “Stranger” leaves most of the major plot threads dangling (including Roy’s theft of a manuscript from a friend who has been in a car accident).

Woody Allen makes a movie every year, so it is always risky to imply that the writer-director’s best days are gone just because his latest effort is a disappointment.

The delightful “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” silenced most of Allen’s naysayers three years ago — after the appalling “Scoop” and “Cassandra’s Dream” — and if we’re lucky the forthcoming 2011 release “Midnight in Paris” will make up for “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.”

‘The King’s Speech’ vs. ‘The Social Network’ for Oscar glory

Tuesday, January 25, 2011 by:Joe Meyers

Although the mighty producer and film executive Harvey Weinstein has had his financial problems in recent years, today’s Oscar nominations demonstrate once again his peerless ability to get Hollywood’s attention with his movies.

Although “The Social Network” has won nearly every preliminary best picture prize, Weinstein’s terrific British period piece “The King’s Speech” has to be viewed now as the Oscar front runner with 12 nominations — more than any other picture. (“The Social Network” received eight nominations.)

Scott Rudin produced “The Social Network” and it once again puts him into competition with Weinstein who has managed to take more than a few Oscars from Rudin in years past.

Just two years ago, Kate Winslet was nominated for (and won) the best actress prize for the Weinstein production “The Reader,” rather than her equally strong work in Rudin’s “Revolutionary Road.”

Back in the day, when Weinstein ran the mighty Miramax Films, he was able to rack up best picture nominations for such unlikely fare as “The Crying Game” and to pack the acting slots with underdog contenders like Jim Broadbent for the arthouse bio-pic “Iris,” a performance that would go on to win on Oscar night.

He also pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Oscar history in 1997 when Juliette Binoche took the best supporting actress prize from the presumed winner, Hollywood icon Lauren Bacall.

Weinstein and his brother Bob no longer run Miramax, the Disney-backed company named in honor of their parents — so they don’t put out as many pictures each year as they used to — but their savvy choices for The Weinstein Company have kept them major Oscar players.

“The King’s Speech” might not win the best picture race, but you can bet on Colin Firth winning the best actor prize for that film, and Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter have to be regarded as front runners in the supporting divisions for the same picture.

The Weinstein Company managed another coup by landing a best actress nomination for Michelle Williams’ performance in “Blue Valentine” (above).

It’s a terrific piece of work in a wonderful movie, but many industry observers thought Julianne Moore would get a nomination in that category for “The Kids Are All Right.”

The expansion of the best picture category from five to ten films last year has once again been a benefit to smaller, independent movies and high-grossing blockbusters.

It’s doubtful that the summer Leonardo DiCaprio smash “Inception” would have been chosen in a five-film field, and the same could be said of the low-budget “Winter’s Bone” and “127 Hours.”

Hollywood folk believe that the only five best picture nominees that matter, however, are the ones that landed best director nominations. By this standard, the top five are “Black Swan,” “The Social Network,” “The King’s Speech,” “The Fighter” and “True Grit.”

Previous winners almost always have an edge in the Oscar nominations, so it is not surprising that co-directors Joel and Ethan Coen were nominated for “True Grit” as was Jeff Bridges for his performance in the same film.

As wonderful as the indie pic “Rabbit Hole” is, it seems highly unlikely that the film would have scored a best actress nomination without Nicole Kidman in the role (she won the prize in 2003 for “The Hours”).

Poor multiple nominee Annette Bening (above, right) once again seems positioned to be forced to smile graciously as another performer takes home the best actress prize.

A few months ago, Bening was viewed as a semi-lock for her beautiful work in “The Kids Are All Right” but then “Black Swan” came along with that fantastic meltdown performance by Natalie Portman.

Bening has been a victim of timing and unexpected groundswells — she lost twice to Hilary Swank — and could be this generation’s Deborah Kerr, a well-liked and prodigious actress who was nominated six times and never won.

You can find a complete list of nominees elsewhere on this site and we will all find out who the winners are Feb. 27

When good intentions aren’t enough — ‘Inhale’

Tuesday, January 25, 2011 by:Joe Meyers

“Inhale” is a well-made drama — produced with good intentions by everyone involved — that didn’t have a prayer of finding a theatrical audience last year and isn’t likely to do much better in the home video market.

The movie is being released on DVD today by IFC Home Entertainment.

Baltasar Kormakur’s film plays like a radically streamlined version of “Traffic” or “Babel” that examines the unexpected links between a wealthy New Mexico white couple and what is going on in Juarez, Mexico (described by one character as “the murder capital of Mexico”).

Paul Stanton (Dermot Mulroney) and his wife Diane (Diane Kruger) are in a race against time involving their young daughter who will almost certainly die if she does not receive a lung transplant.

The girl is ranked low on a list of potential recipients and only has a few weeks to live.

Paul finds out that the rich and politically connected James Harrison (Sam Shepard) went south of the border to have a heart transplant when he couldn’t get to the top of the list in this country.

“Inhale” crosscuts between the “present” in which Paul searches for a shady transplant contact in Mexico and scenes set “six months earlier” in which the man and his wife try to find out how Harrison was able to obtain the heart transplant that saved his life.

Like “Traffic,” the movie distinguishes between present and past scenes with a heavy-handed visual device — the scenes in Mexico are bleached-out (jacking up the tension and squalor in Juarez) and the ones in New Mexico are in full color.

“Inhale” shows us rather naive Americans who don’t ask questions about the sources of the Mexican organs until it is too late — when their daughter is being rushed to a clinic in Juarez for a hastily arranged operation.

Although it is easy to be gripped by the terrible dilemma of the Stantons, “Inhale” sets them up as quasi-villains in a fictional expose of the way that poor people in Third World countries are exploited by rich Americans.

The movie’s clear mission to expose predatory medical practices in Mexico makes us reluctant to become emotionally involved with the protagonists so “Inhale” becomes punishingly unpleasant.

We get pulled in two different narrative directions — wanting an innocent child’s life to be saved, but becoming increasingly angry about the exploitation of poor Mexicans. The structure of the story seems designed to leave viewers feeling increasingly distraught and powerless.

Once we get 15 or 20 minutes into “Inhale” we know that there is no way this story can end well, so it becomes a thesis film rather than a satisfying drama.

Does the MTV series ‘Skins’ qualify as ‘child porn’?

Monday, January 24, 2011 by:Joe Meyers

Advertisers have been pulling out of the MTV series “Skins” (above) since it debuted last Monday night and came under attack from the Parents Television Council.

The PTC has been calling this American remake of an award-winning BBC series “child porn” because the show dramatizes sexual activity by characters who are under the age of consent.

Taco Bell announced last week that it would not be one of the sponsors of tonight’s episode and the Wrigley gum company — which ran a commercial on the first episode — has also suspended its advertising on “Skins.”

The fast-food chain Subway has dropped its plans to advertise on tonight’s episode, according to today’s Hollywood Reporter.

The Los Angeles Times reported today that H&R Block has issued a statement claiming that their ad on last week’s show was a “mistake.”

The controversy demonstrates once again the problems that surround any depiction of teen sexuality under the current very loosely defined child pornography laws.

The newest laws are so broad that some teen girls have been brought up on child porn charges for texting racy pictures of themselves to their friends.

If convicted, these girls would be on ‘sex offender’ registries for the rest of their lives.

Rather than target underground hard-core pornography that exploits children and underage teens — documentation of illegal sexual activity — the laws make it possible to threaten those who produce any stories that dramatize the sex lives of underage characters.

Applied liberally, the current child porn laws could be used to prosecute the Vladimir Nabokov novel “Lolita” and the two film versions of the book.

For many years, those of us who monitor the Motion Picture Association of America’s rating system have noted that films about teens containing explicit content have often been given an R rating, putting young performers in the awkward position of not being able to get into their own films without a parent or adult guardian.

Jodie Foster was Oscar-nominated for her performance as a New York City prostitute in the R-rated “Taxi Driver” (below) when she 14 and Gary Grimes (above, left) was only 15 when he played the boy who lost his virginity to a World War II widow in the R-rated “Summer of ’42” (which years later was cut and re-rated PG).

If either of those two award-winning pictures turned up on MTV tonight, they would be just as open to the child porn charges of the Parents Television Council as “Skins.”

‘MM — Personal’: examining Marilyn Monroe in new ways

Friday, January 21, 2011 by:Joe Meyers

Just when you think a pop culture subject has been completely exhausted, a smart writer, photographer and design team can come along and change your mind.

“MM — Personal” looks like yet another coffee table book on Marilyn Monroe, but Abrams has delivered an oversized volume full of new insights and new information on one of the most over-analyzed stars in the history of Hollywood.

Last year, another publisher put out a very thin volume of Marilyn’s poetry, journal jottings and grocery lists — “Fragments” which I wrote about here in October — that was rather pitiful and tapped into the Marilyn-as-victim school of post-mortem analyses.

The new Abrams book is based on material found in two of Monroe’s filing cabinets that were not opened and examined until recently.

Mark Anderson photographed the material — everything from cards and letters to jewels — and Lois Banner wrote the smart, unsentimental text.

Banner, who is a professor of history and gender studies at the University of California, writes respectfully of the challenges Monroe overcame in her rise to stardom, but she takes us inside Monroe’s calculating, careerist side in a way that few books have done before.

“MM — Personal” points out that far from being passive, Monroe was one of the first female stars to create her own production company.

The book also details the way the actress played hard ball with the company that held her contract for most of her career — Twentieth Century Fox. She refused to appear in a remake of the Marlene Dietrich film “The Blue Angel” and went on suspension rather than appear in “Goodbye Charlie” (a role that Debbie Reynolds inherited two years after Monroe died).

The real heart of “MM” is the cache of letters and photographs that were found in the two filing cabinets. There are wonderful letters from Monroe to Arthur Miller’s son Bobby and charming beach snapshots she took of the Miller clan during a summer they spent on Long Island.

“MM” also gives us one of the most interesting accounts of Monroe’s USO Tour during the Korean War that I’ve ever read, including a very poignant letter Monroe saved from the mother of a soldier.

The tour played a major role in the transition of Monroe from a rising young actress to one of the most photographed women in the world.

We get much more of a sense of Monroe’s wit and intelligence from the letters in “MM” than was evident in the snippets of verse and rambling journal entries in “Fragments.”

None of the many mysteries of Monroe are solved in the book — especially the reason why her drug and alcohol use seemed to spiral out of control in 1961-1962 — but “MM” does give us a glimpse of the flesh-and-blood woman behind the myth-making of the past half-century.

‘Kabuki Democracy’: why any president is doomed to disappoint

Thursday, January 20, 2011 by:Joe Meyers

The Nation columnist Eric Alterman lays out the special challenges faced by President Barack Obama during his first two years in office in “Kabuki Democracy,” a new paperback original from Nation Books.

The cycle of depression and hope that seems to accompany any White House party shift — remember the thrill of Jimmy Carter walking the inauguration route in the winter of 1977? — has become even more severe due to the 24/7 navel gazing on cable news/commentary channels and in the blogosphere.

Alterman has subtitled his book “The System vs. Barack Obama” but as he analyzes the role that big moneyed interests play in national politics — and how wired-in the president has become — a better subtitle might be “The System and Barack Obama.”

“Kabuki Democracy” shows how Republicans and Democrats alike have become puppets of high-powered lobbyists and those who make the largest campaign donations.

Too many politicians take things a step further and use their connections to become lobbyists right after they leave office.

Alterman notes that “in one of the most outrageous exploitations of the power of the lobbying process, auto companies were able to get Congress to exempt their financial arms from regulation by the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”

“This is not only illogical — these finance companies operate exactly as banks do — it is also awful public policy, as such companies are notorious for the abuses they generate under cover of car loans. (For most Americans, an automobile is the second-largest capital investment they make),” he adds.

Alterman is aghast about the way the Obama administration has shed the young volunteers whose excitement helped to sweep him into power in 2008 — in favor of the Democratic Party establishment.

“…the independent organizations that might have arisen with direct, grassroots connections to the concerns of the millions of people who committed themselves to the Obama campaign never arose. The energies and enthusiasm of so many people, including particularly so many young people new to the political process, simply evaporated into the ether, and a historic opportunity to rejuvenate American politics for a generation was lost.”

Alterman shows how the new president wasted many months in pursuit of bipartisan support from Republicans who would never come around to anything he is involved with: “…by sticking to this strategy, the president weakened his legislation, alienated his supporters, and was repaid with little but mockery and contempt from those whose support he continued to seek.”

The progressive writer wants to think that Obama “is taking the best deal on the table today but hopes and expects that once he is reelected in 2012, he will build on the foundations laid during his first term to bring on the fundamental ‘change’ not possible in today’s environment.”

Alterman ends with recognition of the need for the populace to realize they can’t continue to go through cycles of excitement during election seasons and passivity in between and expect significant change in Washington:

“To borrow from Hillel the Elder: ‘If not now, when? If not us, who?’”

The Hollywood ‘dilemma’: puffy men & skinny women

Wednesday, January 19, 2011 by:Joe Meyers

The new Ron Howard comedy “The Dilemma” was a wipe-out at the box office last weekend for good reason — it’s one of the most ill-conceived “bromances” of recent vintage, a rare major studio film without a redeeming feature.

The picture is about two longtime friends and business partners — played by Vince Vaughn and Kevin James — whose relationship falls apart after Vaughn sees James’s wife (Winona Ryder) two-timing her husband with a younger man (Channing Tatum).

“The Dilemma” quickly makes nearly all of the characters in the movie unlikeable with the exception of Vaughn’s live-in girlfriend — a gorgeous Chicago chef and restaurant owner played by the Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Connelly.

Connelly keeps her dignity in “The Dilemma” because her character gets to remain on the fringes of the action for most of the movie. Vaughn doesn’t level with her about what he saw the Ryder character do until near the end.

The plot is so foolish that I quickly tuned out and became fascinated instead by what this big and expensive Hollywood picture says about the physical attributes of male and female stars in 2011.

Vaughn and James have been airbrushed and had their faces thinned down a bit for the posters (in which they are the only featured players) but in the movie itself they both look tired and out of shape — like the dads in a long-running sitcom after a bender.

Meanwhile, the actresses who play the two female leads appear to have been starved to within an inch of their lives and are glammed up to a point that works against the believability of the story — What the hell are these great looking dames doing with these two schlubs?

It’s fascinating and sad to see how gifted actresses who are in the neighborhood of 40 must do everything it takes to look 10 or 15 years younger in order to play the wives or girlfriends of male stars who are allowed to let themselves go once they pass 35.

And the reward for these talented and highly disciplined women is to be cast in the sort of demeaning roles that Jennifer Connelly and Winona Ryder have been given in “The Dilemma.”

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