All The King’s Men (2006)

(Editor’s Note:  Once again Mr. Shane is taking  a break from politics, his walks in the woods, and other things that people read about here.  With mass shootings leading to the crazy right calling for more guns in schools, churches, public parks, etc…he cannot take it anymore.   That on top of willful stupidity — who needs economists? — when dealing with our economy…well, Mr. Shane is taking this break to enjoy some time with his weaker thoughts and fantasies. Mr. Shane’s regular posts will return sometime in the near future.  Until then, he will write about movies no one watches.)

Thank goodness All the King’s Men (2006) was so slick and terribly overdone.   Why, if it were not for the wonderfully attired characters throughout the film – rich and poor alike — I don’t know there would have been much there to see.

Exquisite wardrobes really, absolutely exquisite…almost elegant, indeed very elegant…and, in fact…too elegant!

Cover of All the King’s Men (Special Edition)

Therein lies the problem.  All the King’s Men, starring Sean Penn, Jude Law, and Kate Winslet — and featuring Anthony Hopkins (why does he still do this to himself) — had eye-appeal, but felt both overwrought and unsatisfying.  A comparison might be the overly eager amateur chef who brutalizes a simple béchamel with an overdose of effort and seasoning.

Patricia Clakson — thank god for Patricia Clarkson — does her thing (which is all she needs to do) and sexes up the film in that understated way that’s all hers.  (Is she single?)  Alas, however, even Patricia Clarkson couldn’t save this one.

Indeed, the problem starts with the cast.  Why Sean Penn?  Kate Winslet?  In a film about an egomaniac it might seem logical to select egomaniac stars for leading roles, but in this film the characters flop.  A big thundering thud — as loud as the film’s overbearing and distracting soundtrack — and they never find any pick up.  Really quite disappointing.

But they do look good…I’ll give them that.  Even the common country folk in 1930s Louisiana seemed to have a damn good tailor and a spanking launderer.  Although here is a point where perhaps I should correct myself.  1930s?  I think we fast forwarded a bit, fast forward to the age of diesel locomotives and 1940s automobiles.  For some reason this 2006 remake is set about 20 years later than the original.  That’s a little thing, right?  Maybe it’s just harder to find old cars.  I don’t know.  Don’t really care either.  They still looked good and made me long for the days when men wore hats.

Unfortunately, if that’s what I got out of this film, the story might be missing a step here and there.

There is a story here, it simply isn’t developed well and can be hard to follow at times.  Jude Law, playing Jack Burden, carries the story, even if it wanders a bit through vague vignettes.  After all Jack Burden’s conflict as Willie Stark‘s (Sean Penn) right hand man drives the story in Robert Penn Warren’s novel.  Through Burden — aptly named — we witness the underside of early 20th century American politics.

It is likely this political commentary that Penn sought to capture, but instead he looks more like a caricature desperate to lead the story while also struggling to dominate the screen.  In truth,  Willie Stark is Jeff Burden’s foil, and it seems neither director Steven Zaillian or Sean Penn understood that and it shows.  As a result, the essence of Robert Penn Warren’s critique feels like a Hollywood cliché.

All the King’s Men isn’t a bad bad film.  Yes, the story could have more depth, the characters more development, and the costumes more smudges and wrinkles, but as a contemporary American drama….well, it ain’t bad.

The visual aesthetic of the film doesn’t serve the original story well, but as a cleaned up and dressed up version of the original, it isn’t unpleasant to watch.  It simply does not capture the dirty, edgy — let’s call it sleazy — almost noir-like aesthetic of the Robert Penn Warren novel or Robert Rossen‘s Oscar-winning 1949 film adaption.  But it isn’t bad.

Plus the new film has a woman dancing on ice skates.  Wearing only lingerie.  Hey, why not?

(No typos!)

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Ladybug Ladybug (1963)

This is an entry about writer’s block, so bear with me.  At the moment I am working on several things at the same time.  Among them is a story that is turning into an essay which will likely become a post on A Little Tour in Yellow someday.  It is that sort of thing.

And it is a perfect example of why I try not to use my own experience as a model for stories.  I get stuck.

Yesterday I visited the woods and parks I played in as a boy.  I couldn’t help myself.  I made a special trip to do just that.  Fall causes all sorts of nostalgic feelings to stir.  That’s what got this started.

While walking, I cobbled together stories, essays, all kinds of ideas.  Since then I have been trying to get them down on paper.  No luck …not yet.

So I thought I would watch Ladybug, Ladybug (1963) and reset my focus.  Despite its tense subject and apparently tragic conclusion, Ladybug, Ladybug feels like home to me.  It is a fantastic film and one rich with nostalgia for anyone fortunate enough to attend a small, well-ordered school as a child.

Television shows like Father Knows Best or Leave it to Beaver are criticized for exaggerating the simple purity of post-war suburban American life.  Ladybug, Ladybug is very different.  It has the purity and order, but with an authenticity that rarely exists in films of the time.

Based on real events, Ladybug, Ladybug is the story of what happens at a rural New York school during the early 1960s when teachers receive a Civil Defense warning alerting them of a imminent nuclear attack.  They keep a cool head and follow the book,  and impending doom becomes little more than an inconvenience that must be endured.

Sounds like a dreadfully dull story, I know, but that is on account of my quick and poor description.  If Ladybug, Ladybug is not on the list of top 100 best films of all time, one of those that is there now needs to come off the list for this one.

I did go to a school like that and I attended it just as times were beginning to substantially change…the post 1968 years and still a decade before Reagan.  I love the film.

Whatever it is you’re doing now…stop.  You can stream Ladybug, Ladybug on Netflix. You won’t be sorry.

For my part, I need to find some mojo, need to get cranking.  More from me later.  You watch the film.

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Wow…Crazy Coincidence. Sad Bradbury News.

I want this copy…

Two weeks ago I posted an article on my blog (it is hardly relevant now…a rambling mess) that made some references to the film Fahrenheit 451 and just a moment ago I decided to see if it was in my Book Collector database.  Twitter was open on my computer screen.  And right there in front of me was a tweet about Ray Bradbury‘s death.

Crazier still, when I thought about looking for the book, I wondered whether Bradbury was still alive.  I think that is strangely crazy.  Is that Bradburyesque?

I have never read Fahrenheit 451.  It is among the many books I buy with right-minded intentions, but don’t read.  I am sure it is here somewhere.  I think it is time to read it.  What am I doing blogging about a movie based on the book without reading the book in the first place!

And my condolences to all the Ray Bradbury fans out there.  I am sorry about the news.

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The Bedford Incident (1965)

The Bedford Incident

Richard Widmark plays uncompromising, determined Captain Eric Findlander in this too-often-missed Cold War classic, The Bedford Incident (1965).

The cast is solid.  The film making tight.   Outstanding sound, too.  This is a Cold War drama mostly occupied by dialogue occurring within the tight quarters of the navy destroy Bedford, but the action — as it were — never lets up.  All in all, an awesome film, perhaps even Widmark’s best?

Sidney Poitier plays Ben Munceford, a reporter for a national magazine on assignment to document the Bedford’s patrol in the North Atlantic, but he is also there to study Captain Findlander’s reputation as a hardened, punishing commander.

Poitier’s character feels out of place early in the film.  He’s a bit too smug, presuming, and self-righteous, but he is a necessary foil to Findlander.

Findlander is all Navy and a zealous patriot.  Poitier is press — you know, the Fourth Estate – is there to be a check on the power of government and military.  He’s also black, which might have had more social significance in 1965.  In fact he is the only black person seen on a ship of more than 300 men.  He is the outsider.

It is the juxtaposition of outsider versus Navy that I want to hit on in my reading of this film.

Briefly, the Bedford discovers a Soviet submarine in violation of NATO ally territorial waters.  Findlander pursues the trespassing sub back into international waters and all the while pressure and tension increases on his ship builds.

Findlander demands exacting discipline.  No compromise.  He works his officers and crew hard.  Stress mounts.  All the while Munceford tirelessly pursues a story, with camera in hand, which provokes an even sterner hand from Findlander.

Also on board the Bedford is Commodore Wolfgang Schrepke, former Third Reich naval commander, played by Eric Portman.  He is a technical and intelligence advisor to Findlander.  He also becomes a voice of reason and restraint in the film’s conclusion.

The key character, however, is played by James MacArthur, in what also might be his ultimate performance.  MacArthur plays Ensign Ralston, an eager and underappreciated subordinate to Findlander.

Findlander relentlessly demands more from Ensign Ralston, criticizing him for errors big and small.  There is no let up.  Ultimately Findlander’s insistence on strict and immediate response to his orders dooms his ship.

In the closing scenes the Bedford has finally trapped the Soviet sub.  Findlander turns up the heat, attempted to both provoke and humiliate the Soviet sub and crew.  His actions are aggressive and confrontational.  Munceford is joined by Commodore Schrepke in advising Findlander to pull back and stop the pursuit.  But Findlander only seems more determined to force the sub to surrender.

In the tense atmosphere of the emerging conflict, Ensign Ralston misinterprets Finlander.  Findlander tells Schrepke that will not fire on the Soviet sub unless he is fired on.  He won’t “fire one” unless they “fire one.”  Ralston hears:  ”Fire one” and he obeys the order.  He fires an Anti-Submarine Rocket at the submarine.

The submarine is destroyed, but not before it has had a chance to launch torpedoes at the Bedford in response.

Here is where the insider/outsider dynamic that plays out.

Findlander gives one order to evade the torpedoes, but then seems to give up.  He walks through a quiet ship, glancing at his broken crew who only stare back in return.  Even Schrepke is silent.  He stoically looks on, unfazed, as Findlander wanders through the bridge, then turns away.

Bombs Away

Munceford, on the other hand, literally is on Findlander’s coat tails, demanding that he take evasive actions and try to protect the ship.  He is alone in his demands.

Munceford is the outsider.  The others are Navy.  The crew of the Bedford destroyed a Soviet submarine.  One might argue that the responsibility ultimately rests with Captain Findlander, but on this ship in particular we are told the men on this ship are different.  They choose to be with Findlander.  Therefore, I would suggest that crew shares in the culpability of the accident and take responsibility for the lost sub and crew.

Findlander doesn’t try to save his ship, he goes to a top deck to get a view of the torpedoes that will deliver the blow that will even the score.  It is a sort of naval justice that none of the crew protests.  Munceford, the outsider, protests.

Discuss.

The Man in the Net

Sunday morning news programs or the Alan Ladd film, The Man in the Net?  Seemed like a fair toss up to me, so I opted for the more apropos film.  And it is a very good film, despite its improbabilities and painfully weak plot.

Alan Ladd plays John Hamilton, a struggling, misunderstood artist who leaves a successful career in New York and moves to a Connecticut farm to focus on his painting.  Ladd isn’t the beatnik artist, of course…how could he be?…but he’s awkwardly cast as a quiet gentleman.  In fact, he is annoyingly passive and resigned; the kind of guy you want to slap some common sense into.

However, he does have to deal with Linda, his manic depressive alcoholic wife, who is set on ruining him and their marriage.  That can wear on a guy.  She’s set on leaving the Connecticut countryside and returning to New York.  Unlike misplaced Ladd, Carolyn Jones plays Linda quite well.  She is an absolutely conniving and convincing villain.

The rest of the adult cast — check the credits — are more or less extras with predictable scripts flatly read.  We’ll move on.

Linda Hamilton is a terribly envious and insecure woman.  She blames her fate on her timid husband.  John receives a generous offer to return to his work in New York.  Here’s Linda’s chance.  But she is incapable of discussing issues as John’s partner.  Name calling is easier.  John for his part…well, he’s John.

So Linda manipulates her husband’s affairs (while having an affair or two of her own), ridicules his work and prospects, and — worse of all — is a public embarrassment with tricks that include showing up late a friend’s birthday party drunk with an unexplained black eye.  Linda looks awesome in her fine clothes — let’s face it, Carolyn Jones is gorgeous — but despite her view of herself class and character are not Linda’s qualities.

It should surprise no one when philandering Linda turns up dead early in the film.  What is surprising is how the town quickly suspects John and turns on him.  Rather than be grateful, they organize an absurd lynch mob and go hunting for John.  Well, ok, maybe we shouldn’t be “grateful”, but if you would think one or the other had integrity, it would be John, not Linda.  If the film wants us to be sympathetic toward Linda, it doesn’t achieve this.

From the get-go Linda’s disappearance looks like a set up, complete with false and misleading clues, and the film does nothing to make the pieces work.  Most problematic, the timing of the Linda’s disappearance and murder is all loopy.  No one, not even John Hamilton, seems to figure that out.  As far as I can tell, John was in New York — a perfect alibi — when Linda disappeared, but John chooses to go on the run.

Fortunately for John Hamilton, the area children become his allies and help him evade capture and identify the real murderer.  Evidence of John’s innocence is everywhere, it only makes sense that he would hide in caves and use the children to distract the locals while he seeks the identity of Linda’s murderer.

The film entirely lacks suspense, tension, and probability.  It is difficult to rally behind Ladd’s character.  He unnecessarily complicates his situation and mopes around timidly resigned to his fate.  It isn’t easy to care.

The town equally draws little sympathy.  Other than a smattering of people with some sober common sense, the town is misplaced.  Nevertheless, I found the film easy and entertaining to watch.  But it could have been so much better.

Here’s how I would have reworked the story:

Fist, get rid of the lynch mob.  That simply was a shortcut to showing a town outraged about a murder.  It saved film, but hurt the narrative.  Instead drop damning bits of evidence that seem to contradict John’s innocence.  Build up the story so rational, upstanding citizens start to doubt John.  Build some tension.

The children are too easy, too.  Innocence.  But perhaps there could be something cloudy about this innocence.  Ultimately, the father of one of the children is the murderer.  Perhaps that child could be cast in a role where we he is unsure of his father’s innocence and torn between his friendship for John and confronting his father’s possible guilt.

Give John Hamilton some balls.  Alan Ladd spends most of the film gazing at his feet, taking abuse, and delivering flat dialogue.

Ultimately, of course, John presents the evidence he needs to prove his innocence:  A tape recording (can you believe that?) of Linda and her lover that exposes her affairs.  It turns out that blackmail was added to the plot…but I shouldn’t ruin the film for everyone, see how it ends yourself.

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Shame (2011)

Plato, I think, is quoted for saying a wise man speaks because he has something to say, a fool speaks because he has to say something.  I have unburdened you, my valued readers, of my foolishness long enough.  It is time to get back in the game.

And as long as I am going to blather on pointlessly, I might as well write about something else that blathers on without a point.  And so to that point, let’s review Shame (2011).

Shame — directed by Steve McQueen and featuring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan — centers around the destructive sex addiction of a Manhattan businessman.  In truth, the subject of the movie should be rich material for a very engaging film, but Shame entirely left me feeling flat.

Reviews tout it as a “masterpiece” and “stunning.”  It even garners a fair amount of Oscar talk.  I’m not so sure why.  In more ways than one, this film is about the emperor and no clothes.

The film earned a NC-17 rating, not so much for nudity and sex, I don’t think, but more for the details of film’s subject, which I won’t divulge to you here in detail.  In essence the film is eye candy for the twisted and not necessarily as beautifully filmed as many reviewers claim it to be.  Consistent with the complicated and overloaded narrative — which wanders aimlessly without a real plot — the film is frequently framed in tiresome shots that distract from the story.  Perhaps this is intentional, however; like the sex-addicted protagonist, the film is off balance.

I would have preferred a more classical narrative.  A true tragedy.  Shame does a poor job setting this up.  We don’t really know much about the lead character and his qualities.  We simply know he enjoys porn, prostitutes, and (I won’t tell) to a destructive degree.  The film doesn’t create a hero we should have empathy for when he makes his fall.  Instead Shame presents a pastiche of deviant behavior which comes at the expense of his career…or does it?  Hard to tell.  No one seems to really care, not really, and so neither did I.  You just get a sense that someone is going to cry in the end, but without a proper denouement, that is not going to be me.

There are some positive things about this film.  You might pay attention to your date, for example, and the theater isn’t likely to be crowded.  People might also talk about sex addiction, but for that I have my doubts.

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