Classic Movie Review: The Apartment (1960)

The Apartment (1960) 

Directed by: Billy Wilder.

Written by: Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond.

Starring: Jack Lemmon (C.C. Baxter), Shirley MacLaine (Fran Kubelik), Fred MacMurray (Jeff D. Sheldrake), Ray Walston (Joe Dobisch), Jack Kruschen (Dr. Dreyfuss), David Lewis (Al Kirkeby), Hope Holiday (Mrs. Margie MacDougall), Joan Shawlee (Sylvia), Naomi Stevens (Mrs. Mildred Dreyfuss), Johnny Seven (Karl Matuschka), Joyce Jameson (The Blonde), Willard Waterman (Mr. Vanderhoff), David White (Mr. Eichelberger), Edie Adams (Miss Olsen). 

 

If I had to recommend a “classic” movie director to someone who was looking to start to get in older Hollywood movies and looking for a place to start, I think that director would be Billy Wilder – and The Apartment may well be the film I suggest they start with. It’s a testament to just how great Wilder is that The Apartment is probably not even his best film – that would be Sunset Blvd. (1950) or even his funniest – that would be Some Like It Hot (1959). And you can go down the line to many great films he made – Double Indemnity (1944), The Lost Weekend (1945), Ace in the Hole (1951), Stalag 17 (1953), Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and One, Two, Three (1961) – and even that list is missing some classics. His films don’t seem to age – you could change few details of The Apartment, and pretty much have a film you could set today, probably in some tech company in Northern California, and you wouldn’t have to change much else. This is a comedy – one of the best American comedies of all time – but it sticks with you because of the sense of loneliness and sadness that runs through the entire film. It’s anchored by two of the best performances by two legendary actors – Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine – and yes, it is a romantic comedy. But it’s a romantic comedy about two adults – realists in an imperfect world, and when the credits role, after the perfect closing line, you have no idea whether or not it will work out between them. But you want it to – they seem right for each other. And they take their time making that decision – with their heads, as much as with their hearts.

 

Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, a cog in the machine of a massive insurance company. He’s good at his job and ambitious to boot – part of that ambition has led him to lend out his bachelor apartment to executives in the company, looking for place to take their mistresses before getting on the train at night and returning to their wives. Baxter has a crush of Fran Kubelik (MacLaine), the pretty elevator operator in the building – not knowing that she was once, and will be again, the mistress of the big boss – Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) – who will eventually call on Baxter for use of that famous apartment.

 

So the famous Wilder cynicism is baked right into the concept of The Apartment. Neither Baxter nor Frank or naïve kids who fall head over heels in love. They are sad, lonely people. Wilder sets the film during Christmas, usually a cheerful time, but also chose to shoot it in black-and-white, which drains all those cheery lights and decorations of their color and sheer. Baxter has no family of any kind – at one point, he shares how he spent last Christmas day, and it’s downright pathetic. Fran does have a sister – she lives with her, and her brother-in-law, but that doesn’t stop the loneliness for sinking in. They are both “company men” in their way – and looking to climb the ladder in their own ways – him by getting promoted, her by marrying the boss. They both love Sheldrake in their own ways – and so much they cannot see what an asshole he is – perfectly played by MacMurray, as the type of guy who always gets what he wants, and seems offended when he doesn’t.

 

This was a key film for both Lemmon and MacLaine. Lemmon had already won an Oscar at this point – for his manic performance in Mister Roberts (1955), and had become a bigger star with his role in Wilder’s Some Like It Hot the year before. MacLaine had been doing comedies as well – and delivered a great, tragic turn in Vincente Minelli’s Some Came Running (1958) prior to The Apartment – which earned her the first Oscar nomination of her career. They are both brilliant here – both nominated for Oscars (Lemmon lost to Burt Lancaster, who finally won for Elmer Gantry, she to Elizabeth Taylor, who finally won for Butterfield 8) – but the roles propelled towards their future careers, where they would continue to be great. There is some shared DNA for Lemmon here between C.C. Baxter, and his last great performance – as Shelley Levine in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) – the once great salesman, now aging and incapable of closing. MacLaine would age into greater roles as well – she wouldn’t win an Oscar until Terms of Endearment (1983), not so much a similar character, except that it’s clear that both of these women had seen some things, been hurt, learned, and then kept going.

 

The key scenes in The Apartment as far as the romance goes are odd – in that they come in the wake of a Fran’s suicide attempt, in the apartment, that she doesn’t know is Baxter’s (she assumes Sheldrake will find her). They fall in love while she recuperates. And yet, they don’t fall into each other’s arms at the end – they actually both go back to Sheldrake for a while, needing one last kick in the teeth before they are ready for each other. Which brings you to one of the most perfect endings in cinema history. It’s the ending you want, the ending you feel you deserve, and its sweet and funny. But it also somehow manages to fit in as the perfect ending to this cynical, adult romantic comedy. How Wilder and company pulled it off is nothing short of a miracle.

Movie Review: Matthias & Maxime

Matthias & Maxime *** ½ / *****
Directed by: Xavier Dolan.
Written by: Xavier Dolan.
Starring: Gabriel D'Almeida Freitas (Matthias), Xavier Dolan (Maxime), Anne Dorval (Manon), Harris Dickinson (McAfee), Marilyn Castonguay (Sarah), Pier-Luc Funk (Rivette), Catherine Brunet (Lisa), Antoine Pilon (Brass), Anne-Marie Cadieux (Martine), Alexandre Bourgeois (Julien), Louise Bombardier (Tante Ginette), Camille Felton (Erika), Adib Alkhalidey (Shariff), Connor McMahon (Avocat), Monique Spaziani (Colette), Samuel Gauthier (Frank), Jacques Lavallée (Me Courtemanche), Louis-Julien Durso (Matisse), Micheline Bernard (Francine). 

Xavier Dolan has been around for more than a decade now – and Mathias and Maxime is his 8^th film in that time. Given that, it’s easy to forget than he’s still only 31 years old – an age at which many filmmakers don’t even have one film under their belt, let alone 8 – most of whom played Cannes, in either Un Certain Regard or the Official Lineup, and many of them winning prizes there as well. It probably shouldn’t be overly surprising then that his filmography is as uneven as it is. He had a pretty good streak going with I Killed My Mother, Heartbeats, Lawrence Anyways and Mommy (I wasn’t much of a fan of Tom at the Farm) – before his last two films – It’s Only the End of the World and The Death and Life of John F. Donovan were widely panned (even still, the former won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, for some reason). Those experiences may have stung Dolan a little, because he’s dialed back his ambition for Mathias and Maxime – making a film that probably would have made more sense for his career trajectory around the I Killed My Mother and Heartbeats stage. It certainly isn’t his best film – and he still leans too heavily on some of the crutches that have held his career back a little – but it feels like a career reset in many ways.

 The plot will remind some of Lynn Shelton’s breakthrough Humpday, as it once again centers on two apparently straight male friends, whose feelings for each other are perhaps not quite so platonic. One a weekend getaway with the “boys”, Matthias (Gabriel D’Almedia Freitas) and Maxime (Xavier Dolan) are convinced to act in a student short for a bratty younger sister – only after they’ve agreed to participate do they find out they have to kiss in the film – something apparently they did once before, drunkenly, at a freshmen party. Dolan, cleverly, cuts to black right before their lips touch – but it’s a kiss that haunts the rest of the narrative anyway.

Before this, it seemed like this friend group was drifting apart. Mathias is a lawyer, with a promotion looming, and thinks it may be time to grow up – and leave behind his friends, who all he seems to have in common with is drunken memories. Maxime is about to move to Australia for two years – get a fresh start, away from his abusive, recovering addict mother (Anne Dorval, of course). His departure sets a clock on this relationship – on whether Mathias and Maxime will explore it, or even acknowledge it.

Dolan does reach into his bag of tricks probably too often here – I’m not sure we needed yet another turbulent mother/son relationship featuring Dorval and Dolan in their roles once again, although he changes it enough to imply that at least his character is over it – and has made the smart decision to get away. There is yet another sing-along to a pop song here as well – it was a cheesy highlight in The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, but that movie needed all the help it could get.

The film excels most when its concentrated on its two title characters – their vastly different lives, and their tenuous connection, which may, or may not, mean more to them. Dolan also excels at portraying the undeniable homoeroticism that lurks under all these bromances – these large groups of male friends who drink and party and wrestle, but, you know, they’re not gay – as they’ll protest a little too loudly. The rest of the friend group is kind of a homogeneous mass however – lacking in any real individual depth, mainly because Dolan isn’t really interested in them – he’s interested in the two characters escaping them.

Dolan casts the two leads well - Gabriel D'Almeida Freitas is excellent as Matthias, the man who knows he’s at the precipice of something, but not quite sure what – too mature for the frat boy crap, but perhaps not mature enough to really go after what he wants. And Dolan himself – cast in one of his own films for the first time since Tom at the Farm – gives probably his best performance on camera. Maxime is quieter, shier, more beaten down by life – but not so beaten down that he has given up. You get the sense that he would like to hide from the world outside – the bright red birthmark on his face making that impossible though.

I don’t think Mathias and Maxime is Dolan’s best film – it doesn’t hit the operatic highs of Mommy, or feel as raw and angry as I Killed My Mother. But it is the work of a filmmaker who has grown, matured – and perhaps learned something in his time. Perhaps it is the beginning of a new, exciting chapter in his career.

Movie Review: The Trip to Greece

The Trip to Greece **** / *****

Directed by: Michael Winterbottom.

Starring: Steve Coogan (Steve Coogan), Rob Brydon (Rob Brydon), Kareem Alkabbani (Kareem), Marta Barrio (Yolanda), Cordelia Bugeja (Steve's Ex Wife), Richard Clews (Steve's Dad), Justin Edwards (UK Agent), Rebecca Johnson (Sally), Claire Keelan (Emma), Timothy Leach (Joe), Harry Tayler (Young Dad), Michael Towns (Alexander), Tessa Walker (Chloe).

 

For the fourth, and apparently final, time in the last 10 years, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon hit the road together, travelling through a different country apparently to eat at fancy restaurants so they can write a magazine piece for The Guardian. No, that doesn’t make much sense, but no, it doesn’t matter at all. The reason to see these movies – and keep seeing them – is to watch these two gifted comedic actors, playing versions of themselves as they try to one-up each other, get through their mid-life crisis (or not) and show off their insecurities. Each movie in the series is good – but it’s one of those series where the sum is greater than the individual parts. It’s always nice to revisit these two – always fun, always funny, but increasingly, the films have become more serious as well, more willing to explore more than just the insecurities of middle-aged, rich, white male entertainers. The last film, The Trip to Spain, left Coogan on a dark road in Africa, being confronted by extremists – all because he wanted to have a “real” adventure, not just the safe ones he had been going on with Brydon for years now. In The Trip to Greece, mortality is a focus – Coogan’s dad is sick during the trip, and he receives updates on his health, while hiding it from Brydon – and everyone else. Brydon, who has always been slightly more secure and together, at least compared to Coogan, starts to feel a little more of the creep of middle age as well. He started his family later than Coogan – whose kids are grown, while Brydon’s are still young. His wife is younger him as well. And he doesn’t want to lose her.

 

All of this is sprinkled throughout the last chapter of this series – The Trip to Greece – as well as some other moments that puncture the bubble of these two men playing with, and off each other. They like to needle each other, although Coogan, the more famous of the two men, is also more thin skinned. He bristles at the idea of being classified as a “comedian” – even when Brydon points out his BAFTA nomination was for playing a comedian (which leads to the pair doing a funny bit – Laurel and Tom Hardy, which I think I could have watch forever). Brydon has always just felt more comfortable in his skin – more comfortable with his position in life, his career, etc. Coogan is always striving for something else – something just out of reach.

 

The pair, of course, need each other. They need to have that audience, the validation that they give to each other. It’s why they keep coming back together again. There is a certain comfort level between the two of them that has grown through these movies. To be honest, I could go on watching more installments of The Trip every three years for the rest of Coogan and Brydon’s lives. Each new chapter continues to be funny, even if the pair do repeat some bits (perhaps, especially because they do) – and because each new chapter finds them in a slightly different phase of life, running away from slightly different problems, confronting something new. Taken separately, each of these movies is good. As a whole, this series is something altogether more special – perhaps the crowning achievement of the careers of Coogan, Brydon and director Michael Winterbottom. Before Winterbottom made these films, he made one of the worst of his career – The Road to Guantanamo, about some friends who unwittingly found themselves in the American prison for terrorists, through a series of what could be called a comedy of errors. It was about people who didn’t really know what they were getting themselves into – who were blinkered from the outside world. It also didn’t really work – it was a fiction/documentary hybrid, and Winterbottom never found the right tone. Oddly, with The Trip movies, he seems to have accomplished something similar. He has always shown the difference between Coogan and Brydon, and the restaurant workers preparing their meals. Over the course of the series, he’s gradually allowed more and more of the outside world to intrude on the proceedings – here there is even an acknowledgement of the European refugee crisis, done in a comic way.

 

As an individual chapter in this series, The Trip to Greece is better than the other three chapters. But as a capping off of this decade long project, it makes you appreciate just what the trio here has accomplished. If this is indeed the last chapter, then I’ll miss the series. If they decide to do more, I for one, couldn’t be happier.

Movie Review: The Lovebirds

The Lovebirds ** / *****

Directed by: Michael Showalter.

Written by: Aaron Abrams and Brendan Gall and Martin Gero.

Starring: Kumail Nanjiani (Jibran), Issa Rae (Leilani), Anna Camp (Edie), Paul Sparks (Moustache), Kyle Bornheimer (Brett), Kelly Murtagh (Evonne), Moses Storm (Steve), Barry Rothbart (Mr. Hipster), Aaron Abrams (Paramedic).

 

Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae both deserve better than The Lovebirds – a rather lifeless comedy that the pair nevertheless do their best to breathe life into. They play Jibran and Leilani – who we first meet in the aftermath of a would-be one-night stand, that turns into a real date, which turns into a relationship. Flash forward four years, and the pair are living together, but don’t seem to like each other much. He thinks she, and her obsession with reality shows and social media, is shallow, she thinks he, a documentary filmmaker who spends all his time editing a documentary he may never finish, is satisfied with being a failure. They break up, but still have to go on a ride together in their car. It’s then that they hit a biker with their car. The biker immediately gets up, says its okay, and takes off. But then a cop jumps into their car, takes over driving, chases down the biker and runs him over – repeatedly, showing, of course, that he wasn’t a cop after all. Jibran and Leilani aren’t dumb enough – or white enough – to turn themselves into the cops, so they take the dead man’s cell phone, and try to crack the mystery of his death,

 

The film is supposed to be a comedy or remarriage – popular in the 1940s, where divorced or on their way to being divorced, couples find themselves drawn back together by circumstances beyond their control. Here, it doesn’t really work for a few reasons – the most fatal of which is that while Nanjiani and Rae are great comedic presences, and both are trying really hard here, they never quite feel like a couple either pulled apart, or put back together. Perhaps they could have been that, had they not been forced into such an inane plot, full of would-be set pieces that don’t really work – like Anna Camp, doing a Southern accent, and threatening the pair with bacon grease, or a comedic climax right out of Eyes Wide Shut. If there was a way to make this work, screenwriters Aaron Abrams, Brandan Gall and Martin Gero and director Michael Showalter, don’t find it.

 

There are isolated moments, mostly in Nanjiani and Rae’s performances, that do work. Nanjiani is perfectly playing the exasperated everyman, and his asides, or sometimes just tired sighs, are downright hilarious. Rae is able to deliver the perfect cutting insult (the best of which “Did you think it was one of those male only doors”) that can elevate rather lame, would-be one liners.

 

But none of it ever really comes together in a meaningful way. The Big Sick proved that Nanjiani is a movie star – and showed just how solid a director Michael Showalter can be. But here, they are stuck going through the motions – going through one tired set piece after another, and the film never lets the characters breathe. It also never really embraces its dark comic potential after the opening sequence with the biker. This is a Netflix film that was supposed to be a big screen release – sold by its studio after the Covid-19 breakout. It fits perfectly well on Netflix, beside all the other tired programmers – wasting talent and time.

Movie Review: Emma.

Emma. *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Autumn de Wilde.

Written by: Eleanor Catton based on the novel by Jane Austen.

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy (Emma Woodhouse), Johnny Flynn (Mr. Knightley), Mia Goth (Harriet Smith), Miranda Hart (Miss Bates), Bill Nighy (Mr. Woodhouse), Josh O'Connor (Mr. Elton), Callum Turner (Frank Churchhill), Amber Anderson (Jane Fairfax), Rupert Graves (Mr. Weston), Gemma Whelan (Miss Taylor / Mrs. Weston), Tanya Reynolds (Mrs. Augusta Elton), Connor Swindells (Robert Martin), Chloe Pirrie (Isabella Knightley), Oliver Chris (John Knightley).

 

The best thing about Autumn de Wilde’s Emma is how fully the film embraces the inherent silliness of the narrative. Jane Austen, of course, wrote many great novels – and Emma, her last, could easily be dismissed as her most frivolous – and yet there is so much joy in the telling of what is essentially the self-absorption of the main character that you cannot help but enjoy it all – even going so far as to like Emma, who is vain and vapid, and uses people as her own personal playthings. You should hate her – but instead, you are utterly charmed. De Wilde’s film nails this.

 

Anya Taylor-Joy stars as the title character – a rich woman in the Victorian age, living with her hypochondriac widowed father (a delightful Bill Nighy). Emma Woodhouse is popular in her little social circle of course – people just adore her, and she fancies herself a matchmaker – recently getting setting up the marriage of her au pair, Miss Taylor (Gemma Whelan) to marry the widower, Mr. Weston (Rupert Graves) – something no one thought possible. Her latest mission is to find an appropriate match for Harriet Smith (Mia Goth) – a young woman of unknown parentage, at the school for girls in the area, that she has taken under her wing. Harriet is already in love with farmer Robert Martin (Connor Swindells) – but Emma considers that beneath her – he isn’t poor enough to help out of pity, but not rich enough to take seriously. No, a far better match would be Mr. Elton (Josh O’Connor), the local vicar. As for her own prospects, she insists she will not marry – she couldn’t leave father – but seems interested in Frank Churchill (Callum Turner), Weston’s son, who has recently become the heir to his rich uncle – and taken his name. Then there is Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson), her old rival, and niece to the very annoying Miss Bates (Miranda Hart). Oh, and don’t forget Mr. Knightley (Johnny Flynn), from down the road. He and Emma needle each other with insults – so you know they are really in love.

 

All of this is so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but the film knows this, embraces it, and turns it all into a delightful farce. Autumn de Wilde would have likely been right at home making screwball comedies in the 1930s Hollywood system. Anya Taylor-Joy is a complete delight as Emma as well – best known for more serious work in films like The Witch, Split or Thoroughbreds, here she completely embraces her comedic side and delivers a wonderful comedic performances. Add in the most elaborate, colorful, and beautiful, yet silly, costumes in a period piece I’ve seen in a while, and you have a delightful package.

 

I do wish perhaps the film was a little shorter – sustaining this comic momentum for over two-hours is hard, and the film strains more than a little under the weight – especially once you realize who is going to end up with whom (which is the only question really to answer here) – but also realize you still have 45-minutes left in the film. Still, that’s a minor quibble in a film that I basically had a blast watching – and that gets Jane Austen’s novel just right.

Movie Review: How to Build a Girl

How to Build a Girl ** / *****

Directed by: Coky Giedroyc.

Written by: Caitlin Moran based on her novel.

Starring: Beanie Feldstein (Johanna Morrigan), Cleo (Bianca Morrigan), Dónal Finn (Karl Boden), Paddy Considine (Pat Morrigan), Laurie Kynaston (Krissi Morrigan), Stellan Powell (Lupin Morrigan), Sarah Solemani (Angie Morrigan), Andi Oliver (Donna Summer), Michael Sheen (Dr. Freud), Sue Perkins (Emily Bronte), Mel Giedroyc (Charlotte Bronte), Alexei Sayle (Karl Marx), Lily Allen (Elizabeth Taylor), Gemma Arterton (Maria von Trapp), Jameela Jamil (Cleopatra), Lucy Punch (Sylvia Plath), Sharon Horgan (Jo March), Chris O'Dowd (Alan 'Wilko' Wilkinson), Joanna Scanlan (Mrs. Belling), Ralph Prosser (Lee Veltman), Arinzé Kene (Kenny), Ziggy Heath (Derby), Tadhg Murphy (Andy Rock), Bobby Schofield (Pricey), Patsy Ferran (Snow Pixie), Frank Dillane (Tony Rich), Asheq Akhtar (Mr. Sanghera), Hammed Animashaun (Ed Edwards), Alfie Allen (John Kite), Emma Thompson (Amanda Watson). 

 

Beanie Feldstein has the type of movie star charisma that cannot be learned or taught – you simply have it, or you don’t. That was obvious in Lady Bird and Booksmart, and confirmed by How to Build a Girl, the first movie that Feldstein has to carry all by herself. There isn’t anything wrong with her performance – okay, the British accent isn’t the best in the world, but she captures the character so well I hardly matters. But everything surrounding Feldstein just isn’t as interesting, including a story that forces her through one tired revelation after another. I think the movie does manage to capture that insecure feeling of being a teenage girl – in a world that will beat you up. But it doesn’t manage to capture that world.

 

Feldstein stars as Johanna, a 16-year-old British schoolgirl, the most talented writer in her class, who wants nothing more than to grow up and be a writer. She lives in the suburbs – far enough away from London that it seems like another planet. She applies to be a music critic – despite the obvious flaw of knowing nothing about music – and soon finds herself a star. This is the early 1990s London, her co-workers are all cynical men in their 20s, and her infectious spirit doesn’t quite jive with theirs. They will war her down. Soon, Johanna has reinvented herself as Dolly – a wild child, with bright red hair and a steampunk wardrobe. She falls for a singer – played by Alfie Allen – but her piece is too wide-eyed, teenage girl mooning for the paper. They want her to be more of an asshole. She will oblige.

 

It’s odd that How to Build a Girl is a movie at least in part about music, but like Johanna, doesn’t seem to understand music at all. Johanna really could be writing about anything at all – it doesn’t really matter, because the movie doesn’t care about it. Add in more clichés – her father (Paddy Considine), an aspiring musician who somehow hasn’t realized his chance is decades in the rearview, and the tired old refrain about critics adding nothing to society, etc. There are more clichés littered throughout the movie as well.

 

What keeps the whole thing watchable is Feldstein herself – who is delightful. She has a wall of pictures of her own personal heroes who talk to her (played by a veritable who’s who of British talent). She is a wide-eyed optimist, and while she takes a detour into being a cynic, it never sits on her properly, and she will need to discard it in order to grow.

 

There is, of course, a message to How to Build a Girl – and it is about being true to yourself, and figuring out who you are. Perhaps you change who you are, but you it for yourself, not anyone else. It’s an old message, but a worthwhile one, and I think that perhaps there is a market of teenage girls who need to here it. I just wish it were in a better movie.

Movie Review: Greed

Greed ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Michael Winterbottom.

Written by: Michael Winterbottom and Sean Gray.

Starring: Steve Coogan (Sir Richard McCreadie), Isla Fisher (Samantha), Shirley Henderson (Margaret), David Mitchell (Nick), Asa Butterfield (Finn), Dinita Gohil (Amanda), Sophie Cookson (Lily), Jamie Blackley (Young Richard McCreadie), Shanina Shaik (Naomi), Jonny Sweet (Jules), Sarah Solemani (Melanie), Tim Key (Sam), Asim Chaudhry (Frank the Lion Tamer), Ollie Locke (Fabian), Pearl Mackie (Cathy), Kareem Alkabbani (Kareem). 

 

Perhaps the superrich have simply become impossible to satirize. In real life, many of these billionaires – like Elon Musk – already seem like cartoon caricatures of the elite and out of touch, that to try and make them oversized and cartoonish is impossible. Still, I do think that a better satire of the superrich could have been made other than Michael Winterbottom’s Greed – whose main character is named Richard McCreadie, which of course it takes very little to turn into Rich McGreedy. That’s basically the level of satire going on in this film. That it works as well as it does is a testament to the skills of Steve Coogan, and his supporting cast among them Isla Fisher, Shirley Henderson, Sophie Cookson, and Jamie Blackley. But the film never quite comes off as the fuck you to the superrich that it was clearly intended to be.

 

Coogan plays McCreadie, who has become a billionaire in the retail space in England – opening, and closing, one clothing franchise after another. Mostly its cheap clothes, and the franchises don’t last – but he is able to make a lot of money for himself and his family, before they collapse. The film attempts something like The Big Short, but is more akin Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat, as it explains the various ways McCreadie makes a lot of money out of companies, that aren’t making a lot of money. He sells off the land his stores sit on for huge sums of money, then leases the properties back. He then borrows money on the value of the company that is no worth a lot less because they don’t own the land, and filters it back to himself. The companies worth plummets, but his personal worth soars.

 

The film is built around the preparations for McCreadie’s 60^th Birthday party – which will be in Greece, and based on Gladiator, so he’s building his own temporary coliseum. His various family members come to see him – the ex-wife (Fisher) he clearly still loves, but left for a younger woman anyway. His reality TV show daughter (Cookson), whose show is as scripted as any on TV. His son, Asa Butterfield, who doesn’t really like anyone, etc. McCreadie has been embroiled in some scandals – and the A-listers keep dropping out. But he forges ahead anyway.

 

Coogan has made a career out of playing rich assholes – including versions of himself for Winterbottom in The Trip movies (the fourth, and apparently final one, is coming out this month). He certainly makes McCreadie into an asshole – we see flashbacks to him as a younger man screaming at underlings, and his immense wealth hasn’t made him any nicer. What Coogan is always able to do though is show the sad, pathetic man inside – the real person behind the asshole mask. He does that here to some extent as well – but it also kind of clashes with the over-the-top nature of the film.

 

As a director, Winterbottom is both wildly prolific, and wildly uneven. He has collaborated well with Coogan over the years – The Trip movies, 24 Hour Party People (which was Coogan’s more dramatic breakthrough after a successful comic career on TV, The Look of Love (which I didn’t actually see) and best of all, for me anyway, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. He’s also made some brilliant literary adaptations – Jude (1996) and The Claim (2000) are probably his two best films for example. But for every great film, there is one that doesn’t quite work. Greed is one of those unfortunately. It’s all just too obvious to really cut close to the bone, and too broad to be really funny. A film like this is a tight rope act – and this time, Coogan and Winterbottom don’t pull it off.

Classic Movie Review: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) 

Directed by: Tobe Hooper.

Written by: L.M. Kit Carson based on the film by Tobe Hooper.

Starring: Dennis Hopper (Lieutenant 'Lefty' Enright), Caroline Williams (Vanita 'Stretch' Brock), Jim Siedow (Cook), Bill Moseley (Chop-Top), Bill Johnson (Leatherface), Ken Evert (Grandpa).

 

In retrospect, it’s very odd that it took 12 years to make a sequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) – one of the greatest of all American horror films, and one of the first that could be described as a slasher film. By this point, there had already been multiple Halloweens and Nightmare on Elm Streets and Friday the 13ths – all series that started after Texas Chainsaw, not to mention all the other series that we have forgotten over the years. It’s surprising then that the studio didn’t either push director Tobe Hooper to make a sequel, or simply gotten someone else to do one. When Hooper finally did make a sequel, we got this – a crazed satire of the Reagan-era that is as over the top as the original was realistic. It feels like Hooper felt he couldn’t top the original film if he tried to repeat himself – so he decided to do precisely the opposite with the sequel. It didn’t sit right at the time – but it has gained a cult following over the years. As is often the case when this happens, the truth lies somewhere in between – as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is neither the disaster people thought it was at the time, nor the classic some seem to think it is now.

 

The original film was very much a product of its time and place – a story about ignorant teenagers, who feel entitled to go wherever they want, who don’t really understand what they’re walking into or why. They’re being cut down and slaughtered but are ignorant of their own sins. It has been read as an allegory to Vietnam and many other facets of the 1970s, when cynicism started running high as Watergate broke. By 1986, that era was over – and Hooper correctly sensed that. He could no longer make a verité style horror film about naïve teenagers – so instead he makes a film about the go-go ‘80s, and corporate excess. The cannibalistic family at its core of the first film have no become entrepreneurs – and successful ones at that with their chili business – no points for guessing the meat they are using.

 

Instead of teenagers this time around, the families has two nemesis. The first is Stretch (Caroline Williams), a local DJ who draws the attention of the family when she plays a recording on the radio station that could get them into trouble, and the second is Lefty (Dennis Hopper) – a former Texas ranger, who was related to some of the victims from the first film, hellbent on revenge – even if most people think that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was just a myth.

 

The film lets you know right from the start that this isn’t going to be a repeat of the original film. The opening sequence involves two high school seniors – jackasses both, entitled, spoiled rich brats, racing down the highway, destroying everything in their path. They call into Stretch’s radio show – that’s when she gets the recording – but will run afoul of Leatherface, and his family, and when you do that, you don’t last long. From there, the film is basically made up of very long sequences – first in the radio station, where Leatherface and Chop Top (Bill Moseley, basically doing what Moseley does in all those Rob Zombie films)- harass Stretch, and then at the family “home” – an abandoned amusement park, littered with corpses and bones, where Stretch will again wind up, this time with Lefty right behind her.

 

There are interesting ideas throughout The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2- but many of them feel half formed. Chop Top has a metal plate in his head, and the lasting image you will undoubtedly take away from the film, and never forget no matter how hard you try, is him picking at his scalp with a heated up closed hanger, and then eating what on it. He is a Vietnam vet, and brings up many different battles and massacres throughout the film – which connects it to the original, but I’m not sure is ever really explored enough. The most fascinating sequence is undoubtedly when Leatherface has Stretch cornered – and has been ordered to kill her – but she charms him out of doing so, resulting in a moment you won’t forget, when basically Leatherface uses his chainsaw as a phallic stand-in, in a show of pure impotence. Again, this is a fascinating idea – one that could be used to deconstruct many slasher movies – but here is abandoned before it is fully explored (I think the scene later with Grandpa and Stretch is supposed to explore it further – but it’s so weirdly over the top and deliberately comical, that I don’t think it works).

 

Much of the time is over-the-top in the extreme. This is a film that makes great use of Tom Savini’s special effects makeup – blood flows in geysers throughout the film. It’s hard to tell if Hooper was really making a satire here, or maybe just a film that was supposed to be pure camp. Perhaps had the film marketed itself that way – like have they used Hooper’s original title, Beyond the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, critics and audiences would have better seen what Hooper was doing at the time (at the very least, you’d think Roger Ebert – who hated this film, but of course was also the screenwriter for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls) would have seen what it was doing.

 

In a way, I admire what Hooper does here. The first film was a very serious attempt to not just scare you, but also delve into some issues of the time revolving around death and violence, and how people are dying without understanding why. It was a serious film. This film is anything but serious – it goes over the top well before it has Dennis Hopper and Leatherface engage is a chainsaw duel, and just keeps on going further and further throughout. You have to admire Hooper’s gumption here – his willingness to go for it, to not repeat himself, to try and make a film for the 1980s that commented on the time much like the original did for the 1970s – and recognizing that in order to do so, he had to make a completely different film tonally. It’s a valiant effort, and there are things about it that work wonderfully. And yet, for a film that is as wildly over the top, and trying to so hard to be comical, you would think that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 would be more fun to watch. But it really isn’t – it leaves a sick taste in your mouth somewhat. What Hooper was intending here was a tight rope walk tonally, and he doesn’t nail it. You can admire the effort though.

Movie Review: Bad Education

Bad Education **** / *****

Directed by: Cory Finley.

Written by: Mike Makowsky 

Starring: Hugh Jackman (Frank Tassone), Allison Janney (Pam Gluckin), Ray Romano (Bob Spicer), Geraldine Viswanathan (Rachel Kellog), Alex Wolff (Rachel’s Editor), Kayli Carter (Amber McCarden), Rafael Casal (Kyle), Stephen Spinella, Annaleigh Ashford, Hari Dhillon, Jimmy Tatro (Pam’s Son), Jeremy Shamos, Kathrine Narducci, Pat Healy (The D.A.).

 

Bad Education pulls off a neat trick that is probably a lot harder than it sounds. This is the story of the largest embezzlement scandal in American Education history – where a Superintendent and his assistance steal millions of dollars from the school district. As you watch the film, you should hate Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman) – even before you find out what he’s done. He’s one of those annoying too perfect to be true guys that you hate if for no other reason than because everyone else loves him. And yet, you don’t hate Frank – you don’t hate him even when all the pieces come together. You don’t forgive him, you understand him. You pity him. And perhaps more than you want to admit, you relate to him. He’s a quintessential American – he knows he has “earned” his success, and so he can do what he wants.

 

The film opens in 2002 in Roslyn New York – on Long Island – where the School District is number 4 in the entire country. Everyone knows that the reason for this is Frank Tassone (Jackman) – the Superintendent, who will do whatever possible to ensure that the school district doesn’t settle for number 4 – they’re going to be number 1. With a great school district, everyone wins – home prices soar, kids get into Ivy League Schools, and the taxpayers don’t even mind shelling out millions of dollars on a Skywalk – which doesn’t sound necessary, but which everyone assumes is not only necessary – but will also get them to number 1.

 

Everyone loves Frank. Of course they do – he’s so friendly, so charming, so handsome. He never forgets a student, never forgets a parent – and is so patient in dealing with everyone – from overinvolved parents who believe their special little angel is gifted, and if the marks aren’t there, it’s because the teacher has it in for them, or the mom’s Book Club, which he attends. And it’s so sweet that he’s still dedicated to his long-deceased wife that no one actually remembers, but he still talks about her, still wears a wedding ring, and has a picture of her on his desk. Frank and his assistant Pam Gluckin (Allison Janney, having a blast doing a Long Island accent, but also finding the humanity within) operate as a well-oiled machine. They get things done – and as long as things are getting done, then no one questions anything. Why would the PTA President (Ray Romano) care, when Frank can get his kids into Harvard or Yale?

 

Frank is the engineer of his own downfall in many ways – not least of which because he encourages Rachel (Geraldine Viswanathan, even better here than in Blockers, where she was a standout) that the piece she’s writing for the school newspaper about the Skywalk need not be a Puff Piece if she doesn’t want it to be. This encourages her to dig – and digging leads to trouble.

 

Little by little, everything becomes clear – as the pieces start to fall into place. A trip to Las Vegas – where the members of school board, all rich, head to the casino, Frank spends in dry seminars before a chance encounter with a former student – Kyle (Rafael Casal) confirms what we already suspected. Things start to fall apart at home when Pam’s idiot son (Jimmy Tatro, essentially repeating his brilliant American Vandal performance) does some things with a school district credit card he shouldn’t have done. Suddenly the leaky roof in the school building, and the old photocopier start making more sense.

 

Jackman has always been a talented actor, but he’s not always been an actor whose talents are used properly. His Frank here is some of the best work of his career – certainly his most relatable human – with all of his vanity and charm on display, only serving to make him more human, not less. He plays a little bit off his own image here – and does it with great effect. Frank is a vain character in some ways – but Jackman’s performance is far from vain. He is supported by a great supporting cast – all of whom hit the right notes – but this is Jackman’s show, and he isn’t giving it up.

 

The film was directed by Cory Finley – although if you saw his stellar debut (last year’s Thoroughbreds) you probably wouldn’t guess it. The two don’t share a lot in common, either stylistically or thematically – but both do show just how great Finley is at playing the long game – seeing how everything is going to come together in the end, and setting it all up right under our noses with realizing it. The film would pair nicely with Alexander Payne’s masterpiece Election, because although Payne’s film is better, they both share a satirical outlook – and both have at their core a seemingly rotten teacher, who by the end you love, loathe and pity – in part because they still don’t understand that they are the architects of their own downfall. To them, everything is till someone else’s fault. 

Classic Movie Review: Daisies (1966)

Daisies (1966) 

Directed by: Vera Chytilová.

Written by: Vera Chytilová & Ester Krumbachová & Pavel Jurácek.

Starring: Jitka Cerhová (Marie I), Ivana Karbanová (Marie II), Julius Albert (Starsí sveták), Jan Klusák (Mladý sveták), Marie Cesková (Zena na toaletách), Jirina Myskova (Toaletárka), Marcela Brezinová (Toaletárka), Oldrich Hora (Sveták).

 

Vera Chytilová’s Daisies is both an angry and playful film – a film about a pair of young women, with no power in society, except when they realize how it is that older men look at them – basically as playthings and objects, and they decide to turn the tables. It is, in many ways, a boldly feminist film – one that pokes at the heart of patriarchal society, and the Communist society that the film was made in – 1966 Czechoslovakia. Of course, it ran into trouble with the censors – they claimed not to have a problem with the content, but rather the wastefulness of the films climatic food fight scene – but that is just a cover.

 

The two women at the center of Daisies – both named Marie – are both young and attractive – and apparently have no ties to anyone other than each other. One is blonde, the other brunette – but in many ways, they are interchangeable – or more accurately, they seem to act as one. They live in a society full of waste and exploitation – and so they use the only tools at their disposal to do the same. Their go-to move is to have the brunette go out to dinner with an older, richer, married man – leading him on to expect sex at the end of the date. Then the blonde shows up, gorges herself on an entire meal, before the women ditch the older man – laughing the whole time. They high doesn’t last long though – and soon, they are repeating the same pattern again and again.

 

I fear that so far, I have made Daisies seem more linear than it is. The film lashes out in different directions and takes digressions – it’s almost all digressions really. Chytilová basically follows her characters wherever she feels like – sets, locations change frequently and without warning. The color scheme will change as well – the film all of a sudden having a red hue for instance. Any hole anywhere may just act as a transport to somewhere else. It’s a kind of weird, version of Alice in Wonderland.

 

The film is undeniably an angry film. Angry that these two young women have no real alternatives to do what they do, and the oppression they face. But it’s also a very playful film – it is a film about large appetites of all kinds, and the films has a lot of fun going over the top in its depictions of consumption – from the massive dinners the blondes gets the older men to buy for her, to the infamous food fight climax of the film – where the pair of women just waste massive quantities of food in an orgy of excess. There’s also a sequence where the girls chow down on a lot of phallic shaped food. Yes, the film is an angry film, but you’ll recognize influences on Monty Python and Austin Powers here as well.

 

And the performances by the two actresses Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová are both terrific. They weren’t professionals actresses – and they keep things light throughout. As angry as the film can be, their performances never are – they playful and goofy, and get the right, surreal tone to the film. They are key for Chytilová’s effect for the movie itself. It is too bad that the film faced trouble with the censors – anything in the Communist bloc would have, and it certainly hurt Chytilová’s career. Daisies remains the most famous film of the short-lived Czech New Wave – a strange, surreal masterwork of world cinema.

Movie Review: The Twentieth Century

The Twentieth Century **** / *****

Directed by: Matthew Rankin.

Written by: Matthew Rankin

Starring: Dan Beirne (Mackenzie King), Sarianne Cormier (Nurse Lapointe), Catherine St-Laurent (Ruby Eliott), Mikhaïl Ahooja (Bert Harper), Brent Skagford (Arthur Meighen), Seán Cullen (Lord Muto), Louis Negin (Mother), Kee Chan (Dr. Milton Wakefield), Trevor Anderson (Mr. Justice Richardson), Emmanuel Schwartz (Lady Violet), Richard Jutras (Father), Satine Scarlett Montaz (Little Charlotte), Charlotte Legault (Angel of Britain), Marc Ducusin (A.A. Heaps).

 

The wonderfully weird The Twentieth Century is about the younger days of William Lyon Mackenzie King, who would go on to become Canada’s longest serving Prime Minister – serving a number of different stints from the 1920s, through to late 1940s. Written and directed by Winnipeg native Matthew Rankin, the film will certainly call to mind Winnipeg’s most famous weird auteur – Guy Maddin – in terms of its style, and its strange take on the subject matter. But the vision here is still unique to Rankin – and somewhat appropriate to the subject matter itself. Mackenzie King is perhaps most famous for his eccentricities – being a mama’s boy, and hold séances with his dead dog. And yet, in general, it is agreed that he was among the most boring of Prime Minister’s – a man lacking in charisma, who didn’t have many personal friends, and never married. So he was a man with a boring surface, masking strange eccentricities – and that is precisely what the film shows.

 

You know that this isn’t going to be a typical political biopic in the films first scene – when a young Mackenzie King, played with open faced innocence by Dan Beirne, goes to Toronto’s Hospital for Defective Children, and visits Little Charlotte – who he tells of his political ambitions, and she cheers him on, even as she is slowly dying and knows it. From there, the film traces his journey to try and become Prime Minister – which here involves various competitions in manliness, liking clubbing baby seals, and will end with a bloody battle royal at a hockey rink. It will trace his strange relationship with his mother – played by Louis Negin – and his two “romantic relationships” – neither of which really go anywhere. Eventually, Mackenzie King will realize his goal – although it does involve getting involved with the Governor General (Sean Cullen) – who in this telling is some sort of all powerful, almost cartoon like, power hungry supervillain.

 

Maddin’s influence on the film is obvious. Like Maddin, Rankin is in love with old movies of the silent era – and he uses the boxy 1:33:1 aspect ratio, the sets that deliberately look like sets, or painted backdrops that tell you precisely what they are – almost like a board game aesthetic – a way to go period without having to spend any money on it. And yet, this isn’t quite Maddin’s world either. It is much more interested in the twin aspects of Canadian identity – the surface obsession with normalcy, politeness, and boring behavior, masking deep seeded perversion that fills one with shame.

 

In many ways, The Twentieth Century is the perfect film to make about William Lyon Mackenzie King – and by extension, Canada as a whole. A straight biopic would be dull – even though he leads Canada through many tumultuous times, and has become regarded as among Canada’s greatest Prime Ministers, if not the best, he was also incredibly boring. You aren’t going to make a film about him like you could about his contemporaries – Truman, Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, etc. And yet all that boring surface, bellies something deeply weird underneath. I remember back in the 1990s, when someone was trying to explain the difference between American indie films, and Canadian films, and said that American indies were about things that appeared strange on the surface, but deep down were very normal – whereas Canadian films appeared normal on the surface, but were deeply strange underneath. I think we’ve moved away from that somewhat in the past few decades in Canadian films – but it certainly explains The Twentieth Century – one of the highlight of English speaking Canadian films in recent memory.

Movie Review: Banana Split

Banana Split *** / *****

Directed by: Benjamin Kasulke.

Written by: Hannah Marks and Joey Power.

Starring: Hannah Marks (April), Liana Liberato (Clara), Dylan Sprouse (Nick), Luke Spencer Roberts (Ben), Meagan Kimberly Smith (Molly), Haley Ramm (Sally), Jessica Hecht (Susan), Addison Riecke (Agnes), Jacob Batalon (Jacob).

 

No one ever really knows how to navigate the summer between high school and college. In many ways, you are still a high school kid- still in your hometown, seeing the same people, working the same jobs, etc. – and this social group still feels like your entire world, with every party being a make or break time, etc. And yet, there is a time limit on it – the clock ticking down before you all go your separate ways, and even if you manage to stay friends through it all, it’s never the same again. You will never again be in that fishbowl. This is the time period Banana Split takes place in.

 

The movie focuses on April (Hannah Marks) – who we see in a rapid fire montage in the opening minutes her entire relationship with Nick (Dylan Sprouse) – which spans the last two years of high school, and runs the gamut from those first lovey dovey looks, to losing your virginity, to fighting constantly, and eventually breaking up. She is going off to college in Boston – far from L.A. where they all live, and this seems to have been the final straw – the death knell of their relationship. They are another set of high school sweethearts who didn’t make it. Except, of course, they still have these two months to get through. And Dylan finds someone very quickly to help him get through them. This is Clara (Liana Liberato) – and soon their relationship is splashed all over social media, making April jealous. And then she finally meets Clara and discovers something even worse – she really likes her. The two become quick best friends – agreeing to not let anyone else, especially Nick. They don’t talk about him much either – it’s tense when they do – so they ignore the elephant in the room for as long as they can anyway.

 

The film was co-written by Marks, who has been working as an actress since she was 12. The two other key roles are also played by former child actors – Liberato who started when she was 10 (and gave a great performance in 2010’s Trust, about a teenage girl lured to a hotel room by an internet predator) and Sprouse, who of course along with his twin brother, was a Disney channel star as a kid. They’re seasoned pros by this point – and seem to relish the chance to play at least somewhat more honest versions of teenagers than we normally see (even if none of them are teenagers anymore). Banana Split has earned some comparisons to last year’s Booksmart (although it was written and made before that film – and sat on a shelf for a while) – and you can see why. It’s another messy look at female friendship – a different kind this time though. The girls in Booksmart had been best friends for years, these two are instant besties, even if they don’t quite know enough about each other. Still, their chemistry together is real – they give the sense that teenage girls always do, that there is some sort of force field around them that keeps the rest of the world out. Both come across as tough, confident and smart – but each are masking a different set of insecurities. Sprouse isn’t given that kind of depth– at least not until near the end – but he has an easy charm about him – so you see why the girls both like him.

 

There isn’t much beyond that to the movie though. There are some decent supporting performances – both Jessica Hecht and Addison Riecke are hilarious as April’s mother and sister respectively, but there isn’t much beyond the jokes there. The films depiction of high school falls between the innocence we often see in say Disney Channel stuff that doesn’t want to acknowledge sex, drugs, drinking, etc. and the hardcore extremes of say Euphoria – meaning they probably get it basically right. It gets that feeling of this being so important, right here, right now, of those weird teenage years as well. It is all so inconsequential though – it will be looked back upon as a hazy memory one day – and it gets that right as well, even if, that ends up meaning that the movie feels even more lightweight than it already is.

Classic Movie Review: Stay Hungry (1976)

Stay Hungry (1976) 

Directed by: Bob Rafelson.

Written by: Charles Gaines and Bob Rafelson based on the novel by Charles Gaines.

Starring: Jeff Bridges (Craig Blake), Sally Field (Mary Tate Farnsworth), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Joe Santo), R.G. Armstrong (Thor Erickson), Robert Englund (Franklin), Helena Kallianiotes (Anita), Roger E. Mosley (Newton), Woodrow Parfrey (Uncle Albert), Scatman Crothers (William), Kathleen Miller (Dorothy Stephens), Fannie Flagg (Amy), Joanna Cassidy (Zoe), Richard Gilliland (Hal), Mayf Nutter (Richard Packman), Ed Begley Jr. (Lester), John David Carson (Halsey), Joe Spinell (Jabo), Clifford A. Pellow (Walter Jr.), Dennis Fimple (Bubba), Garry Goodrow (Moe Zwick), Bart Carpinelli (Laverne), Bob Westmoreland (Fred Kroop), Brandy Wilde (Flower), Laura Hippe (Mae Ruth).

 

Stay Hungry was Bob Rafelson’s third film in a row about a privileged young man adrift – not sure what he wants to do in his life, so he ends up not doing much of anything. The other two films – Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens – had Jack Nicholson in the lead role, and while they were very different performances, they shared a kind of impotent rage to them – in Five Easy Pieces that was directed outwards, in The King of Marvin Gardens, probably more inward. But this time it’s Jeff Bridges in the lead, and his Craig Blake just kind of thinks the whole thing is a joke – he doesn’t take it, or anything, all that seriously. The only child, of wealthy, recently deceased parents, we know he has kind of rejected the family – it took him two weeks to find out about his parent’s death because he was on one of many hunting trips. We hear letters his uncle is sending him, warning him that he is on the path of becoming the newest black sheep of his large, old money Southern family. And Craig just doesn’t seem to care.

 

He's involved in a business deal with some shady characters – they have bought a block of land, save for one building, and are planning are building a massive skyscraper in Birmingham, Alabama. All that is left is for Craig to buy the local gym – run by Thor Erickson (R.G. Armstrong) – an incompetent man in a bad toupee, who thinks that the gym will make him rich – mainly because he has Joe Santo (Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his first major role) training there – and he’s set to become Mr. Universe. Craig arrives to try and buy the gym, and finds he likes Santo – a kind of go-with-the-flow guy, who is nevertheless driven to do what he wants, and has hidden talents and interests. Craig also falls for Mary Tate Farnsworth (Sally Field – who is adorable), a karate instructor at the gym. These are the kind of people of “low-breeding” his uncle warns him about – but Craig enjoys it all. Eventually though, his worlds will collide.

 

To say Stay Hungry is uninterested in its plot would be an understatement. It doesn’t even make all that much sense when you think about it. We’re told, for example, that if Craig double crosses these shady businessmen that they’ll have his legs broken – but all they really do is warn him to stay away from them (and why doesn’t Bridges go through with the deal – and make a ton of money – and just open a gym somewhere else – it’s not the location that is the selling point here). It’s mainly just a way to get people who normally wouldn’t interact with each other to do just that.

 

Stay Hungry is a movie full of diversions and side trips, and interesting smaller characters, all milling about in the background – and Rafelson isn’t afraid to follow them down some strange rabbit holes. Why not have a lengthy sequence where Bridges steals a painting from one of the office buildings his family owns for instance? Or have a bluegrass concert, where Santo shows some skill on the fiddle. Or have Scatman Crothers, as the Blake’s longtime houseman, chew out Craig, and then announce he’ll be back for the suit of armor he was promised? Hell, the end of the movie involves a bunch of bodybuilders running through the streets of Birmingham in their Speedos – apparently to break up a fight, and prevent Thor from stealing their money, and then getting sidetracked and posing for adoring fans.

 

Ultimately, the film rests on the shoulders of the three leads – Bridges, Field and Schwarzenegger – and they are more than capable of carrying it. Yes, you can probably guess what will happen – that Craig will eventually bring Mary Tate around his snooty friends, act like an ass, and have to decide what’s important to him. Schwarzenegger’s function is mainly to guide Craig to these realizations – but he has a charm all his own here, that shows the movie star he would become (he won a Golden Globe for Best Newcomer for the role – the only major award for acting he’d ever win). Bridges isn’t in full on The Dude mode here, but you can see that is where he is headed. And Field is simply delightful as Mary Tate – a role that probably compares to those of Susan Anspach in Five Each Pieces or Julia Anne Robinson in The King of Marvin Gardens – but much more self-assured and confident than either.

 

The film does share some DNA with those other films as well, in that Rafelson has a fairly cynical view of America and the American Dream in those films, and while Stay Hungry is certainly a sunnier movie than either of those – and is the only one of the three where you think the main character may well be okay when the film ends – it still involves him rejecting what he is supposed to do for what he wants to do. The difference between him and the others is that by the end of the film, he actually knows what that is.