Laws of Attraction (2004)

Lawyers are scum.  Divorce lawyers are the fungus growing beneath scum.  So declaims Daniel Rafferty (Pierce Brosnan), the apparently hapless blow-in to the Manhattan Bar Association who has beaten fellow divorce pitbull Audrey Woods (Julianne Moore) in court. And he has never lost a case anywhere he’s ever worked. They appear to be at daggers drawn but really they like each other straight off. She’s a redheaded neurotic addicted to sugar and advice from her well-connected Mom (Frances Fisher) who can get anyone on Page Six. He seems to be shambolic until Audrey realises he’s written a book called For Better For Worse and it’s going down a storm.  When Audrey tries to soften him up in his grimy office above a Chinese supermarket and he’s not there she looks around it for information to use against him and he plays the surveillance footage in the courtroom. Then he gets her drunk on goat’s balls and she wakes up in his bed after their one-night stand … This really isn’t about opposites at all despite their living accommodation – they both play down and dirty when they can and it’s when they take opposing sides in the divorce of a wretched designer (Parker Posey) and her witless rocker hubby (Michael Sheen) and have to tackle their custody battle over a castle in rural Ireland that their own true feelings get expressed maritally. Moore and Brosnan are terrific in a comedy that is extremely well played but not as barbed as it ought to be. When he meets his mother in law for the first time he asks, Are you really 56? And she replies, Parts of me are. We needed more lines like that. The Irish scenes are typically an echo of John Ford (a donnybrook in the pub, almost) with a fake wedding at the village festival after Daniel drinks way too much poteen but the usual paddywackery is thankfully not as lethal as in Leap Year, that Amy Adams effort. In fact there’s depth to both principal characterisations, with the only weird note struck by Sheen – until you check yourself and remember this was the era of The Strokes and The Libertines and you realise his choices are probably spot on:  rock stars are really that awful. Meanwhile information lying about the marital home comes in useful in the mother of all celebrity divorces and Nora Dunn is fantastic as the judge adjudicating the legal duels. Almost a winner, with Brosnan exhibiting exactly why he should still be James Bond (in a film he executive produced). Am I wrong?! He and Moore could have been like Tracy and Hepburn  in this story of professional one-upmanship if it had been handled better but they really spark anyhow. Somewhat casually written by Aline Brosh McKenna, Robert Harling and Karey Kirkpatrick and directed by Peter Howitt.

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Starman (1984)

You’re not from round here, are you? I hate to think how long it’s been since I first saw this. C’est la vie, une longue fleuve tranquille! Two of the most charming actors imaginable, Karen Allen and Jeff Bridges, run the gauntlet of officialdom led by the kindly Charles Martin Smith and bad cop Richard Jaeckel when he crashlands on Earth (Wisconsin, to be precise) and mutates into her late husband.  He has three days to meet up with his spaceship in Arizona or stay grounded forever …  Director John Carpenter lends his considerable heft to the mise en scene of one of the gentlest alien films while the transformation scenes are created by the great Rick Baker, Stan Winston and Dick Smith.  It’s blessed by beautifully considered performances in the best meet cute ever. The scenes in Vegas are great fun. Written by Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon with an uncredited rewrite by Dean Riesner, the soundtrack is composed by the estimable Jack Nitzche. Lovely!

Jaws (1975)

Ibsen by way of a Peter Benchley bestseller and an adventurous and gifted director called Steven Spielberg. I got caught up in this again late last night and was gripped, as ever, by this visceral tale of beachside terror which hasn’t aged a day and in many respects remains my favourite Spielberg movie. There is so much to relish. The atmosphere, aided immeasurably by John Williams’ stunningly suggestive score – which was the soundtrack in the bathroom of the late lamented Museum of the Moving Image in London – utterly terrifying!. The performances:  who doesn’t love Richard Dreyfuss as the marine biologist? Roy Scheider as the seaside town police chief who’s scarified of water? Robert Shaw as the drunken shark hunting Captain Quint? And those hellishly cute kids. And what about the titles sequence? There’s the politics of the summer season and the mayor who doesn’t want word to get out. The anger of the bereaved mother. The bloodied water and beach toys. The track-zoom of realisation. The clear storytelling. White sharks got a bad press out of this epic battle but there has rarely been a better exploration of the ecology of man and beast. Quite literally sensational. Classic, brilliant, the original of the species. Written by Benchley and Carl Gottlieb, with a little assist from Spielberg, Howard Sackler, Matthew Robbins and Hal Barwood, and John Milius.

A Good Year (2006)

Ridley Scott wanted to make something light and local near his home in the South of France and someone suggested he adapt a Peter Mayle book. Instead they met up and had a chat and developed a story which became a different sort of film for Scott (and a somewhat altered version of the story in the subsequent novel by Mayle) with Russell Crowe as Max Skinner the uptight London City broker inheriting his uncle’s estate which he hasn’t been back to in ten years – despite having been brought up there. He falls for a local restaurateur (Marion Cotillard) and tries to sell up with the incursion of his uncle’s illegitimate daughter (Abbie Cornish) throwing an ownership spanner in the works, especially since she’s an oenologist. There’s mischief afoot back at work, a subplot about the vines and wine appellation with local Francois (Didier Bourdon), and flashbacks to Max’s childhood (he’s played by Freddie Highmore) with Uncle Henry (Albert Finney) and none of the stories really work in tandem with odd shifts in tone, but it looks beautiful and the women are great. Crowe would be much better served with a humorous role in The Nice Guys. Written by Marc Klein.

Sideways (2004)

Pinot’s a very thin-skinned grape, it doesn’t like light or humidity. Miles (Paul Giamatti) is a wine-loving high school English teacher and wannabe author whose best friend actor Jack (Thomas Haden Church) is getting married next Saturday:  road trip! To California wine country, where he can educate Jack in the mysteries of tasting. Two middle aged men on an emotional journey, one a depressive mourning his marriage, the other a past-it who can’t wait to get it up. Maya (Virginia Madsen) is the college professor’s wife waiting tables who has the best palate for wine of any woman Miles has ever met and Jack fancies her smartass friend and single mom Stephanie (Sandra Oh). There ensue some funny sexcapades (Jack), sad drunk dials (Miles), terror on the golf course and major education in oenology:  sometimes all it takes is the feel of a bunch of grapes in the hand to get the mojo going and a bottle of wine can bring anyone back to life. The marvellous Maya turns out to be the woman who coaxes Miles to his truest expression. Funny, louche, and humane with killer lines and tone-perfect performances from all concerned. Beautifully written, staged and shot, this is the comical male midlife response to Thelma and Louise, minus the violence and police. Mature, full-bodied and earthy, it simply gets better every year. From Rex Pickett’s unpublished novel, adapted by Jim Taylor and director Alexander Payne. Savour it.

Collateral (2004)

Michael Mann took digital to a new level with this limpid portrait of nighttime LA in a story of taxi driver Max (Jamie Foxx) whose latest ride is hitman Vincent (Tom Cruise) carrying out a clutch of killings. His last mark is a prosecutor (Jada Pinkett Smith) whom the driver gave a ride and wants to save. Stylish, lean and beautifully written by Stuart Beattie, this is a perfect mesh of star performance and genre, heading for a climax almost out of Jean-Pierre Melville with two contrasting characters struggling with the fallout from their occupations. Made with care, this is a pretty perfect film.

Drive, He Said (1971)

Jack Nicholson had been busy in one of the leading roles for Bob Rafaelson in Five Easy Pieces so it was 1970 before he could begin shooting on his directing debut. He had already written a number of screenplays but he was over-committed at the time he wanted to make this. He was starring in Carnal Knowledge for director Mike Nichols so he began Drive… without a complete script.  Jeremy Larner adapted his own book but Nicholson wasn’t happy with it and had begun writing a second draft himself.  He brought in Robert Towne to complete his vision on set, with the added bonus of an acting role for his screenwriter friend – that of a cuckolded, broad-minded professor. Reclusive screenwriter and director Terrence Malick also did a rewrite – prior to making Badlands (1973). The film was completed on time for Nicholson to report to the East Coast for Mike Nichols.  He edited Drive… on weekends and downtime from shooting Carnal Knowledge.  Drive… is an exposé of Sixties left-liberal attitudes, set on a campus infected with radicals  and replete with ready-made mythological references which must have appealed to Robert Towne:  a leading character called Hector  (who of course  as the eldest son of the king, led the Trojans in their war against the Greeks,  fought in single combat with Achilles and stormed the wall of the camp and set it alight). And, as if we don’t ‘get it,’ Hector’s major is Greek. The radical elements were complete with the casting in the lead role of William Tepper – a dead ringer for producer Bert Schneider, whose famously radical approach to production would lead Hollywood out of the old-style studio system but would embalm him in the mid-Seventies forever. There is a romantic element that interferes with male friendship: Gabriel is the guerrilla, played by Michael Margotta. Hector is besotted with Karen Black, married to Towne’s professor in the film. Her name, Olive, signifies her role as peace-maker in the narrative.  Gabriel runs away to escape the draft.  Hector is the warrior in love – he is in touch with nature (his surname, is, after all, Bloom.) He communes with the trees in the forest, stays in a log cabin and is generally at one with everything that is not ‘the Man.’ The film was entered in Cannes and Nicholson’s efforts were the subject of scorn.  It opened in New York on 13 June 1971 where it got mixed reviews.  BBS apparently offered more money to promote it but were deflected by Nicholson himself, who was depressed at the critical reception. But its lyricism, message and sub-Godardian construction have held up considerably better than Nicholson himself believed and its countercultural theme still produces a striking effect.The film is structured around Hector’s basketball games – the opening titles are underlined in a stunning sequence by the use of cult musician Moondog’s music – later paid homage by the Coen Brothers in The Big Leboswki (1998). The filming style in slow motion corresponds with much of Visions of Eight (1973), which would itself be an influence on Towne’s own film style in his directing debut, Personal Best. For more on Nicholson’s work with Towne, you can read my book ChinaTowne:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/ChinaTowne-Elaine-Lennon-ebook/dp/B01KCL3YXQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490221804&sr=8-1&keywords=elaine+lennon

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The Naked Jungle (1954)

I’ll go a long way to see an ant movie but this is only worth it if you’re feeling in the mood for a masochistic melodrama with a two-mile-wide by twenty-mile-long column of bugs at the tail end. Eleanor Parker is the proxy mail order bride who fetches up on Charlton Heston’s South American cocoa plantation at the turn of the century but he doesn’t much like her and takes agin her when he realises she’s a widow. He hasn’t really been there or done that way out in the Amazon jungle so she has him at something of a disadvantage. Some torrid and rather suggestive arguments lead him to send her back to N’Oleans but their gallop upriver is halted by the insects, he greases up to burn them out and she sleeps through the worst of it. Golly, they sure don’t make them like this any more! Based on a story by Carl Stephenson this was adapted by Ranald MacDougall and blacklistees Ben Maddow and Philip Yordan, directed by Byron Haskin and produced by George Pal. This was released March 3rd 1954 so it’s practically an anniversary screening. Personally I prefer Them! and Phase IV. Oh my heaving bosom!

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Hitchcock returned to the scene of his first international success, radically altered it, and put two of the industry’s biggest stars at its centre, doctor James Stewart (the Everyman of American cinema) and singer Doris Day, who gets to trill Que Sera, Sera to their young son, Christopher Olsen, who will be kidnapped. The VistaVision Technicolor action is transferred from Switzerland to Morocco (where Day was shocked by the state of animal health) and the juxtaposition with the film’s later scenes in London is well achieved. Uniquely among the master’s films this is almost entirely predicated on the notion of pure suspense, augmented by Bernard Herrmann’s innovative scoring and concluding of course in a famous concert sequence. Featuring those two chaps Ambrose Chappell and Albert Hall, this was adapted from the original (Charles Bennett and DB Wyndham Lewis) by Hitch’s regular Fifties collaborator John Michael Hayes, with an uncredited assist from Angus MacPhail, the man who had dreamed up the term MacGuffin for the meaningless Hitchcockian plot lure. Beautifully shot by Robert Burks and edited by George Tomasini, there is a nice opportunity to watch French actor Daniel Gelin at work – he was the father of the late Maria Schneider, whom he never acknowledged. And the improvised scene with the food is great!

The Hurricane (1937)

Gorgeous, classic entertainment directed by John Ford with an uncredited assist from Stuart Heisler, this is the only adaptation of the Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall novel worth watching. They also wrote Mutiny on the Bounty so you know you’re in good hands. Raymond Massey is the martinet of a French governor whose wife Mary Astor is newly arrived in the Polynesian paradise. Jon Hall [nephew of the novelist] is native Terangi, pursued to prison for an unintentional killing. He escapes, leaving his pregnant wife Dorothy Lamour and spends a long time struggling to survive at sea. He’s eventually rescued by the island’s priest C. Aubrey Smith and then there is an incredible natural disaster with effects that hold up to this day. The tragic story is recounted by Dr Thomas Mitchell on a ship to a fellow passenger …  Jon Hall became something of a cult item for his male pulchritude on frequent display with Maria Montez but this is a proper, kinetic actioner, with a great sense of character in a fast-moving, terrific adapation by Oliver H.P. Garrett which was then written for the screen by Dudley Nichols. Wonderful cinematography by Bert Glennon and a stunning score by Alfred Newman. And those effects! Fabulous.