The Grouchy Editor

“Quirky” is a style that can be tough to pull off.  When a filmmaker sets the right tone, the result can be delightful.  Ghost World got it right.  So did Wonder Boys – it had a story to tell, but what lingers are its off-the-wall attitude and images:  Michael Douglas in a ratty bathrobe, stoned out of his skull; a dead dog in a trunk; a police car rolling down a hill.

The Royal Tenenbaums aims for quirky, and it’s certainly packed with offbeat characters, but with one notable exception, it falls flat.  That exception will come as no surprise.  The venerable Gene Hackman, as family patriarch Royal Tenenbaum, is as usual a joy to behold.  Hackman’s aging father, befuddled and estranged from his brilliant-but-odd New York family, might (or might not) have cancer and a short time to live.  Having squandered his fortune and happy home life, Royal decides to attempt a family reconciliation.

This is where Tenenbaums misses the mark.  Although the Tenenbaum children are certainly eccentric, there is nothing remotely sympathetic about them.  Gwyneth Paltrow, as adopted “rebel” and erstwhile dramatist Margot, and Luke Wilson, as her ex-jock brother Richie, are presented as star-crossed lovers.  But the two of them sleepwalk through the movie in a morose condition straight out of Night of the Living Dead.  It would seem more of a kindness to drive a stake through their aching hearts than to place rings on their fingers.

Ben Stiller plays what – unfortunately for him – Ben Stiller plays extremely well: annoying.  His Chas Tenenbaum is a widower with two young boys and a gigantic chip on his shoulder.  If I were his estranged father, I would take one look at this obnoxious offspring and bolt for warmer climes.  Chas’s transformation at the end of the movie is utterly unconvincing – in fact, Tenenbaums’s entire happy ending is absurd.

There is lovably eccentric, and then there is irritatingly eccentric.  Offbeat is not always funny, and the road not taken does not always lead to wisdom.  Tenenbaums is a near miss in the realm of quirky, but a miss it certainly is.          Grade:  C-

Director:  Wes Anderson  Cast:  Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, Danny Glover, Seymour Cassel, Kumar Pallana  Release:  2001

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I don’t know a thing about director David Lynch’s personal history.  I haven’t read any Lynch biographies, and am not even sure where he hails from (although I have a vague recollection that it might be Montana).  But after watching his films, I get the impression that young Mr. Lynch was raised prim and proper, a good little Protestant boy who on one fateful day wandered across to the wrong side of the railroad tracks – and was subjected to one massive dose of weird.

I speculate about that because filmmaker Lynch is famously obsessed with the macabre, the odd, and the surreal, and Blue Velvet is a prime example.  Essentially a Hitchcockian spin on a Hardy Boys story, Blue Velvet follows young Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), a college student who on one sunny afternoon discovers a severed human ear in a vacant field and decides to conduct his own investigation.  As the story progresses, Jeffrey learns that it is a strange world, indeed.  But whereas Hitchcock used humor to break tension, Lynch opts for bizarre interludes.  There is one scene near the midpoint in which – completely out of the blue – a gay man croons Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” to a rapt, crazed Dennis Hopper.  The scene still has me shaking my head.  What on earth has it to do with the plot — or anything whatsoever?

But it wouldn’t be a Lynch film without such scenes.  Sociopathic Frank Booth (Hopper) and pals are unfathomable to Jeffrey and to us, and yet Lynch makes them feel very real.  Isn’t that a great recipe for what’s truly frightening in life?

Jeffrey learns that there are two sides to everything.  “I’m seeing something that was always hidden,” he tells his girlfriend Sandy.  The small town he calls home is a bucolic Mayberry in daytime – and a dangerous haven for joyriding thugs at night.  Jeffrey has a virginal, sweet-faced blonde (Laura Dern) to woo at a Norman Rockwell soda shop – and a rough-sex-loving lounge singer (Isabella Rossellini) to corrupt him in bed.  There are red robins, blue velvet, and a “Yellow Man.”  There is weirdness galore, or, as Sandy and Jeffrey repeatedly tell each other, “a strange world.”

All of which makes me wonder again:  What in the world did young David Lynch stumble into when he crossed those railroad tracks?        Grade:  B+

Director:  David Lynch  Cast:  Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern, Hope Lange, Dean Stockwell, George Dickerson, Priscilla Pointer, Frances Bay, Jack Harvey  Release:  1986

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Bob Dole, that cantankerous old coot from Kansas, made news during the 1996 presidential campaign when he attacked a relatively obscure British movie called Trainspotting.  According to Wikipedia, “U.S. Senator Bob Dole accused it of moral depravity and glorifying drug use … although he later admitted that he had not actually seen the film.”

Dole lost the 1996 election, but he made a good point.  I give Trainspotting an above-average grade because the movie is inventive, rollicking entertainment – but it does glorify heroin users.  My complaint (and Dole’s) is nothing new; critics carped in the 1960s about Butch and Sundance, and Bonnie and Clyde, for their alleged bad influence on youthful moviegoers. 

But whining about “sinful” cinema is a lost cause.  The truth of the matter is that if you put a clump of putrid dog vomit on the big screen, someone, somewhere, will spearhead a cult following for said dog vomit.  There is an audience for just about anything.  (Incidentally, I am not comparing Trainspotting to dog vomit.)

Danny Boyle’s gritty depiction of Scottish drug addicts does have tragic moments, but they are glossed over as Boyle moves on to other concerns:  a frantic pace, clever dialogue and – above all – a desire to amuse his audience.  As druggie Renton says in the film, “People think it’s [drug abuse] all about misery and desperation and death … but what they forget is the pleasure of it.  Otherwise we wouldn’t do it.”

Trainspotting is all about pleasing oneself.  For every dead baby scene, there is a hilarious bit about “the worst toilet in Scotland,” or the perils of pummeling a dog’s posterior with a pellet gun.  Bob Dole was correct:  the movie does glorify drug use. But it is also glorious fun.      Grade:  B

Director:  Danny Boyle  Cast:  Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Macdonald, Peter Mullan, James Cosmo, Pauline Lynch, Shirley Henderson  Release:  1996

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Random scrawls on the wall (with a can of spray paint) about an American classic:

• Ron Howard made the best decision ever by an actor when he moved from in front of the camera to the back.  Howard was, frankly, a dreadful actor.  Young Ronnie Howard got by on TV’s The Andy Griffith Show because he was such a cute little kid.  Older Ron got by, again, on Happy Days because Richie Cunningham was a stiff, awkward young character played by a stiff, awkward young actor.  American Graffiti, in many ways a delightful showcase for actors, grinds to a screeching halt every time Howard’s character, Steve, is the focus.  Worst scene:  Near the end of the film, Steve glances at his wristwatch and says to Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), “Where are you going?  It’s awfully early in the morning.”  If that reads bad, wait until you hear Howard say it.

• Other than Howard, the actors shine in this film.  This is odd, because this is a George Lucas film, and the soft-spoken filmmaker is not considered an “actor’s director.”  Said Harrison Ford, who got his big break in Graffiti:  “George is not overly fond of the actual shooting part of filmmaking.”  Lucas was more at home in the editing room or creating special effects.  But in 1973 he paid attention to the characters in his movie and the result was magical.  I think American Graffiti is his best film, and yes, that includes the overblown Star Wars flicks.

• I have mixed feelings about the use of nonstop period music in the film.  Lucas’s decision to do this was so successful that it influenced scores of movies to come — especially those set in the ’50s or ’60s.  Thanks to this rock-and-roll overkill, there was a time when I never again wanted to hear Buddy Holly.  Or The Platters.  Or The Flamingos, et al.

• This excerpt is from a 2001 review of American Graffiti on a Web site called thedigitalfix:  “Maybe it’s because we’re British, or maybe it’s because the film has lost most of its charm over the years, but either way, American Graffiti isn’t as good as the praise that has been heaped on it.”

Well, maybe it’s because I’m American, and maybe it’s because I was once an anxiety-riddled, naïve teenager cruising the streets of a small American town, but the film has lost none of its charm for me.  Lucas has called his first hit movie “uniquely American,” and I suppose that’s true — but only to an extent.  It’s a universal story because all of us were teenagers, but it’s American because it does such a wonderful job depicting a specific place and a specific time.      Grade:  A

Director:  George Lucas  Cast:  Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, Wolfman Jack, Bo Hopkins, Harrison Ford  Release:  1973

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Why am I not in love with this film?

Whenever critics compile their lists of great movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age, John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is among the honored.  Yet to me, the film seems to be … missing something.  This, well, “deficiency” prevents Huston’s adventure tale from being as emotionally satisfying as other classics from the 1930s-1940s.

The movie certainly has an impressive pedigree.  Some people think it’s Huston’s best work, and this is the same writer-director who gave us The Maltese Falcon, Key Largo, and The African Queen.  You can find critics who believe the late, great Humphrey Bogart delivered his best performance in this film.  When I asked my own father to name his favorite movie, he cited this one.  So why don’t I like it more?  Again, something … isn’t there.

For the uninitiated, Treasure tells the story of three down-on-their-luck American expatriates in 1920s Mexico. They team up to prospect for gold, and during their pursuit must battle bandits, the elements, and their own self-interests.  There is lots of action, and everyone who sees the film agrees that Bogart and especially Walter Huston (John’s Oscar-rewarded father) are superb.

Huston’s script has the universal themes of greed, loyalty, and honor that one might expect from a classic.  The movie was mostly shot on location in Mexico, a rarity in 1947, which adds immeasurably to its authenticity.

So once again, why on earth am I so unmoved by this beloved movie?  Two reasons, I think:  Despite the bravura performances by Bogart and Huston, their characters aren’t particularly likable.  I didn’t care if any of them got rich.

And I finally figured out what was missing from the film:  women.      Grade:  B

Director:  John Huston  Cast:  Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett, Barton MacLane, Alfonso Bedoya, Robert Blake  Release:  1948

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