The Grouchy Editor

Pity the poor Baby Boomers.  … OK, OK, so screw the Boomers.  Boomers, as they never tire of reminding us, gave us the civil rights movement and The Beatles.  Of course, they also gave us skyrocketing divorce rates and the breakup of the American family, but hey, let’s not talk about that.

Every generation has its own movie stars, and none is more emblematic of the Boomer than Michael Douglas.  Little Boomers once sprawled on their parents’ living-room floors and watched young Douglas on TV as Steve Keller, solving crime on The Streets of San Francisco.  Later, Boomers moved out of the house and discovered fun and adventure with Douglas in Romancing the Stone.  But the Boomers and Kirk Douglas’s boy also had a serious side.  They took on environmental issues with The China Syndrome and confronted divorce in The War of the Roses.  Alas, in the 1980s, Boomers tired of their endless good deeds, and Douglas’s Gordon Gekko taught everyone that “greed is good” in Wall Street.

So now, as the golden years approach, what does the iconic Douglas have to say in Solitary Man?  Nothing very good.  Apparently, you can “have it all” – just not all at once.  Ben Kalmen (Douglas) is an auto dealer, pushing 60 and finding his life on the skids.  Kalmen’s health is declining, his business is ruined by scandal, and chasing tail isn’t as easy as it once was.  He has managed to alienate his own family in his relentless pursuit of the fountain of youth.  But you’re only as old as you feel, right Ben?

The final shot in Solitary Man is pure gold.  Kalmen must make a choice between something solid and reassuring, or something more in keeping with the Boomer mantras of free love and self-expression.  Which one should he choose?  Don’t ask me.  I’m a Boomer, myself, so how would I know?         Grade:  A-

Directors:  Brian Koppelman, David Levien  Cast:  Michael Douglas, Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Mary-Louise Parker, Jenna Fischer, Imogen Poots, Jesse Eisenberg, Olivia Thirlby, Richard Schiff, Anastasia Griffith  Release:  2010

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I’ll bet The Book of Eli looked great on paper.  In some Hollywood conference room, the movie’s sales pitch might have gone something like this:  “Post-apocalyptic – but with a serious theme (we’ve included the King James Bible!).  We’ve got Denzel on board; he’s going to produce, as well.  And the picture will look great – special effects galore!  As for plot, well, we’ve borrowed some stuff from Ray Bradbury’s story, Fahrenheit 451, so we’re not too concerned about that, and audiences love twist endings.  Boy, have we got a twist ending!”

The Book of Eli is certainly stylish, and it really does look great.  Its barren, desert landscapes resemble a montage of the coolest-looking album covers you can imagine.  And Denzel Washington is suitably somber, doing his best “man with no name,” Clint Eastwood-channeling.  Gary Oldman is, as always, eminently watchable as the movie’s villain, a cackling madman who decides that the Bible is all he needs to expand his post-nuclear slice of America.

It is The Book of Eli’s misfortune that it opened so close to the premiere of a much superior after-the-bomb movie, The Road.  I guess the cinematography and art direction are grander in Eli than in Road, and a bit more “happens,” plot-wise, in Denzel’s movie.  But all of Washington’s glum stares, ominous growls, and a somber, strings-heavy soundtrack can’t overcome the pretentious, derivative story, shallow characters, and preposterous twist ending.         Grade:  C+

Directors:  Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes  Cast:  Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis, Ray Stevenson, Jennifer Beals, Michael Gambon, Tom Waits, Malcolm McDowell  Release:  2010

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Want to know what makes comedienne Joan Rivers tick?  Curious if Rivers believes in God or in an afterlife?  What drives this woman, now 77, wealthy and secure, to still play rundown nightclubs in the Bronx and backwater venues in Wisconsin?

Surprise!  You won’t find the answers to any of those questions in Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, the new documentary covering one year in the workaholic comic’s life.  You also won’t laugh very much during the film.  There are occasional clips of Rivers performing on stage — and then you’ll probably laugh (I did) — but this movie is not a concert film, and it’s not a very detailed biography, either.

What Joan Rivers is, however, is a riveting look at Rivers right now.   Conventional wisdom declares that people either love her or hate her, but to this reviewer, sitting here entrenched in “the end of the world” (Rivers’s conception of the Midwest, in her view anywhere outside of New York and L.A.), Rivers is not so black or white.  She is more like an odd lab specimen.  She defies every grandmother stereotype, whether she’s competing with daughter Melissa on The Celebrity Apprentice, joking about anal sex on stage, or yelling back at the heckling father of a deaf child, calling the man a bastard.

There are surprises about this show-business legend.  Rivers first and foremost considers herself an actress – not a comedienne, which she considers just another acting role.  She lives in an apartment she deems worthy of Marie Antoinette, yet she also delivers meals to the disabled on Thanksgiving.  She allows the documentarians to film unflattering footage of her surgically enhanced face, decries deceased husband Edgar as a poor businessman, and doesn’t hesitate to name names in a roll call of comics she does or does not favor (Maher, Stewart, and Rickles get passing grades;  Ben Stiller, not so much).

Above all, Rivers is ceaselessly entertaining.  The movie is amusing because with Rivers there is no alternative.  The filmmakers could have placed a camera on a tripod in her living room and left town for a week, and I’m sure whenever Rivers was in view, the result would be hilarious.

We are told that Rivers, like all comedians, is a “damaged” soul in need of constant audience approval.  We read Entertainment Weekly, so we already knew that.  But what caused Rivers’s psychic trauma?  I still don’t have a clue, and that’s my only complaint about this fascinating documentary.          Grade:  B+

Directors:  Ricki Stern, Anne Sundberg  Featuring:  Joan Rivers, Melissa Rivers, Kathy Griffin, Emily Kosloski, Mark Anderson Phillips, Larry A. Thompson, Don Rickles  Release:  2010

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