Not unfamiliar

We were about 20 minutes into Love Lies Bleeding, when I realized: "Oh. This is True Romance." The latter is a Quentin Tarantino scripted and Tony Scott directed film about two lovers in the midst of darker circumstances than either really wants to engage in, who end up being forced to engage and fight their way out. In the latter film, it's Christian Slater, playing a nerdy comic book store employee, and Patricia Arquette, playing a vagabond turning tricks to try to make it somewhere. In Love Lies Bleeding, it's gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) and bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O'Brian) who fall together, pursuing or avoiding their own dreams and then get wrapped up in a scenario that is way beyond what either expected and, of course, have to fight their way out. The one slight difference is the inclusion of some degree of phantasmagoria, which reminded Tricia of Natural Born Killers, which is another good reference to the type and style of film that this is, including the preponderance of gore and the willingness to show sex as the human thing that it is, rather than the Hollywood style that it's often glossed with. But having said all of that largely positive stuff, the obvious rejoinder is that the whole package isn't exactly original, either, other than the central couple of the story being two women, as opposed to the hetero pairings of the other two films.

That's not to say that it was a bad film, because it wasn't. It was pretty entertaining, all things considered, even if the screenplay trended toward shock value more than story depth. But it was the entertainingly familiar, rather than something that grabbed you by the brain and said: "This is new. Pay attention." It's set in the late 90s, as we hear radio announcements about the fall of the Berlin Wall, which seems like a rather arbitrary time period, at first, but later becomes more apparent when the question of readily available steroids becomes a part of the story. I wonder sometimes, as well, if films get set in the recent past to avoid the complication of cell phones and the instant communication that they now provide, which is a good way to blow holes in your story of tension and mystery that would otherwise be sapped by someone picking up their phone and using GPS. (This reminds me of one of my favorite perspectives on William Gibson's Neuromancer, the novel that invented the concept of cyberspace, and how he was able to imagine a world run entirely on an interactive cyber network 50 years from now, complete with self-aware AI, but people were still using pay phones...)

As with many films in this situation, the performances are what carry it. Both Stewart and O'Brian play characters that are human, in that they display poor judgment, rampant emotion, and a predilection for decisions made by passion, rather than reason. Similarly, Ed Harris is great as Lou's shady father, Lou Sr. But the characters themselves give the whiff of being stock-obvious. Jackie is a bodybuilder looking for fame from bog-standard Oklahoma, rather than somewhere more unusual, like a Jersey suburb. Lou Sr. has a fascination with beetles, which serves as nothing other than a detail before a shocking moment right near the end. It doesn't form any part of the character other than as a distraction. Contrast this with Ted Levine's Jame Gumb is Silence of the Lambs, who was fascinated by moths (specifically, Death's-head hawkmoths) because of their inherent transformation from larva to moth, as he was attempting in his transition from male to female. That attraction to bugs reflected the essential nature of the character, whereas in this film, it's just something for the audience to ogle at ("The bug guy?" "Yeah, the bug guy.") Similarly, Lou is the frustrated person who detests both of her parents and doesn't talk about them with anyone if she can help it, but the story eventually pries her story out of her. This is where the screenplay might have let down the talent of the actors involved and the film as as a whole.

The final scene, which involves the aforementioned phantasmagoria, is somewhere between amusing and eyebrow-arching. Yes, we weren't really sure whether our "heroines" would survive or not and that's always good in terms of a story, but when it arcs into the fantastical, we kind of lose the emotion behind their otherwise very real and expected circumstances that led them to this point. You could say that the end of the film is where we arc into romance novel territory, which is a complete departure from Jackie and Lou's relationship to that point (including the sex scenes) and which is commendable, IMO, as far as writing goes, just to throw the audience for a second and get them to sit up and pay attention. But the ending moments can also be seen as maudlin, even if hilarious, and that's when I circle back to questioning why this screenplay seems like so many that have come before it, rather than branching out into its own approach that would make this film stand alone as its own production. So, yeah, worth a watch, but not compelling.

Been there, Dune that

As noted when Part One came out, two-and-a-half years ago, Denis Villeneuve's style and attention to theme and mood shines through in most of his productions and Dune: Part Two is no different. The visual splendor and Hans Zimmer's excellent score are the high points in this second half the same way they were in the first. And in terms of story structure and trying to encompass all of Frank Herbert's highly-developed universe, this film has the same flaws, in that the actual practical application of the spice and the enormous presence of the Spacing Guild are both absent from what was originally a highly political tale. But in this part of the overall picture, I think that that lack emphasizes a problem with the way the story is being received by many.

Dune is a story about religious fanaticism and how seemingly positive changes at one point can have distinctly negative consequences down the line. (Anyone thinking of the supposed Chinese proverb about the horse and the old man can give themselves a gold star.) That fanaticism takes many forms, from the Bene Gesserit adherence to their plan of breeding the ultimate human to the Fremen prophecies of the Lisan-al-Gaib who will lead them to paradise. Herbert rooted his story in many of the traditions of the Middle East and its most prominent religion, Islam, which itself is derived from the other two prominent religions of that region: Judaism and Christianity. That was intentional because one of the primary messages of the novel is that extremism is bad and can lead to unintended consequences. The Bene Gesserit not realizing that their perfect human might not be under their control when all is said and done is one of them. But the other is that when Paul, the nominal "hero" of the story, finally defeats the Harkonnens and the Emperor of the Known Universe, the immediate result of that is a crusade by the Fremen to deliver the message that the mahdi (literally "savior" in Arabic) has come and all worlds must bow to him as the Fremen do. (The irony of a group known as the Fremen (i.e. "free men") slavishly devoted to the whims of one man in the name of freedom and/or paradise is perfectly placed here.)

But that message is apparently too subtle for some, since people are coming away from the film with the idea that Paul is a hero (something that the novel almost directly states is the wrong thing and which Herbert wrote three more books to reinforce, as many had that problem with the novel, as well) or that the real message is about outsider Europeans exploiting a non-European culture for their own ends. That latter part does have some play, but it's not anything like what most should be walking out of the theater with foremost on their minds. And I think part of the reason for that, alongside the tendencies of many to look at stories purely from a "good guy/bad guy" perspective, is that, again, the practical elements of the Dune universe in this version are almost completely ignored in favor of the spiritual elements. Granted, that, too, is Villeneuve's style. His stories (such as Prisoners and Arrival) almost always contain a heavy dose of the spiritual, either central to the plot (as in the former) or driving its interpretation (as in the latter.) Dune has both, which might have made him an ideal storyteller for the cinematic version of it, but which also means that things like the Guild and the Mentats are left by the wayside, leaving solely the spiritual elements like the Bene Gesserit and the Fremen at center stage, which then possibly delivers a message which is actually counter to the one Herbert wanted to bring. One thing to keep in mind is that the structure of the novel is mostly about people standing around (or sitting, as in the excessively long dinner scene) and talking. There's nothing wrong with that. Isaac Asimov built an entire oeuvre on people talking about historiography and robot ethics and those are often really good stories. But they're also really difficult to translate to other media. 

Visually, just like with Part One, it's resplendent. There's a long sequence on Giedi Prime where we're introduced to Feyd-Rautha (an excellent Austin Butler) in which the "black sun" of Giedi Prime bathes everything in black-and-white until we step out of the sunlight and things like skin tones reemerge. The celebratory fireworks in that kind of sunlight resemble globs of ink hitting a windshield. Just as with Lynch's film, the most interesting visual touches almost always orbit around the Harkonnens. But the sandworms are also kept offscreen sufficiently to still elicit real menace when one of them bursts forth from the ground and the Fremen culture has a much more "lived in" feeling and, undeniably, a much more Bedouin feeling, as well. But the spice harvesters and gunships and other elements of heavy technology are also much more visually developed than in earlier attempts at the story. One element of this film that completely failed for me, however, was Christopher Walken. Not only did he not fit my image of the head of House Corrino, but he's been so typecast by memes and earlier performances that when his face appeared onscreen for the first time, I immediately muttered: "More cowbell." The part written for him was also way below his ability to deliver an impact, as it mostly required him to be looking pensive, whether someone was delivering bad news or Paul was threatening to exterminate his line. There just wasn't much of a part to be had, so Classic Line (or at least look) Walken was never going to have the room to operate, which means this was basically just part of the film's marketing, rather than giving real substance to the role. In the broad view, that's OK, since the emperor was mostly a stand-in in the novel, as well, but it still feels like an opportunity missed.

As with so many things we've seen recently, it's not a bad film and definitely worth seeing in the theater for the greater impact of both sound and screen. But just like I said with Part One, I've never been a Dune devotee (even if I do LOVE the board game) so anyone trying probably has a steeper hill to climb with me than most other viewers. This is the modern version of Star Wars for a new generation, but one thing to remember is that that film wasn't very good, either, once you looked past the visuals.

The line between a biopic and a documentary

I heard the story of Sir Nicholas Winton when it was contemporary, in the late 80s. News emerged that a man who had rescued dozens of Jewish children during World War II had been surprised by a British talk show when it turned out that the rest of the studio audience were, in fact, many of those children. It was a nice story and certainly one that went a long way toward looking at one of the "average" heroes of that time, such as Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat to Lithuania who also facilitated the flight of thousands of Polish Jews from the area, and Jan Swartendijk, who did the same as a functionary of the Dutch government-in-exile. The difference with Winton is that the latter volunteered to go to Czechoslovakia (he was then working as a stock broker) in order to assist the Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia in performing their mission of getting as many people out of the soon-to-be-conquered state as was possible before Nazi Germany took full control. The retelling of those events and how the 1980s version of Winton (played by Sir Anthony Hopkins; reportedly at the Winton family's request when they discovered that a film was being made about Nicholas) dealt with the aftereffects and the later discovery by the wider public of his actions is the bulk of the film called One Life.

The intent of the producers (Joanna Laurie, Guy Heeley, Iain Canning, and Emile Sherman; the latter two most notable for having produced The King's Speech) was probably to bring Winton's story to a much wider audience, now 35 years past the time it was first widely revealed. In that respect, there's not a lot of elbow room for presenting that story, since they'd want to stick to what is already known and which has a fair amount of tension and challenge in 1939 and internal struggle in 1988. The unfortunate side effect of that is if you already know the true story, a retelling of it isn't so much examining the person and his actions as much as giving a BBC retrospective on what already happened. That's not to say that the film is boring or trite or obvious or any of the generally negative labels one can apply to a middleweight, not-quite-Oscar-bait production. It's fine. But it's not really more than fine, other than the scenes of Winton meeting his now middle-aged and beyond children, who owe him their continued existence, which are as emotionally affecting as anything you might see on film. I was reminded of Liam Neeson's classic final scene in Schindler's List, where he bemoans how much more he could have done to save people from the Nazi horrors. These scenes are excellent and played without overdramatization by the performers. Just the moment of Nicholas looking into Vera Gissing's (Henrietta Garden) eyes and realizing that he was able to do that because he had tried so hard to make the impossible, possible. (The chorus of sniffling throughout the Michigan Theater was easy testament to how well that scene was played.) I also can't leave without a favorable comment for Helena Bonham-Carter, one of my all-time favorites, who plays Nicholas' mother, Babi, who helps him navigate the British bureaucracy.

But it's also not much more than what it says on the tin. I think Hopkins did quite well in a role that virtually demanded stock English restraint and in which he was haunted by the ghosts of all of the people that he wasn't able to save. It's also the first time I've seen Hopkins show as much emotion on screen as he did since Magic, where he was traumatized by his own ventriloquist's dummy. There are merits to the film, well beyond just keeping the threat of fascism and identity-driven policy fresh in everyone's mind while the Orange Idiot and his sycophants attempt to replicate the past. And I'm quite sure that Tricia, Jaime, and Larissa all enjoyed it more than I did because the story wasn't familiar to them and they could experience it with the sense of discovery, as well as emotional weight, that those producers, again, likely intended. However, it still feels as if it were lacking something that might have pushed it forward for me. As regular readers are aware, I'm all about a good documentary, so even if that's what this was, I'd say it's worthwhile. But I guess I was expecting something a bit more traumatic; something akin to Schindler's List and this film just didn't bring that weight with it. The fact that I've seen way too many movies and am, thus, highly jaded is almost certainly involved in my conclusions. Regardless, it's definitely worth seeing. But I wouldn't blame you if you waited to stream it at home.

Dolling too hard

I have been and likely always will be a Coen Brothers fan. One of my all-time favorite films is Miller's Crossing, which is a paean to the glories of noir like no other. Many critics felt that it went too far in that respect, in that it became almost a self-parody of itself and the genre as a whole. I've watched it at least a dozen times and would watch it again almost any time, especially if someone else was there and would be willing to hear me extoll its virtues while watching. I feel similarly about many of their other productions (The Big Lebowski, Fargo, No Country for Old Men, Barton Fink, O Brother Where Art Thou?, True Grit; on and on.) So when I discovered that Ethan Coen was directing a new feature that he had written with his wife, Tricia Cooke, I was instantly interested. The previews made it look even better. But the sad truth is that Drive-Away Dolls could be accused of a similar phenomenon that is leveled at Miller's Crossing: trying too hard. In the case of the latter, the assertion is that the film is TTH to be noir. My assessment of the former is that it's trying too hard to be a Coen Brothers film.

The premise is that of two women who are part of Philadelphia's lesbian community in 1999, deciding to pull up roots and change their address to Florida and, in the process, driving off with a MacGuffin in the trunk of their rental car that a pair of henchmen for a Philly crime lord are in pursuit of. Wacky hijinks ensue. Now, there's nothing wrong with that premise, in general, if the writing and the performances can back it up. It's a bit thinner than other films of the Coens' oeuvre (the complexity of Burn After Reading's plot makes it seem like a Platonic poem in comparison) but, fine. Let's just roll with it. But the problem should be obvious, in that the writing is just that step below in the same manner as the plot and there are no performances that really serve to carry it in the manner of Coen Bros. films past, although it's fair to say that Margaret Qualley comes close. But most of the film is about she, as Jamie, and Geraldine Viswanathan as Marian getting into quite predictable situations and finding not very innovative ways to get out of them. The general consensus among our group when we left the theater was that it was "cute" and that's probably about as high as you can reach in being complimentary.

Don't get me wrong. It's not a bad film. It's just not a great one like the vast majority of Coen output has tended to be. The only film that I've seen that didn't have both brothers involved was Joel's version of the tragedy of Macbeth, which I thought was excellent and this was Ethan's first solo outing that I'd been able to catch. He also did a documentary about Jerry Lee Lewis that was moderately well-received and that's about what can be said about this film. It's OK. It's quite funny in spots, but with none of the endlessly-quotable dialogue that is famous from their dual efforts. It attempts to be as bizarre as something like The Big Lebowski in moments, but never really crosses that border that would make the unbelievable believable. Instead, it depends on basic shock value, primarily around the MacGuffin which is there seemingly to serve as an excuse to get Pedro Pascal into the film for all of three minutes of screen time. Similarly, Matt Damon is also on the cast list and does well in the very brief time that he's offered, but both his and Pascal's appearances smack of them "wanting to do a Coen" in the same way it used to be a quest among SAG members to "do a Woody" (i.e. be part of a Woody Allen film in some way.) Their inclusion is name recognition and little more than that, which is not what you'd normally expect a Coen production to be involved in.

Again, Qualley does really well as the rambunctious side of the odd couple; determined to show Viswanathan that desiring and enjoying sex isn't taboo, even if segments of society at that time (25 years ago-!) and still (sigh...) declare it to be so. The film spares no efforts to show that, yes, sex is actually a good time, no matter the genders (or toys) involved and I appreciated their being that up front about the topic and the action. It's not really present for titillation (although it borders on it, at times) but instead seems to be present to normalize the idea, which is fine. It just would've been far more interesting if such an idea had been released in a film in 1999, rather than 25 years later(!) where much of the audience is ready to shrug their shoulders at the supposed novelty of it all. On top of that mundanity, the inclusion of multiple scene breaks that seemed to present a presumed acid trip that had little to do with our lead characters or the people pursuing them was a really odd inclusion. Again, it seemed to be trying too hard to be "weird" in Coen Bros. fashion, similar to The Dude's bowling vision, but not nearly as funny, interesting, or relevant to the film. Instead, they're just interludes seemingly shot through a multicolor lava lamp (which would've been relevant to and interesting in 1969, but not 30 years later) that just left the audience wondering what they were until finally getting the answer to at least whom was showing up in them at the end of the film, but not really understanding why they were ever present in the first place.

So, yeah. Is it worth seeing? If you're sitting at home one afternoon and bored, sure. But making an excursion out to the theater and paying for seats? Not really. I'd like to see more of Qualley in the future (she has another comedy coming up by the same writing/directing duo ("Honey Don't!")) but, at this point, I'd really like to see Joel doing more with Ethan to see if they still have that magic.