Reviews

There are very few Hitchcock films that I have not seen, and until this afternoon "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" was one of them. I'd put off watching it for a couple of reasons: a) On general principles I want to delay the day when there'll be no new Hitchcock film out there with potential to surprise and delight me; and b) Having read about this one I thought I probably wouldn't be particularly impressed. I was right about b).

It wasn't a bad movie exactly. My problem with it was that I expect Hitchcock films to be at least a cut above ordinary, and this one didn't make the grade. It was a romantic comedy reminiscent of "The Awful Truth," but lacking that movie's wit and charm. Sure, I half-heartedly chuckled a few times, but only at incidental jokes, never at the main premise, which I found tiresome.

Robert Montgomery and Carole Lombard were still battling and making up after three years of marriage when they discovered their marriage license was invalid. As they struggled with the question of whether to make their marriage official or go their separate ways, I just sat there wishing they'd get on with the story. The ending was a foregone conclusion and the semi-amusing journey to it began to seem interminable after a while.

As we watched, my companion suggested the ending might involve the revelation that the whole thing had been a misunderstanding and they had been legally married all along. I think her idea might have actually have made the conclusion marginally more interesting. She also noticed a scar on Lombard's cheek, which I had no idea existed. I went Googling and sure enough, the scar was the result of an auto accident when Lombard was 19. For me, that discovery was the most interesting part of the viewing experience.

"Mr. and Mrs. Smith" is a minor Hitchcock in which the touch of the master is little in evidence. This one could have been churned out by any decent director.

Watched it last night. I'd never seen it before, but not for lack of trying. I'd begun watching a number of times and always lost interest in the first 10 minutes. But this time I'd DVR'd it on the MGM-HD movie channel and it was sitting there in Hi-Def on my DVR hard drive and I was thinking I couldn't just delete it without watching, what with all the wonderful things I'd heard about it and all ... so I settled in again and had another go.

What had always put me off -- and very nearly put me off again last night -- was the tone of the opening scenes. It was 1943, Britain was practically Liberty's last bastion in Europe, and here's a movie in which the British Army is interacting with the Home Guard as though they were all in a Marx Brothers movie. The first segment flies by at a breakneck pace and is so larded with stereotypical British dialogue I almost expected Bertie Wooster to put in an appearance. I'm not saying I don't enjoy such things at times; I'm saying that to me in this film the irreverent tone did not fit the situation. And the events that were transpiring -- the "all in fun old boy" near-decapitation of a motorcyclist, the violation of the rules of a game by an enthusiastic young Army officer, the humiliation in a Turkish bath of a nearly-naked old fat man with a big mustache, the betrayal of the Army by a Mata Hari in uniform -- just did not appeal to me at all, not even a little bit. I came so close to quitting yet again last night, but ...

I'm saying all this for the benefit of anybody who's never seen the movie. If you can make it through the first, oh, 30 minutes or so, I believe you'll be rewarded with one of the most memorable movie experiences of your life. You'd think the movie would be about that insufferable young Army officer, but no ... it's about the old fat man with the big mustache and how he came to be where he is, why he thinks right is might and not the other 'way round, whom he loved, whom he lost, the trophies on his wall, his friend the German Army officer, and so very very much more. The background of the opening and closing credits is drawn to look like a medieval tapestry -- and that's just a perfect artistic choice because the film is the tapestry of a life. You see the old fat mustachioed blow-hard at the beginning of the film and you dismiss him, but then through an extended movie-length flashback you follow his life from the time he was a brash, insufferable young Army officer himself, through his distinguished service to his country, right up to the day he's humiliated in the Turkish bath. And this time you look at that wonderful, flawed old man in a very different light.

The film is a feast for the eyes in luscious Technicolor, with sumptuous sets, glorious costumes, and the lovely young Deborah Kerr in three -- count 'em, three! -- different roles. I thought the acting was superb throughout, with OK, one or two exceptions -- notably an American motorcycle driver. The highlight of the film was a monologue by the German Army officer friend played by Anton Walbrook that had me riveted to the screen -- just brilliant writing and acting. I won't spoil things by describing what he said -- I'll just highly recommend you see it if you haven't already. Some say the reason Churchill opposed the making of this film was the sympathetic depiction of a German officer. Could be, but if the charge against Churchill is correct, then Churchill was wrong. Or maybe it's because the main character was just a bit too reminiscent of Churchill himself. I think nobody knows the real answer.

To refresh my memory, I looked up Colonel Blimp in Wikipedia because as far as I could tell there was nobody in this movie actually named Colonel Blimp. As soon as I saw the cartoon character I recognized him -- of course I'd seen him before, and of course Colonel Blimp is a type, not an actual character. Of course.

Fine movie, well worth the time invested.

I saw it up there on the screen but I didn't connect with it. It was a beautifully mounted movie with nothing interesting to say -- not to me, anyway. I did my best to accept the central premise as a fantasy not to be questioned -- I mean when I found myself wondering how the body of an infant born with the skin and the arthritis and the cataracts of an old man might conveniently be blessed with growth spurts in old age followed by shrink spurts in youth ... nah, I decided there's no need to go down that road. Repeat after me: The movie is a fantasy. Benjamin Button was born old and progressed to infancy and that's the movie's premise and I accepted it. And with that behind me, I wanted to see the life of Benjamin Button developed into a story that would fascinate -- that might offer insights on life as viewed by someone living it backwards.

Instead I got a mishmash of vignettes told in flashback from a dying woman's hospital room in New Orleans -- with EEK! HURRICANE KATRINA! bearing down to no apparent dramatic purpose whatsoever. I saw a pygmy and a brothel and a Russian beauty and a boat and lightning strikes and a broken leg and a war and ... Cate Blanchett kept getting older while Brad Pitt kept getting younger and by the time Benjamin Button met his daughter she was an adolescent and so was he ... and it was just one melancholy development after another and ... how in the world am I supposed relate to any of this disjointed, stupefying nonsense? Here's the movie: Benjamin Button's friends and family grew older and died as he grew younger and died. Period, that's it, no more, no lessons learned, no insights gained, no emotional connection, not even any marveling by the world of science at what was happening to this unique individual.

Well, OK, this happened too: Some young man died in WWI so his blind father built a clock that ran backwards and I never figured out how this related substantively to the rest of the movie. I do know, though, that it is not the nature of New Orleanians to replace ornate, historic, quirky old railway station clocks with digital monstrosities. Bleh. I truly regret that I invested time in this mistake of a movie.

Watched it last night and was interested enough to view the "making of" documentary and listen to the commentary track too. I enjoyed it, I suppose, but I'm 59 years old and I can think of no one in my circle of friends who'd appreciate it very much. The movie reminded me of Donnie Darko, only it made less sense, if that makes sense.

There are some semi-big names in the cast, like Ralph Fiennes and Glenn Close and that British dancer kid Jamie Bell, who spoke with a remarkably convincing American accent. I kept thinking, "I thought he was British," but I couldn't hear any sign of it. I actually listened a second time to his closing speech to Glenn Close, and sure enough, little British inflections are there to be heard if you pay attention. But golly, he's good. And filling out the rest of the cast are people like the press secretary from West Wing, Allison Janney, and that Matrix woman Carrie-Anne Moss, and "Jonesy" from Carnivale, Tim DeKay, and John Heard and Rory Culkin and some other familiar faces. It's interesting to me that the producers could hire such an impressive cast for this rather offbeat project.

Chumscrubber is really just another in a long line of alienated youth movies, distinguished mainly by some amusing, quirky wrinkles in the story. You gotta admit that it's probably not as easy as it once was to come up with a fresh angle on a suburban teen angst plot, but Chumscrubber pretty much delivers.

As the story unfolds, Jamie Bell's best friend is a high school drug dealer who keeps his classmates happy and high until the day he hangs himself at home while his mom is throwing a big party. Jamie stops by and discovers the body, but he doesn't tell anybody, of course, because in this movie the teens and the adults don't communicate ... at least not until the very end of the film when the teen angst tension is released and a boy actually talks to an adult and the adult actually listens and the tears flow and we all learn to our great surprise that life would be so much easier if we all listened to each other and kept our eyes peeled for dolphins.

There's a lot more to the story involving some bad kids who look less like thugs than Abercrombie and Fitch models who kidnap Jamie Bell's little brother in order to blackmail Jamie into finding the dead kid's stash of drugs. Only the bad kids kidnap the wrong boy and end up with a Jr. High tuba player who enjoys being a kidnap victim because he can drink and smoke and say bad words. And as I indicated, there are pictures of dolphins all over the place. Why? I dunno. Neither did the screenwriter -- at least that's what he said on the commentary soundtrack.

The teens are troubled, the adults are daft, the movie is darkly funny, and the music is very reminiscent of Donnie Darko's. I kept expecting the orchestra on the soundtrack to segue into "Mad World," any minute but it never did.

This movie is worth watching once, I think, if only for Glenn Close's hilarious, touching, spooky performance.

I like the good things in life as much as anybody, I suppose, but until about five years ago, opera didn't figure into my entertainment choices. Oh, I made a few attempts to learn what all the fuss was about; I'd watched several television productions -- notably parts of Wagner's Ring Cycle on public television -- hoping to understand other people's fascination with the art form. And I knew I could like parts of various operas (I remember being surprised as a kid that I actually LIKED the snippets of "Madame Butterfly" in "My Geisha, and I enjoyed the opera scenes in "Moonstruck" and "Pretty Woman"), but unlike the characters in those films, I just didn't "get it."

Then in 1995 I saw a live performance of "Rigoletto" presented by the New York City Opera Company, and that night I "got it." What a wonderful, glorious pageant of color and music and raw Emotion! And I do mean Emotion with a capital E! The key, I think, is that the operatic music allows the performers to over-act freely and believably in a way that would seem silly if their words were just spoken. Everything hinges on the music, of course, and when the music is magical, as it is in "Rigoletto," an opera can be a magnificent entertainment.

A sympathetic family member gave me a laserdisc copy of the 1982 TV production of the opera, and I've found that since I can't see live performances of "Rigoletto" live on a regular basis, this video version is a fine substitute. Luciano Pavarotti is perfect in the part of the Duke; Ingvar Wixell is excellent as his mean-spirited court jester Rigoletto; and Rigoletto's beloved daughter Gilda is played by the somewhat plain-featured Edita Gruberova. The sets and costumes are lavish, and the location shots on the river late in the film bring a heightened sense of drama to the story that could never be matched on a stage.

If you've never seen "Rigoletto," or if you think you don't like or understand opera, I urge you to find this one on videotape and buy it or rent it. If you don't like this, if this production of "Rigoletto" doesn't make you appreciate the power of the art form of opera, well, just give it up and move on to something else. But I suspect, if you're new to opera as I was, that you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Bill Anderson