Author Archives: Simon Hardy Butler

Skip’s Quips: Of Titles and Trollope

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Blog Sketch 082813Back in the day–and I mean back, at a time when I thought Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings was the definitive version–I perused my parents’ bookshelves frequently in search of tomes with curious titles. A particular favorite: Is He Popenjoy?, an Anthony Trollope novel that, as a child, I couldn’t fathom reading but nevertheless intrigued me as I wondered if the character was indeed, well, Popenjoy.

Years later, I realized what had struck me about the title. It’s pressing, insistent. combining an unusual name with a terse question–making you want to find the answer.

I think a lot of filmmakers today could learn from old Trollope.

All right–bad titles aren’t necessarily a modern malady. They’ve existed even before They Knew What They Wanted debuted in 1940. But I think there’s a relatively recent tendency to drop the intrigue in movie monikers and take the easy way out. Just look at the past decade’s slate of Meet the [Silly/Generic Surname Here] flicks. Danger, Will Robinson. Dreary trend ahead.

I guess it’s a positive that filmmakers have eased up on putting exclamation points in their movie titles or experimenting with the excruciatingly wacky names that were so prevalent in the 1960s and ’70s. Yet we still get stuff like Fled and We’re the Millers, where the labels are either awkward (the former) or obvious (guess) while lacking any hook. True, that may not matter when it comes to popularity–Millers is evidence of that–but when it comes to quality cinema, don’t we want a title that can grab us? Shouldn’t it give us an idea of why we’d want to see the movie it’s tied to…without telling us too much?

I don’t think a film will necessarily be lousy if it doesn’t have an interesting title. But it’s hard for me not to judge a DVD by its case. Today, as I recall my times examining volumes on my parents’ bookshelf, I wonder if Trollope would agree with me on the importance of naming movies–adaptations of his works included.

Somehow, I don’t think Meet Popenjoy would fly.

Setter’s ‘Spective: When Filmmakers Lose Their Zip

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613Willie Mays and Alfred Hitchcock had a lot in common.

“Huh?” you say. “Stop kidding me.”

But it’s true. Both started inauspiciously: Hitch with silent films, Mays on the baseball diamond. Neither hit their stride until a few years into their careers, and then they produced brilliantly season after season until declining in their later days.

And no, I don’t think Family Plot holds a candle to the master’s greatest works. Same with Mays’ Mets experience. You got flashes of their old selves, but they couldn’t bring back everything. Ultimately, what you retained was nostalgia.

And that’s what I’m thinking about many other talented filmmakers. They often peak like athletes, then may lose their inspiration, as a pitcher loses his fastball or a hitter loses his bat speed. This happened, I feel, to Akira Kurosawa, François Truffaut. And I think it’s happening to Martin Scorsese.

I’m concerned that this terrific American director has already given us his masterpieces–that we’ll have to be content with flicks like Shutter Island and Gangs of New York: flawed, intermittently enjoyable movies that lack the risks taken in his greatest works (Mean Streets, Raging Bull and Goodfellas are three examples). You still see that fluid camerawork in his movies, those crisp cuts, but the cohesiveness and definition that marked his earlier films aren’t there.

I’m sad about this, but I understand. I think it’s quite natural. You rarely find a director or an athlete who produces through the end of his or her career. Luis Buñuel, I think was one, as was Ted Williams. But they don’t appear often. Most humans ultimately decline.

I’m not saying Scorsese should stop making movies or that his career is over. Far from it. Frankly, I hope he crafts hit after hit after hit. But it’ll be hard for him to match the quality of his output from the 1970s to the mid-1990s.

You may tell me it isn’t fair to expect that–that he’s evolved as a filmmaker. I’ll agree. It isn’t fair.

Yet you always expect a home run from your hero, right?

Me, I always do.

Skip’s Quips: Making Cheap Movies Look Expensive

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Blog Sketch 082813Fans of Pearl S. Buck’s classic set-in-China novel The Good Earth might remember a scene early on during which the farmer protagonist, Wang Lung, secretly admires a fabulous meal prepared by his wife, who brings out the best in the relatively unassuming ingredients provided. Such is my feeling about films that transcend their tight budgets–movies shot so brilliantly that you’d think they were bolstered by gold mines.

Oftentimes I wonder if these films are more satisfying than expensive ones, however good the latter may be. True, not all flicks made on a shoestring are successful, but those that work give me naches–especially if they’re photographed well.

Here’s a short list of some well-made low-budget movies that are also gorgeously shot. Bon appétit.

Chimes at Midnight

The Seventh Seal

El Mariachi

Simon of the Desert

Pi

Easy Rider

If….

Night of the Living Dead

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The 400 Blows

Setter’s ‘Spective: The Slo-Mo and the Furious

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613I blame you, Akira Kurosawa.

Remember: You started it. Or rather, you helped popularize the use of slow-motion photography in fight scenes–specifically via two different shots of villains dying in The Seven Samurai.

I adore your films, Akira. But I’m not happy with the seeds you’ve sown.

Ok, so you’re not responsible for all that ludicrous pseudo-Spartan posturing in 300. Or the (prolific) guts and glory in The Wild Bunch. But without those scenes in Samurai, we wouldn’t be so deluged with half-speed onscreen violence.

Granted, you used slow motion judiciously–and I think that’s what separates you from the rest. Peckinpah’s technique can hardly be called subtle, but his Bunch certainly packs a punch. Not so much all that silliness in 300, where the idea seemed to be showing how cool it is to kill ancient Persians with as much CGI blood as possible.

And I think that’s where all this slo-mo falls rather quickly on its face.

We’ve diluted its purpose, the whole point of its effectiveness. See it once in a while, and it’s as startling as a flower in snow. Yet watch it over and over again, and it loses its potential impact. Today, it seems to be de rigueur in “action” scenes, as if directors have forgotten how to film normally. So it has become showy instead of telling, obvious instead of shocking.

Frankly, I’d rather see My Dinner with Andre. That’s got more action than any Matrix pose-a-rama.

So Kurosawa, I’m going to take time out from praising you to gripe a bit, though with a heavy heart. Because I know as much as I loathe what slo-mo has become, without it we wouldn’t be what we are today.

Old man Sykes says in Peckinpah’s Bunch: “It ain’t like it used to be, but it’ll do.”

I don’t think it should.

Skip’s Quips: Top Little-Known Scores That Make Their Movies Sing

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Sometimes I read my colleague Setter’s movie reviews and think: “This dude’s truly Mr. Overanalysis.”

But his last post on film scores made me wonder if I take movie music for granted. It’s so ingrained in our cinema lexicon that we almost start when watching a flick without it.

I look at a score as a flavor enhancer–like salt or pepper. A bit too much, and a movie’s unpalatable. Too little, and it feels like you’re missing something.

Just the right amount, however, and you’ve got a tasty meal. And it could be one you never thought you’d like.

The following is a short list of unsung films that are bolstered greatly by their sumptuous scores…and wouldn’t have been first choice for my cinema viewing otherwise. (Order not included.)

Far from the Madding Crowd

Cartouche

Odd Man Out

Watership Down

Kwaidan

The Devil and Daniel Webster

Time Bandits

I Know Where I’m Going!

A Matter of Life and Death/Stairway to Heaven

Setter’s ‘Spective: What a Piece of Work Is a Score

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Can lousy music ruin a perfectly decent film?

I asked myself this question during a recent viewing of The Unsaid, a 2001 Andy Garcia vehicle featuring a particularly tiresome original score. Mind you, I wasn’t mulling this idea because the movie was any good. Actually, it was dreadful: a dreary, overacted drama starring the usually reliable Garcia as a depressed, single-dad psychiatrist trying to help a disturbed youth (played by Mad Men stalwart Vincent Kartheiser, in an early role) who reminds him of his own, late son. The flick’s minimal interest value, however, ensured the presence of numerous lulls–enough time to think about the role of music and its interplay with onscreen action. If The Unsaid were a better movie, would the score have affected its quality?

Trying to think of great films with not-so-great soundscapes is difficult. Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha comes to mind immediately, but that obvious, brass-infused music, with all of its bombast, is surprisingly effective in certain scenes–particularly the end, where the destruction of the Takeda clan on the battlefield is shown in all of its waste. The truth is, most good movies are enjoyable because all of their parts work together; you can’t extract one from another and say it could’ve been better with a different piece. Maybe Fumio Hayasaka’s music for The Seven Samurai isn’t as magnificent as Sergei Prokofiev’s score for Alexander Nevsky, but I can’t imagine how TSS would be without it. These aren’t contemporary artworks where perception can change with the components. They’re completed, set in stone…and you either like them or you don’t.

So I guess I’ve answered my own question, though I wonder if I should keep asking it. Because if a movie like The Unsaid has me thinking along these lines, how can I be sure my cinematic tastes aren’t unsound?

Skip’s Quips: Why Not Remake ‘Citizen Kane’ While We’re at It?

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This isn’t something a critic freely admits, but I have to say it anyway: I didn’t see Takashi Miike’s remake of Masaki Kobayashi’s classic 1962 film Harakiri.

I did watch the original, however. That’s the reason right there.

I’m always puzzled as to why directors feel they have to recreate cinematic masterpieces. The 1983 American iteration of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless comes to mind first, but it’s only one point in a long line of reinterpretations. Remakes are about as traditional as apple pie, yet they’re rarely warranted. Miike’s version of Harakiri is an example. A brilliant, harrowing attack on feudal convention and injustice, Kobayashi’s iteration–the story of a samurai who, after telling a damning tale recounting his history, revenges himself on a clan that has destroyed his impoverished family–is as indignant as a film can get…and mesmerizing through and through.

I can’t think of any way it can be improved upon, and so I feel Miike’s version is irrelevant.

True, even great films aren’t perfect. I don’t think any work of art is without flaws. But you don’t care when viewing the best ones. You only want to be in their world.

So I’m not going to watch Miike’s remake of Harakiri. In this case, ignorance is bliss. But I may put on Kobayashi’s iteration sometime soon. And absorb it to the fullest–as such originality deserves.

Setter’s ‘Spective: The Madness of Undervaluing Comedy

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Are there any great comedians left who haven’t turned to drama?

I ask this question sometime after grumbling my way through Hyde Park on Hudson, director Roger Michell’s innocuous 2012 film starring Bill Murray as the womanizing Franklin D. Roosevelt. I couldn’t believe Murray, the wonderfully dry, talented jokester whose it-just-doesn’t-matter attitude enlivened flicks such as Ghostbusters and Meatballs, was playing it so straight–and dull–as the inimitable wartime President. This was what I was watching Murray for?

Sadly, he’s not alone when it comes to actors in his trade, nor is he a pacesetter in gravitating toward drama. Charlie Chaplin, Woody Allen, Robin Williams and even Jim Carrey have all starred in dramatic pictures that didn’t take full advantage of their laughtastic talents. And I lament that, because it’s as if they’re discarding their specialties–the stuff that humorous dreams are made of–for something they’re not as good at, seemingly in the hopes that they’ll be recognized for their serious efforts more than their silly ones.

Yeah, watch Chaplin’s Limelight, and tell me it’s more enjoyable than Modern Times. I dare ya.

The truth is, great comedy’s just as respectable as great drama–and the idea that it’s not as important is nonsense. Look at Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro: the pinnacle of comedic (or, frankly, any) opera. I’d listen to that any day over Nixon in China. And would any of us really opt for Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio over any classic Beatles song? There’s nothing lowbrow about great art…even if it’s a popular form.

Not that I’m imploring Allen to go back to making wild movies like Bananas. His style has evolved, like so many other comics, and I don’t think that can change. But I thank my lucky Hollywood stars that Laurel and Hardy didn’t make Antony and Cleopatra. Or that the Marx Brothers made fun of Eugene O’Neill’s plays rather than put them on.

If that isn’t worthy of respect, I don’t know what is.

Skip’s Quips: The (Rarely Filmed) Play’s the Thing

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Once upon a time, I was excited that Julie Taymor came out with a film version of Shakespeare’s gore-o-thon Titus Andronicus.

It wasn’t because it’s a good play. In fact, it’s kinda lousy–possibly Will’s worst: a mix of cheap thrills and cardboard characters. I think we can safely say he did a lot better later in his career.

No…the reason I was excited is that you hardly ever see Titus Andronicus staged, let alone put on the silver screen. And that brings me to a question: Why do we keep getting deluged with movie versions of the same old plays—Much Ado About Nothing comes to mind immediately–when there are numerous other, less-frequently filmed Shake Specials that are as good or better waiting to be made into movies?

I mean, where the heck is the latest cinema spectacular of The Winter’s Tale, hm? Or The Comedy of Errors? Let’s freshen the stew a bit, can’t we?

Not that I don’t dig Much Ado…though I have to confess Joss Whedon’s foray into this frothy comedy is a dish I love not. But do we really need two cinema versions of the same play within a span of 20 years–especially when the Kenneth Branagh iteration, despite some awkward casting choices, provided the definitive Beatrice and Benedick?

Guess I should sigh no more–we’ll always sway toward the well received, and there’s no doubt both Hamlet, Macbeth and the like fit the bill. Still, who’s to say there wouldn’t be an audience for a new film of The Taming of the Shrew? My feeling is, we should take advantage of Mr. Shakespeare’s infinite variety. I say: Give me excess of it.

Setter’s ‘Spective: Taking Overly Whimsical Films to Task

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Just because something’s unique doesn’t mean it’s any good.

That was in evidence big time during my recent viewing of The Oh in Ohio, a 2006 “comedy” directed by Billy Kent and starring Paul Rudd, Parker Posey and a whole lot of other talented people who should’ve run far, far away after reading the script. The story–which has something to do with Cleveland and one woman’s quest for an orgasm–was so self-consciously whimsical that it became grating.

And I think I know what bugged me so much about it.

Watching this movie was like getting poked by a vaudevillian with a stick every time someone bizarre-looking appeared on stage. Here’s an eccentric sex expert played by Liza Minnelli. Here’s Danny DeVito portraying a local pool contractor with ridiculously long hair. And, of course, here’s Posey and Rudd doing their thing as unsatisfied marrieds who can’t always get what they want. It seemed like you were supposed to laugh at their characters’ quirks and odd behavior, but they’re really just costumes–unfilled with any substance.

I needed definition in this movie, but I didn’t get it.

So the question remains: Why are there so many films out there that confuse uniqueness with quality? Frankly, I’d rather see a derivative flick that’s entertaining than an unusual picture without a script. True, we live in a time when films are taking risks, and that’s fabulous, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of credibility. I didn’t believe one minute of TOiO, though I did during another movie with a ludicrous premise: North by Northwest. Why? Because it was brilliantly done–and it didn’t try too hard. Or at least it didn’t seem like it.

Great films, to me, feel easy–like a Hall of Fame pitcher throwing 100 miles an hour. And it doesn’t matter if they don’t break new ground; they’re still enjoyable to watch.

Maybe there’s some merit in not being different after all.