Chriss-8 Reviews

An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)

Unfortunately good

[15 February 1999]

Yes, the plot is annoyingly predictable and the outcome USA fairy tale-ish; and yes, the acting is bad in places and several scenes are utterly uninventive (the obstacle course, the local bar thugs). Clearly, An Officer and a Gentleman is neither Biloxi Blues nor Top Gun (and definitely not Full Metal Jacket), even though it shares a lot with such "watch the cute recruit soar" genre pieces. But I'll spot anyone a fiver who didn't get a little case of Niagara Falls when Richard Gere, in full salt and peppers, oozing ambition, carries a surprised Debra Winger away from her Laverne and Shirley-esque factory doldrums to eternal military wife bliss. Even our cat got the tingles.

The sort of realism we expect from contemporary films just doesn't apply here, nor do tired old complaints about schlock Hollywood movies and the American dream. As a gutsy, poor man's Bildungsroman, An Officer and a Gentleman works. It's just too bad that as soon as the whole affair starts to sound like a Billy Joel lament, "Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong" chimes in, saving the characters from any and all tragedy and drowning out half of the film's integrity.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

A lasting classic, with beautiful children

[15 February 1999]

Much has been made of Robert Altman's use of Billy Wilder's masterpiece Sunset Blvd. in his important film The Player. But the film's stylistic inheritors include a host of other pictures, least conspicuous of which is this year's underseen gem Gods and Monsters. It borrows plenty of tricks and tropes from the 1950 film noir tale of obsession and deceit: a body floating in a pool at the end; a fussy and doting servant (with a European accent no less!); and, most importantly, an ageing, narcissistic movie personality, subtly contrasted to a younger, somewhat lost character in need of a change.

That these techniques can retain their evocativeness and mystery fifty years after the fact says much not only about Wilder as a director (and of course the film's fabulous cast), but also about the power of films that question the magical but transitory feel of classic American cinema and its personalities. As the Hollywood illusion factory leads its audience further into the nebulous unreal, the need for plays-within-plays, for self-reflective movies-about-movies, is sure to increase.

The Mission (1986)

Magnificent.

[20 January 1999]

My favorite movie, ever. It works on so many levels: as a story about the dissolution of the Jesuit order in portuguese South America (and the subsequent enslavement of the natives), as an account of one man's ill-fated but necessary conversion, as a series of complex ideological battles, and, lastly, as a tale of innocence, of Eden. All this, in addition to spectacular performances, brilliant direction, a fabulous script and one of the most breathtaking soundtracks ever recorded. It simply gets better with each successive viewing.

The Thin Red Line (1998)

Well-trod ground not even good in its well-trodden-ness

[17 January 1999]

For some reason I saw Apocalypse Now in half of this movie (somehow I wouldn't call it a film). Nick Nolte's first voice-over is highly reminiscent of Captain Willard's bitter ponderings; the jungle scenes could have been Cambodian; and the whole Rousseauean "noble savage" bit was done to death by Coppola -- and with much better success (and isn't it also a big part of Papillon with Steve McQueen?). Not to mention that I seemed to hear that weird kind of Vangelis-style music in a lot of the battle scenes.

Where the movie isn't derivative, it's just plain bad. The amateurish John Boy soliloquizing ("What is love?" &c.) becomes quickly annoying, as does the needless parade of cameos, the quantity of which tend to thin out the already-weak storyline. Potentially interesting characters (Travolta, Cusack) seem to appear and quickly vanish. While this may be in keeping with the random progression of war, it makes for poor storytelling. Movies overly mimetic of the dumb chance and fragmented character of real life are usually bad ones, and TRL is no exception. Like Spielberg in his sub-par war effort, Malick was going after a kind of documentary-quality realism in this story; what he wound up with was an overcrowded, poorly structured marathon, not even worth the free pass I surrendered to see it.

And I'd really like to know why the woman with the baby at the beginning speaks english...

The Browning Version (1994)

Superb, subtle British drama

[17 January 1999]

Figgis directs an excellent cast (except of course Matthew Modine) in this story of innocence, domestic decay, and redemption. The parallel between Aeschylus' Agamemnon and the on-screen drama is apposite, and Finney excels as the sympathetic-but-cold Crocker-Harris, "the Hitler of the lower sixth". The scene in which the well-played Taplow offers up the title's Browning version is the film's finest, and it gives Finney a chance to show off his concentrated, Anthony Hopkins-esque despair. But for me, the best feature was the film's E.M. Forster quality -- the touching image of a once-passionate individual struggling quietly into dry old age.

The Remains of the Day (1993)

One of the finest films of the decade

[17 January 1999]

American movies so rarely dramatize awkwardness and propriety with the delicacy and concentration of this relatively-unknown masterpiece. Like the English Patient, The Remains of the Day is a World War II film that says more about loss, blindness and despair than a dozen war movies could. This is especially surprising, since the film deals primarily (but not only) with two "simple servants" in Lord Darlington's gorgeous country manor. The photography is beautiful; the performances divine; the appeal ineffable.

Mystic Pizza (1988)

Good movie -- when I was 12.

[17 January 1999]

The only things missing from this St. Elmo's Fire Xerox are Jessica Fletcher and L.L. Bean labels on all of Annabeth Gish's preppy togs. Although Mystic Pizza offers a pleasant dose of couleur locale, along with a spicy dash of "real American" drama, the whole affair seems very predictable and dated in retrospect. We've simply grown too sarcastic to widen our eyes when Julia Roberts -- Mystic, Conn.'s "experienced woman" -- tosses her younger sister a pack of -- gasp! -- condoms. Yawn.

Ironically, women are much better portrayed here than in most contemporary Hollywood flotsam, where they're either kick-ass she-males (G.I. Jane, recent Bond women), doting wives of violent men (Anne Heche in Donnie Brasco, Robert DeNiro's girl in Heat), or vacuous trophy dates, endlessly worried in high Cosmo style about Mr. Right -- the one with whom our heroines invariably enjoy a done-to-death pan-in sex scene (all of Meg Ryan, Selma Hayek and Jennifer Aniston).

Where's the catchy banter and chemistry that made people sing about Bogey and Bacall in Key Largo or the cutting-edge realism of Jodi Foster in The Accused or -- best of all -- Eva Marie Saint's faultless devotion and strength in On the Waterfront? Janeane's a great start, but there's still a long way to go...

There's Something About Mary (1998)

Mary movie bests normal Farrelly fare

[15 January 1999]

Something About Mary is a hilarious mishmash of stock Gen. X irony, absurd situational humour and sexually suggestive sight gags. The story is not very complex (a characteristic shared by both Kingpin and Dumb and Dumber), but its telling is fantastic, including as it does Greek chorus-style minstrels, several zany sub-plots, and a flashback scene of pure comedic beauty. Like Raising Arizona, this film hails from that rare hardly-plausible-but-somehow-believable category. But unlike the now-dated Coen Brothers, the Farrellys seem to be coming right into their heyday. Nice work, boys.