To Have and Have Not

Day 338 - 12/4/09 - Movie #338

BEFORE: It's December, and you'd think I'd be watching holiday movies or light comedy films - but instead I'm wrapping up my political films and starting a chain of films about World War II. Then I'll move on to films about spies and secret agents. Would you believe me if I said that I've got a way to (eventually) connect to some Christmas films? Just trust me, I'll get there...

Tonight I move from Cuba to Martinique, and from 1962 to 1940 for this Bogart/Bacall WWII film.

THE PLOT: Harry Morgan and his alcoholic sidekick, Eddie, are based on the island of Martinique and crew a boat available for hire. However, since the second world war is happening around them business is not what it could be.

AFTER: My dislike for Humphrey Bore-gart continues. Though he does manage to smile a few times in this film, and the romantic tension between him and Bacall is icy-hot, I still don't understand how a man with so little emotional expression became regarded as a fine actor.

Walter Brennan, most famous for playing old, drunk cowboys, goes outside his comfort zone in this film and plays an old, drunk sailor. Bit of a stretch. Lauren Bacall (last seen by me in "My Fellow Americans"), much like Bogart, maintains one facial expression for the entire film - but at least it's a smoldering one. She sings a couple numbers with the Hoagy Carmichael Band (nice get for a little Caribbean club!) and her voice seems to come from another dimension - it's beyond sultry and smoky, there's just something odd about it. Those of us who watch American Idol regularly would call it "affected", at best. She sort of reminds me of Kathleen Turner - it's a rare woman who can sing in the baritone range...

The similarities to "Casablanca" are quite noticeable - a nightclub during WWII, a smokin' dame, and Dan Seymour, playing sort of a combination of Sydney Greenstreet and Claude Rains's characters from that other Bogart film...

This film is probably most famous for Bacall's "You know how to whistle, don't you?" line - which was probably scandalous at the time. But I never really understood it. Without getting vulgar, what's so sexy about saying "You just put your lips together...and blow"? I mean, yeah, it's got the words "lips" and "blow" in it...heh heh...but on a practical level, it just doesn't make sense. These days, we hear things ten times more suggestive on sit-coms. Bacall's line is just begging to be followed by a "That's what SHE said!"

The film ends rather abruptly - we see Capt. Morgan (Bogart) aid the French resistance by picking up a couple of passengers, but there's a larger mission to rescue someone from Devil's Island, and that we never get to see. What happened, did the camera run out of film or something? Or did the studio run out of money? Actually the film doesn't really end, it just sort of...stops. "To have not" a plot resolution, I guess...

RATING: 4 out of 10 searchlights

Thirteen Days

Day 337 - 12/3/09 - Movie #337

BEFORE: From Nixon we move to JFK, and from Watergate to the Cuban Missile Crisis, another historical event that I feel I don't know very much about.

THE PLOT: The film is set during the two-week Cuban missile crisis in October of 1962, and it centers on how President John F. Kennedy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and others handled the explosive situation.

AFTER: Hmm, a peacable president who inherited a situation with a small radical country, and who has to figure out how to deal with hidden weapons of mass destruction. I bring this up for no particular reason, or connection to this week's speech by President Obama...

By all accounts, this is a tense, gripping thriller about a tense, gripping international incident. You see, this was my problem with "All the President's Men" - the pacing. You can make a film about a 2-week period in U.S. History, and it doesn't have to FEEL like it's 2 weeks long. It's called editing, guys, look into it.

Actually, there are some neat little editing tricks used in this film - like Kevin Costner closing a door in an empty Oval Office, and when he turns around, he's in a room full of people as the President is giving his address. Or a subtle use of black and white footage transitioning to color, to give us a feel of a newsreel turning into real events.

But let's tawk for a second about Boston accents. President Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood) has a real subtle one here, which makes sense for a man raised in upper-class Boston and on Cape Cahd, who might have needed to get rid of his accent while running for national office. And Robert Kennedy (Steven Culp) has one that's more pronounced, but Kevin Costner as Kennedy aide Kenny O'Donnell? Unless he was TRYING to speak like a poor kid from Southie with a speech impediment, he really overshot the mahk. My point is, if the accent is so noticeable that it overshadows every line, you may want to dial it back. Just a bit. His character was from Worcester, MA (pronounced "Wusster", not "War-chester") and they don't have so much of a Bah-stin speak out there in central Mass.

A lot of great character actors turned up in the cabinet meetings - like Dylan Baker as Defense Sec. Robert Macnamara, Michael Fairman as U.N. ambassador Adlai Stevenson, Len Cariou as Dean Acheson, Elya Baskin (last seen in "Air Force One") as a Russian ambassador, even Jack McGee as Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley. I watched the last hour of the film on my computer, and I just kept a browser open to the IMDB and had a good time looking up all the actors. Hey, that FBI agent looked familiar - yep, Tom Everett was in both "My Fellow Americans" and "Air Force One" earlier this week...though I may never see him in another film. And that pilot looks a lot like the guy who used to be on "Whose Line Is It Anyway" - yep, that was Charles "Chip" Esten, all right...Oh, I do have my fun.

RATING: 7 out of 10 satellite photos (it probably should be an 8, but I'm deducting for Costner's uber-accent getting in the way)

Frost/Nixon

Day 336 - 12/2/09 - Movie #336

BEFORE: Wrapping up the trilogy of Nixon-related films (since I don't have that movie where Anthony Hopkins played Nixon) - the Frost/Nixon interviews represent another moment in history I know very little about, so I'm hoping for another educational experience.

THE PLOT: A dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate television interviews between British talk-show host David Frost and former president Richard Nixon.

AFTER: My wife jokingly referred to this movie as "Frosty the Nixon" (worst Christmas movie EVER...)

Someone in the film compared the interviews to a boxing match, and that's really a great analogy. Nixon tries to go the distance and wear down Frost with long, rambling answers that eat up time - Frost scored a few jabs in the early rounds, but Nixon controlled the fight's tempo. But Frost's light touch turned out to be part of an unintentional rope-a-dope strategy, and once the subject turned to Watergate on the final day, Frost scored the knockout punch of his career.

Getting Nixon to admit to wrongdoing, and express something close to remorse - that's a career-building moment. The movie has quite an interesting structure, as footage of the preparations for the interview gets interspersed with documentary-style footage of Frost's research team (as played by actors) talking about the experience, in retrospect. It's a clever way to erase the line between fact and fiction, by interviewing fictional characters about real events. And a great way to pad the two-man stage play into a longer narrative film.

Frank Langella, of course, captures Nixon's mannerisms, if not his exact look, and Michael Sheen plays the smarmy-and-then-serious Frost. Also starring Oliver Platt (making his third appearance in my political chain - was this some kind of community service or something?) and the always-great Sam Rockwell, plus Kevin Bacon as Nixon's chief of staff, and Toby Jones (who I was mixing up with a "Top Chef" judge named Toby Young...) as Swifty Lazar.

RATING: 7 out of 10 cheeseburgers

All the President's Men

Day 335 - 12/1/09 - Movie #335

BEFORE: I have to admit to not really understanding the Watergate scandal. I was only 3 or 4 years old at the time, so it had little impact on me. I know there was a break-in at the Watergate Hotel, and Nixon tried to cover it up and later resigned, but beyond that, things get a little fuzzy for me. So tonight's movie will come with a history lesson for me.

THE PLOT: Reporters Woodward and Bernstein uncover the details of the Watergate scandal that leads to President Nixon's resignation.

AFTER: I found this film fascinating, not for the historical content, but for the depiction of Washington Post reporters in 1972 - they used manual typewriters (Redford seems to prefer the 2-finger "hunt and peck" method) and rotary phones, they're allowed to smoke indoors, and they call everybody "Sir," even the people they're trying to get damning evidence against.

Unfortunately, a lot of the "action" in this film is Redford and Dustin Hoffman making phone calls, or knocking on doors. But I suppose that's real-life reporting, not some Hollywood version that involves sneaking into buildings and avoiding security laser-beams.

Speaking of break-ins, this one was relatively muddled - I STILL don't know exactly what those burglars were doing at the DNC headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. Were they bugging it, or stealing campaign secrets, or planting evidence? Of course, Woodward and Bernstein eventually get the dirt on other campaign tricks, like discrediting other candidates, and a secret Republican slush fund. But why is anyone shocked that elected officials will work the system to try to remain in office? Except for George Washington, I doubt any U.S. President ever left office quietly or of his own choosing...and all's fair in love, war, and politics, right?

Also, I realize that the reporters' investigation took months and moved at a snail's pace, but did the movie have to move forward so slowly, too? I guess that was so the audience would be just as frustrated, and just as thankful for any scrap of information that would advance the plot...

With Jason Robards, Martin Balsam (last seen by me in "The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3"), Jack Warden (last seen by me in "Bulworth"), Hal Holbrook, and cameos by Ned Beatty, Stephen Collins and Meredith Baxter. Don't blink or you'll miss F. Murray Abraham as one of the undercover policemen who respond to the break-in, and future "Sopranos" star Dominic Chianese as one of the burglars.

RATING: 6 out of 10 unnamed sources

The Assassination of Richard Nixon

Day 334 - 11/30/09 - Movie #334

BEFORE: From the kidnapping of a fictional president to the attempted killing of a real one... This will kick off 3 nights of Nixon-related programming. At the start of the year, I wouldn't have imagined that as a possibility.

THE PLOT: Based on real life events, set in 1974 and centers on a businessman who decides to take extreme measures to achieve his American dream.

AFTER: Sean Penn plays Sam Bicke, a down-on-his-luck furniture salesman who is separated from his wife, treated poorly at work, and who can't seem to get his business schemes moving. There wasn't much of a connection to Nixon here, other than the fact that Bicke ends up blaming Nixon for his personal problems, and concocting a grand assassination plot. But like everything else in the man's life, it's poorly planned and very problematic.

Naomi Watts was criminally under-used as Bicke's soon-to-be ex-wife. I suppose it's interesting to watch Penn play a man who's slowly going off the rails - he records audio tapes addressed to composer Leonard Bernstein regarding the state of the world - but there wasn't much connection to the political arena, and not much point overall. Supporting work by Don Cheadle as Bicke's mechanic friend, and Mykelti Williamson as one of the Black Panthers.

RATING: 4 out of 10

Air Force One

Day 333 - 11/29/09 - Movie #333

BEFORE: Sticking with the theme of U.S. Presidents, but switching from comedy to action -

THE PLOT: Hijackers seize the plane carrying the President of the United States and his family, but he (an ex-soldier) works from hiding to defeat them.

AFTER: Good thing they mentioned that President Marshall used to be a soldier and a helicopter pilot, or his skills in fighting the terrorists wouldn't be so believable...

Harrison Ford plays the President, and Gary Oldman plays the lead terrorist - I'll go along with the casting. Oldman always does well as villains, and does a convincing Russian (sorry, Kazahkstani) accent. And Ford, of course, has all the skills he learned as Indiana Jones and Han Solo - so fighting off the villains and landing the Millennium Falcon - sorry, Air Force One - should be no problem, right?

The terrorists, disguised as a Soviet news crew, have an inside man as a double-agent, so they take over the plane and hold hostage its crew and passengers, including the President's wife and daughter. Meanwhile the Vice-President (Glenn Close) has to decide whether to negotiate with the terrorists, declare the President unfit to serve, or just wait it out.

Very action-packed and entertaining, I enjoyed this one. Didn't plan on buying it or anything, but it came on a $5 DVD in a double-feature with "In the Line of Fire". Now I think I have to add a few more Harrison Ford films to my list, like "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger" - wouldn't you know, they're both running on premium channels this week...

Also starring William H. Macy as the plane's navigator, Paul Guilfoyle (last seen in "Primary Colors"), and a few other "Hey, it's THAT guy!" character actors like Dean Stockwell, Philip Baker Hall and Elya Baskin (poor guy, after the fall of the Soviet Empire, he can only get work playing Spider-Man's landlord...)

RATING: 8 out of 10 parachutes