The Hoax

Year 8, Day 132 - 5/11/16 - Movie #2,332

BEFORE: I spent the last few days getting both bosses to beef up their presences on the Instagram platform - at first I was against it, because they're both already on the Facebook and the Twitter, so if we have to be on another social media platform then by God, when does it end?  But after making a few posts for each one, and connecting them both with their thousands of Facebook friends so that everyone can follow each other, my phone has been pinging like crazy, non-stop since last Thursday, with all the likes and follows.  And that leads me to the conclusion that people on the new platforms are just starved for entertainment - I swear, some people "liked" a photo that was just a solid color, I'm pretty sure it was a photo that was taken accidentally, and probably posted accidentally as well.  

Richard Gere carries over again, from "American Gigolo".  I think when I start putting together my review of my themes for this year, along with topics like "art" and "music bio-pics" I'm going to have to keep "deception" in mind.  It could tie together a lot of loose ends, and it's a theme that pops up everywhere from "Gone Girl", "Maid in Manhattan" and "Man of the Year" to more subtle usages, like in "Whiplash" and "Escape Plan".  Plus I've got a few films lined up for later this year that deal directly with art forgery, so there's that. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Melvin and Howard" (Movie #2,015)

THE PLOT:  In what would cause a fantastic media frenzy, Clifford Irving sells his bogus biography of Howard Hughes to a premiere publishing house in the early 1970s.

AFTER: In another from a long line of very strange coincidences, last night's film, "American Gigolo", featured an actress named Nina Van Pallandt in the role of Richard Gere's character's occasional pimp.  (Can a woman be a pimp?  For a male escort, I guess she can...)  And in today's film, Richard Gere plays an author who has an affair with an ex-girlfriend, an actress named Nina Van Pallandt.  Now, I don't know all of Clifford Irving's sexual history, so I don't know if this affair really took place - and for all I know, Mr. Gere chose to appear in this film because he knew Ms. Van Pallandt, and through her was familiar with the tale of Howard Hughes' fake diary.  Then again, maybe it's all just really random. 

This film is another one based on a true story, and it's set back in 1971, when there was no Twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram, no e-mail - I don't think there were even faxes yet, because we see people communicating by Telex, which I never understood.  I guess it was like an early form of text message, just much louder.  Still, I don't see why someone didn't just pick up the phone and call.  But imagine how bored everyone was back then without smartphones and internet - if you wanted to get a message out to the public, you had to write a book!  

Perhaps that's why McGraw-Hill gave Clifford Irving an advance on his autobiography of Howard Hughes, without doing their due diligence to prove that Irving really knew Hughes, or had met with him at any point.  It was the perfect cover story, the reclusive billionaire wouldn't take a meeting out in public, or allow a meeting to be photographed or recorded in any way, he'd just pay to have his goons drug someone and fly them to a mysterious Caribbean island, where he went to meditate every other Thursday.  So after a bit of clever forgery, Irving was taken at his word and given a large check.  

But here's what I don't understand, according to this film Irving and his researcher, Richard Suskind, then go out of their way to track down a few of Hughes' associates, under the auspices of writing a book about aviation, and they stumble upon a man's tell-all book which they're able to mine for details and colorful stories.  Then they track down a series of audio recordings, so they can get a feel for the way Howard Hughes might speak, and then make audio recordings of their own to test out certain sentences and ways of telling stories.  It seems like so much work that I wonder if tracking down the real Hughes and doing the research to write a proper book might have been easier in the end. 

But then the film can't seem to stick to its own premise, because a mysterious box gets delivered to Irving, and it contains files and materials that could have come from Hughes himself.  (The real Irving denies this occurred, and stated that the film took certain liberties...gee, how ironic)  And then the fictional Irving appears to have real experiences where he is drugged and taken away to receive instructions from Howard Hughes' men - but it's possible that Irving only imagined these events, or that they are hallucinations he had while drinking.  The truth is left up to the viewer to decide, and that's a fairly large problem for a film that's all about how wrong it is to fabricate things.

Also starring Alfred Molina (last seen in "Maverick"), Hope Davis (last seen in "Flatliners"), Marcia Gay Harden (last seen in "Magic in the Moonlight"), Julie Delpy (last seen in "Avengers: Age of Ultron"), Christopher Evan Welch (last seen in "The Interpreter"), Eli Wallach (last seen in "The Holiday"), Stanley Tucci (last seen in "Maid in Manhattan"), Zeljko Ivanek (last seen in "Seven Psychopaths"), Peter McRobbie (last seen in "Inherent Vice"), John Bedford Lloyd, David Aaron Baker, Stuart Margolin, John Rothman (last seen in "Hello Again"), Mamie Gummer (last seen in "Taking Woodstock").

RATING: 5 out of 10 orders of Beluga caviar

American Gigolo

Year 8, Day 131 - 5/10/16 - Movie #2,331

BEFORE: Things have been very British around here for the last few days, (India counts as it was once a British colony...) so let's get back to something "American".  All those British actors yesterday, and none of them are in other films on my list - even the Judi Dench link was sort of a dead end.  So I'm following the Richard Gere thread - he carries over from "The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel".  This is one of those films that "everyone" has seen, only I'm not sure that I have.  I can't tell you a thing about the plot, that's usually a sign that I'm dealing with a classic that I never got around to watching. 

This is where I have to be careful - a week or two ago, I accidentally added "Blow Out" to the watchlist, to go with another Travolta film, and I forgot that I watched it back in, like, 2010.  I can't let that happen again - fortunately I've got the IMDB app on my phone, and as I was scrolling through the list of movies I've watched, I saw "Blow Out" marked with a green checkmark, which meant that it was also on my watchlist.  Oopsie.  Aside from that, and almost reviewing the De Niro film "The Score" a second time, I haven't had too many problems keeping track, but I don't want to slack off now.

THE PLOT:  A Los Angeles male escort, who mostly caters to an older female clientèle, is accused of a murder which he did not commit.

AFTER: From one of Richard Gere's most recent films, I'm looping all the way back to what was essentially his first starring role, and this seems like it's also one of those films that everyone claims to have seen, but maybe only for the sexy scenes.  You never hear anyone talk about the murder charge - did most people lose interest after the sexy bits and the Armani fashion show?  

If you stick with the film, Gere's character is a person of interest in a murder case, a woman he slept with while her husband watched - which means this might have been the first mainstream film to show some kinky fetish stuff.  And his trouble is compounded because the client that he was with on the night in question won't give him an alibi - naturally, because that woman won't admit that she uses his services.  

And even though it might have been groundbreaking in its portrayal of male prostitution, there are parts that just haven't aged well - I realize that 1980 was a different era, but a character saying he "won't do fag stuff" is now pretty cringe-worthy.  And when he's out with an older lady in public, and she's seen by a family friend, Gere's character launches into an over-the-top impression of a gay interior decorator, just to give her the impression nothing untoward is going on.  Wait, so you won't do "fag stuff", but you'll pretend to be flamingly gay just for a client's convenience?  Seems like a strange double standard.

And why is the husband not automatically the prime suspect when a wife is killed?  Didn't these cops ever watch one episode of "Law & Order"?  And why isn't Gere's character comfortable admitting that he had sex with the woman, and that the husband's a sick freak?  If he could just bring himself to say, "The guy wanted to see me smack her around..." wouldn't that go a long way toward clarifying the situation?  There are just a lot of loose threads here on the investigative front.

Bottom line, this film has not aged all that well.  There was ONE murder, and we don't even get to see it happen?  And no high-speed car chase, no run for the border to escape the cops?  Put this up against more modern crime films, and it almost seems like someone just wasn't trying that hard.

Also starring Lauren Hutton (last seen in "Little Fauss and Big Halsy"), Hector Elizondo (last heard in "The Book of Life"), Bill Duke (last seen in "Bird on a Wire"), Carole Cook, K Callan, Brian Davies, Nina van Pallandt (last seen in "The Long Goodbye"), Tom Stewart, Patricia Carr. 

RATING: 4 out of 10 language tapes

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Year 8, Day 130 - 5/9/16 - Movie #2,330

BEFORE: I see that TCM's going to be running a Fred Astaire marathon this week - now I'm wishing I hadn't skipped "Top Hat", "Blue Skies" and "Swing Time" during their "30 Days of Oscar" programming in February, if I had saved those and put them together with tomorrow's programming ("Flying Down to Rio", "Royal Wedding", "Silk Stockings", etc.) then I'd really have something.  But right now there are too many newer movies to be added, and I JUST got my watchlist down to 130 films, adding 7 Astaire films right now would constitute negative progress, and would work against my desire to try and finish the project within calendar year 2016.  I'm just going to have to make a mental note to catch up with Astaire (& Rogers) at the end of the year if there are still spaces available.  These are the tough decisions I'm forced to make, with little idea how my choices are going to play out. 

As for today's film, I have no more Coogan films, so I'm following the Judi Dench thread, she carries over from "Philomena".  

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" (Movie #1,631)

THE PLOT:  As the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has only a single remaining vacancy - posing a rooming predicament for two fresh arrivals - Sonny pursues his expansionist dream of opening a second hotel.

AFTER: It's a tough thing for some people, realizing that people in their 70's and 80's are remaining sexually active.  The number of STD's in nursing homes is apparently on the rise - yeah, good luck dealing with that one.  The "Exotic Marigold Hotel" series also faces an uphill struggle, as it presents the relationship issues that develop among a certain set of seniors who have decided to spend their twilight years in sunny India, instead of cold & rainy England.  Hey, older Americans are always getting the advice to move down to Florida or New Mexico for the dry climate, that means that India is a bit like England's New Mexico, right?  

The Exotic Marigold hotel is not so much a temporary-stay kind of place, it's more like a combination of nursing home and senior center, combined with a prison.  Every morning the manager takes roll call very loudly, to make sure none of the inmates (sorry, guests) have died during the night.  That's how you start the day on a positive note, "Congratulations, you're still alive!"  And things are going so well that there are only a couple of rooms still available, and people don't seem to be "checking out" of the hotel at the expected rate, so naturally there's talk of expanding to a second property.  

 For this, they need investment money, so the first sequence sees the hotel manager and owner traveling to the U.S. to meet with the owner of a large hotel chain, who insists on sending someone to check out the operation.  Now, I've seen enough episodes of "Fawlty Towers" to know that whoever the manager THINKS is the secret hotel inspector couldn't possibly BE the secret hotel inspector, it's more likely the person who gets horribly inconvenienced while he's fawning over the most likely suspect.  Hey, British humor is nothing if not formulaic.  

There are about 5 or 6 intertwined plotlines here, as different seniors deal with different relationship issues, falling in and out of infatuation with each other.  But so many of them seemed contrived - I would like to think that by the time people get into their 70's they've got relationships figured out to a certain extent, so they don't do silly things like fall in love with two people at the same time, or have to travel halfway around the world to ask someone for a divorce.  Mostly I found these different plotlines very confusing - but I don't really understand Indian culture, is it really THAT important that the bride and groom perform a specific choreographed dance at their wedding?  Who cares?

Then we've got a husband who thinks he might have accidentally asked a cab driver to run over his wife - how can he not be sure about this?  Either he did, or he didn't.  And then one man's daughter comes over to India to visit him, or perhaps she's there to speak at a conference of some sort, this was also very confusing.  The ending in particular seems to come out of nowhere, causing everyone to do a Bollywood dance.  Ugh, give me a break.

Indian is one of those tricky nationalities to portray on film - like German or, I don't know, Mexican. The more emotive and expressive an actor gets, the easier it is for them to fall into cartoonish stereotypes.  I think Dev Patel was great and subdued in "Slumdog Millionaire", but ever since then, it feels like he's been trading on his culture by playing a very excitable cartoon version of an Indian person. 

Also starring Dev Patel (last seen in "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"), Maggie Smith (last seen in "California Suite"), Bill Nighy (last seen in "About Time"), Celia Imrie (last seen in "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason"), Richard Gere (last seen in "Primal Fear"), David Strathairn (last seen in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"), Diana Hardcastle (also last seen in "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"), Tina Desai (ditto), Lillete Dubey (ditto), Penelope Wilton (last seen in "Pride & Prejudice"), Ronald Pickup (last seen in "Never Say Never Again"), Tamsin Greig (last seen in "Shaun of the Dead"), Shazad Latif, Rajesh Tailang, Claire Price.

RATING: 5 out of 10 Chilla pancakes