Where Have All the Bad Guys Gone...?

As I spent this week in London with my beloved, we toured some Tudor mansions, ate meat pies in a pub, and curled up on a couch together to watch a movie from the vastly superior European Netflix catalogue. I usually let my partner choose the flicks we watch because his taste is much more specific than mine, so while it wouldn't have been my first pick, we cuddled together and watched Disney's villainess prequel, Maleficent (2014).



Maleficent isn't my cup of tea- and my reviewing it would only make me sound like an annoying film snob, but the movie did make me think about a bigger cinematic issue: Why do movies keep un-villainizing our most cherished villains?

The character of the wicked fairy Maleficent in Walt Disney's original animated classic Sleeping Beauty (1959) is a wonder to behold. Silkily voiced by the superb Eleanor Audley (who also did the voice of the wicked stepmother in Cinderella (1950) and was Oli-vah's snooty mother in TV's Green Acres) and animated with a rich fluidity, Maleficent slid onto the screen amidst a sickly green cloud with her chin held high and her disdain for all the princess-normative nonsense on full display.

Maleficent was left off the guest list for the christening of little Princess Aurora... on purpose. So she shows up to the blessed event anyway and curses the baby to die on her sixteenth birthday- in her eyes, a perfectly reasonable response to such a public slight. Emily Post would have suggested nothing less. Maleficent was evil and unrepentant about it. And it made her glorious. So much so, that I felt bad when she got a sword in the heart at the end.

But these days, you can't have someone just be evil. Maleficent in 2014 (played with high-cheekbone realness by Angelina Jolie) has to be a wild fairy who was wronged by a duplicitous lover, so she holds a grudge and curses his kid. That grudge gets all complicated, however, when she spends some time with dazzling Aurora (properly blond Elle Fanning) and regrets cursing her, ultimately risking her life to save her. What? Maleficent lives happily ever after with Sleeping Beauty? Whatever happened to the grim in Grimm's Fairy Tales?

And it's not just this movie. Other iconic baddies have had prequels made about their sad beginnings in the attempt to explain how come they are so nasty. Darth Vader isn't a pitiless, power-hungry Sith Lord. In the tedious Star Wars prequels he's an annoying young man who throws a tantrum because the Jedis won't let him marry his sweetheart and who loses his shit over not being able to save his mom.

This doesn't make him embrace the fragility of life and cherish every moment. Nope. He goes and kills a bunch of kids and then all of his Jedi pals before burning to a crisp and being turned into the wheezing, metal monster we all know and love.

What about Oz's Wicked Witch of the West? It wasn't enough that she should be a green, vengeful witch who wants to get the pig-tailed girl (and her little dog too) who crushed her sister under a house. In the disastrous Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), Theodora (Mila Kunis playing her That 70's Show character in a pointy hat), jealous of Oscar's (the horribly miscast James Franco) attention to other women, is tricked into biting an apple to lose her feelings for him- but instead is turned into the broom-flying green baddie we are more familiar with.

Once again, being hurt and rejected by a man doesn't result in nights spent in front of the TV with a pint of Ben & Jerry's. Romantic disappointment for women equals murderous personality change.

This is just the tip of the villain origin story iceberg. Snow White's Wicked Queen, Hannibal Lecter, and Norman Bates have all gotten modern makeovers that delve into their pasts to explain the evil characters that previously appeared on the screen.

What's wrong with someone just being evil? Do we really have to be spoon fed an origin story to confirm why our big screen meanies are so mean? Maybe it's our attempt to explain evil in our fictional worlds, when we can't in the real one. Maybe we think if we can get a grasp on why Darth Vader used his death grip without a care, we'll understand the likes of Osama Bin Laden, ISIS, and Boko Haram. Or maybe studio execs just like to squeeze every dime they can out of film franchises. Either way, I am comfortable with Maleficent cursing newborns while wearing fabulous cloaks just cause she wants to.

For this classic film lover, it's good enough to just be bad

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Top 5 London Pics!

Next week I'm off to London to see my beau, and since you can't cross the Pond with me- I'm giving you some English realness by listing my Top 5 Films set in London:






1.) Mary Poppins (1964)

For a kid who used to dream of being British (I answered the phone in an English accent) Mary Poppins was sheer heaven. I was enchanted by the flowering tree-lined streets, the houses shaped like ships, the seemingly endless rooftop horizon, and the kite-filled sky of London. I wanted to move in with the Banks family on Cherry Tree Lane and jump into chalk sidewalk paintings, dance with chimney sweeps, and have a tea party on the ceiling. No Kansas wheatfields for me. I wanted sooty London.

As I grew up and realized that I was not a long-lost Windsor prince, I also figured out that the London of Mary Poppins wasn't real. The film was shot on all four of Disney's soundstages a half a world- and fifty years away from the London of 1910 that the film idealizes. But the fantastical world of Mary Poppins was real in a sense, because it was based on actual Edwardian/Georgian neighborhoods, parks, and buildings- the most obvious being grand old St. Paul's Cathedral.

In order to teach Jane and Michael Banks a lesson in charity, Mary (the "Ha-Ha in your face Audrey Hepburn!" Oscar-winner of 1965, Julie Andrews) produces a snowglobe that contains St. Paul's Cathedral- but instead of snow, small white angles recreate the birds that flock around the domed structure.

As she sings "Feed the Birds" we are magically transported inside the globe to see a withered old woman (Jane Darwell) who sells bags of breadcrumbs to passersby for "tuppence a bag." The animation mixed with the physical set gives the sensation of a dream, and one can't help but feel that you are standing at the steps of the great cathedral looking up at the arches and statues, surrounded by flying birds. That cinematic moment is so memorable that even today, the website for Saint Paul's has a page with a video clip from the movie. Chokes me up every time.

When I finally made my first trip to London, I didn't see any chimney sweeps, but I did hang out with a couple builders and see some colorful auras while on ecstasy. Saint Paul's was beautiful- and even if I did avoid the flocks of birds (pigeons and I don't get along), I looked for the little old lady to give some tuppence to.




2.) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

From 1960's Disney animation to CGI-generated scenery we go. I know I'm going to get some flack from theater-folk who HATED this movie, but I thoroughly enjoyed Tim Burton's take on Stephen Sondheim's classic musical. The titular Sweeney (Johnny Depp) returns to London with revenge on his mind after being wrongly imprisoned at the hands of wicked Judge Turpin (the terribly missed Alan Rickman).

With the help of former neighbor and meatpie shop owner Mrs. Lovett (the queen of odd, Helena Bonham Carter), he opens up a barbershop whose customers leave with much more than a shave and a haircut. The scenery is mostly computer-generated, but the view of a dark, and grimy Victorian London is darkly lush and seductive, and won an Oscar for Best Art Direction.

I know, I know. Burton cut the opening song from the musical "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd"- but rather than sing the backstory up front, Burton let it unfold throughout the film. Yes, I know Johnny Depp does not have the  pipes of stage Sweeney Len Cariou. He has at best a rock-styled voice from a garage band that performs at local proms. But Depp broods and simmers pretty well. And of course Helena is no Angela Landsbury. But nobody is- and Angie's too old to do the movie- so I think Helena does a fine job playing the deceitful Mrs. Lovett.

I think what really matters about Sweeney Todd is its grisly, dark humor, and the cutting lyrics to Sondheim's brilliant score. And who better to do macabre humor than Tim Burton? The montage of Sweeney at the height of his barbering career cleverly follows the rhythm of the song with bone-crunches adding a sick musical punctuation as each customer exits the chair.

Perhaps the most fun comes from the performance of "A Little Priest" where Sondheim's brilliant lyrics take centerstage amidst the overindulgent film edits, crusty pies, and cleavers.



Perhaps I'll do a Sweeney Todd tour of London while I'm there...

3.) Sabotage (1936)

Before he came to Hollywood, a thinner Alfred Hitchcock made some exciting films for independent British film companies. One of the most interesting is this gem about a plot to blow-up London. Scotland Yard detective Sergeant Ted Spencer (John Loder) goes undercover to investigate an act of sabotage that left London without power.

He befriends the lovely Mrs. Verloc (the gal with the glorious eyes, Sylvia Sidney) and her young brother Stevie (Desmond Tester) in order to keep tabs on her husband Karl (Oscar Homolka) who Spencer suspects of being involved with the English/German terrorist group. Will Spence find out what the next plot is and stop it in time? I'm not going to say.

The film is a smorgasbord of Hitchock's signature obsessions: birds, Germans, the wife married to someone she doesn't really know, and the movies. The film is also taut with the suspense that was Hitchcock's stock in trade. The famous bus scene where little Stevie is unknowingly transporting a bomb in a film can is unforgettable, the tension building to an unendurable level.

Loosely based on Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, the film is tight and suspenseful with Sidney giving a performance that makes you wonder why she's not well-known today- you may remember her best as the always smoking Juno in Beetlejuice (1988). She is captivating on screen  but reportedly did not get along with Hitchcock, so she never appeared in his films again. Of course, Hitch moved on to blond leading ladies by the time he went to Hollywood anyway. And if you're looking for the famous Hitchcock cameo on the streets of London, don't bother. For some reason, he didn't pop into this film. Maybe he didn't like riding the London bus.

4.) Konga (1961)

We've seen King Kong climb the Empire State Building. We watched giant ants tear up the sewers of Los Angeles. Godzilla has trampled all over Tokyo and New York City. London felt a little ignored by giant movie monsters, so in 1961, they made Konga

Producer Herman Cohen was the successful B-Horror Movie schlockmeister behind such classics as I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). In 1959 for reasons I can't unearth, the Detroit native moved to England and continued churning out the very best in terrible horror movies, including two with Joan Crawford: Berserk (1967) and the not-to-be-forgotten Trog (1970). 

So Cohen's resume made him the perfect producer to make the story of a mad scientist who develops a growth serum and injects it into his favorite lab chimp- who soon grows from little monkey to man in a monkey suit. As Dr. Decker's (Michael Gough) ambitions and paranoia grow, so does his monkey and soon Konga is breaking through the roofs of houses and doing his master's will... until he doesn't. Konga grabs ahold of Dr. Decker and makes Big Ben his own personal stripper pole. But as Kong could tell Konga, it never turns out well when a monkey climbs a national landmark.

The monster movie is a beloved genre- and like its kin, Konga questions unfettered Atomic Age science and the reckless act of mucking around with nature. Cohen sluts it up a little by adding a blond lab assistant, but essentially he follows the mad scientist/monster paradigm, creating laughable acting, dialogue, and effects along the way.

Frequent Cohen collaborator Michael Gough snarls his was through the picture making Dr. Decker as unlikable as possible. Funny to think that at the end of his career Gough would star as the beloved Alfred in the Tim Burton Batman (1989). From monkeys to bats. That's showbiz!

5.) Beautiful Thing (1996)

Ah, gay London! I'll never forget the night at Heaven danceclub when I went home with a gent who told me he was Prince Andrew only to find out we weren't going to Windsor Castle and I was not about to make it with a member of the royal family. Gay princes aside, being gay in London has the same pitfalls as anywhere else, and that's why Hettie Macdonald's Beautiful Things is so universal.

Jamie (Glen Berry) is the product of Thamesmead, a South London working class project where the square concrete apartments are so close together, there is little to hide. And Jamie has lots to hide. He has a crush on his studly schoolmate Ste (Scott Neal). Ste's family life is abusive and after one particularly rough beating, he winds up at Jamie's house under the care of Jamie's wacky ma (EastEnders regular Linda Henry.)

As Ste lies in Jamie's bed, open and vulnerable, Jamie opens up too, and exposes his feelings for Ste by giving him a kiss. As any gay teen knows, this sort of thing can go horribly wrong, and Ste overwhelmed with guilt and shame, runs for the hills. But Beautiful Thing doesn't leave it there. Like the Mama Cass soundtrack that wafts from the neighbor's record player, this film embraces difference and hope. Rather than tell another gay tragedy, Beautiful Thing finds a happy ending for these two young men.

When the film came out it caused quite a stir- but not just because it was a gay romance. Beautiful Thing emerges from the dark AIDS era with an optimistic sense of  the joy and possibility of gay love. And if the scene of Jamie and Ste slowdancing in the courtyard to "Dream a Little Dream of Me" doesn't make your eyes moist, you need to get Restasis.

That's all for me London post, mates. I'll be back quicker than you can say, "Churchill's knickers!"

Chin-chin and all that rot!

Amazing Grace?

I've always felt bio-pics were a bit tricky. Actors and actresses who take on the task of having to portray famous people have to not only convincingly perform complex emotional characters, but they also have to project the image of the historical figure that we all expect. If Daniel Day Lewis wants to play Lincoln, he has to have a beard, a stovepipe hat, and a mole.

When the bio-pic is about a famous entertainer- it becomes even more difficult as the image shown to the world is so precise- with film footage and recordings of stars all over Youtube to constantly remind us what these people walk and talk and act like.  So an actor is forced into the daunting task of mimicking that image convincingly while at the same time trying to dig beneath the mask to portray the "real" person. Even when you have a good subject and a great actor, bio-pics about movie stars are really tough. Just ask Faye Dunaway. But what happens when the star you are portraying doesn't have memorably distinct characteristics?

Case in point- Grace of Monaco (2014) the Nicole Kidman starrer about Hollywood fairy-tale princess, Grace Kelly. I can go on and on about how this film was doomed from the start with a script that the Grimaldis themselves considered historically inaccurate and a production history that ended with Harvey Weinstein and director Olivier Dahan publicly feuding over cuts to the film. All this resulted in its being swept under the rug with a limited US release and no awards season love.

Maybe in some previous draft the political intrigue and Kelly's shining moment as a rescuer of her adopted country made sense- but the version I saw created about the same amount of drama as a PTA meeting... with better gowns. The stakes of Monaco possibly being invaded by France seemed inflated- and one speech from a beautiful Hollywood actress seemed insufficient to quell that disaster if we were to buy into it in the first place.

But I have a bigger issue than just poor story structure and historical inaccuracy. I know who Grace Kelly is. I love a couple of her movies and know all about her story as a "top drawer" Philadelphia girl who went to New York to model and act, and then wound-up in Hollywood as one of Hitchcock's favorite chilly blondes. From there she met a real-life Prince, and married him. The fairy tale angle was all the rage and her wedding footage and pictures were broadcast around the world. The Hollywood Princess left America and moved to her adopted home of Monaco where she would reign until her untimely death in a car accident in 1982. But what I didn't realize until I watched Grace of Monaco was that Grace Kelly is a bit of a blank for me.

I looked at Kidman as Kelly. My first thought was, "Oh- she doesn't not look like her. But then I can't be certain she does look like her..." I realized at that moment that while I could definitely pick Grace Kelly out of a line-up, her looks themselves were not necessarily iconic. She was blonde and beautiful, but I was struggling to recall anything distinctive about her look. I thought of her in High Noon (1952), Rear Window (1954), Dial 'M' for Murder (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955) and what I kept seeing were costumes or a hairstyle- not a face. Grace Kelly was beautiful- no question. But her image is not one that sticks in the mind like other Hollywood beauties ala Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, or Elizabeth Taylor.

So then I listened to Kidman and paid attention to her performance. I found myself thinking, "Is this woman I'm seeing Grace Kelly- or just Nicole Kidman moping around the palace?" And again, I was stumped. I couldn't remember how Grace Kelly acted.

Her Hitchcock performances usually involved playing a well-bred woman itching to throw-off the wrap of convention by climbing a fire escape or speeding-off in a fast car. But her rebellion did not involve the emotional explosions that cemented actresses like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, or Susan Hayward into our collective unconscious.

Grace Kelly was great at playing roles that required glamour, poise, and understatement- so it's hard to find the mannerisms or ticks that would make her definitive. There's nothing specific in her acting that makes me say, "Ah! That's Grace Kelly!" Can you imagine RuPaul tasking one of his neophyte queens with, "Give me Grace Kelly realness!"? They might throw on a pair of sunglasses and a scarf and pretend to drive off a cliff- but in lieu of that- what would they do that would read unmistakable Grace Kelly?

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I love Grace Kelly. She was a good actress who starred in some memorable movies- but her glamorous look and persona alone are not distinctive enough to be the central focus of a bio-pic. No actress is going to be able to pull off that essential bio-pic thrill of walking onto the screen and making the audience gasp, "That's so-and-so!"

I'm not saying that you can only make bio-pics about iconic entertainers like Marilyn Monroe, Kate Hepburn, and Edith Piaf. But if you're going to make a Grace Kelly bio-pic you have to focus on the most dramatically rich part of her story- that day an American movie star gave up her film career and married a wealthy prince. That's what Grace of Monaco should have done- but they didn't.

File it under "If They'd Only Listened to Lance..."

Movies To Be Sick By

Being sick with the flu sucks. Being sick with the flu over a weekend really sucks. So when you're stuck in your home with nowhere to go but to the medicine cabinet to chug Vick's Nyquil or slather yourself in Vapo-Rub, why not watch a movie... or two... or three? I was sick this weekend myself, so I thought I'd review the movies I watched, just in case any of these might appeal to you- whether you're sick or well.

1.) We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

I don't know about you, but when I get sick, I can get a bit gloomy. So sometimes my taste will head for the dark side of things. I'd heard great buzz about We Need to Talk About Kevin - and Tilda Swinton is such a weird treat to watch, I figured it would be a good one to watch while I sucked at my chicken noodle soup. Mmmm...Mmmm... Holy shit this movie is dark.
Told in fragmented memories in non-linear fashion, Kevin is the story of Eva Khatchadourian (Swinton), a wife and mother whose life has been drastically altered by a catastrophic event that has left her alone in a crappy house- the pariah of the town.

As the pieces of this puzzle fall into place we learn that Eva's son Kevin (creepy, creepy Ezra Miller) has committed an atrocity that has left lives shattered. What makes this movie so interesting (aside from its clever use of non-linear storytelling) is its focus on Eva. Because, you see, Eva didn't really enjoy being a mother. Played with Tilda's expert sense of coolness, Eva misses her life as a well-known travel author as her child screams, and screams, and screams. She finds peace standing next to a jackhammer in the street.

However, when daddy comes home (John C. Reilly in his typical role as lovable, but clueless dope) the baby stops crying immediately- ooing and cooing to daddy's delight. As the child grows, little Kevin comes close to a real-world version of Damien- torturing his mother any chance he gets. By the time he is a teenager in the form of Ezra Miller, it is clear that Kevin is an unrepentant asshole.

I like that director Lynne Ramsay is not trying to explain the childhood killers we so frequently read about. No causal links are drawn here. Kevin is not a sweet baby turned evil by his mother's admission that her life was better when he wasn't there cause she could be in "France." That wicked gleam in his eye was there from birth. What we focus on instead is a woman trying to deal with a motherhood that destroys instead of fulfilling her.

Swinton is such a master at playing a multi-faceted ice queen in films like Michael Clayton (2007) (and a literal one in The Narnia Chronicles) that this role works right in her sweet spot- a woman who would have been better off not being a mother and must struggle to find some new way to exist.

2.) The Pianist (2002)

So apparently chilling teen violence wasn't enough to quench my fever-influenced movie taste. I moved on to Roman Polanski's depressing WWII drama set in the Warsaw ghetto. Adrien Brody is pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, a promising Polish pianist whose life is upended when the Germans invade Poland in 1939. Wlady and his Jewish family soon get to experience all the indignities, tortures, and death that the Nazis were notorious for.

Wlady is able to escape the Jewish ghetto but is then sentenced to a life in hiding- going from safehouse to safehouse until Warsaw falls apart and he creeps, scavenger-like from bombed-out structure to bombed-out structure trying to survive. Adrien Brody won an Oscar for his role- which reminded me in some ways of Leonardo DiCaprio's like-awarded performance in The Revenant. It feels like a game of "torture the actor" as Brody becomes more and more debilitated- his performance a physical exertion for survival.

The Pianist is based on the true story of Szpilman, but it may just as well have been based on Polanski's story of survival in German-occupied Poland. The level of detail is so visually rich- images of death and destruction pulled from Polanski's own memory. The color palette of the film is muted in greys, a gloom that descended on the country of Poland that fateful day in 1939. Polanski likes to play with conversations overheard from other rooms. It is an integral part in Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Tennant (1976) and he uses it here too.

As Wlady cowers, locked in a room waiting for liberation, the sounds from the apartments and the world outside filter in through the walls, making the real world unreal to one who had been purposefully and cruelly cut-off from it. I have my issues with Polanski as a person, but I can't begrudge him the Best Director Oscar he won for The Pianist. He had an opportunity to imbue a film with his own harrowing story of survival- and he did it beautifully.

3. From the Terrace (1960)

After my fever broke, I was in the mood for something a little less depressing than the Holocaust, so I turned to an old pot-boiler starring the ever so handsome Paul Newman. When we think of the classic '50's melodrama we usually think of Douglas Sirk- and rightly so. But director Mark Robson had his share of big screen-sized soap operas with Peyton Place (1957) and Valley of the Dolls (1967). Terrace doesn't approach the kitsch greatness of either of those movies- but then neither of those flicks has Paul Newman in his prime in his boxer shorts.

Newman is Alfred Eaton, son of a steel mill owner who arrives back from the war to find his mother a hopeless philandering drunk (Myrna Loy at her tipsiest) and his father still mad because his favorite son died and he's left with Alfred to bring into the family business. With such a wonderful home life, it's no wonder Alfred strikes out on his own and falls in love with Mary, a girl beyond his class (Newman's real-life wife Joanne Woodward). Alfred's luck seems golden when by chance he rescues a young boy who falls through the ice, only to find the son's grandfather is a wealthy Wall Street scion who immediately takes to Alfred and gives him the chance to be a bigshot.

In true potboiler fashion, this great situation can't last and soon Mary is slutting it up with her ex-fiance cause Alfred is spending too much time at the office. Then Alfred meets a young woman (Ina Blain- Most-Promising Newcomer Golden Globe Winner who quickly disappeared from the limelight) who opens his heart to the possibilities of a truer love and Alfred has to choose between his unfulfilled Golden Life or his brown-eyed chippie.

The film was based on a hit book written by John O'Hara- but it's a schtick we've all seen before. What makes the movie watchable is Newman and Woodward. You can't take your eyes off Newman- his ease on screen is hypnotic. Did I mention there's a scene where he's just in boxer shorts? Woodward is delicious as a dissatisfied lover who is not a good girl- but not a caricature of a bad one.

This was shot in Cinemascope so the use of bright colors is disarming with a red dress or flower arrangement leaping off the screen practically screaming "LOOK! It's Cinemascope!!!" And they used a strange silver wash in Woodward's hair that might have been used to suggest the maturity of this young woman... or maybe they were just trying to make blonde pop even more.

Of the three, From the Terrace is probably the best movie to recuperate to because it requires such little emotional investment. But I'm feeling better- so maybe depressing movies about teen psychotics and Nazis are also good pills to swallow.