* * * * *
DVD Review
In 1960, The Apartment, directed by Billy Wilder, made its debut. Later it was nominated for five Academy Awards, quite a feat for a romantic comedy, and actually took home the Best Film Award. But, was it because of the smashing performances of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLain? Or was Wilder’s writing and directing, or the plot specifics that date it to the period of instant coffee, Ed Sullivan the word Miss and the Glass Ceiling? Whatever it was, it remains a film that has undeniable chemistry both poignant and pointed.
The first hint of chemistry comes between Lemmon, as C. C. Baxter, and MacLain, as Miss. Fran Kubelik, early on in the film. I remember Lemmon, in those ‘60’s years, as being the quintessential “everyman,” but his role here was so specifically fine tuned that Kevin Spacey dedicated his Oscar for American Rose to Jack Lemmon’s performance in The Apartment. At that time MacLain was the up and coming “girl next door,” but with an edge and obviously the ability to generate a lot of heat.
Baxter is a guy on the rise, but unlike the big shot’s at Consolidated Life Insurance that have already made it, Baxter, as his boss, Sheldrake (Fred MacMurry), puts it, is just “an ordinary adjuster.” He’s on the level, works hard, thinks creatively, has a life dedicated to Consolidated and a dream of becoming one of the “top-floor guy’s.” He also has an apartment that’s been made available for the top-floor guys to party with their secret girlfriends. This is his real asset to those who can influence his career. They do, and his dream comes true.
But soon Baxter realizes that his goal is not really the top-floor but a life, the feeling that with success comes all the good things that he’s imagined. Baxter is missing life while he pursues success. A lonely man, he hasn’t taken the time to have a relationship with a woman, or develop real friends. Even his neighbors are just friendly acquaintances who have no idea what really goes on in his apartment.
Like a many of Wilder’s films a woman is the catalyst here and once Baxter’s initial goal is realized his new goal is love. But when he realizes that he’s in a three-way showdown with Fran and Sheldrake, Baxter has to make critical decisions. These are the hard beats of the story and Baxter has to continually jockey between his growing feelings for Miss. Kubelik and his precarious corporate position. I found myself cheering for Baxter when he makes decisions to protect Fran. But, near the end it seems that he is going to go for the job, the security, the money, and Wilder has me believing that Baxter’s just a pathetic loser. Seconds later I found myself cheering for the “everyman” because Wilder makes a deft slight-of- hand and
Baxter is the man I want him to be.
The Apartment was more than a statement about life, it was a statement about lifestyles, and . . . my how things have changed. While this movie holds up, I don’t think it will be one that will ever be remade. It’s not a Sabrina, there are far too many statements about that particular period to bring it forward. Anyway, who could do it better?
Sunday, February 10, 2008
An Inconvenient Truth
* * * * *
Within the general population there is a tendency to put off until later those things that are not critical. It’s human nature, and it doesn’t mean that we’re slackers rather that, until we see flames licking up the living room wall, we’re not likely to call the fire department. An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary of Al Gore’s climate crisis presentation, might just prompt you to dial 911.
There is indisputable evidence that the earth is warming up. What Gore does is place the majority of the blame squarely where it belongs; on a growing world-wide population that is flooding the atmosphere with vast amounts of Carbon Dioxide, and on the United States; where it’s considered legitimate policy to give tax breaks to those buying eight-mile-a-gallon behemoths. Anybody see flames in the living room yet?
In 2002 the Larsen B ice shelf separated from the Antarctic. This event, that set a 1,250 square mile (think Rhode Island) ice flow adrift, has been directly attributed to the warming atmosphere. More alarming is proof that it is also due to the rising temperatures in the oceans of the world. Receding glaciers, separating ice sheets, devastating floods and growing droughts are all related to Carbon-dioxide increases that are higher than anything in recorded history, and that record, proven with ice-core samples, goes back 650,000 years! Does it seem warm in here to you?
At one point, Gore stands on a motorized platform that rises slowly up a wall-size chart toward a skyrocketing spike in CO2. As he rises so does your awareness of the critical issue at hand. This is only one of numerous strategies in the film that are used, like heat-seeking missiles, to target the emotional/moral side of the issue. These hit with accurate, hard science and enough factual documentation that the detractors (think Ford, GM, Exxon, Shell etc.) will have a difficult time disarming this documentary.
There are going to be those who will call this film a political ploy, and yes, there are few swipes at the current administration, but Gore clearly points out that he has been singing this same song for twenty years and has yet to gain full support from any administration.
To his credit he sticks to the message and the imminent danger.
It’s not all doom-and-gloom as Gore offers common sense solutions that we can take as a nation, what each of us can do personally and the time that we have left to affect change. He points out the Ozone crises as an example of a successful world-wide effort to avoid calamity. Me, I’ve already done some of what’s been suggested, now I’m contacting my congressional representatives and I’m asking if each of them will hold a town meeting for our New Mexico grandchildren where they will explain why the world’s forest and seas are dead and dying, and why there is no Artic, no Florida, no Shanghai, and no Holland. Maybe they can also explain why it’s so damn hot all of the time.
Within the general population there is a tendency to put off until later those things that are not critical. It’s human nature, and it doesn’t mean that we’re slackers rather that, until we see flames licking up the living room wall, we’re not likely to call the fire department. An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary of Al Gore’s climate crisis presentation, might just prompt you to dial 911.
There is indisputable evidence that the earth is warming up. What Gore does is place the majority of the blame squarely where it belongs; on a growing world-wide population that is flooding the atmosphere with vast amounts of Carbon Dioxide, and on the United States; where it’s considered legitimate policy to give tax breaks to those buying eight-mile-a-gallon behemoths. Anybody see flames in the living room yet?
In 2002 the Larsen B ice shelf separated from the Antarctic. This event, that set a 1,250 square mile (think Rhode Island) ice flow adrift, has been directly attributed to the warming atmosphere. More alarming is proof that it is also due to the rising temperatures in the oceans of the world. Receding glaciers, separating ice sheets, devastating floods and growing droughts are all related to Carbon-dioxide increases that are higher than anything in recorded history, and that record, proven with ice-core samples, goes back 650,000 years! Does it seem warm in here to you?
At one point, Gore stands on a motorized platform that rises slowly up a wall-size chart toward a skyrocketing spike in CO2. As he rises so does your awareness of the critical issue at hand. This is only one of numerous strategies in the film that are used, like heat-seeking missiles, to target the emotional/moral side of the issue. These hit with accurate, hard science and enough factual documentation that the detractors (think Ford, GM, Exxon, Shell etc.) will have a difficult time disarming this documentary.
There are going to be those who will call this film a political ploy, and yes, there are few swipes at the current administration, but Gore clearly points out that he has been singing this same song for twenty years and has yet to gain full support from any administration.
To his credit he sticks to the message and the imminent danger.
It’s not all doom-and-gloom as Gore offers common sense solutions that we can take as a nation, what each of us can do personally and the time that we have left to affect change. He points out the Ozone crises as an example of a successful world-wide effort to avoid calamity. Me, I’ve already done some of what’s been suggested, now I’m contacting my congressional representatives and I’m asking if each of them will hold a town meeting for our New Mexico grandchildren where they will explain why the world’s forest and seas are dead and dying, and why there is no Artic, no Florida, no Shanghai, and no Holland. Maybe they can also explain why it’s so damn hot all of the time.
A Love Song For Bobby Long
* * *
“Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length.”
Robert Frost
Read the above quote three times, really fast. Finished? Okay, that’s about how long “A Love Song For Bobby Long” (where this quote came from) played in theaters before going to video/DVD. With great anticipation, I had read about the coming of this film in numerous screenwriting and film magazines. A Golden Globe nominee with a phenomenal cast, there was lots of great buzz about it. The dramatic script, a first-film by writer/director Shainee Gabel, was good enough to attract top-of-her-game Scarlett Johansson as Purslane Hominy and the always interesting John Travolta, as Bobby Long. This film should have stuck to the screen, but due to a lack of major advertising dollars and poor reviews from the vast army of sycophant reviewers, it disappeared faster than Chili Palmer at a wake for his second movie.
The film presents the rich romanticism of the decaying out-skirts of New Orleans seedier neighborhoods, and three people who come to grips with lives haunted by their pasts. Of course this is nearly always what heavy dramas are about, but the character studies here are so fully developed that it seems as if this could have had a place on-stage rather than on film. That may be part of the problem, for while the characters are interesting, the movie is somewhat slow and laborious in places.
The wayward Purslane returns home after learning that her mostly absent mother (she was reared by her grandmother) has passed away. The only things of value left to her: a suitcase filled with her mother’s favorite books, partial title to a run-down house in a suspect neighborhood, and the two run-down alcoholics that reside in the house. Bobby Long and his sidekick, Lawson Pines (Gabriel Macht) are supportive, brothers-in-arms drunks that while away sweaty Louisiana days drinking, sitting on the stoop smoking and generally wasting their lives. Lawson, a former student of Professor Long’s, has taken up with the older man intending to write a book about the one-time fabulous Auburn Prof., but eventually we learn their current situation is more one of being forced together by rueful events than that of true friendship.
When Purslane arrives to claim her inheritance the two men, who have no-where else to go, convince her that her mother has left the house to all three of them and that while she may stay, they are not going to leave. Over the course of months an uneasy truce, nearly understanding and friendship, develops between the three; until she learns that they have lied and that the home is entirely hers and they return from the bar one afternoon to find their belongs on the street.
This is a film about redemption, making amends and turning one’s life around, even when there may be no time left for such important activities, and though it moves at times like a ten-ton bulldozer the dialogue and acting are worth the video store search for Bobby Long.
“Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length.”
Robert Frost
Read the above quote three times, really fast. Finished? Okay, that’s about how long “A Love Song For Bobby Long” (where this quote came from) played in theaters before going to video/DVD. With great anticipation, I had read about the coming of this film in numerous screenwriting and film magazines. A Golden Globe nominee with a phenomenal cast, there was lots of great buzz about it. The dramatic script, a first-film by writer/director Shainee Gabel, was good enough to attract top-of-her-game Scarlett Johansson as Purslane Hominy and the always interesting John Travolta, as Bobby Long. This film should have stuck to the screen, but due to a lack of major advertising dollars and poor reviews from the vast army of sycophant reviewers, it disappeared faster than Chili Palmer at a wake for his second movie.
The film presents the rich romanticism of the decaying out-skirts of New Orleans seedier neighborhoods, and three people who come to grips with lives haunted by their pasts. Of course this is nearly always what heavy dramas are about, but the character studies here are so fully developed that it seems as if this could have had a place on-stage rather than on film. That may be part of the problem, for while the characters are interesting, the movie is somewhat slow and laborious in places.
The wayward Purslane returns home after learning that her mostly absent mother (she was reared by her grandmother) has passed away. The only things of value left to her: a suitcase filled with her mother’s favorite books, partial title to a run-down house in a suspect neighborhood, and the two run-down alcoholics that reside in the house. Bobby Long and his sidekick, Lawson Pines (Gabriel Macht) are supportive, brothers-in-arms drunks that while away sweaty Louisiana days drinking, sitting on the stoop smoking and generally wasting their lives. Lawson, a former student of Professor Long’s, has taken up with the older man intending to write a book about the one-time fabulous Auburn Prof., but eventually we learn their current situation is more one of being forced together by rueful events than that of true friendship.
When Purslane arrives to claim her inheritance the two men, who have no-where else to go, convince her that her mother has left the house to all three of them and that while she may stay, they are not going to leave. Over the course of months an uneasy truce, nearly understanding and friendship, develops between the three; until she learns that they have lied and that the home is entirely hers and they return from the bar one afternoon to find their belongs on the street.
This is a film about redemption, making amends and turning one’s life around, even when there may be no time left for such important activities, and though it moves at times like a ten-ton bulldozer the dialogue and acting are worth the video store search for Bobby Long.
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