Blu-ray Review: The Humbling (2014)

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The Humbling opens with what must be the actor's version of a student's nightmare of showing up in school naked, late, and unprepared for a big test.

But instead of a test, the play's the thing in Barry Levinson's adaptation of Philip Roth's thirtieth and final novel as shortly into the movie, Al Pacino's over-the-hill actor with an axe to grind ― aptly named Simon Axler ― gives in to the nightmare and surrenders, falling not onto his own sword but onto the ground of the theater in an epic faceplant.

No doubt feeling a connection to the material that centers around the existential crisis of a charismatic actor who fears he's losing his gift as well as his sanity, Pacino ― who purchased the rights to the book years ago ― is predictably terrific in the part.

The problem is that the picture, which was shot in mere bits and pieces to accommodate the star's busy schedule, feels as chaotic and unstable as our unreliable narrator's mind.

While the episodic nature of the source material is partly to blame for the similarly episodic film that's forever changing in tone, it's the job of director (and uncredited scripter) Levinson and co-writers Buck Henry and Michal Zebede to find the best way to translate Roth's work to the screen.

Bearing more in common with a television miniseries than a book, a stage play, or a cohesive feature (despite its modest running time), the film is bolstered by the stellar supporting cast including a fine effort by Greta Gerwig in a similarly undefined role as a starstruck lustful lesbian siren who sees in the aged Axler the marquee man of her adolescent dreams.

Unfortunately, it wastes the talent of Rob the Mob scene stealer and Tony winner Nina Arianda and Emmy winner Kyra Sedgwick ― both of whom seem like they wandered in from the sets of two entirely different pictures shooting nearby.

Yet while The Humbling is guilty of losing its plot almost as much as its main character does, it still has its moments of daffy comedic brilliance.

One such highlight ― a romantic intervention led by Oscar winning Woody Allen dramedy veteran Dianne Wiest that takes place in a veterinarian's office ― is so delightfully off-the-wall that it makes you wish it would've served as the jumping off point for a whole new screenplay designed to illuminate the untapped comedic potential of Pacino who shines opposite Weist.

And indeed, it's scenes like that reaffirm the brilliance of character driven storytelling that both Levinson and Henry have done so well in the past (via Rain Man and To Die For respectively).

Still in the end, The Humbling is best appreciated as a humble, experimental hat-tip to the sanity testing calling of a thespian who'd rather die on the stage than be asked to live a life off of it ― stuck somewhere in limbo as both spectator and star without the adrenaline shot of thunderous applause.
   

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: The Birdcage (1996)

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Blu-ray Introduction:

"I feel like I’m insane!" Gene Hackman’s conservative senator exclaims mere moments after he had been so fooled by Nathan Lane’s drag masquerade as an old-fashioned housewife (while pretending to be the prospective mother-in-law of Hackman’s daughter played by Calista Flockhart), that the senator had raved, "they don’t make women like that anymore."

And although he’s in a state of shock because he’d been hoodwinked as a straight man, one of the most endearing aspects about The Birdcage is how well the filmmakers and actors worked together to establish characters that we instantly understand even without language.

For example, in an earlier act when Lane enters the frame wearing a suit – initially ready to play the part of "the uncle" of the biological son (Dan Futterman) of his partner (Robin Williams) whom he'd raised his whole life – we can feel the heartbreak, tension and dismay practically waft from the screen directly into our living room.

A film about being true to who you are and the true (and evolving) definition of family, while The Birdcage may have been behind in the times with regard to gay stereotypes, it was ahead of its time in foreshadowing the progress this country has made in the fight for equal rights.

Nearly twenty years ago when the MGM/Fox film was released, a modern family that’s accepted on the same level as the one on Fox’s contemporary ABC sitcom Modern Family was just a hopeful fairytale that gay parents would’ve undoubtedly raised their child on, telling him tales of future acceptance to ensure sweet dreams at bedtime.

Roughly twenty years later, that dream has become a pop culture reality even if the U.S. is still slow to grant gay couples the equal rights they deserve in life.

And while yes, it’s slightly dated, it’s also anachronistic given its forward thinking approach as we watch the gay leads plan for their future together (signing palimony papers and discussing joint burial plots) and marvel at the realization that the 1996 blockbuster is in all actuality a remake of a foreign film that had been released nearly twenty years before that. Thus The Birdcage is part of a much larger conversation that's been going on for over forty years on screens both big and small.

Optically The Birdcage has always been bombastic and bright as noteworthy cinematography and an emphasis on visual storytelling has been a trademark of director Mike Nichols since the beginning of his auspicious career, as evidenced in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate in particular.

But now that the film has been transferred to stiletto-sharp Blu-ray high definition, the vibrant world of not only Miami but also the dream factory of the "fairy dust, fairy dust, fairy dust" and "Fosse, Fosse, Fosse" filled club the men run below their South Beach apartment comes wondrously alive.

Not only can you see each and every sequin, seam, and false eyelash but you can practically feel the texture of the fabric of The Birdcage’s costumes, with which the onscreen actors and offscreen filmmakers (including future helmer Rodrigo Garcia who worked on the film as a camera operator) brought so delightfully to life.

And while it might threaten to drive a straight-laced, right-wing senator crazy, it’s exactly the thing to drive a mainstream audience into crazy fits of laughter with enough empathy and open-mindedness to help ensure that a prejudicial society (rather than its characters) are the recurring punchline.

Original Review:

(Published 6/22/10)

Mike Nichols’s old comedy partner Elaine May adapted this wildly raucous remake of the ’78 foreign film La Cage Aux Folles that managed to remain both true to the plot and even a majority of the dialogue of the original work but ensure that leads Robin Williams and Nathan Lane would have plenty of room to improvise.

Despite its tremendous box office returns, upon its release reaction to the work was somewhat divided. Namely, half of the audience seemed unable to look past the stereotype embodied particularly by Lane as Albert, the partner of Williams’ Armand who also works as the headliner at their Miami South Beach drag club.

Meanwhile the other half of the audience was extremely impressed by the way the actors transcends the stereotype to truly get straight audiences to look past orientation and empathize with the couple when Armand’s son begs them to play straight for his fiance’s extremely conservative parents (Gene Hackman and Dianne Weist).

While I can see both sides of the argument, I tend to lean towards the latter reaction as Nichols’ film marks the first gay-themed film that I ventured to the theatre to see growing up as a straight, suburban teen.

The fact that I wasn’t alone in the audience as a heterosexual fully involved in the plight of the characters to me makes the film a resounding success in subtly getting the message out about tolerance, acceptance and respecting everyone’s rights to live as equals.

Yet by adding in a spoonful of sugar, the filmmakers manage to consistently leave viewers in hysterics – smiling and laughing at something we may not have otherwise experienced while opening our eyes to other points-of-view.

With a far superior third act to the original film that works better on both a comedic level with Lane managing to win over a clueless Hackman as the son’s old-fashioned homemaker "mother" and likewise winning back our respect for their selfish son with some tender declarations, The Birdcage remains one of Williams’ most triumphant comedies in a decade that also scored the actor a hit in another drag related comedy, Mrs. Doubtfire.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Dedication

Director: Justin Theroux

“Success in this business is 99% perseverance and 1% talent,” children’s book publisher Arthur Planck (Bob Balaban) tells three in-house illustrators before dismissing two of them to give the sole female, Lucy Reilly (Mandy Moore) her big break. By this point, it’s evident to the audience that the question isn’t whether or not Lucy is talented and she undeniably is but whether or not she can persevere to work with the publisher’s most unspeakably cruel, judgmental, depressing and misogynistic yet successful authors, Henry Roth (Billy Crudup) after his longtime collaborator Rudy Holt (Tom Wilkinson) dies.

With a constant unease about his existence and a preference to lay on the floor with heavy objects (usually books) atop his body to keep him feeling safe and secure, Henry is a walking time-bomb who, despite producing the wildly popular Marty the Beaver children’s book and being prompted for a sequel, spends most of his time alienating everyone he meets as punishment for his misery and “crap childhood” as well as imagining he’s speaking to Rudy throughout the film even while in the presence of Lucy. Eager to rip his new partner to shreds, he takes Lucy to a diner for a meeting and like most writers, proceeds to inventively create stories about those with whom he comes into contact yet each story is filled with such contempt and horror that Lucy soon flees, only to return with the promise of a two hundred thousand dollar bonus from the publisher to get the book finished, when she’s strapped for cash and nearly kicked out of her apartment by her controlling landlady, Carol (Dianne Wiest) who happens to be her mom.

Hardly the stuff of an “uplifting romantic comedy” as the back of the film’s box promises and while there’s not much going for the film to keep us invested for the first half, the actors (especially Crudup who by this point has made a career of playing neurotic jerks) keep us watching. In addition, there are enough surprises wherein the film fails to go down routes of predictability as when Henry, who beginning to have feelings for Lucy, has the means to crush her former flame seeking a second chance and doesn’t, to make us forgive some of its overly aware eccentricities the filmmakers hoped were quirky but in all reality were just plain annoying.

Making his directorial debut from a first time script by David Bromberg, actor Justin Theroux (Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Mulholland Drive) is best when giving his fellow character actors such as Crudup and Wilkinson a chance to shine and misguided when he tries too hard to make some moments overly romantic such as a cringe-worthy confrontation where Crudup pleads for Moore to take him back with more than enough bizarre profanity and crazy stream-of-consciousness dialogue to have anyone (let alone a possible mate) head for the hills. Still, particularly admirable in giving Moore another opportunity to break out of the twenty-something romantic girl movie pack in offering her character a story arc of her own. In Moore's hands, the thoughtful and intelligent Lucy becomes more than simply a one-dimensional cliché of the rescuing, selfless angel out to melt a cold man’s heart who masochistically casts hers aside in the process. However, similar to Lucy's character, overall, the bottom line of Dedication's success will be up to the viewers to decide whether or not they'd like to persevere in the company of Crudup's Holt for the film's entire running time.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

Director: Dito Montiel

Nominated for several independent film awards, this autobiographical film by Dito Montiel, adapted from his own memoirs, earned both a Special Jury Prize for the ensemble performance of its cast and the achievement award for directing at the Sundance Film Festival. In telling the story of four teens growing up way too quickly in the violent mean streets of 1986 Astoria, Queens New York, Robert Downey Jr. plays the author Montiel as an adult returning to the neighborhood after a long period of estrangement as we go back in time to see the struggles the kids faced on a daily basis trying to avoid the far too common reality of friends who end up as addicts, convicts, or corpses on the sidewalks. The entire cast, most notably the relative newcomers taking on the 80’s roles, is wonderful and the brutal urgency and sense of accuracy about a specific time and place helped inspire major talent support in the form of Dianne Wiest, Chazz Palminteri, Eric Roberts and Rosario Dawson who turn in fine, if somewhat smaller in scale portrayals. The film is a challenging one to view that felt reminiscent of Spike Lee’s similarly plotted Do The Right Thing in its telling of a melting pot of mixed ethnic tensions and stressors reaching a boiling point during the humid summers in the city—while Lee’s is obviously the masterpiece, Montiel’s film is all the more riveting on its own when you realize it’s true. Check it out!

Musical Selections from A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

“Native New Yorker” by Odyssey


“Welcome Back” by John Sebastian


“Baby Come Back” by Player


“Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” by Elton John & Kiki Dee


“My Maria” by B.W. Stevenson


“Trouble” by Cat Stevens


“Rock and Roll” by Lou Reed


“Brother Louie” by Stories


“Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty


“New York Groove” by Kiss