My Favorite Movie Was Made Into A TV Show

FADE IN

INT. GREEN MONSTER – CONTROL ROOM 

An ADMIRAL in a sharkskin suit enters the primary control room of The Green Monster, a studio located in a bunker deep in the Hollywood Hills that is capable of green-lighting terrible ideas in a maximum 7.5 seconds - quicker than any production studio before. The Admiral bows before the GRAND CHANCELLOR.

ADMIRAL 

We have secured the rights to LAST OF THE MOHICANS. 

Two SUITED UP DUDES enter with NICK PRIGGE, whose hands are bound, dressed in jeans and an indie band tee shirt. Years earlier, in the face of a remake epidemic, Nick secured the rights to FROM HERE TO ETERNITY to ward off any potential remakes featuring Jessica Simpson in the Donna Reed role. The Green Monster wants these rights. 

NICK

Grand Chancellor, I recognized the recycled air the moment I was brought inside. 

GRAND CHANCELLOR 

Nick Prigge, I would like you to be my guest at a ceremony that will make this production studio operational. No one will dare oppose a remake now.

NICK 

The more remakes you green light, Chancellor, the more remakes will fall by the wayside.

GRAND CHANCELLOR 

Not after we demonstrate the power of this studio. In a way, you have determined the choice of the remake that will be green lit first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the rights to FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, I have chosen to test this studio's power on your favorite movie, LAST OF THE MOHICANS. 

NICK

No! Not LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Please. It's perfect, it's unrepeatable. Who’s been clamoring for a LAST OF THE MOHICANS remake?! No one has! Can’t you just let it be in peace?! 

GRAND CHANCELLOR

You would prefer another remake? A military remake? Then tell us who has the rights! 

The Chancellor waves menacingly at Nick.

GRAND CHANCELLOR

I grow tired of asking this. So it'll be the last time. Where are the rights to FROM HERE TO ETERNITY?

NICK

(softly) 

Inglewood. They’re in Inglewood. I gave them to Jules, our man in Inglewood. He keeps them in a briefcase. 

GRAND CHANCELLOR

There. You see, he can be reasonable. (addressing Admirable) Continue with the operation. You may green light when ready.

NICK

What?!

GRAND CHANCELLOR

You're far too trusting. We can’t green light a FROM HERE TO ETERNITY remake until Jessica Simpson has her baby. But don’t worry, we’ll deal with your precious World War Two characters soon enough.

NICK

No! 

INT. GREEN MONSTER – GREEN LIGHT CHAMBER 

A button is pressed which switches on a panel of lights. A JUNIOR EXEC reaches overhead and pulls a lever. Another lever is pulled and a bank of lights on a panel and wall light up. A huge beam of light emanates from within a cone-shaped area and converges into a single beam of green light. 

INT. GREEN MONSTER – CONTROL ROOM 

The screen in front of Nick Prigge and the Grand Chancellor erupts in green light, eventually revealing a LAST OF THE MOHICANS movie poster paired with the logo of the FX television network. 

NICK

FX?! You’re remaking LAST OF THE MOHICANS into a TV show?! (sobs) 

INT. CENTRAL LONDON – DANIEL DAY-LEWIS’S HOUSE 

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS sits in a glorious wingback chair, sipping tea and reading William Wordsworth. His wife, REBECCA MILLER, sits across from him, in an identical wingback chair, also sipping tea but reading Thomas Hardy. Daniel Day-Lewis, suddenly, falters, seems almost faint. 

REBECCA MILLER

Are you all right? What's wrong? 

 DANIEL DAY-LEWIS

I felt a great disturbance in the Force...as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

FADE OUT

Friday's Old Fashioned: Niagara (1953)

I have long thought of Henry Hathaway's fairly standard thriller "Niagara" as the ultimate Marilyn Monroe movie. Please do not misunderstand, it is not a better movie than "Some Like It Hot" and it does not contain an image as iconic as "The Seven Year Itch" and it is not as intriguing a sociological study as "The Misfits." But... The metaphor at which the filmmakers are driving is hammered home in a monologue delivered by Joseph Cotten, playing Monroe's onscreen husband, when he lectures the wife of a young couple: "You're young, you're in love. Well, I'll give you a warning. Don't let it get out of hand, like those falls out there."

In reality, the most interesting metaphors in "Niagara" are the ones unspoken, the ones viewed through the prism of time. Niagara Falls has always been fascinating to me, a place of unfathomable natural beauty and simultaneously a place overrun by tackiness and souvenir shops and yellow rain slickers. Don't you wish you could have viewed Niagara Falls as God intended, all on their lonesome, just you and the water and the roar, way back when in the 16th century? Oh, that must've been a sight to see. And isn't that, sort of, a woman named Norma Jeane? As beautiful a woman as God ever intended but ruined and ravaged by the hangers-on and the trauma and turmoil that surrounded her at every turn.

More to the metaphorical point, "Niagara" is not really even a Marilyn Movie. Oh, she's splattered all over that elegantly trashy poster and her name is billed first because of course it is. But if you simply read the screenplay without knowing who was playing who you would view her part as critical, a good part, but not the starring role. Cast Marilyn, though, and just like when she strolls into that posh party in "All About Eve" and guilelessly wrests the film right outta Bette Davis's overlord hands for a few moments, "Niagara" becomes hers. And then, just like her real life, she is moved out of the picture much too soon. (I mean, Spoiler Alert!!!)

"Niagara" technically belongs to Jean Peters. She is Polly, one half of a married couple that comes to the Canadian side of the Falls for their overdue honeymoon. Her husband is Ray, the kind of guy who hopes to "catch up on my reading" ON HIS HONEYMOON and never.stops.smiling. Seriously. Never. He is played by Casey Adams and the original New York Times review notes he is "a mite too enthusiastic." A mite? Just a mite? He is six million cubic feet more than a mite too enthusiastic, I assure you.

They roll into a romantic lodge with a romantic outlook over the Falls and wind up right next door to George (Cotten) and Rose (Monroe) Loomis. He is ex-army and just discharged from a military mental hospital. She is simply scandalouz, trotting around in high heels and curve-amplifying dresses and seeing a Casanova on the sly. At one point she coolly invades a party happening in the motel parking lot and while you don’t actually hear the obligatory record scratch, you will swear you do.

The driving plot point is that Rose and her Casanova are scheming to off George, but this seems more out of story necessity than any sort of acute psychology. There is no real exploration of George's mental breakdown aside from the traditional Throwing The Table Over Scene. Rose's Casanova has no personality whatsoever, established entirely through his shoes and his tune-whistling which are really just tiny pieces of story. Rose mostly gets by on her Marilyn-ness, which is considerable, waking up mornings already in full lipstick and staging a phony if glorious mental breakdown.

Meanwhile Polly and Ray find themselves dragged into this whole sordid affair simply on account of their proximity to the Loomis Cabin. Poor Polly. To her right is a murder mystery, to her left is a grinning jack-o-lantern of a husband who is more concerned about meeting up with Jess Kettering – the Vice President of his firm back home who is also at Niagara for some theoretical R&R – than he is with rubbing suntan lotion on his wife’s back. As such, the film sort of becomes a push & pull for the fate of fair Polly, and I can’t help but wonder if this was more apparent in the original script pre-re-writes to punch up Monroe’s part.

She tells George, returning to metaphor-speak, that she’s one of those logs in the river that just hangs around in the calm, resisting the allure of the rapids. Ah, but she seems curiously drawn to the marital parlor game of Mr. & Mrs. Loomis, as if desperate for some sort of drama. Can you blame her? Notice how every tourist attraction they attend, Ray over-protectively latches onto Polly’s arm and escorts her at a rate of speed at which she almost seems uncomfortable. He pours her a glass of water and puts it right to her lips and tips it downward, essentially forcing her to sip until, finally, she grabs that glass outta his damn hands to sip at her own chosen speed. CAN’T HE GIVE HER SOME SPACE???

The film’s inevitable conclusion involves an out-of-gas houseboat drifting down river, threatening to plunge right over the Falls and into the froth below. Naturally, Polly is aboard, placed in peril. She doesn’t care for the rapids, see, she wants the calm. Eventually she is rescued (spoiler alert!). But is she really? I’m not saying in twenty years when she reflects on the monotony of her marriage she will literally wish she had gone over the Falls, I’m just saying she will make that claim in a spousal argument.

First Image Of Kate Winslet In Divergent

Yesterday Summit Entertainment released 10 brand new images from the set of the forthcoming "Divergent", starring "Oscar Nominee" Shailene Woodley (Cinema Romantico still considers her an Oscar Nominee even though she wasn't since she should've been) and Kate Winslet, The Greatest Actress In The World.

Below is our first glimpse of Winslet's character.

Whoops! That's right! I forgot! They did not actually release an image from the set of the forthcoming "Divergent" that featured Kate Winslet.

Could someone at Summit get on that, please?

5 More Arnold Schwarzenegger Sequels (And 1 Prequel)

Is it any coincidence that not long after blockbuster moguls Steven Spielberg & George Lucas predicted, more or less, the forthcoming implosion of Hollywood that ex-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his intention to not only star in yet another sequel to his “Terminator” franchise and not only star in another sequel to his "Conan" franchise but also star in a sequel to his 1988 comedy “Twins” called……”Triplets”?

Granted, Spielberg & Lucas were not exactly predicting this implosion based upon ex-bodybuilding addicts desperately searching for a comeback at any price, but still.......the timing was extraordinary. And since it seems Schwarzenegger and his "creative" team are entirely bankrupt creatively, Cinema Romantico thought it be might helpful to further augment his spiral into sequel-itis.

5 More Arnold Schwarzenegger Sequels (And 1 Prequel)

Hercules In Sacramento. Hercules becomes Governor of California after the recall of the Nemean Lion. Strangely, though, most of “Hercules In Sacramento” winds up being set and shot in Los Angeles.

Commando 2. When John Matrix is kidnapped, his daughter, Jenny Matrix (Alyssa Milano), is forced to recruit her sister Jill Matrix (Holly Marie Combs) and their long lost half-sister Jolene (Rose McGowan) to rescue him.

Jingle All The Way 2. Schwarzenegger’s son – whose character name no one remembers, which leads to a meta joke in which Schwarzenegger can never remember his own son’s name – has turned into a workaholic just like his dad and, thus, fails to remember to buy his own son the new iPhone 47 for Christmas. Alas, only an extremely limited supply of iPhone 47s were released into stores ahead of December 25th and the rest are kept on Apple's secret backlot. Thus, Schwarzenegger crafts a caper in which he, his son whose name he can't remember, Sinbad and Sinbad's son (Jaden Smith), whose name his father can't remember, who forgot to buy his son the iPhone 47, break into the Apple secret backlot in hopes of thieving a couple Christmas presents. Hijinks ensue but, ultimately, lessons are learned.

End of Days 2: Days Are Ending (Again). Despite his character having died in the original “End of Days” to, in fact, prevent the ending of days, Schwarzenegger announces plans to return for a sequel in which his character re-prevents the ending of days. Don't ask. I don't know how it works either.

The Running Man vs. Predator. In the rarely glimpsed crossover-film-within-his-own-filmography, Schwarzenegger reprises his role as wrongly accused cop Ben Richards (who has been wrongly accused AGAIN!!!) from 1987's "The Running Man" and is punished by being deposited onto a Reality TV show island that has harnessed an other-wordly "Predator" from Schwarzenegger's other 1987 movie to hunt and kill its "contestants".

Dutch & Dillon. A prequel to 1987's "Predator" which shows the good ol' days of Schwarzenegger's Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer and Carl Weathers' George Dillon before he became a shady CIA operative. And yes, a prequel would make no sense since Schwarzenegger and Weathers would appear 30 years older - unless you simply write your way out of this conundrum by employing...wait for it...time travel.

Stories We Tell

I confess I saw Sarah Polley's documentary nearly a month ago and that I have written several reviews of it. These reviews, however, have not been revisions expanding upon original drafts. No, each review has taken a life of its own, journeyed in a different direction. I was hesitant to publish this review. That is because "Stories We Tell" not only lingers in your mind, but expands and deepens. Elegantly, it weaves in so many ideas, your own ideas about it may go on and on and on. I get the sense these ideas might, to quote a character in the film, never touch bottom.

It is centered around Polley’s family and its cache of secrets. Slyly, though, it turns into something else without ever betraying its poignancy or, crucially, its honesty, even as it eventually reveals its own sleight of hand. It opens not exactly with talking heads but with us, the audience, seeing the talking heads taking their seats, getting situated, hitting the bathroom, receiving instructions from the filmmaker, boom mics hanging right there on the screen in plain view. This is the polar opposite of current documentary dictum in which it seems so many of their makers are eager to evade or partially slant the truth, sort of dressing up non-fiction as fiction.

Ah, but then that is precisely part of Polley’s point – dressing up non-fiction as fiction. This happens via those home videos, filmed on an old 8MM camera, all of which appear authentic but which, it turns out, are roughly half and half. Half are the real thing, half are recreations. This might seem like a cheat, it might even seem like a critique of the recent documentary re-enactment fad, but I would argue that it is a stellar – and wondrously unspoken – illustration of the way we tend to keep memories that are both real and imagined. You know, we choose, whether purposely or subconsciously, to take a real memory and tailor it. And perhaps these make-believe videos of her mom, Diane, is the way Polley has chosen to remember her mother. That is what the film, in theory, is all about – Sarah Polley’s mother, Diane, and a long held family mystery surrounding her.

Polley’s father, Michael, stress-smoking (understandably) throughout, is tasked to the narrate the film, adding additional layers of immediacy and mild agony. Throughout, as he narrates, the camera often returns to its ostensible handler, Sarah Polley herself, listening from the sound booth, now and then offering him instruction. This might prompt accusations of navel-gazing but, really, Sarah Polley is not the protagonist. Diane Polley is.

It is difficult to discuss “Stories We Tell” in depth without revealing its secrets – the biggest of which is unveiled in a lovely sequence that almost recalls a silent film without intertitles – and I have no intention of revealing any of them here. What I can say is the film turns out to be not so much about the revelation of its secrets as about why they were secrets to begin with – why they were kept and what stories were told to cover them up and what stories were told on account of not knowing these secrets. A critical interviewee admits his hesitation with Polley talking to everyone even remotely associated with this particular familial story. He says that doing so prevents you from ever “touching bottom.” That, however, is the exact effect for which Polley strives.

Even when the film ends and cuts to black, a talking head from before pops right back up and offers yet another revelation. No story touches bottom.

The Bling Ring

One of the most exemplary passages you will see at the movies this year involves three quick, successive scenes. Teenage Chloe, played by the captivatingly raspy Claire Julien, is driving her fetch ride in a severely intoxicated state with her blingy compatriots, rhyming with the beats blasting from her sound system. Suddenly, another car crashes right into the driver's side door. The film cuts to Chloe, hair askew, scar on her forehead, taking her mug shot - front, right, back, left. The film cuts to Chloe on her high school steps, hair well-coiffed, scar presumably hidden by makeup, all dolled up, bragging about her blood alcohol content. Not one single mention of this DUI is ever made again.

Partly this is to demonstrate the inability to learn lessons, of course, but, even more, it's about how the characters at the core of cinematic mad scientist Sofia Coppola's "The Bling Ring" seem to be not so much unconcerned with actions & consequences as entirely unaware of the fact they even exist.

"The Bling Ring", based on Nancy Jo Sales' Vanity Fair article about actual thefts in 2008 and 2009 of Hollywood glitterati, is not interested in rigidly following the true-to-life plot from Point A to Point B to Point C and re-documenting all the facts of the case. These are people weaned on MTV "reality", episodes of "The Hills" and "Laguna Beach" where plot consists of what purse goes with what shoes and why you, like, totally can't pair zebra with leopard. This is not a film of philosophical monologues and studious drama, it is a film of tossed off rap lyrics and Facebook status updates. I never realized it until this film, but Facebook is essentially a blue and white US Weekly for the commoners.

Marc (Israel Broussard) is the New Kid at school. He becomes besties with Rebecca (Katie Chang) who perhaps senses that his unease, his closeted gayness, his desire to fit in somewhere with someone makes him an easy mark to pull into her easygoing illicitness of checking for unlocked cars to score purses and cash and entering unlocked swank L.A. homes for even more.

Eventually, they up the ante, brazenly striding into homes of celebrities like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, literally leaving with shopping bags of stolen jewelry and designer clothing, bandits in big ass sunglasses instead of ski masks. Not even concerned with keeping their stealing a secret, they invite their partygoing pals Chloe and Nicki (Emma Watson) and Nicki's younger sister Sam (Taissa Farmiga) along on their shopping sprees. It is telling that they do not simply grab the goods and skulk off into the night. They break in and proceed to try on clothes, check themselves out in mirrors, drink booze, do drugs, gab, gossip, lay in beds, hang out in homes in which they are trespassing. It's not necessarily wanting more, it's wanting a particular lifestyle.

At least, this is what Marc says in his voiceover that dots the soundtrack throughout, although most of his quotes come across as nothing more than boilerplate. And that Coppola merely shows the beginning and the ending of the inevitable court date of The Bling Ring and nothing in-between, no standard issuances of I'm-sorry and I-know-what-I-did-was-wrong and I-promise-to-do-better, brilliantly conveys the characters forgoing even the decency to falsely profess regret.

By design, no one here has much personality aside from what they wear and what they appropriate. Parents are essentially non-existent. The only one we spend much time with is Nicki's mom - played by Leslie Mann in what appears to be a parody of Amy Poehler's parody in "Mean Girls" of a Reality Housewife - who has chosen to homeschool her children even though her homeschooling amounts to little more than offering a flow chart of Angelina Jolie's career. These are kids utterly into themselves but, simultaneously, have no idea nor, more importantly, interest in who they are. They are pointed emotional ciphers.

You could argue the characters are living exclusively for the moment but I think that oversells their self-awareness (as opposed to their self-absorption, which is considerable). I would argue they have reached an ineffable plain of anti-enlightenment.

Mixtape Movies Blogathon: Lovers on the Lam

Andy Hart of Fandango Groovers Movie Blog, the Grandmaster Supreme of the movie blogathon, has done it again, this time concocting a blogathon centered around movie mix tapes. He writes that our movie mix tapes should be "A selection of movies with no direct connection (star, director, source material) but that fit together or compliment each other. Around six movies, five plus one wildcard (a movie that doesn’t quite fit but still belongs)."

Well, thinking of mix tapes automatically makes one think of “High Fidelity” since John Cusack’s music obsessed protagonist Rob Gorden breaks down the proper means to craft one. Yet, in thinking of the mix tape my mind drifted to a different scene from “High Fidelity.” It’s when Rob and his music store geek buddies and their pal Louis are naming their “Top Five Side One Track Ones.” Rob, seemingly out of it and disinterested in the exercise, lists fairly standard, if not entirely accurate, fare such as “Let’s Get It On” & “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Jack Black’s ever-snobbish Barry, however, cannot abide. “Oh no, Rob,” he declares, “that’s not obvious enough. Not at all.” This is my way of saying, I’m going full snob, baby.

Lately I can't stop myself from having thoughts of just getting in a car and driving away. Where? Anywhere. And that led me directly to the notion of films featuring lovers on the lam. And in crafting a Lovers On The Lam Mix Tape I should include, say, “Badlands” and “Gun Crazy” and "True Romance" and especially “Bonnie and Clyde.” Of course, I should (for God’s sake, “Bonnie and Clyde” is one of my all-timers – its poster is on my home office wall), but I won’t.

And I won’t because when I craft mix tapes I’m that idiot who packs it full of obscurities and puts a Debbie Gibson song right after an Arcade Fire song ("Wake Up" / "Wake Up To Love" – bam!) and always, ALWAYS includes a Kylie Minogue track because every mix tape in the whole wide world should include a Kylie Minogue track. So......

Lovers on the Lam: A Cinema Romantico Mixtape 

Moonrise Kingdom. 

I mean, really, when you consider it, Sam & Suzy are just a much more whimsical "Badlands" Kit & Holly. No?

The Dish and the Spoon. 

I suppose that Rose & Boy (he never does get a name) are not "lovers", but they are definitely on the lam (she from her philandering husband, he from his native England) and there is without a doubt some sort of baffling, bizarre sexual undercurrent happening here that I'm still not sure I entirely understand (or want to). This is Track 2 to keep you on your toes.

One False Move. 

The lovers here are a ponytailed Billy Bob Thortnon (who co-wrote) & a where-did-she-go? Cynda Williams who light out of L.A. for the south after a string of murders who run right into a reckoning with a note perfect (yes, that's right, a note perfect) Bill Paxton as a small-town sheriff nicknamed "Hurricane" who really should be nicknamed "Tumbleweed."

Sleeper. 

It takes a little while, sure, but eventually Miles & Luna end up on the lam. And while they are less "lovers" then a Neurotic Who Can't Stop Obsessing Over Sex Because He Never Gets To Have It and a Woman Who Has Sex With Woody Allen At The End Because Woody Allen Is Writing The Screenplay, well, hey, we needed a more lively, easygoing track after those last two.

A Life Less Ordinary. 

The Kylie Minogue song of this movie mixtape. In other words, you're just gonna have to deal with it. I know not everyone holds a special place in their heart for the hapless Robert & the spoiled Celine but their whirlwind, celestially-stoked courtship that is more concerned with absurd set pieces and droll indulgence makes me want to giddily foxtrot. 

Jump Tomorrow. 

This is our wildcard because George & Girard are not really lovers on the lam. Well, they are lovers, but that's to say they are lovers in the manner of modern day, neurotic Don Quixotes. And they are on the lam, sort of, because Girard has just been rebuffed in his proposal to his lady and, thus, plans to commit suicide at Niagara Falls and because George is on his way to his (arranged) wedding at Niagara Falls from which he eventually flees for the wiles of the requisite Spanish vixen. It is far from a perfect movie but, damn, is it effervescent. And that's just how I want this mixtape to conclude - effervescently.

So it will.

Friday's Old Fashioned: A Slight Case Of Murder (1938)

Mary Marco (Jane Bryan) has just been introduced to the upstanding father of her daughter’s fiancé. For the entire film she, like her husband Remy (Edward G. Robinson) and their smattering of right-hand men, have been speaking in those thick New York accents so indicative of tough guy playwright Damon Runyon on whose work this film, “A Slight Case Of Murder”, was based. She calls cops “flatfoots” and men giving her a hard time “mugs”. But now Mary wants to impress, she wants to come across as the politely mannered socialite she is not, so she assumes a fake hoity-toity English-esque accent apparently in the hope of making the upstanding father of her daughter’s fiancé think she has ties to the queen. Never mind that she continually slips out of it mid-sentence, the point is that she is desperate to gussy herself up as something she is not.

Edward G. Robinson, for good or for bad, is generally remembered as a wise-cracking tough guy. He broke out as the title character of 1931’s “Little Ceasar”, the rise and fall of a small time gangster. I think of him most fondly as the dastardly Johnny Rocco, holding Bogey and Bacall and a “Key Largo” hotel hostage in the midst of a hurricane. He was so tailor-made for these roles that, for much of his career, he was more or less doomed to being typecast in them. He would, eventually, to a degree, track down other parts to play, but always the stigma of “Little Ceasar” remained. And while it might merely be that the passage of time – 75 years worth – makes it look this way, “A Slight Case Of Murder” sort of evokes that casting battle at the core of Robinson.

His Remy Marco, incessantly referring to himself in the third person, is dapper, shifty, tough-as-nails, and a roaring success on account of bootlegging operation during Prohibition. But as “A Slight Case Of Murder” opens, Prohibition is ending, and regular beer is re-appearing on the market. Therefore Marco decides to go straight, running a legit brewery. Alas, his product is no better than swill, his profits nosedive, and after four years of being an honest businessman he is in debt for half a million to the bank. They want it now or the brewery is theirs. Thus, Marco retreats to his summer home upstate in Saratoga with his wife and daughter, Nora (Ruth Donnelly), who has just become engaged to a Saratoga state trooper.

On top of that, Marco has made his yearly pilgrimage to the orphanage where he grew up (run by Margaret Hamilton which means that for a few brief scenes The Wicked Witch Of The West & Edward G. Robinson share the same screen which is just entire liquor crates of awesome) to take one of its inhabitants under his wing. On top of that four mobsters are waiting at the summer home to ambush them.

Clearly showing its stage roots, “A Slight Case Of Murder”, upon getting its set-up out of the way, almost entirely takes place in the expansive summer home of the Marcos. It is a wondrous farce, nimbly balancing its varying situations and misunderstandings, its plethora of characters going up the stairs and down the stairs and in and out of doors, its comedy and deaths and debts. And at the center of it all is Robinson, commanding without overwhelming the picture and drowning out his many fine co-stars. Consider the interactions between he and the orphan, the brilliantly named Douglas Fairbanks Rosenbloom (Bobby Jordan). This has all the makings of hijinks, a protégé causing trouble for his wannabe mentor.

And while Douglas is a troublemaker, well, there is that bootlegging part of Marco that can’t help but look at this kid with grand affection. He doesn’t say “you’re a lot like me” but you can tell that he thinks it. The funniest line in the whole film is Robinson, genuinely, looking at a supposedly sleeping Douglas and saying “You can almost see the little halo over his little head.” The very fact that Douglas is more devil than angel is exactly why Marco thinks he’s so angelic.

Douglas will factor mightily into the gloriously staged finale as the bankers and the authorities and the fiancé and the father and the mobsters and, of course, Remy Marco himself all come up against each other in one way or another. He has gone legitimate post-Prohibition Repeal only to find that legitimate has left him on the verge of foreclosure. So, he decides he will revert to being un-legitimate. But then he learns that perhaps he failed post-Repeal simply because his beer tasted like Hamm’s after it has sat out on a summer New York City sidewalk too long, so maybe he could stay legitimate.

The end, cleverly, kind of bridges these two gaps and allows Marco to nestle in the middle ground, even if we can still tell that in his legitimate heart lurks a lawless, cracking wise nature.

In Memoriam: James Gandolfini

I feel wrong opening an In Memoriam with a personal anecdote but it's so appropriate and so weird that it happened that I feel I have no choice. It goes like this: on Sunday morning, without going into significant detail, there were important things I needed to be doing. Except they really weren't that important (even though they were) because the most important thing I needed to be doing was finally getting around to removing my "Zero Dark Thirty" DVD from my (holy) DVD shelf and christening it. So I did.

There is a scene when our red-headed Osama Hunter Maya (Jessica Chastain) and a fellow agent at the CIA (Mark Duplass) are about to pitch the idea that America's Enemy #1 is hiding in a compound in Abbottabad to the CIA director. The door to the room opens and in march - well, trudge - a bunch of men in suits, including the CIA Director himself. He is played by James Gandolfini. The very first thing he does upon entry into that room is release a sigh. It is a noisy sigh - a noisy sigh that is part irritation, part sleep deprivation but mostly for show. It is a noisy sigh that simply says: "This better not be a waste of my fucking time. But it's probably going to be waste of my fucking time, isn't it? Everything's a waste of my fucking time."

Well, I was so taken by that moment - that second, that instant - that I yearned to construct a post completely around it. I actually typed up three paragraphs and then set it aside, intending to return to it later. I mean, that single sigh bursts forth with a whole world of insight. You can feel the endless meetings, the cavalcade of late nights, the smell of the antacids he carries in his briefcase. You would know that his character is vital since he is played by James Gandolfini but even if you had no inkling who James Gandolfini was then the sigh would clue you into his vitalness.

James Gandolfini was a master at playing irritated. Most citizens likely know him as Tony Soprano, front and center and in charge of David Chase's New Jersey mafia family on HBO's long running "The Sopranos." I confess, I did not watch "The Sopranos." Oh, I caught an episode here or there, sure, and I have no doubt it was worthy of the innumerable superlatives that came its way over the years, but, as I have stated many times before, I would always rather be watching movies than TV shows.

So I knew Mr. Gandolfini pretty well at the movies. And man, could that guy that play pissed. He'd assume that......smile. No, no, no, no, no. Not a smile. A smirk. You know the smirk. It was an all-around smirk. It was bemused, annoyed, incredulous. Mostly, though, it was a smirk that simply said: "Can you believe this fuckin' guy?" He had that smile in "Crimson Tide" when Denzel Washington was trying to take over the submarine. He had that smile when he was chatting with a stoned Brad Pitt on the sofa in "True Romance." He had that smile as an American general dealing with the exorbitantly awe-inspiringly obscene Peter Capaldi in "In the Loop." He had that smile in last year's under seen "Not Fade Away" when his wannabe rock 'n' roller son came home from college wearing Cuban heeled hoots.

This makes it sounds like all Gandolfini did was smirk but that is not true nor my intent. I merely hope to convey just how expressive he was as an actor. He could yell and punch and kick and what-have-you, sure, but what he could really do was imbue his characters with the whole weight of the varying situations they were facing. He always ably demonstrated how much he felt the moment.

He gets the smirk in "A Civil Action".....but just for a second. And that's not really what interests me most in his supporting performance in that under appreciated legal drama. That was the based-on-a-true-story account of a sprawling case of environmental pollution potentially contaminating the water supply of a Massachusetts and causing residents to contract leukemia and cancer. Gandolfini plays an employee at the plant responsible for the pollution and, critically, the one person willing to testify against them.

One scene involves him at the dinner table with his family - his wife and his six kids. There is no true dialogue and Gandolfini does not say a word. He just watches as wife dispenses water from a pitcher into the glasses of his children. He takes a bowl of mixed veggies and doles them out. That's the whole deal, really, but Gandolfini undergoes a crisis of conscience without showing off. He just lets the moment be itself and then plays off of it. He is the personification of a dad at a dinner table who loves his kids and is genuinely concerned for their future. It breaks my heart.

James Gandolfini passed away yesterday. That breaks my heart too. He was all of 51 years old. Which seems so weird. He memorably played a few self-destructive men but the man himself seemed indestructible. He had so much left to go, so many more movies to make, so much life to live, a daughter to raise. So it goes. I like to imagine he arrived at the pearly gates yesterday, got let in, saw a few angels and God at a conference table ready to give him a celestial briefing, and then......sighed. "This fuckin' Guy? Already?"

Before Midnight's Bitter Aftertaste

The first time I watched “Before Sunrise”, rented from Hollywood video on VHS (“Memory…all alone in the moonlight”), was a genuinely revelatory moment. This was early 1998, a tumultuous (relatively speaking) period in my life, and there was a sense of displacement the characters had – two people who did not know one another, wandering around all night in a city where they did not live, kind of untethered from their actual selves – that mirrored the way I felt. And the fact that the film was defiant to that displacement not with anger or depression or violence but with romance……well, you only need to read the name of this blog to know it hit me flush.

It comforted me, it still comforts me, and it’s a film to which I often turn when in most dire need of recalibration. It is simplistic to reduce something such as 9/11 to "The first movie I watched in its wake was..." but, nonetheless, the first movie I watched in its wake was, by very definite choice, "Before Sunrise."

I had never encountered a film quite like “Before Sunrise.” This was in the midst of the period where I was just becoming a cinemaphile, watching everything I could get my hands on – old, new, mainstream, out of left field, whatever, whichever – and so I still had “My Dinner With Andre” and a few Eric Rohmer films (whose ouvre I’m still too far behind on), courtesy of the late, great Roger Ebert’s recommendation, to come, which meant I soon realized other films preceding “Before Sunrise” struck the same sort of conversational tone. But……I’m Gen X. I’m from the slacker generation. I cut my teeth on the era of 90’s Indie. I “knew” Winona Ryder before she ever stole a thing. I had a pathetic goatee and pierced both my ears. I was soulful and idealistic, which is to say I was idiotic and clueless. I was Ethan Hawke’s character in “Before Sunrise."

Well, that’s not right. Let’s say, I liked to imagine I was Ethan Hawke's character in "Before Sunrise." Maybe even more than that I liked to imagine I was meeting a French girl on the train and falling in love. Was there wish fulfillment happening here? Sure there was, and I suppose owning up to it rules me out of order in objectively discussing the film. But then, as the film critic Dana Stevens has noted, "one of the oldest and most compelling reasons there is to go to the movies" is seeing something which we can admit "we'd like to be doing...too...and this is as close as we're ever gonna get."

That, and "Before Sunrise" is not necessarily a film I have ever claimed to examine objectively. While I have written too many words over the years on both it and its eventual 2004 sequel "Before Sunset", I have never written a proper review of either one. This is to say, I have never critiqued them, never appraised them analytically, at least not out loud and in print (or: on the internet). As someone who strives to be (or: likes to fancy himself) a film critic this, I admit, is essentially against the rules. And yet, Jesse and Celine are from a time when I was still just an innocent movie fan, when I didn’t scrutinize text for subtext and attempt to provide a “reading” of each film I viewed. Please don’t misunderstand, I think those things are vital in cinema discussion and I wholly understand and fully embrace the need of objective film criticism, but in penning my reviews I am always attempting to do so in my voice. The voice I hope to project (and I’m not certain I’m always successful) is one that strikes a balance between the emotional and critical, the sonnet and the evaluation.

So, basically, “Before Midnight” was the first Jesse & Celine film I watched mindful of both emotion and analysis. It was…..weird. I wrote a real review. I critiqued it to the best of my abilities. It left my friend Daryl wondering: “So, did you like it? I couldn’t tell.” I’m not sure I could tell either. Which is not to say the film isn’t good – nay, very good. It is. But it’s a sad movie – at first wistfully so and then, in its own way, darkly. The end, the very end, absolutely crushed me. It’s difficult to gauge its exact intention but I swear it wants to be upbeat. Except that I think it plays exactly the opposite. It’s akin to “Sex and the City” (don’t ask how I know this) when Carrie and Berger’s relationship is kinda, sorta on the rocks and they resort to a “bit” – a “Hollywood kiss” when they are “being pissy with each other.” Carrie tells Miranda this to which Miranda, incredulously, replies: “You guys need a bit?” That’s how the end of “Before Midnight” played to me. Jesse and Celine need a……bit? Jesse and Celine???

Which, of course, is what makes it so wondrously bold. I get it! I do! My friend Ryan at The Matinee captures this notion in a beautiful review, writing: "It’s a special moment when any film can make its audience think about these sorts of ideas surrounding love. That writer-director Richard Linklater made these characters confront it feels extra special.” That, though, is simultaneously the overriding dilemma I face. I may have watched “Before Midnight” critically, but I was still feeling it emotionally. But I was feeling it even more emotionally than I do most movies specifically because it’s these characters.

This is a no-man’s-land to which, I think, I have never ventured, stricken by a kind of cinematic cognitive dissonance. The film is a grand achievement, yet my relationship to the characters at the core of the film is too close and too personal. So while I understand that what the film is doing might very well make it great, the greatness with which it goes about doing it simply makes it all too much for me to bear.

This Is The End

A couple famous actors, whose names we will get to, are stranded in a Hollywood mansion in the wake of a massive earthquake that has rocked La-La-Land. But is it an earthquake? Or is it something else? One actor suggests it might be a situation straight outta the Book of Revelation, Judgment Day. "You mean," says the other actor, "like 'Terminator 2?'" We have reached a point where even the Apocalypse - for real - is best seen through the filter of pop culture. Traditionally at the movies, characters in the face of the end of times seek solace in the arms of their loved ones. In "This Is The End" our ostensible heroes get high and film a fake sequel for "Pineapple Express."

This is because the Apocalypse is happening right outside James Franco's (playing himself because everybody plays themselves!) sleek self-designed home where he is hosting a debauched party to celebrate its christening. Anyone who claims to dislike "Ocean's Twelve" on account of its insidery, back-slapping overtones may take umbrage with this sprawling, wondrous mess of who's-who cameos - from Jason Segel explaining the wear and tear of filming "How I Met Your Mother" to Michael Cera, brilliantly, running off the rails and playing a wild-child coke head. But, I dare say, that might be the aim of Seth Rogen, who co-stars while also writing and directing with Evan Goldberg.

Not for nothing does the cavernous sinkhole on James Franco's lawn quickly swallow up so many vain stars who had just been feigning nice to one another (or snorting coke). James Franco points out his own artwork on his own walls ("Geeks. '99"). Craig Robinson sports an elegant towel over his shoulder for most of the film bearing the title "Mr. Robinson". Jonah Hill, in a performance that finds all sorts of subtle layers of uncomfortableness, pretends to be Jay Baruchel's biggest fan even though he secretly despises him.

The through line of "This Is The End" is meant to be the deteriorating friendship of Jay and Seth. As it opens, Jay has flown in to L.A. to visit Seth. Jay is both uptight and insecure - uptight because he is a true blue Canadian who can't stand the vapidity of Hollywood and insecure because his best pal Seth has gone off and struck it big in this same place he can't stand. And Jay turns even more uptight and insecure when Seth drags him to James Franco's housewarming party. In a way, I think, Jay Baruchel is meant to stand in for us, the outsiders who cast wary eyes toward movie stars and all their eccentric, self-absorbed shenanigans even as we cannot help but get enough of them.

But once Rapture happens, the two pals barricade themselves in James Franco's house with its owner and Jonah Hill and Craig Robinson. And, eventually, Danny McBride, who wasn't even invited to the party but showed up anyway. McBride is an actor whose brazen, foul-mouthed, several-hundred-yards-over-the-edge tactics I admit I positively cannot stand, and which actually makes him so brilliant here. Is there a worse person to get stuck with in an Apocalyptic outbreak than Danny McBride?

That the electricity still works - notice the functioning alarm clocks amidst all the candles - and they still apparently stick to a routine bedtime suggests that this is almost an adolescent fantasy, end of the world by way of a bro-laden slumber party. And, make no mistake, it is bro-laden. Perhaps the film's most clever sequence involves Emma Watson, a spritely badass, battering her way into James Franco's house with an axe in search of shelter only to flee when she overhears, and slightly misunderstands, a discussion break out over which one is most likely to rape her.

I know what you're thinking, but watch the scene closely. Female Actress enters movie. Female Actress is immediately objectified. Female Actress departs movie. If there has been a better satirical tangent on the depressing plight of women in Hollywood in recent times, I have yet to see it.

Admittedly, most of the humor does not quite strike that harshly. Most of it is what you would expect from Team Apatow, and most of it is quite funny. (My favorite line in a movie so far in 2013 involves James Franco comparing the Holy Trinity to Neapolitan ice cream. I mean, my God.) That is, after all, the primary intention of "This Is The End" and, gratefully, aside from one humorous diversion into Jay Baruchel making like Max von Sydow in "The Exorcist", it refrains from full-on parody and relies on generating its own humor. Respect.

It can be juvenile, sure, and gross and stupid and go so far, in the grand scheme, to suggest a certain inertia of its leading men. This is what A.O. Scott saw, writing for The New York Times: "I think they know it's time to move on." Eh, maybe, maybe not. Clumsily, "This Is The End" imparts the wisdom of Doing Unto Others As You Would Want Done Unto You. This, as it turns out, is the ticket into heaven, and it comes across here like learning the secret trick in a video game.

Eternal paradise ends up resembling, well, a party at James Franco's house.

Man of Steel

The supposed eternal conundrum with the ongoing cinematic character as culled from the long-running DC comic, Superman, is that he is simply too virtuous, too indestructible, too indefatigable, to make for a compelling protagonist. After all, one of the cardinal rules of storytelling is to make your hero multi-dimensional. How do you do that for someone who comes from another planet to Earth where he is - to quote his own father - "like a god"?

Yeah, that's Superman all right.

Director Zack Snyder and screenwriter David S. Goyer (who concocted the film's story with superhero savior Christopher Nolan) decide to interject Superman and/or Kal-El and/or Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) with humanity by way of doubt and a confusion about his role on Earth. When we first catch up with him in young adult mode he is essentially wandering in the desert, working on a fishing boat, assuming an apron and wiping up spilled beer at some honky tonk bar in who-knows-where, interning (or some such) at a science facility in the Arctic. It is here that he first encounters a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter from Metropolis's Daily Planet named Lois Lane, played by a piercing Amy Adams less as Erma Bombeck than Lara Logan (that is, unafraid to go anywhere, like a spaceship). She's the motherfucker that found Superman.

This is crucial. Traditionally, Lois does not know Superman's true identity straight away, but Snyder and company dispense with that formal bit of rom com misunderstanding. She knows he is from another world from the get-go, which both turns him into Krypton's Deep Throat when he becomes her protected source for a story and underscores how in this version of the story Superman's real identity crisis is with himself.

The overlong "Man of Steel" is filled with flashbacks to his life as a youth on a Kansas farm where he was found as a from-outer-space baby boy by Jonathan (Kevin Costner) and Martha (Diane Lane) Kent who raised him as their own. Costner delivers perhaps the film's finest performance, knowing his "adopted son" is destined for unexplainable greatness but also perfectly projecting a parental protectiveness. There are several dozen more than few Biblical parallels in this film - which Snyder has indicated were purposely amplified - and it's almost as if Jonathan Kent, trading carpentry for farming, is providing the untold story of Joseph. There is less of this then there is of so much else and it hits the hardest, which is not a coincidence.

Of course, Clark Kent's real name is Kal-El and his real father is Jor-El (Russell Crowe) who we see in the film's opening prologue set on a CGI-sculpted Krypton where political bickering has led to the planet's potential destruction. This prompts Jor-El to send his son shooting off through the stars and toward the distant planet Earth with the hopes of preserving at least one of his species. General Zod, meanwhile, played by Michael Shannon not with the rogue majesty of Terrence Stamp but with a mentally unbalanced tempestuousness, plans to preserve his species by overthrowing the government and acquiring a Kryptonian Codex. Alas, this is the same Codex Jor-El has sent along with his son.

This prologue is a visual delight but also laden with gravitas, tagged with Jor-El and Zod in hand-to-hand combat that works to set the table for the inevitable showdown between Kal-El and Zod nearly two hours later. The latter should be a moment to savor. The narrative does not conveniently stack the deck against Zod so the audience's emotions all line up in just the right way, instead making him a villain not necessarily to love but to respect. That is commendable. So why is it so dramatically deficient?

I have this theory about superhero movies of recent times - so much is demanded of them that in an effort to meet those demands they eventually cave in. And I'm as guilty as anyone! Just last week I was whining about The Daily's Planet's editor not smoking a cigar! (Laurence Fishburne's Perry White does not smoke a cigar, but that's okay. It's okay because he strikes me as someone who waits to smoke after hours at his regular lounge across the street, never at the office, with a nice cognac in tow.)

Consider "Iron Man 2." Here was a movie that seemed oddly uninterested in its own action scenes and more attentive to its characters and their interactions and banter. I think the latter was what most interested director Jon Favreau but in an effort to meet demands for action and special effects and new characters, it crumbled. Zack Snyder's primary interest in "Man of Steel" seems to be Kal-El's internal dilemma, the love between fathers and sons and what we are or are not willing to do to forge our own destiny. These are interesting ideas, but their impact is blunted under the weight of two and a half hours of exposition (the Helpful Jor-El Hologram!) and planetary terraforming and newspaper deadlines and product placement (shop Sears, everyone!) and what has apparently turned into the obligatory destruction of New York City.....er, Metropolis. The third act plays like a studio mogul said to Snyder: "The third act of 'Avengers?' Do that." Forget about pleasing everyone, reign in your focus and tell your story.

At the end of "Superman: The Movie" there is, of course, the famous sequence where, in an effort to stop Lex Luthor's two nuclear missiles heading in opposite directions, Superman stops one missile and then proceeds to reverse time to stop the other missile. He has his cake and then he eats it too. Which is fine. That's the sort of thing that happens in the movies.

It doesn't happen when you're making movies.

Friday's Old Fashioned: Libeled Lady (1936)

As I watched "Libeled Lady" I could not stop thinking of Will Smith and how he claimed to have turned down the title role of Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" specifically because the role was not, to use his words, the lead. A theory that gets posited an awful lot is that the movie star - and all that glorious term contains - is "dead." That really is not true, however, partially because Hollywood is still so insistent on attempting to manufacture movie stars and, in turn, shove them down our throat.

Consider romantic comedies of today. They generally require a couple stars that get top billing and then a bunch of hangers-on for support who cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed equal footing of those stars. The art of the ensemble, in other words, often seems to be lacking. Even in a movie like "Ocean's Eleven" with a great many talents there is still a clear hierarchy - Clooney and then Pitt and then everyone else.

"Libeled Lady", director Jack Conway's delightfully rabble rousing screwball rom com from 1936, on the other hand, opens even before the opening credits with its quartet of high voltage stars - William Powell, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy - dressed up and strolling arm-in-arm. That is telling.

I dare say that if a cinematic sabermetrician (God help us) was assigned to the case, he/she would deduce that William Powell was the principal of "Libeled Lady." Ah, but then look at the poster. Whose name comes first? Why, it's Harlow's, not Powell's. Granted, Powell and Harlow were married at the time and perhaps Powell, nobly, conceded top billing to his better half. But there have been legendary conflicts in Hollywood over top billing and, thus, I don't think this is should pass by unnoticed. Even so, Harlow, despite being Powell's real life better half, did not play his better half on the screen in order to capitalize on the "Thin Man" chemistry of Powell and Loy. Harlow is instead Tracy's better half even though she ends up feigning as Powell's better half while Powell is attempting to feign as Loy's better half.

Tracy is Warren Haggerty, editor of The New York Evening Star, who, unbeknownst to him, has just splashed a scandalous headline involving socialite Connie Allenbury (Loy) on its front page. Thus, he is forced into the office to deal with accusations of libel made by Allenbury's father (Walter Connolly). This is made more problematic because to do so he neglects his marital ceremony scheduled for that day to Gladys Benton (Harlow) who, in a stone cold classic moment, storms into his office still in her bridal gown and, in that hard-charging but mellifluous Harlow voice, lets him have it.

Oh, but it's gonna get worse, dear Gladys, because Warren calls upon an ex-reporter, the wily Bill Chandler (Powell), to help him out of this jam. The scheme: Bill will sail home from England aboard the same vessel as Connie and her father, pretend to be married to Gladys, woo Connie with this William Powell-ness and then, at a delicate moment, have Gladys walk in on them. Voila! Libel begets Libel!

You can see where this is going. But can you? Well, sort of. Connie will fall for Bill, of course, but Loy, thankfully, was never one to play second fiddle to Powell - they played co-first fiddles - and so her title as "socialite" betrays her true nature as a thinking, feeling human being. She can see what Bill is up to and is only eventually drawn in for real at the same time that he is being drawn in for real. Gladys, meanwhile, is forced to deal with her dolt of a fiancé forcing her into a sham marriage to protect his own reputation. Harlow plays the part reluctantly but not as a pushover and, in time, falls for her pretend husband on account of his William Powell-ness.

The film is a dizzying array of ruses and double crosses and best laid plans, as good a time as the actors on the screen seem to be having simultaneously. It concludes with a lengthy, kicky scene in a hotel room between our quartet as the upper hand continually switches from person to person/couple to couple in the face of revelation upon revelation. In his review of "Before Midnight" the don't-call-me-a-contrarian Armond White wrote: "No doubt this talkathon appeals to indie geeks who haven’t realized that cinema is a visual medium." Oh, Armond, you perturbed bastard, I guess Jean & Will & Myrna & Spence were just a bunch of indie geeks then several decades before the term "indie" even came into being since this scene is nothing much more than a spectacular talkathon with a camera that just happens to be rolling.

It is such a perfect coda because it subtly refuses to shine the spotlight on any one person and lets it rest on all of them instead. Warren seems set to get the best of Bill & Connie until they seem set to get the best of Warren until Gladys seems set to get the best of all three of them until......on and on it goes. It ends with all four of them talking over each other at once.

The whole ensemble wins.

Superman Returns' Frank Langella Problem

Aside from Parker Posey, who injected off-kilter levity to such a self-serious movie, I was generally indifferent to “Superman Returns.” It was just one of those movies that kind of me makes me…….zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Whoops! Dozed off for a second! My bad! What was I saying? Indifferent. Right. I was generally indifferent to “Superman Returns” aside from one detail that left me so irate I wanted to storm out to the lobby and buy a box of Junior Mints just so I could hurl them one-by-one at the screen (if, of course, I hadn’t already dozed off). I’m talking about Frank Langella.

What in the name of Walter Burns is Frank Langella doing in “Superman Returns”? Walter Burns is the famed cinematic newspaper editor brought to life in “The Front Page” – both in the 1931 original and the Billy Wilder remake – and most memorably by Cary Grant in the masterful “His Girl Friday.” Burns is the archetypal movie newspaper man. He charges hard and talks fast. In his original 1940 “His Girl Friday” review for The New York Times, Frank Nugent stated that it “shakes you madly, bellowing hoarsely.” He was talking about the film itself but may as well have been talking about the newspaper editor archetype.

Of the more recent newspaper movie men the most memorable was likely J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson in "Spiderman", the cigar chomping blowhard editor of The Daily Bugle who was only interested in the heroic title character in terms of selling papers. Simmons, to put it mildly, was off the hook, gobbling up all the scenery in a 200 block radius. Simmons’ work, in fact, made me most excited to see what Frank Langella could do with the part of Perry White, editor at The Daily Planet, in Bryan Singer’s 2006 “Superman Returns.”

So imagine my surprise when Langella decided to take things down a couple notches, speak at a middle of the road pace, and, oddly, go sans cigar. The esteemed Roger Ebert wrote that the character "comes across less like a curmudgeon, more like an efficient manager."

I’m all for playing against type……up to a point. There are, after all, certain types that become archetypal for a reason. The Police Chief asks for your badge and gun. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl changes your life. Sienna Miller smokes and drinks scotch at the same time (she does smoke and drink scotch at the same time in every movie, right?). The Newspaper Editor chomps on cigars and barks and is eternally irritated.

Consider this sequence. Langella's voice is so calm, nurturing, as if he's a sage-like journalism instructor. He tells ace reporter Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), in regards to her Pulitzer Prize winning celebration, "this is your night. You enjoy it." This is your night?! You enjoy it?! Why is he so...so...happy?! THE NEWSPAPER EDITOR ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPY!

Even in this scene where he is giving the ground troops orders he's so in control. He's issuing orders, not growling commands. He's offering constructive conceits, not barbarous insults. Why even when he does finally raise his voice it's still the most polite raising of a voice you've ever heard. And his hands...his hands are noticeably empty, curiously devoid of any wrapped up tobacco leaves.

Jackie Cooper smoked in 1978.

In the 1978 original "Superman", Jackie Cooper played Perry White as the archetype. He barked. He was irritated. He smoked a cigar. What gave?

But then I thought, well, maybe Perry White, the real Perry White of the comic book, is not supposed to be the archetype of the movie newspaper man. After all, my comic book knowledge is extremely limited. So I did a little investigative journalism of my own. It took me roughly 17 seconds to learn he "is an archetypal image of the tough, irascible but fair-minded boss." And that he is "a tough, cigar-smoking boss." Ah ha! He DOES smoke a cigar! I knew it! Where was the cigar, Langella?! HUH?! WHERE WAS IT???!!!

In Zack Snyder's crack at the story of Superman, "Man of Steel", released into theaters nationwide tomorrow, Laurence Fishburne is set to play Perry White. If the movie gets anything right - anything at all - please, for the love of God, let Laurence Fishburne smoke a cigar.

He was on the cover of Cigar Aficionado! He knows how to smoke! Let him!

Official Cinematic Crush Update

Does Malin Akerman, my Official Cinematic Crush, really wear a ring that says "fuck"?

Fuck yes, she does! Why the fuck wouldn't she?! She's Malin fucking Akerman! That's why she's my Official fucking Cinematic Crush!

Ring of the year goes to.....Malin Akerman.

The Impossible

It seems almost perverse to discuss "The Impossible" strictly in terms of its identity as a movie. It is, after all, as the film reinforces by allowing the words "true story" to out-linger all the other words in the opening title cards, based on fact. It is culled from the real life story of Maria Belón and her husband Enrique Alvarez and their three boys on Christmas vacation in Khao Lak, Thailand when the monstrous Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 invaded. They were swept away, swept apart and, eventually, re-united, which I hope is not a spoiler since all five of them attended the film's premiere.

Rest assured, though, "The Impossible" is a movie, through and through, opening with the family - re-named Bennett - aboard an airliner as it descends into Kaho Lak as it hurls set-up after set-up after us in such a calculating manner you can already see the payoffs developing further on up the road. Maria (Naomi Watts) has a fear of flying but fights through it. Middle son Tomas (Samuel Joslin), seven-and-a-half, is a fraidy cat. Oldest son Lucas (Tom Holland), twelve years old, is tired of his brother being a fraidy cat and indifferent to his mother's fear. So on and so forth.

Even after the monstrous tidal waves hit, in an impressive if disturbing mounting of special effects, ably capturing the eerie lead-up and then the disorienting terror of its onslaught, the film dutifully hits every beat to tug heartstrings and invoke tears. Why the climactic moment in which the three sons and the father, Henry (Ewan McGregor), all come together at once is simply "Argo"-esque in the way it stages its suspenseful near-misses.

"The Impossible", though, does not deserve to be discussed this way. I don't mean to imply it is a masterpiece of the medium, merely the sort of statement on the human existence that transcends set-ups and payoffs and story beats. There was and will be talk of how it "whitewashes" history, which bears some validity, but also ignores the fact that this film must be judged by this story and nothing else. Open and shut.

Mother nature is the true proprietor of this planet, of course, and if we forget she damn sure will remind us. She reminded us with the Indian Ocean Tsunami, she reminded us with the tornadoes that hit Oklahoma City not once but twice (in the words of "Daily Show"-era Steve Carell: "Sometimes God just likes to be a dick"), she will remind us again. Our petty concerns - our inability to have the can of cola in the fridge, our worries over our job security, which is referenced by Henry right before the wave - is no match for an undersea megathrust earthquake.

But...... Human beings are pretty fucking resilient, aren't they? We squabble and stress and do nothing while whining about everything and then something cataclysmic happens and somehow, some way we ante up and fight back. Maria, with a wound on the back of her leg so gaping and grotesque it made me just spontaneously combust into tears, somehow, some way manages to press on for the sake of her son and even convince her son to help rescue someone else's son. Henry, somehow, some way, in the face of the incomprehensible, carries on, swearing that he will find his wife and oldest son and then, by God, finding them. A native who does not speak Maria's language somehow, some way drags this terribly wounded woman through muck and mire and to a truck that takes her to a hospital and then takes her in and directs her where to go and then just turns and ambles away as if nothing all that incredible had just happened.

It was incredible! This is all incredible! And the film does not demean the innumerable others not as gaspingly fortunate as Maria Belón and her family. As Henry sends his two young sons to safety and goes off in the search for Maria and Lucas, he is joined by a German man, Karl (Sönke Möhring), trying to find his own wife and daughter. As he watches from the bed of a truck that has been hauling them around in their quest, Karl sees Henry re-unite with his family. He smiles, genuinely happy for his newfound friend he will likely never see again, and then he tells the driver of the truck to get going.

Sadness and awfulness surrounds everyone everywhere they look but, for a moment, Karl lets himself linger in that moment of joy. Then, he picks himself and goes on. I have no idea how people go on sometimes and "The Impossible" does not pretend to know how either - it just knows that they do.