Genres, so many genres
Movies seen autumn 2008.
Originally written: June 2008
Iron Man
Step Up 2 The Streets
Nim's Island
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Dances with Wolves
Life on Mars
Those brought up within the Sf and fantasy genres are well aware of the way in which the conventions of a particular style can work to make it easy for the reader/viewer to understand what is happening in the story. Film has always been an artform in which genre conventions have played a large part. Recently in reviewing specific westerns, I have spoken about the conventions that govern this subset of movies, and how some moviemakers have sought to subvert the genre conventions. Traditional westerns have been a lifeblood of the American film scene since Edwin Porter orchestrated The Great Train Robbery. Equally you could point to the crime drama, the musical and the romantic comedy as examples of movie genres that have a long and distinguished tradition with the film industry. So much so that they have given rise to sub-genres within them: the dance movie is a particular subset of film musicals; crime dramas can be police procedurals or gangster movies; and traditional female-centred romcoms have given birth to a related set of male-oriented romantic comedies. What is surprising, when you start to analyse films, is how few writers and directors are comfortable outside the confines of their genre, and how many films cling to their genre (or sub-genre) conventions as a way of ensuring their audience. Or to put it another way, the really good films, the ones that come along but rarely, are those where the film-makers are prepared to leave behind the clichés of their genre and stake out new territory. Recent viewing confirms that such individualism is not common when there is such a large investment at stake.
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Ordinary superhero; marvelous tale
Like Gaul, the superhero genre is divided into three parts: there are those, like Superman, who are born super; some like Spiderman inherit their superness almost by accident; and there are those who thrust superness upon themselves. It has always been this third category, the self-made superhero, which has been the most interesting. Tim Burton's Batman and Christopher Nolan's re-imagined Batman Begins are good examples of movies that have managed to overcome the genre restrictions and create a credible movie. Jon Favreau's Iron Man is another. Tony Stark is an industrialist whose company makes the armaments that supply the war on terror. During a visit to the generals in Afghanistan to demonstrate a new, more powerful, weapon, he is ambushed and captured by insurgents who want him to build them a version of his new weapon. Instead, with the assistance of another captive, Yinsen (Saul Taub), he builds the prototype of a set of superhero armor and escapes. His near-death experience (he now requires artificial aid to keep his heart functioning properly) leads to an epiphany - in much the same way that the death of Bruce Wayne's parents led directly to the Batman. Stark is soon renouncing the arms business (so much for the corporation's respect for the concept of shareholder value) and designing and refining a more sophisticated set of armor, with the help of robots and a controlling computer (voiced with just the right touch of AI irony by Paul Bettany). Given the story and the subject matter, a serious, even gothic, atmosphere might seem called for. This would be more in keeping with the conventions of the superhero genre. Instead, Favreau, who also provides a droll cameo as Stark's chauffeur, uses humor to leaven the dough. In this he is assisted by a great central performance by Robert Downey Jr, who's been on a roll lately (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Zodiac being two among many that have re-established his cred). Downey is a little more subtle, and a lot more funny, than the usual run of superhero actor, and Stark is more intelligent than the stereotypical ubermensch (who is more usually as Anna Russell describes Siegfried: "He's very young; he's very handsome; he's very strong; he's very brave; he's very stupid. He's the regular L'il Abner type."). The film spends a fair bit of time taking Stark through his experiments until he perfects the powered armor and learns how to control it. In this he is aided by his assistant, "Pepper" Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow in an effective supporting role), and his military liaison, Rhodes (Terrence Howard). The other major part is taken by an almost unrecognisable Jeff Bridges, with shaved head and bushy beard, as the business brains of Stark's industrial outfit. For those keeping score, that's one Oscar winner and three Oscar nominees in the lead roles, which is all but unique in the superhero genre. Naturally Iron Man is soon back in Afghanistan tracking down the baddies, and discovering who is behind them (given Ebert's Law of the Economy of Characters, it's hardly tough to guess who that might be) - leading to the climactic confrontation between the Iron Man and his nemesis. The second half of the movie sacrifices some of the intelligence and wit of the first half for more visceral violence and sfx-driven material, to be expected in the superhero genre where the target audience's expectation of some biffo is hard to resist (and anyway you have to have something for the computer game). Despite that, Iron Man is a clever and entertaining movie, which manages to go exceed its genre expectations even as it pays homage to them. It has found its target audience and will also find a wider audience, which does not normally pay attention to the genre. That's how superior movies are made.
Plays strong; dances good
Some genres are pretty obvious. When you go to a dance movie you know what you're getting - even in "step" movies where the dance is far more visceral and "authentic". You expect an outsider/underdog who brings new moves to a traditional dance scene and convinces others, including teachers, against their original expectations to accept them and their dancing. Step Up 2 The Streets is both a dance movie and a sequel, and a very cleverly named sequel at that. In the original a street dancer came into the Maryland School of Arts where his street style dancing confronted the school's emphasis on classical and contemporary dance; episode 2 sees MSA students going into the streets. And Rachel Griffiths has been replaced by Will Kemp as director of the arts school. The move from an actor to a dancer in this pivotal role doesn't help the movie's credibility. But then, that's not what's important. There is a tenuous link only to the first Step Up: the lead actor from the original movie has an early cameo, but it's the school itself that links the two movies. The story is incredibly simple, Andie is a member of a crew that dominates "the Streets", an eclectic on-going gang warfare that's played out through dance rather than violence. She is prevailed upon to enrol in MSA, alienated from her crew boss and soon putting together a new crew formed from the school's misfits, including the director's younger rebellious brother. Like any dance movie, the story and acting are unimportant. I was surprised that there were two writers listed in the credits because it's all pretty ordinary. I was less surprised that there were more credited choreographers than writers as the dance is the most interesting aspect of the movie. It is first apparent in the recruitment phase as Andie puts together her dirty half-dozen non-pareils. It is particularly the case in the climactic dance-off when first the established crew and then the newcomers strut their stuff. Despite the incredibility of this dance climax, in the open, in the rain and against the odds, the scene works because of the raw energy and verve of the dancing itself. In casting dancers as lead actors the problem is always going to be with the quality of the acting. It has been ever so, from Fred Astaire through to Mikhail Barishnikov. Here the acting is passable, the love story strains credulity and the dramatic tension occasioned by the confrontation between the established crew and the insurgents is barely existent. Nonetheless, the movie succeeds on its own terms, as a testament to the power and creativity of dance as an art form. The yardstick for dance genre movies is the quality of the dance. On that measure, Step Up 2 the Streets does OK.
Romancing the kid's movie
Nim's Island raises the question: who should judge the success of a fantasy movie aimed squarely at a younger demographic? The real problem with most film critics (and far too many viewers) is that they take themselves (and movies generally) far too seriously. This entry is definitely a kid's movie, with interesting fantasy elements. It also has a number of references to Romancing the Stone. The kid star de jour, Abigail Breslin, is the eponymous character, isolated on a volcanic rock in the south Pacific with her widowed scientist father (Gerard Butler). Jodie Foster is Alexandra Rover, the author of Nim's favorite series of adventures, featuring an adventurer named Alex Rover, who is real to the writer and is also personified by Gerard Butler. When dad goes missing, Nim and Alex make email contact and the girl begs the help of the author, who is naturally enough an agoraphobic. With the fate of the young girl apparently in her hands, after a volcano eruption and invasion by an Australian tourist ship, Alex flies, boats and swims to the rescue. With her animal friends, self-assurance and moxy, Nim makes a great protagonist, quite capable of taking care of herself. Like Joan Wilder, Alex Rover starts to grow as she is called on to be the hero. While Joan Wilder only sees her hero as she writes her adventures, Alex Rover is a constant companion for Alexandra, creating a comic sub-plot that will entertain adults, while the kids concentrate on the animals and the girl's own adventure. The two females work well together, the former child actor and her successor in the current generation, and both interact well with Butler in his contrasting roles. That the fantasy adventure also says something about growing up and accepting responsibility is a bonus - largely it's just a good fun romp that you need not take very seriously at all.
Cry him a river
The genre romantic comedy film has a long and proud tradition, derived from Shakespearian (and earlier theatre) comedy and made largely as "women's pictures", with the (usually female) protagonists finding true love (and nearly always marriage) before the end of the story. Judd Apatow and his cohorts have developed a change-up: the male-oriented romantic comedy. In their films, the emotional onus is on the male lead, usually a SNAG, who undergoes the same sorts of romantic crises that used to be the burden of Katherine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck or Ros Russell in the earlies or, more lately, Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts. Knocked Up is a prime example of this new subset of the romcom genre; and Forgetting Sarah Marshall is the latest example. Written by and starring Jason Segel, an Apatow regular, is a pretty good example of the genre. Peter (Segel) is a musician dating well above his weight-class with the actress-star (Kristen Bell of Veronica Mars fame) of the TV police series for which he writes mood music. He has missed all the signs of her impending departure and is shocked when he discovers she is now schtupping a British rock-ghod and is leaving him. His first reaction is to break down - tears are acceptable in the SNAG stars of the male romcom - and his second is to try compensatory sex. When neither of these succeeds, he's off to Hawaii for R&R, to the same hotel as Sarah and her boyfriend are staying at. There he meets an itinerant cutie (Mila Kunis from That 70s Show), who works at the hotel. Complications ensue, and Peter is the butt of most of them. There are more than a few very funny moments, and Segel takes the idea of gender reciprocity to the extent that full frontal male nudity is featured in a couple of scenes. The script gives most of the best lines and scenes to Segel and to Russell Brand, as the rock singer. Other Apatow regulars also get cameos: Paul Rudd as a burned-out surfie and Jonah Hill as a waiter at the resort. The former gets a good role and provides strong comic relief; the latter gets a slightly creepy role that doesn't really suit his roly-poly cuteness. But, even more so, Bell and Kunis don't get as good treatment from the script and the actresses have to make do with very underwritten parts, rather like Cary or Hugh Grant in a traditional romcom. Don't be fooled by the fact that Kristen Bell plays the title role, the movie is all about Peter and not very much about Sarah at all. Even though Katherine Heigl was able to make a lot out of very little in Knocked Up, the women are not well served in these male-oriented romcoms, or indeed in contemporary mainstream US cinema. Directed by Nicholas Stoller, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a good example of its genre and entertaining enough, but this is such a self-limiting genre that there really has to be something more to make it recommendable.
Drawing room for actresses
Given the paucity of roles for leading females in the US cinema, it is not surprising that two good American actresses have gone to Britain in order to get strong roles in a more traditional romantic comedy. Frances McDormand has relied on husband Joel Coen for some of her best roles and Amy Adams, after Enchanted, is one of the rising talents in the coterie of twenty-somethings. Their new film, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, is a throwback to a genre that's all but extinct: the screwball comedy of manners. This used to be the dominant trope of the romcom around the time that Jeeves butled for Bertie Wooster and Noel Coward dominated the world of the sophisticated drawing room. The fact that the movie is based on a 1938 novel, regarded as risque at the time, gives the game away to an extent. Guinevere Pettigrew (McDormand) is a not-very-successful nanny who ends up as the 'social secretary' of American cabaret performer Delysia Lafosse (Adams). In a day highlighted by fashion shows, parties, makeovers and all manner of drawing room comings and goings, Miss Pettigrew manages to straighten out Delysia's life, while finding one for herself. The secret of a movie like this is to make it all frothy and light on the surface, and to have some tension and seriousness underneath. In this respect Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day works very well. The movie is the product of Kudos, the British company behind the successful TV shows, Hustle, Spooks and Life on Mars. Now they are branching out into features. It is directed by Bharat Nalluri, the Indian-born film-maker, who piloted Life on Mars. His touch with the material here is deft. But the film ultimately relies on the expertise of its leading players. Adams' star has been rising since her scene-stealing supporting turn in Junebug. As she did in Enchanted, she shows that she has the talent to carry a movie, and the sensitivity to play light comedy without trampling it to death. My only quibble was with her use of the slightly breathy Monroesque accent for Delysia. McDormand is one of those actors who bury themselves in the part. Better known for her serious roles, Fargo showed that she could handle comedy equally adeptly. In Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day she is the more serious of the leads but allows those around her to find the comedy. There are a couple of good supporting roles for Ciaran Hinds and Shirley Henderson (who shows signs of outgrowing Moaning Myrtle), whilst the actors playing Delysia's three lovers have little to do and make only a small impression. But they don't need to because the women carry the day - and the film.
Spielberg can't help himself
Another throwback to the 1930s is the action-adventure series featuring academic archaeologist Dr Henry Jones Jr. The series started in 1981 with Raiders of the Lost Ark, and there were two sequels over the following decade. Twenty years later the franchise has been revived with a new film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Based on the action serials of the 1930s, the films are the brainchildren of genre auteurs Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas; Lucas provides the story and is executive producer; Spielberg directs. This fourth episode is set in the 1950s, but still has the same 1930s feel about it. [Warning: spoilers in this review] It follows roughly the same story arc as the first film: an early chase scene to establish the characters; a call from an old friend for help in an exotic location; a group of totalitarian baddies (with a suborned archaeologist in tow); an artefact of immeasurable power; the set of clues that only Indy can solve; a series of increasingly incredible chases and fights; and the baddies being destroyed by misuse of the artefact. In the first and third movies the McGuffin was related to legends of biblical scale; from the moment you see the large "51" on the inside doors of the humungous government storage shed in the western US, you're in no doubt that Spielberg's obsession with alien visitation is going to be a main thread in this adventure. I said in my review of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that the getting there was much better than the denouement; the same goes double for this movie. The climactic 15 minutes or so (before an overly long but acceptable anti-climax) so derogates from what has gone before that I am tempted to mark the Crystal Skull down more than it deserves. So let's concentrate on the good bits and not on that fact that Spielberg provides further proof that he doesn't know how to finish a genre movie (Minority Report being the exception that disproves the rule). In the absence of Denholm Elliott, John Rhys Davies and Sean Connery, Harrison Ford has some new companions. Jim Broadbent fills in the Marcus Brody role and John Hurt is well-cast as yet another obsessed relic-hunter (following in the footsteps of Abner Ravenwood and Henry Jones Sr). Shia LeBeouf is there for youth appeal, playing "Mutt" (a name that should give away his parentage to any Indy aficionado) and Karen Allen makes a welcome return as Marion Ravenwood. On the other side are the sublime Cate Blanchett, relishing the role of the Ninotchka-style villain, with a comradely haircut and well-fitted military clothing, not to mention an ever-present rapier and an accent you could cut with it, and Ray Winstone as the double-crossing former friend. After Indy has escaped from Cate and her Russkies early in the piece, running afoul of the FBI in an apt commentary on the situation for academics in the McCarthyist 1950s, he is contacted by Mutt and soon they are on the trail of Mutt's mum and a missing mutual friend. I loved the 1930s/1940s Hollywood touch of showing the heroes' travel in a montage, using a map and a thick red line (a similar technique reprised from the first film). Indy finds the eponymous artefact before he and Mutt are caught by the baddies. All of main cast are thrown together in the Amazon jungle for a series of incredible chases and battles. The stunt work for the driving and fighting scenes are another throwback to an older era of film-making. No blue screen or motion capture work in this film. The choreography for the chase, with people moving from one vehicle to another, the crystal skull being taken and retaken, a sword-fight and some fisticuffs, is great. It is one of the best such scenes in movies - far better than either the chase in Raiders or the tank battle in the Last Crusade. On the minus side, there are too many borrowings (please read homage), including a pack of killer ants that resemble the flesh-eating bugs in The Mummy; and from The Land of the Pharaohs, a use of sand as a way of moving large sections of a structure. Spielberg even borrows from his own earlier films in the design of the aliens in the climax, about which the less said the better. The ride is comfortable, but the destination leaves something to be desired. I trust that Harrison Ford now hangs up the fedora and they all leave well enough alone.
From our DVD collection - reviews of good and great movies not previously reviewed
Dances with Wolves is an egregiously American story of the impact of the War Between the States and the allure of the frontier. Strange then that one of the main reasons why it is so good is that the director hired an Australian to be the director of photography for the film. It is nowadays fashionable, in the wake of such monumental stuff-ups as The Postman, Waterworld and Rapa Nui, and just plain bad movies like The Bodyguard, JFK and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, to write down Kevin Costner as something of a joke. Yet, in the early 1990s, when Dances with Wolves was released, he was anything but. Silverado, The Untouchables, Bull Durham and Field of Dreams were all on his c.v. and each had a lot to recommend it. (I might add that, since the dark days at the end of last century, Costner has made a bid for career resurrection, through movies like Thirteen Days and The Upside of Anger, so you can no longer assume the worst just by his presence.) When he came in 1990 to seek for the first time to be something other than an actor in someone else's movie, there was not a sense of outrage at his hubris. His chosen vehicle was a revisionist western in which many of the accepted tropes of the genre were re-examined in a very critical way. Based on the novel by Michael Blake, who also wrote the screenplay, the movie transported a civil war hero to the frontier. But this is not the frontier of the John Ford cavalry films. This is a West where the Plains Indians are the noble savage that the later revisionists have suggested and the white are in fact the savage ones. But more than that, this is an alien contact movie. John Dunbar is an accidental war hero who seeks a posting to the frontier. His journey there is stunningly filmed by Australian Dean Semler, who applies the techniques he learned filming the outback for Mad Max 2, The Lighthorsemen and Dead Calm, to discover some of the true beauty of the dry land route to the West. These scenes of Dunbar's journey, showing the transition from civilisation to wilderness, combined with John Barry's score, are among the many reasons to watch this film. Eventually, Dunbar finds himself alone in the middle of the wilderness, on an abandoned army post. His only neighbors are a band of Sioux. The fact that they speak the Lakota tongue, and not his native language, means that he has to adjust to them and not vice versa. Another of the successes of the film is that we get to know many of the tribe and to see that not all Injuns are the same. The differences between the more cerebral Kicking Bird (Graham Greene) and the martial Wind in His Hair (Rodney A Grant) is one such distinction. The inquiring mind of Ten Bears (Floyd "Red Crow" Westerman), who seeks to understand the European and the impact he'll have on the Sioux is another interesting discovery. As are the women of the tribe, including Black Shawl (Tantoo Cardinal) and Pretty Shield (Doris Leader Charge, who was the primary instructor in the Lakota language). The one artificial aspect of the set-up was the presence of Stands with a Fist (Mary McDonnell), a white woman captured by the tribe, who remembers some of her milk language and is able to assist Dunbar in learning Lakota - and is of course the required love interest. The bulk of the movie is about Dunbar's lonely life on the army post and his gradual acceptance into the neighboring tribe. The movie makes clear that their acceptance of him is every bit as problematic as his acceptance of them. Trouble emerges when the army finally catches up with Dunbar; that the film paints his 'rescuers' in such a savage light is a reflection of how we have come to regard the Sioux and how the white men behave. Costner has not been able to replicate the success of Dances with Wolves in any of his subsequent productions or directing efforts. But that should not derogate from the success that he has with this movie, combining all the elements of film making, the script, the acting, the visuals and the soundtrack into a coherent and engrossing whole, that manages to shine a light on the way in which film has misrepresented the Plains Indians, who had a unique and coherent culture, language and lifestyle well before the whites came to kill them and take their land. There are several versions of the film, of which the extended edition is by far the best. It adds many more graphic images from Semler's camera and better establishes Dunbar's isolation on the post before his neighbors come to visit. One of the best westerns of the last 50 years.
... the lawman/Beating up the wrong guy ...
In my review of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, I noted the television credentials of Kudos Productions. Hustle was a good series about pommie conmen, providing some late life work for Napoleon Solo (at a time when Ilya Kuryakin has made a comeback as the NCIS pathologist) although it ran out of oomph by the third series, and Spooks, which I have not seen very often, seems to have captured something of the complexities of the spy game. It has lasted much longer. Their third show only had two series of eight episodes each, so I suspect that it really should be called a mini-series, but it is the best of the work they have done and the best British series in quite some time. I refer, of course, to Life on Mars. Back in June 2007, I mentioned the series, noting that it was an intriguing idea, well carried out. I have now had the chance to view the entire run of the series from go to whoa, and have reinforced that initial impression. In terms of genre, Life on Mars is a melange. The series is a police procedural and a psychological drama and SF and a few other things beside. It would never have survived the first pitch in the US because it was not something that could be summed up in twenty words or fewer. Ironically, it is one of two very good British mini-series that the Yanks are now remaking - State of Play (another series starring John Simm, the lead actor in Life on Mars) is the other, being transformed into a big-budget movie with our Russell in the lead. Life on Mars starts with a contemporary detective, Sam Tyler (Simm), being struck by a car while searching for his missing lady friend, another detective. He wakes up in 1973 (or he is still in a coma in 2006 and only dreams that he is in 1973) as a DI being transferred from Hyde into the Manchester cop shop, where the DCI is Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister, another alumnus from State of Play), an old-fashioned thug copper. The two need to work together, and the contrast between their styles forms much of the conflict in the series. Mixed in are the other members of the detective branch, including an antithetical sergeant and more eager-to-learn younger cove, as well as members of the women's police section, at that time not given much in the way of responsibility. Of these Annie Cartwright (Liz White) provides both a sympathetic ear and the possibility of romance. Sam's own past is mixed into the hopper as well. In the second series many of these conflicts are brought more into the foreground as Sam tries to work out a way of getting home, or at least resolving his dilemma. The use of various electronic gadgets, including radios and television, as a way for Sam to apparently communicate with the present, is a recurring theme. Sensibly - in a way that the Americans probably would not do - the producers decided to end the series after 16 shows, with a resolution that is incredibly satisfying but still largely illogical and contradictory. Life on Mars is then one of the few great television series that ends at a time of its own choosing, with the ends tied up, sort of. While Bharat Nalluri was responsible for the first few episodes, the star director of the second series is S J Clarkson, who made the last few episodes. The series is crisply written and brilliantly performed by its lead cast, especially Glenister, Simm and White. I thoroughly recommend it.
I should note that the producers could not leave well enough alone, however. Having resolved Life on Mars satisfactorily, they have now created a new show, Ashes to Ashes, in which a contemporary psychological profiler (Keeley Hawes) apparently wakes up in the 1980s, where she is now part of Gene Hunt's reformed team (minus Sam and Annie). Whether the producers can successfully go to the same well again we'll have to wait and see.
[Note: Information about the movies mentioned, including cast and crew lists and all sorts of trivia, is available at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).]