PARIS BLUES - CRITERION CHANNEL

This review was originally written for DVDTalk.com in 2014.

Martin Ritt's 1961 jazz-infused drama Paris Blues is one of those films that, once you've seen it, you're kind of shocked that people don't talk about it more. A joint vehicle for Sidney Poitier and Paul Newman, Paris Blues is a Kazan-like social narrative that juxtaposes new Hollywood method with old Hollywood romanticism and somehow let's both win without compromising either.

Newman stars as Ram Bowen, a trumpet player with a moody demeanor worthy of his groaning pun of a name (say it out loud and then say, "Rimbaud"). He is the toast of Paris' side-street jazz scene, blowing nightly with his band, working alongside his cohort and musical arranger, Eddie Cook (Poitier). Eddie is practical and level-headed, a smooth balance to Ram's jagged edges. The ex-pat Americans have a good thing going in France. Ram even has a no-strings love affair with a chanteuse (Barbara Laage) who doesn't mind feeding him after gigs.

Yet, the boys have ambition, too. Ram is working on a magnum opus, his "Paris Blues," and he hopes to get some weight behind it by giving the sheet music to Wild Man Moore, a trumpeting legend who has just landed in the city as part of a European tour. Moore is played by none other than Louis Armstrong, just to give you an idea of Paris Blues' musical bonafides. The original scorce was also composed by Duke Ellington, who was nominated for an Oscar. Ritt isn't fooling around.

Yet, he's also not limiting his story--which was written by four different scribes from a novel by Harold Flender--to just difficult men in smoky bars. When Ram goes to the train station to meet Moore, he also meets a pair of young American women in town to see the sights. One white (Lillian, played by Joanne Woodward) and one black (Connie, as portrayed by Diahann Carroll). To give you an idea of how progressive Paris Blues was for the time, despite the eventual romantic pairing being just as you suspect, Ram at first flirts with Connie without race even being mentioned. (And who wouldn't. Have you ever seen Diahann Carroll?!) Lillian is more his match, however, in that she's been around the block and has an admirable patience. The single mother has dealt with her fair share of troublemakers, Ram's temperament suits her. It's going to take some effort to get him to value anyone over his music, though.

Which he sort of will come to do over the time he and Lillian spend together in Paris. For the next several days, both pairs of lovers will try to fashion their affections into some kind of common ground. Lillian sees the possibility of something more with Ram. Connie would love for Eddie to come back to the States, but he's frank about his reasons for living overseas: America is racist. She argues it's gotten better in the five years since he left; he counters that it's still not good enough.

Paris Blues is very frank about its politics, but not in a way that makes it seem like a polemic just for the sake of it. The topics broached in the narrative emerge naturally. These are things the characters would care about, they deal with life as it would genuinely affect them. For as traditionally structured as much of the writing is, Paris Blues treats all aspects of these folks' existence in the same realistic manner. It's never said, but we know that Ram and Lillian are having sex. Ram's guitar player (French cinema legend Serge Reggiani, Casque d'Or) is also a drug addict, a fact Ram confronts head on (as befitting a ram, natch). Race, sex, drugs, art--this is important stuff. Ritt manages to make all these things come off as both matter of fact and yet also important. Hell, look closely at the opening montage, you'll see a gay couple tucked away in Ram and Eddie's audience.

But forget all that. The sights! Paris Blues was actually shot on the Seine! And the music! Louis Armstrong struts into Ram's club to challenge him to the jazz equivalent of a rap battle. The only comparable jazz-scene movie of the period is Basil Dearden's All Night Long [review], released a year after Paris Blues. This flick is the real deal.

You also get an acting quartet that was at the height of their considerable powers. Apparently at one point this was going to be a movie for Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe. As wonderful as that is to imagine, you can't beat the chemistry of longtime paramours Newman and Woodward. They are the exception to the accepted rule that real lovers don't work on screen. Poitier and Carroll are wonderful, too--though much less showy. They are the practical couple, the counterpoint to the crazy Caucasians!

Final word: Paris Blues is a damn entertaining drama. It's romantic and toe-tapping and thought provoking. It deserves to sit next to Ritt and Newman's more famous collaborations, like Hud and The Long, Hot Summer. It's just that good.

WANDA - #965

Wanda is one of those rare movies that can be called an “indie legend” and have it essentially be true. More talked about than seen since its 1970 debut, Barbara Loden’s single feature film blazed a trail of inspiration for female directors regardless of its availability. A reputation spread through awe and admiration? Legend! Bonus? Wanda lives up to the reverence.

Loden herself stars as the titular Wanda, a wife and mother who has little desire to be either. At the start of the film, her husband is in the process of divorcing her and taking their kids. That morning Wanda woke up on her sister-in-law’s couch, but once the judge agrees to the conscious uncoupling, all family connections are severed and that crash pad is no longer an option. So begins an aimless journey between different men, different hotel rooms, different handouts. Wanda’s name might as well be “wander,” because that’s what she does. There is never a shortage of men to take advantage of the attractive blonde, and she’s not really choosy either.

Wanda’s storytelling is slow, but deliberate. In some instances, a scene may feel long simply because Wanda is refusing to leave, knowing there is little alternative, her needs driving the edit. Such is the case when she meets Mr. Dennis (Michael Higgins), the man we see her with the longest. She busts into his bar after closing and ignores him when he’s barking at her to leave, and she further sticks around even after it’s clear he doesn’t own the bar but is robbing it, sucking Wanda into his fugitive lifestyle and ultimately enlisting her to take part in his crimes. In fact, he’s the only man who involves her in anything, forcing her to do the one thing she refuses to do--be involved. In a weird way, perhaps this is the closest Wanda gets to love, a man she lets keep her. A man who compels her to serve in the function of a wife, so to speak, and also to cross moral and ethical lines. Is this why she can’t willingly give him up? In the end, we can sense she has become dependent upon him, rather than the urge for freedom that drove her into his orbit.

Barbara Loden is herself a bit of a tragic figure, her impressive rise cut short. A former model, she became an actress under the tutelage of Elia Kazan, who cast her as Warren Beatty’s sister in Splendor in the Grass [review] and whom she would eventually marry. Loden would die from cancer a decade after Wanda, aged forty-eight, her first film stuck in limbo, her second film adrift in development hell. Likely she never dreamed Wanda would experience a renaissance, much less this far into the next century, but the distance has not diminished the potency of her masterwork. Her vision for Wanda harnesses and upends the usual Hollywood standard for an actress’ worth. Desirability equals box office. Yet, both things are hollow. Desire is fleeting and selfish, and the more Mr. Dennis lets her stick around, the less of Wanda remains. Not that she shows us much to begin with. Loden never writes herself an expository monologue, she never lets Wanda open up about the things that bother her, never exhibits any drive but to refill her wallet and her belly. The closest we get is when the gruff crook interrogates her about the family pictures she carries with her, less interested in her past than he is in her future. It’s like a final quiz before he decides she can stick around, affirmation that she is a naked mannequin for him to dress and to manicure. Only his standards of beauty apply.

None of the men who interact with Wanda are worth a damn. For as calm as she tends to be, they are all nervous and agitated, driven by lust and anger. The closest we get to a good guy is her soon-to-be-ex-husband, who has already replaced her with another blonde, claiming it’s for the betterment of the kids. Maybe it is, we’ll never know. Actually, scratch that, the only good man to lend a hand is the old dude in the beginning who gives her some money. But is it any wonder then that he’s symbolically exiled? Wanda has to trek across a barren landscape to find him all alone amidst rubble and coal.

Not that Loden has made a man-hating polemic here. Wanda’s world is consistently isolated. It’s not until the movie’s final scenes that she does anything communal, and even there, she’s hiding among the numbers, not really one of them. Our glimpse of life outside her bubble is the bank manager who acts to protect his wife and daughters, someone who seemingly does the right things for the right reasons. Is this symbolic of what Wanda has discarded? How does it make sense that she has given up all family ties, yet also can never be alone?

For those who need an object lesson in the male gaze, Wanda serves as a great example of how one can critique said gaze while also effectively dismissing it. Imagine a hypothetical 1990s Hollywood remake starring Sharon Stone, how the camera would likely linger on her naked flesh the morning after every tryst. Loden doesn’t allow for any of that, never hands her camera to her male characters, not even when Mr. Dennis is complaining about her hair and make-up, sizing her up for his own personal tastes. The lens is always sympathetic to Wanda, lingering on her visage, capturing her reaction, her silent depression. It’s about her face, not her body. It’s telling, actually, that none of the men spend any time staring at her when she is in their bed, either. It’s as if they’ve already disregarded her presence.

Though Barbara Loden never made another full-length motion picture, she did make a pair of educational films in 1975. One of them, The Frontier Experience, is included on this Criterion release. Loden stars again, this time as a dutiful wife who journeyed across the American terrain with her husband, only for him to be killed and leaving her to fend for their family on her own. It’s pretty dry, but it’s interesting to see Loden playing a woman who is a total opposite to Wanda: stoic, determined, and dedicated.

Also of note on the disc is I am Wanda, Katja Raganelli’s documentary about Loden, shot just before her death. It features a one-on-one with Loden, as well as footage of her at work teaching acting and at home, including an evening of reading poetry with family and friends, Elia Kazan among them. We are also treated to her career history, from her illustrious Broadway resume through Splendor and on to Wanda. Loden concealed her illness from I am Wanda’s filmmakers, adding more gravity to the serious, thoughtful conversation about her life and art. The centerpiece is a heartfelt, tear-filled confession about her relationship with her mother, and how that has driven her in her choices.

This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS - FILMSTRUCK

This review was originally part of a larger piece covering the Natalie Wood Signature Collection and published in 2009.

Splendor in the Grass from Elia Kazan is a feverish ode to the trials of young love.

Warren Beatty made his big-screen splash as Bud Stamper, the sports star of a small Kansas High School and the son of the local oil man, Ace Stamper (Pat Hingle). Set in 1928, a year ahead of the stock market crash, Ace is making the whole town rich, and even the Loomis family has stocks in his company. Their daughter, Wilma Dean (Natalie Wood), is Bud's sweetheart. Bud and Deanie are in love and they are prone to some heavy petting, but Deanie always stops short of letting Bud go as far as he wants to go. The hormone build-up is making Bud crazy, and Deanie is conflicted, because her mother's old-fashioned take on female sexuality goes against what her own body is telling her. Representing the newer, younger ideals, there are girls like the school tramp Juanita (Jan Norris) and Bud's scandalous sister, Ginny (Barbara Loden). Both are flappers, and both represent a kind of before-and-after picture of unleashed sexuality. Juanita is growing in popularity and seemingly having a good time without consequence, whereas Ginny has been kicked out of several schools, has had an abortion, and even has a drinking problem despite Prohibition. She is no longer welcome in polite society, and Juanita is most likely heading in that same direction.

Lust and adolescent frustration ooze from every scene. Kazan uses cramped and claustrophobic framing to emphasize how trapped the young people feel, and he crams the speakers with dialogue, gathering together crowds of people where each individual member is talking over one another and drowning out the desires and protestations of his young lovers. He also uses colors to evoke mood, the drab browns and grays of Kansas life contrasting with the soft greens of nature and the lurid red of Deanie's dress. Virginia's New Year's dress is a softer color, white satin with hints of pink and silver. It looks like a nightgown, leaving her exposed when the predatory pack of males barrels down on her. Automobiles are modern dens of sin, though the main action takes place out by the falls, the cascades of water representing sexual release, be it attainable or unattainable. For Deanie, it also provides her the outlet for her Ophelia complex; Bud, then, is her Hamlet, melancholy and indecisive.

There are also Faulknerian undertones (though, there was always a bit of Shakespeare in Faulkner). Reading between the lines, there are suggestions of improprieties with Bud's sister that possibly involve her father, and even an attraction between her and Bud when he's pushed into the fatherly role. There are also issues of class and, of course, good old fashioned Southern madness.

By contrast, the film opens up as the two teens move away from each other, eventually finding happiness on brighter, more expansive landscapes. The sex the kids are not having puts a wedge between them, and they suffer from different mental maladies. In a way, screenwriter William Inge (Bus Stop) is tying a breakdown of old-fashioned values in with the Great Depression, extending a notion that some kind of cataclysmic shift is required both personally and socially for the world to turn toward a new, more progressive day. The peril of teenage sexual frustration is also a metaphor for the entire struggle of growing up, sex being one more thing that young people can't do. Parents just don't understand how to get out of the way and let their children live their own lives. (The one exception being Deanie's father, a sweet portrait of a caring dad, played affectionately by character actor Fred Stewart.)

All of the performances in Splendor in the Grass are marvelous. Warren Beatty's tortured take on Bud would make him a star, and Natalie Wood's move from happy and hopeful to having a total nervous breakdown is achingly raw. Winona Ryder has stolen just about every move in her playbook from Natalie Wood's performance as Wilma Dean Loomis. Both of the young leads are nothing short of sensational, and Kazan backs them up with an extremely talented supporting cast. The movie is refreshingly frank for its time--and even more so for a film that takes us back to a more antiquated, supposedly more innocent period--and as a result, it still holds up. Teen angst, when done well, is timeless.

AMERICA AMERICA - FILMSTRUCK

This review originally ran on DVDTalk.com in 2011.

Elia Kazan had already had a long and distinguished--and oft controversial--career in both theatre and cinema by the time he made his most personal film, America America, in 1964. Known for making pictures that pushed the envelope in terms of subject matter, be it challenging moral taboos or exploring socially conscious issues, the filmmaker didn't necessarily abandon those things for his immigration epic, but he found a way to make them more directly about himself and where he came from.

America America is, at its core, a family story. Kazan wrote it as a tribute to his uncle, first in a book and then as this screenplay. Said uncle emigrated from Turkey to the United States in the early 20th century. The cinematic version starts out in 1896. Stavros Topouzoglou (newcomer Stathis Giallelis) is the eldest son in a poor Greek family living in the Anatolian Mountains. As Kazan tells us himself in an introductory voiceover, the area was known for a large Greek and Armenian population when the Turks moved in and took over. At the time of the story, both groups live under occupied rule, and recent Armenian activity has caused an ethnic crackdown. Though Stavros is Greek, he can't avoid being caught up in the unrest. He is business partners with the Armenian worker Vartan (Frank Wolff). They go into the woods together and get ice to sell back down in the village. They both dream of someday leaving Turkey and sailing the Atlantic to find new opportunities in the States.

Pinning their hopes on Stavros and with fingers crossed it might keep him from jail (or worse), the Topouzoglou family sends him to Constantinople with all of their valuable possessions and traditions. The plan is for him to join his uncle's business there and slowly bring the rest of the clan along once he starts making money. On his trek, he meets an opportunistic Turk (Lou Antonio) who chisels him out of all his goods, setting off a chain of events that puts the young boy way off course. Unable to take up with his uncle, he ends up on the streets trying to make his fortune, only to continually lose what little he makes, run afoul of violence, and generally screw up. The other men call him "America America" because that's all he can talk about--one day getting enough cash to go to the Land of Opportunity.

Unlike most immigrant stories, Kazan isn't concerned with what happens once Stavros finally gets overseas. This is the story of the long and difficult process of escape. America isn't a reality, it's a fantasy, an image in advertisements and on postcards. Stavros doesn't have a dream of doing anything when he gets there, his dream is just getting there. Opportunity will be opportunity, it doesn't matter what it is.

Kazan shot most of America America on location overseas. Though many of his previous films brought a new social realism into American cinema, as well as a new kind of performance--he worked with both Marlon Brando and James Dean, who became icons of method acting--America America has more in common with Italian Neorealists than it does A Streetcar Named Desire. Working with mostly unknown, untested talent, he was able to create a film that is grounded in naturalism, even as the script toys with more traditional storytelling, including the oral tradition that allowed family stories of this kind to be passed on from generation to generation.

Haskell Wexler's amazing black-and-white photography presents the harsh life without any varnish. The sets and locations can be majestic and elaborate, yet the poverty is evident. Most of the settings are broken down, and people live on top of one another. Likewise, the costumes are torn and dirty. We can see the effects homelessness has on Stavros. By contrast, glimpses of the finer side of life seem almost contrived. An American that Stavros briefly encounters looks like he pulled his immaculate period suit straight out of studio wardrobe. When Stavros joins a wealthy family, their life also looks like costume drama put together by a vast production team. Don't take that as a criticism. I think this was intentional on Kazan's part, he wanted to show how deep the divide between the classes and how unreal the reality of the upper crust could be.

These finer things are just another temptation to Stavros, and temptation is just a distraction. Also, short cuts are a danger. Surprisingly (or maybe not so), women prove to be the key to a lot of his actual success--and fittingly, the actresses in the movie stand out. Linda Marsh is heartbreaking as Stavros' understanding and long-suffering spouse, and Katharine Balfour draws pity in a whole other way as a sheltered American wife. Ultimately, though, Stavros' path to success is reliant entirely on him. He must maintain focus and never waver from his goal. In this, America America is both a cautionary tale and statement of hope. One must never forget the struggles and sacrifice of those who have journeyed to the States in search of a better life, and how that goes deep down to the core of what the country stands for and what it was founded on. The actual achievement is not a fairy tale, it is not always clean or even honest, but the impulse to be a part of the great experiment is always worthy of tribute.

RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11 - #704

Don Siegel's Riot in Cell Block 11 is an interesting motion picture: seemingly simplistic exploitation that reveals itself to be a multi-faceted debate about crime and punishment that sneaks its message in by baldly adhering to the production code even as it pokes holes in every single one of the censors' anti-noir, "crime doesn't pay" strictures. Like 12 Angry Men [review] set inside a penitentiary, it offers a group of differing personalities brought together by a common goal. How to achieve it is something they will never agree on, even as the audience accepts certain outcomes as a foregone conclusion. The aim here is to use story to stir up all these ideas, to inspire different thinking, and to maybe vilify, if not an individual, then the system he represents. 

This is not a plot-heavy movie. Riot in Cell Block 11 does not hinge on a clever scheme or a last-act twist that reveals the ringleader had a different, selfish reason for leading the revolt all along. On the contrary, this is a movie that stays the course. Dunn (Neville Brand, Stalag 17) organizes the breakout with the other maximum-security prisoners because he believes change is necessary--the inmates, for instance, want mail and other pipelines to the outside world--and he doesn't waiver from the stated intention. The drama comes from how much his fellow prisoners agree with his methods, the bureaucratic reaction to what's going on, and how that tests Dunn's resolve and changes what he's willing to do to achieve the desired results.

The ruling counterpart to Dunn is the warden (Emile Meyer, Paths of Glory [review]), a good man strangled by budgets and regulations. He knows he could do better if  given more resources, but once the uprising occurs, his mission is to defuse the situation with as few casualties as possible. And nothing will dissuade him from his task, either. Of anyone, he's the most determined to avoid easy solutions if doing so ensures getting the right one. The deathblow for idealism may come at the end when it's revealed how much he really believes will happen in the aftermath--reality is a harsh beast--but  even then, did he not save lives all the same?

Siegel and writer Richard Collins stack their ensemble with counterpoints and opposites. The warden has Haskell (Frank Faylen, the dad on the The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis), a pencil-pusher sent by the mayor to mind the optics and watch the bottom line. He also has the wives of the guards taken hostage serving as his conscience, calling over the telephone to remind him what’s at stake, and a gaggle of reporters serving as Greek chorus, presenting the difficult truths fueling the conflict as so much exposition. On the other side, Dunn has Carnie (Leo Gordon, Buckskin), the muscle who would rather bust heads than negotiate, and the Colonel (Robert Osterloh, The Wild One [review]), an actual war veteran, put in prison through bad circumstance, who can see the outcome of this battle and doesn't care for the strategy or the eventual cost. Through these many voices, we surpass the surface conflict and delve deep into the more difficult nuance of the disagreement. This is about human dignity vs. public image, budget vs. empathy, and maybe kind of about how these guys did bad things even though maybe that shouldn’t matter when talking about their civil rights.

As sophisticated as it may sound, Riot in Cell Block 11 is a ragged B-movie. Siegel begins the picture as a docudrama, complete with newsreel narration, aided by the stark photography of Russell Harlan (Red River). This drops once the riot begins, and Siegel shifts into stoic melodrama. From the sob stories of the inmates--the prisoner with the sick child, the Colonel’s tale of vehicular manslaughter--to the exaggerated villainy of Haskell or Carnie’s mad-dog machinations, Riot in Cell Block 11 is pure pulp. It’s hard to tell if its social conscience is a cloak it wears to get away with showing violent beatings or if the lurid conflict is the capitulation to box office concerns. Both elements weigh equally in the final cut. Statistics may be shoehorned in by the gabby press men, but they are there all the same.

Plus, even if we excise the social message, there is a morality play at the heart of all this. Siegel is looking at how communities function, how the have-nots feel beaten down by the haves, as well as how those same communities fall apart. 1950s politics being what they are, Dunn’s all-for-one speechifying seems a little suspect. While he wants all prisoners to be treated equally, it doesn’t take long before his lieutenants abuse the system he puts in place, or for others to push harder to earn their own advantage. Little is made of race, despite the integrated population; the only hint of any kind of class comes more from an ethical hierarchy. One prisoner is singled out by all others, black or white, as being beneath contempt, and though they don’t say it outright, the coded language suggests he’s some kind of sex offender. 

To be honest, Riot in Cell Block 11 could have used a little more of that inside knowledge to show how the prison really operates. The inmates are all a little too clean-cut. When picking his players, Siegel cast interesting faces, but these are still Hollywood hooligans. Neville Brand is tough without really being threatening. The lack of backstory makes his high-minded intentions seem a little forced. We have no reason to believe Dunn would have really emerged over any of the others as the man with the plan.

Still, Siegel’s production is a lot less earnest than many of the other message pictures of the era, giving it an edge over even work by Elia Kazan or Stanley Kramer. This must have felt like pretty rough stuff right about then, and its more lowbrow tendencies allow for Riot in Cell Block 11 to remain entertaining, even as its still-relevant preachiness threatens to bog it all down. Not to mention the downbeat revelations in the final scene, which all by themselves remind us that very little has changed, and America’s capitalist approach to incarceration just continues to get worse.

THE PLAYER - #812

My thing about movies that are about movies is that the good ones make me want to watch other movies. If I watch The Bad and the Beautiful, for instance, I’m going to want to chase it with Cat People. Who didn’t watch the opening of The Player back when it was released in 1992 and not immediately go view--or even re-view--Touch ofEvil? Or how about pairing it up with Bicycle Thieves [review]? Better yet, another movie about movies, based on a book about movies, Elia Kazan’s vastly underrated adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon. Monroe Stahr, the movie mogul in The Last Tycoon, was modeled after Irving Thalberg, whom surely director Robert Altman and writer Michael Tolkin had in mind when they created Griffin Mill, their motion picture wunderkind, as played by Tim Robbins.

And it’s not just that The Player is about movies, it’s utterly in love with them. You get that right from the virtuoso opening shot, which runs without cutting for 8 1/2 minutes (certainly no coincidence), referencing not just Touch of Evil, but The Sheltering Sky and Rope and a couple of other films that pulled off similar feats (this was pre-Tarantino, mind you). There are easter eggs throughout this thing, and not just the cameos by then au currant celebs, but jokes and winks and the careful placement of other films and filmmakers to cue the audience to what is coming next. Be it Griffin walking under a movie marquee as the lights go out on The Bicycle Thief to signal his own oncoming moral dilemma, or the fake-out of Lyle Lovett walking by a Hitchcock photo as an indicator of suspense and a deep visual pun about “the wrong man.” The murder victim declares, “See you in the next reel, pal,” ironic last words befitting the noir plot Griffin Mill will find himself in, as predicted by the posters in his office.

If you’re a cinephile, you’re going to eat this stuff up.

If you’re not, if you’re just a casual movie fan, then no worries, you’re going to dig The Player, too. It’s more than a collection of in jokes and elbowing Hollywood in the ribs. Altman and Tolkin bring an honest-to-goodness murder plot along with all the references. The Player is a movie that aims to be as good as all the other movies it emulates.

In terms of story, it’s simple. Griffin Mill is a hotshot Hollywood producer who appears to be going cold. In the midst of his concerns that his boss is bringing in his replacement (Peter Gallagher), he’s also getting harassing post cards from an anonymous writer that he never called back. When the threats turn scary, Griffin tries to figure out who it is, settling on one writer in particular, David Kahane (played by a young, nearly unrecognizable Vincent D’Onofrio). Griffin tracks Kahane to a revival screening of the Neorealist classic The Bicycle Thief (or Bicycle Thieves) and tries to reason with him. Only, Kahane isn’t the guy--even if he hates Griffin all the same. Accusations cause tempers to flare and a scuffle ensues, leading to the writer ending up dead and Griffin trying to make it look like a robbery.

And he’s successful for the most part. The only problem is, someone saw the two of them together, and the cops (Whoopi Goldberg and Lyle Lovett) think it’s suspicious that the movie exec was somehow randomly the last person to see a no-name scribe alive. This line of thinking is only heightened when Griffin starts dating the deceased’s girlfriend (Greta Scacchi). In any conventional script, Griffin would certainly look guilty.

Which, of course, we know he is, but that’s immaterial. The question that lingers, what will he do to get out of it? That’s what any good suspense movie is about. Plus, we know that the real stalker is still out there, and he could strike at any minute. Somehow these things have to converge, right? That’s what the rules of screenwriting have taught us. Not to mention that the fake moviemakers in the movie we are watching keep harping on the need for a happy ending. Griffin Mill has to find his way out of it, or The Player will fail.

That might actually be The Player’s most ingenious bit, how Tolkin builds in all this conventional wisdom about what makes a successful movie--twists, turns, sex, surprising rescues, happy endings--and then delivers on each. It’s the artiest of blockbusters, The Player is. Like if the Kaufman Brothers in Adaptation cracked the code and managed to sincerely make it work. (Which, let’s be honest, it works in Adaptation; as soon as Donald takes over, the film becomes a crowdpleaser.)

Tim Robbins brings an interesting energy to his performance. He is both slimy and trustworthy, at times believably dim and yet otherwise extremely cagey. It’s excellent casting, how we feel about Griffin is probably how a lot of people feel about Robbins, who himself can be seen as a little pretentious and also a bit of a windbag due to his openness about his politics. Yet, he also always seems like a decent guy, he’d probably be pretty nice in person. We like him, but we want to hate him, too.

Fans of Hollywood lore will see other nods to history in The Player, perhaps most deftly in Fred Ward’s fixer character, which resembles MGM’s Eddie Mannix, immortalized in both the films Hollywoodland and more recently Hail, Caesar! There is also some amusing commentary about television actors wanting to be in movies, which seems only ironic and outdated given how so much and so many have shifted from the big screen to cable television for better opportunities in recent years. Tim Robbins himself was last seen on HBO in a bad Dr. Strangelove rip-off.

Television may be the current perceived assassin of big studio pictures, but moviemakers have had many threats before this one--including TV, which was originally supposed to be the death knell of the moviegoing experience back in the 1950s. Most would say the changing of the guard in the 1960s was the true end of Golden Age Hollywood--which is largely what Altman is paying tribute to here. His movie studio resembles the classic system as much as it does the bloated 1980s version he’s critiquing. The Player actually came at a time when independent films were having their heyday, and the Sundance crowd was moving in. I guess these things are cyclical. If the auteurs of the 1960s and 1970s gave birth to the blockbuster, then the indie scene of the 1990s gave us the mega blockbuster. Would there even be a Griffin Mill now, or would he just be a collection of stockholders?

I guess it doesn’t really matter. All we can say for sure is that he’d still be getting away with it. Now more than ever.

Tim Robbins, Sydney Pollack, and Robert Altman on set.

SIDELINE: MORE REVIEWS FOR 2/11

It was a big movie month for me, despite it being pretty dead in the cineplexes. The Portland International Film Festival pretty much waylaid three weeks for me. I posted my capsule reviews I wrote for the Portland Mercury over on my main blog, and you can read all the full-length reviews I did for Criterion Cast over on my author's page there.

Thanks to both venues for hosting me!

Now, on to the regular pieces...

IN THEATRES...

* Barney's Version, an ambitious literary adaptation that can't bear the narrative weight. Fine performances by Paul Giametti, Dustin Hoffman, and Rosamund Pike at least make it watchable.

* And Everything is Going Fine, Steven Soderbergh's tribute to the late Spalding Gray. Playing the NW Film Center this weekend.

* Sanctum, boring in all three dimensions.

ON DVD/BD...

* America America, Elia Kazan's remarkable epic story of one boy trying to get from Turkey to America.

* An Affair to Remember, Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant in a romance that never loses its passion.

* Bambi: Diamond Edition, a fantastic release of one of Disney's most impressive movies, bringing this animated classic into the technology of the 21st century brilliantly.

* Burlesque, revisiting one of my favorite reviews from last year now that the movie is out on Blu-Ray and DVD.

* Futureworld, a sort of dull 1970s vision of a theme park future.

* Guest of Cindy Sherman, a documentary made by a narcissist who can't handle that his coattail ride doesn't come with its own coat. I got some particularly juicy hate mail for this review since the piece could be considered as a personal attack on the filmmaker. I stand by the assertion that if you're going to be the subject of your own movie and present yourself and your activities as some kind of plea for sympathy or even admiration, then you erase the line between art and artist. You are the art. This has been an ongoing topic of mine. I refer back to my review of Tarnation, written for this blog back in 2005. Feel free to post your thoughts on the subject below. I think it's an interesting topic worthy of discussion.

* Mesrine: Killer Instinct, the first part of last year's great French gangster epic.

* Thelma & Louise: 20th Anniversary Edition: It's still fun to hit the road with Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis. Directed by Ridley Scott.

* Unstoppable, the other Scott brother's recent film about an out of control road trip is also a pretty damn good time.