"Accomplishments"
At home: Having no real affinity for the original Child's Play movies (I've maybe seen one), I came to the 2019 remake for Aubrey Plaza and little else. Her basic screen persona is an odd choice for a single mom, but not a bad one. But she's not really the star of this movie. That honor goes to the twin pairing of Gabriel Bateman as the kid (he's good), and Mark Hamill(!) as Chucky. Guys, I don't know how terrifying this thing is. I don't know if the originals were all that terrifying either (especially once they got into the crazy sequels), but it IS ridiculous fun. Jettisoning the supernatural origins of the earlier Chucky (and his freakish appearance), this new one instead opts for a 5-minutes-into-the-future Black Mirror idea, where a disgruntled employee removes the safeties on a doll that connects to the Cloud and can learn to be a better companion. Furbie goes on a rampage, essentially. (Alternate joke: Hey Google, go on a killing spree.) Of course it's absurd! Who said that derisively? Shame on you. It's just a fun updating that allows for crazy murder gags and a bit of satire about our interconnected world.
You don't expect TOO TOO much when you decide to check out Black Mama, White Mama. I mean, an exploitation version of The Defiant Ones with Pam Grier? I'm there for it. Still, it sort of lost me towards the end there. The first act is your standard, highly ridiculous, women in prison 'sploitation flick, set in a Filipino prison. Cuz that's where they filmed, which does add some exoticism to the usual shenanigans - shower scenes, food fights, and lesbian guards, you know the drill. Then they chain Grier and White Mama Margaret Markov together, but they escape thanks to the latter's revolutionary friends (yes, cuz Markov is the terrorist, Grier is the hooker trying to get out from under her pimp's thumb, I might have switched the roles given each woman's relative badassery), and for a while there, it's a fun buddy escapee situation. But there are so many elements coming after them who need to be serviced, we lose the plot by the end. The one thing this movie doesn't do very well is stunts, and ending the whole thing in a big firefight full of them makes for a poorer climax. This is just silly fun, so the tragic note it eventually strikes leaves me nonplussed.
My least favorite musical subgenre is the biopic, because biopics are generally my least favorite movie genre. I don't think Three Little Words is an exception to that rule, despite being dressed up as a fairly standard Fred Astaire affair. Certainly, the use of Kalmar and Ruby's original songs means there's hardly a false note in the whole thing, and Astaire and Red Skelton have a good relationship going as the two leads. But this is definitely a Fred Astaire film, with the usual song and dance routines, just one where his character hurts his knee and gives up on dance. They find ways around that, either by less showy moments where he gives his feet a little go, or through a series of other artists doing the numbers (including a young dubbed-over Debbie Reynolds who nevertheless gives a fun performance in her one scene), and some very strong dancing from Vera-Ellen who is at least one of the stars (as Mrs. Kalmar). I mean, those are the realities of the biography (though I take a LOT of this with a grain of salt), so I can't be too disappointed. But I still kind of am.
Follow the Fleet is the kind of affair where modern audiences can't be expected to 'ship the couples, whether we're talking about Astaire and Rogers, OR the subplot couple played by Randolph Scott and Harriet Nelson. The guys are jackasses, and the girls are gonna end up with them because that's just how things work in these movies. That said, it's a lot of fun. The boys are sailors whose lives intersect the ladies' during shore leave, and almost immediately, Fred is meddling in Ginger's life. Harriet plays the "ugly duckling" who swans to meet Randolph, but he's too afraid of marriage to know a good thing when he sees one. It all ends with a big show on a boat. Pretty much what you'd expect from the title alone. But there's some great misunderstandings, Astaire in the trickster role, Rogers rolling her eyes at him, a dance number that's more dramatic and beautiful than you expect from the shenanigan-heavy story that precedes it, and some great, great, great Irving Berlin songs. "We Saw the Sea" is a fast and fun opening number, and "Let's Face the Music and Dance" is a show stopper. Bit parts for Betty Grable and Lucille Ball. And I know this won't be a popular opinion, but it's kind of relaxing to not have Edward Everett Horton making his big expressions all over an Astaire and Rogers musical spectacular.
To me, one of the best Astaire and Rogers musicals has to be Shall We Dance, and it's right there in the title - it's mostly down to the dancing. Astaire plays Petrov, star of the ballet, but in his heart of hearts, he's just Pete Peters from Philly, and his passion is for tap. He falls for Ginger's Linda Keene from a photograph and endeavors to meet her, Ginger always amusing hard to impress in these things, and there's some fun to be had with misunderstandings caused by the two's managers trying to start rumors that the couple has been secretly married even though they've just now met one another. That's key. Instead of having Astaire play an insufferable cad as is usual (though he's still on the manipulative side), the plot's objectionable machinations are carried out by clowns in the background. That lets us root for the couple more. And while both Edward Everett Horton and Eric Blore are on-brand, which is to say they overplay everything, they get some pretty funny bits to play in this one. But back to the dancing. While the Gershwins' music is quite strong, and they come up with some songs that have stood the test of time ("Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" and "They Can't Take That Away From Me" in particular), it's the inventing dance sequences that really put this one over the top. Dancing to a broken record, in a ship's engine room, on rollerskates, and then it dares go into creepy and surreal territory with its big contortionist ballet finale where Astaire dances with dozens of Gingers. No, no, you can't take that away from me... FAVORITE OF THE WEEK
I think the muscle Ginger Rogers exercises most (and best) in her non-musical comedies is that effortless sense that her character doesn't take the crazy premises they're thrust into very seriously. Case in point, Bachelor Mother, which has her find a baby on the steps of an orphanage, and by the simple act of picking it up, becomes its de facto mother. And like a fizzing bomb in Gotham City, some days you just can't get rid of a baby. No matter how hard you try! So she goes from being laid off to getting personal attention from her boss (David Niven) who mistakenly believes the lay-off made her despondent enough to try and get rid of her child, and one thing leads to another, but not without plenty of amusing misunderstandings before we get to the audience winking end. Just a fun piece of fluff, with Rogers taking everything in her stride - I guess things just work out like that sometimes - a period-specific scandal brewing, but never really offending, even in-story. It's pretty cute.
As with many Nancy Meyers' productions, 1987's Baby Boom is loosely based on a Hollywood classic, in this case 1939's Bachelor Mother. But very loosely based. Filmed at the peak of the big shoulderpad fashion trend, the movie has a horrendous 80s score and antiquated ideas about women in the work place, with Diane Keaton playing her usual neurotic spazz and not at all believable as a 5th Avenue shark. She inherits a baby from a distant cousin and one thing leads to another because this thing is all clichés all the time (baby formula, you might say), though there's an odd turn in the middle where, having figured out the baby thing (that, at least, I can appreciate), the movie is suddenly about a city mouse trying to live in the country. I think what most annoys me is that while it mostly plays as an amusing neighbor to realism, the important turning points go for satirical absurdism that feels clunky, in my opinion. If you just want to watch Diane Keaton playing with a cute baby, have fun, you get plenty of quality content, but you might still cringe at the synth'n'sax soundtrack and the largely unchallenged boy's club attitudes of Keaton's co-workers. Though I have little memory of it, the timeline instructs me that not only did I see it in theaters, but I had to review it for a public access show I was on back in 11th grade. What 16-year-old Siskoid thought of this, I can only guess. He didn't notice it was dated on all fronts, obviously, but somehow, I don't think he was into it.
Quadruple the kids in Life With Father, and you get Cheaper by the Dozen, a film equally based on a humorous memoir about family life in the 20th Century, with a comically authoritarian patriarch, and pretty flimsy in the plot department. Cheaper by the Dozen is a lot flimsier though, with only one subplot tying things together really, that of the eldest daughter rebelling against her father's regimentation. Otherwise, it reads as lightly comic vignettes, with a soft punchline at the end. Clifton Webb gives withering looks. Myrna Loy is the sensible one in the family. Twelve kids run around (well, no, a couple can't walk yet) but don't come off as annoying, which is a triumph in and of itself. And because it's autobiographical, there's a tragic twist thrown in that may surprise. I can't quite tell if some of the notions on show are dated because the story takes place in the 1910s, or because the film was made in 1950, but the tonsils kerfuffle and the reaction of the Planned Parenthood lady come off as slightly bizarre. Held my interest if just barely, but I'm still interested in seeing Belles on Their Toes, the sequel where Myrna Loy is more central and Jeanne Crain, the heart of this picture, takes the lead.
Night Flight's star-studded cast had me expecting them all trapped on the same plane, but those hopes were quickly dashed. For the most part, they don't interact with one another, and it's criminal to introduce Myrna Loy only in the third act. But leaving those expectations at the door, there's plenty I like. It's got great aerial action, for one thing, some of it real, some by way of models, but even the process shots of pilots sitting in biplanes look more real than usual. I also like that it's a procedural, showing what seems like the pretty authentic life of the fly-by-night mail-carrying pilots of South America, the challenges they lead, and what's at risk for them. And the movie makes heroes of these men without ever letting them know what's at stake. Characters muse about whether it's all worth it just so someone can get a postcard Tuesday instead of Wednesday, but the audience knows the truth of the ticking clock that is one particularly important package. And that ending, while like the introductory scroll rather overblown and melodramatic, is truly poignant and worth watching the movie to the end. During, I was sometimes a bit impatient, wanting more scenes like Helen Hayes and John Barrymore's, and feeling aggrieved that others seemed surplus to requirements, but as it turns out, Night Flight is sticking with me more than I thought it would.
I'll watch anything with William Powell, but it's Ann Harding I discover in Double Harness, a short pre-Code relationship drama that's quite honest about courtship and marriage. Some will call it cynical, but no matter how pragmatic Harding's character is about the "business of marriage", or how untrustworthy Powell's caddish bachelor is, love and commitment find a fertile environment in this particular couple. Of course, there are difficulties. The ease with which they might get divorced, a woman from Powell's past, and Harding's spoiler of a sister, whose subplot comes crashing rather effectively into the main story. If Harding carries the piece, it's largely because Powell is an underwritten, unknowable figure. In lesser hands and eyebrows, he might be a total mystery. But still, his changes of heart seem fickle, as there are no scenes to set them up. Sometimes we get an explanation, sometimes we don't. The movie is convinced they are perfect for each other, but how does HE come around to it? I liked it, but at 69 minutes, there was room for a little more meat.
In Crossroads, William Powell is a French diplomat who has been living with amnesia for some twenty years, so when someone tries to make him pay a substantial debt he knows nothing about, it becomes a case of uncertain identity. Is he who he claims he is, or a criminal on the run? The story almost immediately goes in an unexpected direction, and I like that it's because our lead is too smart for the situation. That'll be the ultimate theme of this is he/isn't he mystery, which is good at throwing twists, but perhaps not as good as revealing its mysteries. I felt like every reveal was clunky and awkward, lacked artistry. Instead of a shock, we're left with a matter-of-fact confirmation of one of the things we might have suspected all along, and if we didn't, it makes us feel like we really should have. Still, Powell, Hedy Lamarr, Basil Rathbone, even the smaller parts, all great fun to watch in this.
National Theatre Live's Treasure Island will seem a natural for Doctor Who fans as Arthur Darvill (Rory Pond) plays Long John Silver, and Whovians will remember that his character on the show WAS involved in an episode that riffed off Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island ("The Curse of the Black Spot"). No reason to think it's stunt casting given he's quite good in the role, and the play really picks up once he shows up. That's also when the better zanies come into it, whatever its faults, the play does manage to make its large cast memorable so that, even if briefly introduced, you know full well who they are when their meager stories pay off later. At the heart of the story is Jim, of course, and so long as you're going to have a actress to play a boy, might as well make her a girl. Changes little, but I do like the small necessary tweaks made to accommodate the idea. Don't expect too much from the text, it's just fine, and energetic actors kind of shout them out and flatten them I'm afraid. The real reason to see this is the set design and practical effects, which are stupendous. It must have been quite something to see this live, in the actual space, and even on the television, you get a sense of it thanks to good direction (but somebody get a mike on that parrot, please!). I was expecting a fun family adventure, and that's what I got, pretty unusual for this medium, come to think of it.
Coriolanus is one of those odd plays at the tail end of Shakespeare's career, where he lets go of the the sort of character inwardness he invented in favor of more conceptual representations. The title character is, not unlike Timon of Athens also written (albeit abandoned) in this era in that he is single-minded, as if an idea made flesh, but not a person. In fact, we can sort of see his roots IN Timon (though it's hard to say which play came first), as he shares a story with Flavius, a soldier who angers the government, is exiled, then returns to conquer his old home. Coriolanus is more a killing machine than is MacBeth, and his hubris is quite classical. It's the kind of pride that means he cannot easily be moved to change his mind, nor can he speak anything BUT his mind. Hypocrisy is impossible in him, and his refusal to ever give way - a warrior in every way, it's him against the world - is what undoes him. He may lack inwardness, but does that make him less human? We have many among us who seem thoughtless, who have dedicated themselves to the wrong things, and yes who have become monsters. While the play will never reach the iconic status of Shakespeare's better-known tragedies, there are still some very memorable moments in it, and its politics feel universal, as it deals with the ruling class justifying ignoring the people, the absurdity of representative democracy, and is also a veteran's story. The BBC production of the play affects extreme close-ups that sometimes makes the action hard to follow, but then maybe that's where the camera should be, intense and in your face. It also manages some production value in the first act's battles. If it works and if Coriolanus is at all sympathetic, it's thanks to a strong performance by Alan Howard (it's not without a grin that I realized he was the voice of Sauron in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy), building a great rivalry with the venom-spitting Mike Gwilym, a veteran of these productions. But it's Irene Worth who very nearly takes the play away with her as Coriolanus' mother, a powerful presence in his life, and on the screen. The scene where she pleads with her son to abandon his siege is the standout.
Role-playing: I don't know if it'll come to fruition, but I'm prepping a Savage Worlds Rippers game for my gang, to play online while the quarantine lasts. But simultaneously, I've finally accepted an invitation to play in one of fellow GameMaster Ryan Blake's online games. You'd think I'd have finally deigned to guest-star in his long-running Doctor Who campaign, but no, he's starting something new with Star Trek Adventures, the story of the U.S.S. Becket that gets Voyagered to the back end of Dominion space in the Gamma Quadrant just before the shit hits the fan (DS9 Season 3 or thereabouts). So I made a character. The way it works is much like Traveller (and indeed Last Unicorn's version of the Star Trek RPG) with a life path that unlocks different abilities based on events from your career to that point, but it's more story-telling based than those other games. It's a bit crazy, actually, because I'd originally wanted to put a real face on the Bolians, but all the more social roles had been taken (which is where my characters usually fall, and also something the Bolians excel at in the game). So I had these grand schemes to play Neelix-done-right, importing a villainous character race from GURPS Aliens, connecting the culture to the Dominion, and making a local guide you weren't sure you could trust, and who would, in a way we haven't really seen on any of the shows, act as the "commentary on humanity" character. Except Ryan needed me to play a Starfleet officer in the first chapter, so I ended up making my Bolian ANYWAY. And the idea was to make him as beloved by the NPC crew as possible, then kill him off at the end of the pilot so we could introduce the other guy. But then I got invested in Skoid the Security/Morale officer, y'know? So the plan is now to see how it goes with this PC, and get to understand the game mechanics so that I'm better able to build a new alien into the game (with his own cultural life path - the game is very Starfleet-centric on that point). My snake in the grass (or is he?) is being held in reserve. I mean, if the other players get to like my Bolian, won't it have even more of an impact when he sacrifices himself and is replaced with someone totally opposite to him? I play so rarely, I find that I'm still thinking like a GM...
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