Clive Davis

"VENUS" - A WORD OF WARNING

I went to see it on Saturday, and had my most irritating night in a cinema since that other over-hyped homegrown film, The History Boys. Venus, if anything is even worse. Drab. Depressing. Maudlin. Wildly implausible. Poorly scripted. Badly shot. Peter O'Toole is good, however. It would be nice if he won the Oscar, but it would be an even greater humanitarian gesture not to encourage people to waste an evening on such a third-rate movie.

SEX & THE SMALL TOWN

The town in question being Climax, Nevada, the setting for Billy Wilder's unsung classic, Kiss Me Stupid. I've blogged about it before, so imagine my joy when I discovered the trailer on YouTube. With Dean Martin more or less playing himself: "Last night she was bangin' on my door for 45 minutes. But I wouldn't let her out..."  Peter Sellers originally took the role of the insanely jealous piano teacher, but dropped out after suffering a heart attack. Ray Walston took his place at short notice, and is absolutely wonderful. (I'd still love to see the Sellers footage, though.)

While the humour may seem quaint now, the storyline caused uproar in the early Sixties, the Catholic Legion of Decency calling it "a thoroughly sordid piece of realism which is aesthetically  as well as morally repulsive."  Badly marketed, and perhaps too cynical for its own good, the movie flopped at the box office. Joan Didion was one of the very few American critics to come to its defence: "Kiss Me Stupid" shows Wilder doing exactly what only he can do. It is a profoundly affecting picture, as witnessed by the number of people who walk out on it."

STAGE & SCREEN

Terry Teachout compiles a list of the five best theatrical biographies, Prick Up Your Ears among them, and indulges in some afterthoughts on his Commentary essay about Hollywood and the art of making serious films:

The reader in question invited to put my money where my mouth was by naming what I thought were the best sound films made in Hollywood prior to the coming of the New Wave. That’s a good question, and an impossible one, but I decided to try to answer it anyway.

I seem to recall that the Geek took umbrage at the original article. I wonder what he'll make of Teachout's choices.

THRILLER

The Last King of Scotland is a very interesting film for the first hour. Then it goes off the rails. By that point we know only too well Idi Amin is a tyrant, so there's really no point in showing his handiwork in such lingering detail at the hospital and the airport. Menace is a lot more interesting than mayhem, which is why, as I've said before, Seconds would win my vote as the scariest film ever to come my way. I've just discovered that the trailer is available at YouTube. It doesn't really do justice to the movie, but I was still glad of the chance to watch it.

TAKING THE SCISSORS TO BORAT'S NAUGHTY BITS

A scene that didn't make it into the film, more's the pity:

We had one instance where the studio put their foot down and said we weren't allowed to shoot a scene because it was too dangerous. But we only got word of that after we shot the scene. [The writing staff] had an idea that Borat gets lost in Mexico and the van breaks down, the exhaust pipe falls off. And Borat starts carrying the exhaust pipe, and it's extremely hot, he's walking through the desert. He takes a towel, wraps it around his head, and it looks like he's a Mujahadeen operative with a rocket launcher over his shoulder. And then the idea was for Borat to walk across the border and straight into Minutemen.   

[Via Cinematical]

The rest of the interview, with Cohen and his screenwriters, is well worth reading. Meanwhile, the hairy one seems to be doing very good business in one area of the Middle East:

In a random sampling, Lebanese audiences laughed at the same moments as did those in New York, though film critics at a special preview arranged for the Lebanese press were surprised to learn that there was anti-Semitism in America. "In the Middle East, all we know is that America and Israel are always together," said one.

Time's reporter has his reservations, however:

Borat's equal opportunity offensiveness is on par with so much else that the U.S. exports to the Middle East — it represents freedom without responsibility.

Well, I'm not entirely with him in this particular case. Although I do admit to feeling queasy when the peerless Jon Stewart  launches into another knockabout routine about bombs going off in Baghdad or a dictator swinging on the gallows. A joke too far, or just honest, cathartic black humour? I'm really not sure.

IAN FLEMING & THE AMERICANS

Bond's creator never really came to terms with the superpower across the water... A timely new book on the 007 phenomenon is reviewed in the NYT:

Winder, the publishing director of Penguin Press in London, capably outlines Fleming’s unsurprising and unsubtle dismissals of 1950s America, which he saw as vulgar and oversexed, enthralled by an ever expanding consumer culture. The book doesn’t say whether he was aware before his death, in 1964, that critics on both sides of the Atlantic had made precisely the same observations about his own work (and the ensuing films).

JAMES BORE

Well, I finally saw Casino Royale last night, and came away thinking my colleague, Cosmo got it absolutely right in his review:

The film aims to be a character-driven study of how 007 was changed by this mission and meeting Vesper. But as far as I can tell, it’s the story of how a sadistic psycho who hated women became a better-dressed and more professional sadistic psycho who hates women.

I couldn't agree more. As the characterization is so perfunctory, there's next to no chemistry with the colourless Vesper (who looks more like Joyce Grenfell's niece in a WonderBra), Le Chiffre makes a dreary villain, the overblown chase sequence at the beginning is about as interesting as your eight year-old's computer game, the theme song is painfully dull, and the violence is way too extreme for a 12 certificate. In other words, it has all the faults of just about every big-budget film I've seen lately. And I noticed that not a single person in the audience laughed at Bond's attempts at wisecracks. I think that tells you something. Daniel Craig does well, though. 18 year olds will love it, I guess.

My only other thought is that it's just as well Felix Leiter is black, because some of the other scenes leave an odd taste, racially speaking, as if nothing's changed since the darkies rolled their eyes in Dr No.

PREACHING TO THE CONVERTED, AGAIN

"It’s nice that liberals win elections now and then, but I’m not sure they should be allowed to make movies...."  That fine critic, David Denby, watches Bobby and Fast Food Nation, and squirms:

Both "Bobby" and "Fast Food Nation" were conceived at a moment, perhaps, when liberals were unable to tell stories, so deep was their despair. Looking at these screwed-up movies, even a conservative might say that it's time for liberals to pull themselves together and begin their narrative anew.

NO SEASONAL CHEER

A question for religiously-minded film fans: why is the new movie, The Nativity Story doing so badly when Mel Gibson’s version of the Passion did so well?

With Christmas only a few weeks away, you'd think this was the perfect time to release a film that revolves around the birth of Jesus, right? Wrong. The film took in only $8 million, the second lowest total in history for a film debuting on over 3,100 screens. But why did it tank? Bad marketing? Poor reviews? Were people too busy Christmas shopping? Was it because Mel Gibson and the controversy were absent? And why are people so afraid to promote a film whose story inspired the holiday they're about to celebrate?

It’s just too dull, say many of the critics, although there are some notable exceptions.

DEPARTED

One loss follows another. I meant to say earlier that Roger Simon has a brief but fair summary of Roger Altman's highs and lows. (I couldn't stand Gosford Park either, to be frank.) Then came news of Anita O'Day's passing. I wish I'd seen her at her peak. The last time she came to London, about a year ago, was a dismal experience, She looked painfully frail, and could barely remember the lyrics of classic songs or hold the microphone properly (someone from her management kept leaving his table to push the mike closer to her face.) I left at the interval, too embarrassed to watch any more. Much better to remember her this way, sporting that famous hobble-dress in a clip from the Fifties documentary, Jazz On A Summer's Day.