What Art/World/HW Films Have You Been Watching?

I just rewatched it on HDNet Movies, whose hi-def print is miles ahead of the DVD. One of John Cusack’s best movies is this wry comedy about a hitman who attends his high school reunion. The clever premise by screenwriters Cusack, Steve Pink, D.V. DeVincentis, and Tom Jankiewicz is paced and presented exceedingly well by George Armitage, a Roger Corman disciple directing just his second feature since 1976’s VIGILANTE FORCE. The soundtrack is populated with hip, catchy ‘80s songs and a good score by The Clash’s Joe Strummer.

Cusack is charming and funny as Martin Blank, a successful freelance assassin who receives an invitation to his ten-year reunion in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. At first, he doesn’t want to go, because he doesn’t think he has anything in common with his former classmates. What’s he gonna do—tell them he killed the president of Paraguay with a fork? He changes his mind, though, when he learns his next assignment lives near his hometown. And, by the way, he may as well patch things up with his high school sweetheart (Minnie Driver), whom he ditched on prom night and hasn’t spoken to since.

Almost every character—lead and supporting—is fleshed out in some way and becomes an actual three-dimensional person, which helps dose the humor with reality. Alan Arkin (LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE) gives one of the movie’s funniest performances as Martin’s timid shrink, who is terrified of Martin and doesn’t want to be his doctor, but is too scared to send him away. Dan Aykroyd (DRIVING MISS DAISY) is great as rival hitman Grocer, who wants to recruit Blank into his new union for professional killers, and John’s sister Joan Cusack has a nice role as Blank’s neurotic secretary. Even the various hitmen, sinister government agents, and high school classmates are fleshed out a bit, and it’s nice to see a movie that cares about even its smallest characters. Also with Jeremy Piven, Barbara Harris, Hank Azaria, K. Todd Freeman, Michael Cudlitz, Mitchell Ryan, Jenna Elfman, and Benny “The Jet” Urquidez, whose hallway fight with Cusack is a funny, violent highlight.

THE DOUBLE (2011) - Formulaic spy thriller was barely released to theaters last fall despite the presence of the dependable Richard Gere. It's not a bad movie, just a thoroughly generic one, and one that probably plays a lot better if you're camped out on your couch after a long day at work than it would as a night out at the movies. It's really no better or worse than an episode of your average weekly CBS procedural. Retired CIA agent Shepherdson (Gere) is brought back on the job by his former boss Highland (Martin Sheen) when new evidence suggests Cassius, a deadly Russian spy thought dead since 1988, is alive and well and attempting to restart the Cold War. Shepherdson is teamed with wet-behind-the-ears FBI agent Geary (Topher Grace), a bureau expert on Cassius, which gives us plenty of scenes of Gere being annoyed with his inexperienced partner (which I'm sure wasn't exactly a stretch). Twists and turns abound, a major one revealed a bit too early in the film (and the trailer gives it away), and things get increasingly silly as they progress, leading to a real howler at the end.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with THE DOUBLE, and it practically gets by just on the presence of pros like Gere and Sheen. Grace, who still looks 12, is a bit less convincing, as are locales in Detroit and Ann Arbor, MI filling in for Washington DC. Also with Stephen Moyer (TRUE BLOOD), Odette Yustman, Stana Katic (CASTLE), and 50 Cent BFF Tamer Hassan, plus a closing credits instrumental jam by Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson.

Gere's days as a box office draw are most likely in the past, but if nothing else, predictable, comfort food fare like THE DOUBLE shows that he'd be a great candidate for a weekly CSI or NCIS-type network procedural. I'd watch that.

Don't tell me either Gere or Grace is Cassius.

I hear Gere (give the man an HBO show, or a JUSTIFIED-level series) is terrific in ARBITRAGE, a financial thriller that played Sundance. (He's also very good in THE HOAX, which is being issued on Blu-ray this month.)

The real puzzle is Grace, whose career seems to have been adversely affected by SPIDER-MAN 3; thought he'd be working at a higher level these days.

This post has been edited by Bob Cashill on Feb 1 2012, 02:29 PM

Doesn't seem like a puzzle to me. He's likable, but a very limited performer with not enough sand to make it in drama. I'm kinda surprised he hasn't hooked up with another sitcom. He was quite good on THAT '70S SHOW.

Of course, Ashton Kutcher is a terrible actor in both comedy and drama, so who knows.

In movies like the underrated IN GOOD COMPANY Grace had an insouciant quality to him that differentiated him from the pack--the problem may be that there is a pack of 20/early 30something guys out there, all angling for the same roles.

That said SPIDER-MAN 3 also did in Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Bryce Dallas Howard (shudder), and Thomas Haden Church, at least for a couple of years.

THE PATIENT IN ROOM 18 (1938) - Private investigator Lance O'Leary (Patric Knowles) suffers a nervous breakdown from being unable to solve a case and his doctor has him hospitalized for rest. It just happens to be the same place where his lady friend, Sara Keate (Ann Sheridan), is the head nurse. The first night there a murder takes place as wealthy Mr. Warren is killed in his room and $100,000 worth of radium on his chest (for medicinal purposes) is stolen. Also, head doctor Dr. Lethany is murdered as well. Everyone on the staff seems to have a motive and O'Leary must work with Inspector Foley (Cliff Clark) to solve the crime. A minor mystery effort from the Warner Bros. Mystery/Horror set that only runs an hour so you can't get too wrapped up or angry at it. There are quite a few suspects, but you can probably guess the killer as they aren't on screen that much. Also, despite all the red herrings, the killer's first dialogue scene is a dead give away. Knowles and Sheridan have a nice onscreen rapport and everyone delivers the quick dialogue with ease. This is one of nine adaptations that Hollywood did of female writer Mignon G. Eberhart's mystery work with three of those being Lance O'Leary films (he was also played by Guy Kibbe in WHILE THE PATIENT SLEPT and Dick Purcell in MYSTERY HOUSE).

Bally Brando (2009)
In the mid 1990s, Marlon Brando, Johnny Depp, John Hurt and Debra Winger arrived in County Cork to film "Divine Rapture", along with rising Irish star Angeline Ball (of The Commitments), to be directed by Thom Eberhardt (responsible for one of my cult favourites, Night of the Comet). This tale of possibly holy goings on in a small Irish seaside town was hoping to put the village of Ballycotton on the map the same way The Quiet Man and Ryan's Daughter did for Connemara and Kerry respectively - but weeks into production and in the face of ever increasing trouble, the film was abandoned.

This TV documentary tells the story of the film's inception, its troubled production and eventual demise, through some archive footage and interviews with some of those involved with the film and the locals who were left to clean up afterwards. It's a fascinating insight into how things like this happen (or how they don't) and is full of interesting anecdotes about the experiences of working on such a project, and of Brando's love of Ireland and the effect he had there. Most interesting however is the chance to see a couple of minutes of footage from the film that never was - to be honest, it looks like it could well have been a pretty bad film from what you see here, but the sight of Brando and Hurt facing up to each other in a film that never was certainly makes you ponder this great Hollywood what-if.

The Iron Lady (2011)Riots in the streets of Brixton, battles with the unions, the 1984 miners' strike, the IRA bombing campaign, the Falklands war, the Poll Tax outcry and riots... so many things stay in the mind from the reign of former British Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher that it's a wonder it took so long for someone to make this film.

Unfortunately, it's even more surprising to see all of these things swept aside as mere soundbites and minor incidents in a film that is far more interested in using Thatcher as a character upon which to fit the tried-and-tested Hollywood woman-in-a-man's-world biopic template.

A linking story involving the former leader suffering from dementia offers Meryl Streep a chance to do a little bit more acting than just a straight Thatcher impression, but not by much. It's not a stretch for her, although Oscar's love of impressions of famous people put her in the front running for an award all the same.

Despite the above events and the fact that in large parts of the UK Thatcher remains the most hated leader in Britain's history, her very name almost spat out when mentioned in certain places, this film offers little more than standard TV movie biopic stuff and as good as Streep might be this is hardly going to rank with her greatest performances. There's a definitive movie to be made about Thatcher, and probably a halfway decent one, but this turgid bore is neither.

This post has been edited by Alan Maxwell on Feb 3 2012, 01:46 PM

MYSTERY HOUSE (1938) - At a hunting lodge retreat, banker Hubert Kingery (Eric Stanely, previously the butler in ROOM 18) announces to five fellow officers that one of them has forged documents and embezzled $500,000. Before the evening is over, Kingery is shot dead and the police officially rule it a suicide. Kingery's daughter Gwen (Anne Nagel) doesn't agree and asks for help from her aunt's nurse, Sarah Keate (Ann Sheridan), who suggests her detective boyfriend, Lance O'Leary (Dick Purcell), for the case. O'Leary has all of the suspects return the the lodge and begins his investigation. Stuck in the snowbound shelter, the suspects and victims begin to pile up. Released just 4 months after ROOM 18, this sequel sees the O'Leary character recast with the less lively Purcell in the role. His flirtations with the returning Sheridan have little spark and he is very flat when delivering his findings. The mystery is much more complex with lots of suspects and various motives abound. The method of murder is pretty clever, but relies on the police not even bothering to check the crime scene (maybe they did things different in the 1930s). The snowy setting is nice though, even if done entirely inside studio walls. Running just 56 minutes, MYSTERY HOUSE is a very minor mystery effort.

FLED (1996)—Directed by Kevin Hooks. Stars Stephen Baldwin, Laurence Fishburne, Salma Hayek, Will Patton, Robert John Burke. MGM’s action/comedy take on THE DEFIANT ONES plays like an Edgar Wright parody, packed as it is with groaning one-liners, over-the-top violence, and unbelievable plotting. FLED’s most egregious offense against society is its desperate attempt to influence the English vocabulary by repeatedly using the title as a present-tense verb. Director Hooks (PASSENGER 57), who fashioned a prolific career in television drama (PRISON BREAK), has a good rhythm for action sequences, keeping the story and the gunshots chugging along at an agreeable pace (give credit to Graeme Revell’s score and Richard Nord and Joseph Gutowski’s film editing too). Hooks does what he can to rescue FLED, but he’s saddled with a ludicrous script by Preston A. Whitmore II (LOCKDOWN) and a drippy star in Baldwin (BIO-DOME). Whitmore’s premise handcuffs (literally) Piper (Fishburne) and Dodge (Baldwin), escaped convicts who become the center of a massive manhunt by law enforcement officials honest (Patton) and not so honest (Burke). Everyone wants a computer disc belonging to the Cuban mob or some such malarkey. Patton does a good job sending up his expository role by adding a wry drawl to his dialogue and playing Good Cop with a sense of humor. Fishburne is commanding, of course, but shares no chemistry with Baldwin or with Hayek (FROM DUSK TILL DAWN) as his love interest. Also with TROUBLE MAN Robert Hooks (the director’s father), David Dukes, Brittany Powell, Victor Rivers, Bill Bellamy, Taurean Blacque, RuPaul, and Michael Nader.

THE ALPHA CAPER (1973)—Directed by Robert Michael Lewis. Stars Henry Fonda, Leonard Nimoy, James McEachin, Larry Hagman. After two seasons as master magician Paris on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, Nimoy must have felt comfortable backing up Henry Fonda in this cleverly crafted caper for ABC’s MOVIE OF THE WEEK. Elroy Schwartz (THE BRADY BUNCH) penned the light tale of 61-year-old Mark Forbes (Fonda), a parole officer forced into retirement after forty years on the job. A widower whose job is all he has, Mark jabs back at the Establishment by planning an armored car heist with three of his parolees—electronics whiz Mitch (Nimoy), special effects man Tudor (I DREAM OF JEANNIE’s Hagman), and master thief Scat (McEachin, TENAFLY). Schwartz’s caper is a tad farfetched, involving the gang’s navigation of sewer tunnels to plant explosive charges under the armored trucks using magnetic bombs launched by toy guns. The planning, crime, and aftermath are nimbly handled by director Lewis (PRAY FOR THE WILDCATS) with a modicum of suspense and humor. With only 72 minutes of running time to play with, Lewis has no room to delve into characters, leaving it to pros Hagman, McEachin, and Nimoy to build with what they have. Fonda worked quite a bit in television during the 1970s and had just done 39 episodes of his own sitcom, THE SMITH FAMILY. Also with John Marley, Elena Verdugo, Tom Troupe, Vic Tayback, Paul Kent, James B. Sikking, Noah Beery Jr., Woodrow Parfrey (great as a confused preacher), Kenneth Tobey, and a poster for the 1962 Rock Hudson movie THE SPIRAL ROAD. Executive producer Harve Bennett, composer Oliver Nelson, and cinematographer Enzo Martinelli moved on to THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN, also for Universal.

The Strip (1951/MGM, 85 min., b&w, drama) Dir.: Leslie Kardos. Cast: Mickey Rooney, Sally Forrest, James Craig, William Demarest. Musical guests: Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden, Barney Bigard, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Vic Damone, Monica Lewis. Seen on TCM.


Not quite noir, not quite a musical, but with enough music and dance to tide one over as the contrived plot plays out. Mickey Rooney quits his job working for bookmaker Sonny Johnson (James Craig) so he can pursue his real love—drumming--at a Sunset Strip jazz club run by William Demarest and staffed by gorgeous cigarette girl/dancer Sally Forrest, whom Mickey falls for. Mickey, trying to impress her, introduces her to Johnson, thinking the lawbreaker may have connections to get her into movies. The gangster strings her along and takes her out on the town and Mickey gets wildly jealous, going so far as to stalk the new couple all night long. We know things will come to a bad end because the film opens with the discovery of one dead body and one seriously wounded. The cops pick Mickey up and he tells the whole story.

Rooney plays his patented hyperactive abrasive little creep. But this character kind of fits the plot here, given how oily the gangster is and how mercenary the girl is. And he gets to drum on a nightclub stage surrounded by jazz greats Louis Armstrong (on the trumpet), Jack Teagarden (trombone), Earl “Fatha” Hines (piano) and Barney Bigard (clarinet). And it’s really Mickey doing the drumming! Sexy Sally (one of my favorite unsung ‘50s starlets) gets to dance a couple of numbers. (If you loved her in SON OF SINBAD, you'll want to see her here.) Vic Damone turns up to sing a number as well. So does someone named Monica Lewis, who is accompanied by a group of dancers. Armstrong and Teagarden sing as well. So the music and performance scenes kept me engrossed throughout.

William Demarest has some great heart-to-heart dialogue scenes with Rooney. You can almost work up sympathy for Rooney. Tommy Rettig, later on “Lassie,” plays an obnoxious little fatherless brat and troublemaker who latches onto Rooney. He's the son of Sally's neighbor (Myrna Dell!) and Sally has to take care of him. He and Rooney are made for each other. Craig is not too formidable a gangster because any real tough guy worth his salt—Dan Duryea, for instance—would have pounded Rooney into a pulp or ordered his boys to do it. Craig is a real pushover and his henchmen look like CPA’s.

Kay Brown plays another cutie at the nightclub, but one who really really likes Rooney, yet he keeps blowing her off for the more fickle Sally. What a jerk.

This post has been edited by Brian Camp on Feb 8 2012, 09:55 AM

Detroit's own grindhouse/arthouse theatre-in-the-hood has recently undergone some revamping since the original Burton Theatre staff left the former school building ( they're currently in the process of opening another theatre not too far from the downtown area). Now it's Cass City Cinema (named after the main street it's on, which used to be a desolate area filled with prostitution and drug-infested illegal activities, kind of like Detroit's own Sunset Strip, but has since been cleaned up and renovated and looks WAY better than it did when I first arrived in the D back in the mid-'90's).

There have already been a couple of film showings for the past couple of weeks, but I'm definitely looking forward to tomorrow night's radical art show/CCC feature showing of THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE, 1967-1975 in particular. It already played at the Main Theatre in Royal Oak a few months ago, but I missed it. This Swedish documentary features a bunch of interviews with some major civil rights fighters from the "Black Power" era of the '60's (Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael, who was credited for coming up with the term "Black Power", and I'm guessing, Black Panther head Huey Newton--not certain if he's actually in it, though). These interviews were done primarily for Swedish T.V., and for whatever the reason, they were virtually unseen outside Europe for decades. Here's some articles on the movie and how it got made in the first place:

http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/movie...975-review.html

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/08/140146806/mi...-seen-from-afar

http://www.filmcritic.com/reviews/2011/the...tape-1967-1975/


Here's the link for Detroiters, or folks living in the greater metropolitan area who can't get to the Main, the Maple, or the DFT:

http://www.casscitycinema.com/shows.html

This post has been edited by Kim Greene on Feb 8 2012, 11:44 PM

BLACK POWER MIX TAPE is easily one of my favourite films from 2011. Very definitely a must-see for anyone lucky enough to have it play a cinema near them.

Thanks, Alan---nice to know someone on this board has heard of/seen this flick,too!

NEXT DAY AIR (2009)--When I first saw the trailers for this drama with comedic overtones, I was intrigued by them, because the film seemed like it might be a comedy what with my faves Donald Faison and Mos Def starring in it, but it was actually being marketed more like a serious thriller of some kind. In other words, not the usual goofy comedy you usually see marketed in the daily media, particularly with African-American leads. So when I finally got a chance to see it, my suspicions were confirmed---it wasn't just any other regular goofy comedy, it was actually an American Guy Ritchie film (a very good one, as it turned out) and since I've been a Guy Ritchie fan for years, that was just cool as all hell/alright by me.

The film starts off with a frightened UPS delivery guy named Leo (Donald Faison, of SCRUBS fame) looking horrified at a tough voice hollering at him and a voice-over wondering how he got into this situation in the first place. Basically, the whole darn thing jumps off when he smokes a little too much of, shall we say, medicinal properties, on the job and accidently delivers the right package to the wrong address. At this address,two out of the 3 roommates living there, Guch (Wood Harris, of THE WIRE fame) and Brody (comic/actor Mike Epps) discover that a huge,valuable stash of drugs is inside. They decide, after mucho debating, to sell that stash real quick for some mad cash. Meanwhile, one half of the screaming young couple down the hall, Jesus (Cisco Reyes) has been waiting desperately for that package, and if he dosen't find it quick, the drug lord Bodega (Emilio Rivera) who entrusted him with it, has already promised to personally do some major damage upon his person.

What basically happens is that there is a mad all-out scramble by virtually everybody in the film to find out who's got the package, how to get it back, and how this directly affects all the people connected with it. I found the movie funny in some parts--it's funny mainly due to how each of the characters react to how crazy each of their given situations become, due to the escalating madness around the much-coveted stash. I had a good time watching it, and if you like Guy Ritchie movies (SNATCH in particular), you'll appreciate NEXT DAY AIR even more. The cast is very good,game and just plain fun as hell to watch,plus it was interesting to see Mike Epps in a role where he wasn't required to be funny every minute for a change of pace. Worth snatching up on a nice slow evening, or for a Superbowl party night.

Here's a thoughtful review of the film from when it first came out:

http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/movie...html?ref=movies

This post has been edited by Kim Greene on Feb 9 2012, 10:54 PM

Just picked up BLACK POWER MIX TAPE last week, along with THURGOOD (Laurence Fishburne's one-man play about the lawyer, civil rights pioneer and Supreme Court justice) and THE SUNSET LIMITED (star and director Tommy Lee Jones filiming of the Cormac McCarthy play, which co-stars Samuel L. Jackson).

Looking forward to seeing BLACK POWER as I've heard nothing but good things about it.

THE DOUBLE (2011)—Directed by Michael Brandt. Stars Richard Gere, Topher Grace, Martin Sheen. If you’ve seen the Kevin Costner thriller NO WAY OUT—and probably even if you haven’t—you’ll guess the not-so-stunning twist early in the screenplay by 3:10 TO YUMA and 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS’ Michael Brandt and Derek Haas. To be fair, they expect you to guess it, which is why they reveal it in the first half-hour and then pull a new one out of their rears near the end. Sloppy scripting and the miscasting of sitcom actor Topher Grace (THAT ‘70S SHOW) as a rookie FBI agent help make THE DOUBLE no more than a steady espionage thriller of little resonance.

And the storytelling is indeed clunky. Debuting director Brandt not only expects us to believe nobody will chase a Russian assassin who escapes from a hospital room, but that he can be killed fifty yards from the door, and no one will find the body until the next day. Richard Gere, looking as sleek as ever, does his best to charm his way through the adventure, starring as Paul Shepherdson, a former agent called out of retirement by CIA director Highland (Martin Sheen).

In the 1980s, Shepherdson was instrumental in chasing the Cassius 7: a group of Russian hitmen trained by the mysterious Cassius. All but Cassius were captured or killed, and because the leader hasn’t been heard from in more than twenty years, Shepherdson believes him to be dead. Until someone using Cassius’ M.O. murders a U.S. senator. Highland assigns the reluctant Shepherdson to work with young Ben Geary (Grace), who wrote his Harvard thesis on Cassius and knows the faceless killer better than anyone else. Except Shepherdson, of course.

Although THE DOUBLE is narratively shaky, Brandt shows promise as a director. The action is framed nicely, and the complicated story isn’t difficult to follow. Grace isn’t believable, but he isn’t laughable either, and all the performances are competent. Brandt even stages a decent car chase, as these things go in the 21st century, and caps it with a very nice stunt. He also manages to make Michigan look like Washington, D.C. and photograph his locations well. With a better script at his disposal, Brandt could very well become an assured journeyman behind the camera. Score by John Debney. Also with Odette Yustman, Stephen Moyer, Chris Marquette, Stana Katic (CASTLE), and Tamer Hassan.

THE HUNTED (1995)—Directed by J.F. Lawton. Stars Christopher Lambert, John Lone, Joan Chen, Yoshio Harada, Yoko Shimada. HIGHLANDER immortal Lambert is American businessman Paul Racine on a business trip to Japan. His last night in town, he spots some choice Asian strange at the hotel bar. He and the mysterious Karina (Chen) go out on the town and then back to her room for lovemaking. Turns out they both genuinely like each other very much, but Karina thanks him and tells him they can never see each other again. He leaves, dejected, but notices in the elevator he’s carrying her room key in his pocket. He returns to her room to return it, only to spot a ninja hacking off Karina’s head. It takes only a minute for a great date to turn into a bad one.

The ninja is Kinjo (Lone), the leader of a ninja cult who has never been seen unmasked by anyone who has lived to tell about it. And now that Racine has seen him, the American’s life is in mortal danger. Luckily, he has help from a generous married couple, the Takedas, played by Harada and Shimada, who are also badass samurai. That leads to THE HUNTED’s outstanding setpiece in which Kinjo’s ninjas invade a bullet train with orders to kill everyone aboard, but face the bloody wrath of Harada’s sword and Shimada’s arrows. Harada is great with a weathered, reluctant manner, and Shimada (SHOGUN) plays loyal and brave well.

Of course, this also means the hero, Lambert, has little to do, and it’s hard to imagine many American movie stars willing to spend an entire action sequence huddling behind a bar. To fix that, the Takedas take him to their island stronghold, where he receives a crash course in sword training—just in time for Kinjo and his ninjas to arrive. THE HUNTED is a real sleeper and a surprise coming from the director of PIZZA MAN and CANNIBAL WOMEN IN THE AVOCADO JUNGLE OF DEATH. To be fair, Lawton also wrote PRETTY WOMAN and UNDER SIEGE, which is how he got enough Hollywood juice to talk Universal into letting him direct this one.

Universal had so little faith in it that they shoved it into theaters without screening it for critics. It’s too bad the studio didn’t get it, because THE HUNTED is an exciting thriller with complex characters, two excellent action scenes, some humor, and a fine score by Yoshinori Monta and Kodo. Lambert’s character seems like an afterthought, as if the studio demanded a white guy as the lead in a film about warring Japanese clans, but his character is portrayed sympathetically and realistically (i.e. he isn’t a superman with a sword). THE HUNTED opened at #5 at the box office and fell swiftly but unjustly. Lawton shot some scenes in Japan, but does a good job disguising Vancouver for most of the location shooting.

This post has been edited by Marty McKee on Feb 13 2012, 12:07 AM

"I like piggies." - Lambert in THE HUNTED

THE ARTIST (2011/Weinstein Company) Dir.: Michel Hazanavicius. Stars: Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo.

If there was a thread for this I couldn't find it.

This got umpteen Oscar noms and is an odds-on favorite to win Best Picture. It's an interesting novelty movie, but too lightweight to deserve all the hype. I get the sense that it's supposed to be funny, but the audience I saw it with last night at the Paris Theater (one of the only single screens left in Manhattan), a good-sized crowd, only chuckled a few times.

The main character is a swashbuckling silent film star named George Valentin. Despite his name, he does not evoke Rudolph Valentino but is modeled instead on Douglas Fairbanks Sr. They even show clips from Fairbanks' THE MARK OF ZORRO (1920) and intercut closeups of Valentin in the Zorro costume to indicate this was one of Valentin's films. None of the reviews of THE ARTIST I read made this connection. Have reviewers today not seen any Fairbanks films?

About 90 minutes into the movie, long after I'd lost interest, Bernard Herrmann's music from VERTIGO poured out of the soundtrack and lasted for a sequence that was several minutes long. It perked me up, since I love that music, but I didn't understand what it was doing there and it made me long to see the images from VERTIGO instead. The end credits list it among the music credits as "Love Scene" by Bernard Herrmann, conducted by Elmer Bernstein, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. No mention of VERTIGO.

It was nice to see Ed Lauter onscreen again. The last thing I saw him in must have been MULHOLLAND FALLS (1996).

I thought the recreations of silent-era faces, production design and cinematography were all nicely done for the most part. The only recreation I had problems with was Valentin's final silent film, a jungle melodrama called TEARS OF LOVE, which just didn't feel right to me. They should have used an actual late silent film as a model. Overall, there wasn't much substance to the story. What was the point of it all? SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, SUNSET BOULEVARD and assorted versions of A STAR IS BORN were much better treatments of a similar theme. And Fairbanks' real story would have been much more interesting.

This post has been edited by Brian Camp on Feb 16 2012, 12:30 PM