Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)

'Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close' is the feature film adaptation of the same named 2005 Jonathan Safran Foer novel about a (presumably autistic though the word is never used in the movie) boy dealing with the death of his father in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I could never fully warm to Thomas Horn's performance as the lead, or its somewhat cutsey premises merging with the 9/11 tragedy, I had a similar problem with the film version of Foer's first novel 'Everything is Illuminated' which is about quirky things that happen to a character on his way to visit the site of a massacre of Jews in Poland (I have read neither book, perhaps these things work better on the page). 

Our lead characters name is Oskar and he is surrounded by Academy Awards winners and nominees, Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock are his parents, and he befriends Viola Davis as well as Max von Sydow whose wordless performance is the films highlight. A year after his father's death Oskar finds among his dad's things a key in an envelope with the name 'Black' written on it, he takes it upon himself to track down and visit every person with the last name of Black living in the five boroughs, which makes for a colorful assortment of characters, who work to varying degrees. There are a handful of really well done scenes in this but too much of it didn't taste right, schlocky, manipulative, or just a little off. There is a late in the movie narrative twist that was a little much for me.

A mixed bag this movie holds the distinction of being the best picture Oscar nominee with the lowest Rotten Tomato Score, 46% now though I think its was 52% when it got the nod. This movie did remind me that I hope Jeffrey Wright gets an Oscar nod himself at some point, his is perhaps the subtlest performance in an at times overwrought picture. Wright and von Sydow get this film an extra half star. **1/2

Clue (1985)

'Clue' is an ensemble mystery comedy written and directed by Johnathan Lynn ('Yes Minister', 'My Cousin Vinny') and based on the classic Parker Brothers board game of the same name. This film version is set in New England in the mid 1950's and is a screwball comedy with satirically McCarthyite overtones. While it takes a little while to get going it builds to a manic energy, which is fun. The film is anchored by Tim Curry's wonderfully committed performance as the butler, while the supporting cast is filled with mid-level names (Michael McKean, Leslie Ann Warren) playing the board games character (Colonel Mustered, Ms. Scarlet ect) trapped together in a creepy old mansion with at least one murder. A box office failure upon initial release this amusing film has since gained a cult following. The conventions of the board game are exploited, at times perhaps a little too much, but I did enjoy the multiple endings (my favorite being the first one). This movie really likes its cleavage shots. ***

Breaking Away (1979)

I was at a wedding reception this past summer and had a conversation with the grooms brother-in-law in which we swapped favorite movies. Mine the 1956 George Steven's helmed family epic 'Giant', his the 1979 coming of age story 'Breaking Away'. I was only tangentially aware of 'Breaking Away', but on Youtube came across the 1979 best of the year episode of 'At The Movies' and found it among the favorites of  both Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Written by Serbian-American Steve Tesich and directed by Peter Yates (principally an action director, 'Bullitt', 'The Friends of Eddy Coyle', 'Mother, Jugs & Speed'), 'Breaking Away' centers around four friends, poor kids, finding their way post high school in Bloomington, Indiana. Bloomington is a college town, home of the University of Indiana, and these four can't afford and/or are not academically inclined enough to attend, so instead they exist in a mostly lethargic extension of the summer after senior year, their inability to progress in life contrasted with the energy of the college kids around them.

The partial exception to this is our lead character Dave Stohler, played by Dennis Christopher, the only one of the four I didn't immediately recognize, the others being played by Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, and Jackie Earle Haley. Dave has become obsessed, consumed with a passion for Italian competitive bicycling and indeed for all things Italian. He speeds around town on his bike shouting Italian greetings, crosses himself despite being protestant and gets on his fathers nerves with his Italian food, and music and calling him "papa". He's aimless but happy, and then he meets and falls for a pretty college girl (Robyn Douglass) who mistakes him for an Italian exchange student, so he decides he must keep up the ruse. He also learns that an Italian competitive cycling team is coming to town and prepares to compete against them. There are also various subplots concerning Dave's friends and his parents, who are good people but just befuddled by their son.

The movie proceeds along quite enjoyably but about 2/3rds through something happens that causes it to shift gears from good to great. Not to give too much away but it earns an ending that would be schlock in lesser hands, and it deepens relationships that at first get mostly surface treatment. There are loads of little moment that I could rave about but the movie should be experienced first. Both feel good and intelligent, a difficult combination to get right, 'Breaking Away' is an understated little movie that time forgot, but that should be remembered. ****

Robin Hood (2010)

Director Ridley Scott's 2010 version of 'Robin Hood' is an attempt to give the classic character a gritty origin story, even though he and "maid" Marian are now middle aged (Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett respectively). It is also a story of family sanctioned identity theft. The interminable first hour is a plodding mess, our Robin doesn't even make it to Nottingham until around the movies 2/5ths mark. The film has a strong cast including Danny Huston, William Hurt and Max von Sydow, as well as pre-stars Oscar Isaac and Léa Seydoux. There is something to be said for the appeal of a revisionist take on the legend, but this version drains much of the fun from the characters in the same way that the bleached cinematography drains much of the color from the film itself. There are some points of merit, like Robin's stirring Braveheart-esque speech, or his blind father, but there is also weirdness like the lost boys of the forest, a new chief villain Francophile villian, and the ridicules end fight/ character reunion at the reverse D-Day invasion. Then at the end our leads go off into the woods to live as communists and a sequel is batted that never comes. This simply did not work for me. *1/2

MusicalSplaining

The Chosen (1982)

Back in the mission field there was this one "eternal investigator" we used to visit who really wanted to show us the movie "The Chosen".  Now "eternal investigator" was a term we'd use to describe a person who wasn't a realistic baptismal prospect but liked visiting with the missionaries. This gentleman, whose name I've forgotten, wasn't in the best of health and didn't have a great memory so he would keep asking us if we wanted to watch this movie with him. It was against mission policy to do so so we had to keep declining, though it became something of a running joke between my companion and I, "The Chosen"?, hey isn't that about Hasidic Jews? Anyway 19 years later I finally got around to, and I think I see why he so wanted to show it to us, its about a friendship that bridges a religious divide (even though both central characters are Jewish).

Set in and around New York City in the mid 1940's "The Chosen" is an adaptation of the best selling 1967 novel of the same name by Jeremy Kagan. It is the story of Reuven Malter (Barry Miller) and Danny Saunders (Robby Benson, later the voice of 'The Beast' in "Beauty and the Beast"). Danny is a Hasidic Jew and Reuven a more assimilated one, they become friends after Danny lands Reuven in the hospital after hitting him in the eye with a baseball during an urban Jewish baseball league game in 1944. The two young people start out at odds but later become close friends despite their differences, and Danny's Rabbi father's opposition to the work of Reuven's father, an academic who later becomes a crusading Zionist.

One thing this movie put in focus that I was aware of, but didn't fully understand, was the fierce  opposition of some Hasidic Jews to the establishment of the state of Israel. This school of thought was rooted in the belief that it was the coming Messiah who would bring the Jews back to Palestine and reestablish their nationhood, any attempt at doing so without the Messiah being a sort of blasphemy. This movie has a wonderful story about  friendship and a growing understanding of differences in both good and bad times. The two leads are very good, but it's the performances of the fathers that truly impress.  Rod Stieger plays the Rabbi Saunders, he just great, arguably my favorite actor, but it was so good to see Maximiliam Schell again, he's not as prolific as Stieger but I've never seen him repeat a performance, he is kind of like Phillip Seymour Hoffman that way. Anyway I'd readily recommend "The Chosen". ***1/2

Superdad (1973)

'Superdad' is known in my families lore as the movie that my father took my mother to on their first date, so I'd long been curious about it. However before the age of streaming this movie was hard to come by, a box office disappointment it achieved VHS and Betamax releases in the 1980's and then nothing until 2008, when a DVD was made available exclusively to member of something called "The Disney Movie Club".

'Superdad' stars Bob Crane, trying unsuccessfully to re-launch his career after the cancelation of 'Hogan's Heroes'. Disney, especially then, tended to cast the same actors over and over, but they declined to have Crane back presumably both do to the finical failure of the film, and his extremely shady personal life (google if you dare). The juvenile leads are Kathleen Cody as Crane's daughter, (Cody had been a star on the gothic soap opera 'Dark Shadows', 'Superdad' was the 3rd in a three picture deal with Disney, the best remembered of which is probably 'The Snowball Express') and Kurt Russell as her sweetheart (Russell of course was a perennial Disney regular).

Also in the cast are Barbara Rush as Cranes more down to Earth wife, Dick Van Patten as his law partner, and octogenarian Judith Lowry as Mother Barlow, a comic relief character of the 'isn't it funny that this old lady beats on horses and rides a motorcycle' school. The film also has nine friends and a Saint Bernard (named Rolly Polly) who the kids hang out with, including Bruno Kirby (City Slickers) in his film debut and Ed Beagly Jr., who has maybe one line. The film is directed by Vincent McEveety, a Disney journeyman who directed a couple of 'Herbie' films among others.

While 'Superdad' was a safe bet for my dad on the Mormon dating scene of the early 70's, and is charmingly a Disney movie of its period, the film is rather mediocre, it feels kind of lazily assembled with no strong foundation or gimmick to hold it together. Starting the summer after his daughters senior year the film is principally about Crane's efforts to connect to his daughter and break up her relationship with Russell, who he feels is beneath her. He invites himself to hang out with them at the beach, and interferes with a birthday party, physically hurting himself in both efforts. He feels he might finally be making progress when through his law partner Crane arranges a fake scholarship (which he has to pay fore) to fictitious Hunting College 400 miles north near San Francisco. He hopes this will cause her to fall in with a nice law student as a romantic interest, instead she gets engaged to a hippy trippy artist who is the best thing in the movie, he is played by Joby Baker another Disney regular. So now dad's got to break those two up and get her back with Kurt, the film ends in a wedding.

'Superdad' is deservedly not a Disney classic, there is a good reason you probably have near heard of it, it's undercooked. However it's occasionally amusing though most of the laughs are near the end, and to me its interesting as an artifact. I rented it and watched it twice as I'll probably never see it again, though I actually enjoyed it more on the second viewing having a greater sense of what it was, or was trying to be. Bob Crane is an awful fake screamer. **

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