CinemaRian Blog

Under discussion:

Nashville  (1975)

Nashville is Robert Altman’s best film.  That’s not a controversial claim, but its reputation is accurate.  This is one of the greatest American films of the 70’s, and certainly one of the most unique.

The tagline of the movie is “The damndest thing you ever saw” and few promotional lines are more accurate.  If the film were made today, I suppose it would be referred to as a hyperlink picture, but it doesn’t even have the required structure. There is either no plot, or about fifteen of them.  There is nothing approaching a main character, and in fact, all twenty four of its “lead” actors have equal billing (and, for that matter, two major characters are never seen onscreen at all). Altman shoots the film in a documentary style, and some of the characters are very real, but others and the situations they find themselves in are clearly satirical.  There is no other film like it, including others by its director.

The most basic storyline in the films involves an independent political candidate who is preparing for the Tennessee Presidential primary, but said candidate is only heard as a van travels around town, obnoxiously blaring one his speeches.  Among the many other intrigues is an undiagnosed illness of country superstar Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakley),  the struggling marriage between political operative Delbert Reese (Ned Beatty) and his wife, gospel singer Linnea (Lilly Tomlin), framed by observations of Opal (Geraldine Chaplin) a pretentious reporter for the BBC.  Unlike the modern films that Altman inspired, such as Babel, not everything fits together, but that’s not a criticism.  Not everything in life makes sense or is explained.  Too few movies understand that once in a while things are just plain random. 

Take the example of the Tricycle Man (Jeff Goldblum) who rides around town on giant, ugly motorcycle never saying a word and rarely interacting with other characters.  Or L.A. Joan (Shelley Duvall) a woman who seems to be everywhere in this conservative culture though she dresses like she’s a flamboyant male homosexual.  My favorite character is Sueleen Gay (Gwen Wells) a wonderfully endearing but naïve singer who (tragically) has no idea that she’s talentless and that audiences only appreciate her for her sex appeal.

The movie is kind of its own genre.  There is nothing else the film can be, for it is unlike any other film.  One entire of the movie (a third of its running time) is devoted to concert footage performed live by the actors, most of whom wrote their own songs (Keith Carradine won an Oscar for the best, “I’m Easy”.)  Few of the stories payoff, and the few that don’t have much of a setup. 

But that’s what makes film so endlessly fascinating.  It exists in an out of documentary, drama and comedy.  The characters are clearly constructs, but you end up caring about them.  I was tempted to say that climax says something about America, but I’m not sure even says anything about Nashville.  But its kind of like life. 

Under discussion:

The Horror of Frankenstein  (1970)

The Horror of Frankenstein(1970)

I’ve never responded to Frankenstein movies in the same way I have to Dracula films.  The reason is, I think, that there are near endless variations on the plot and themes to Dracula, whereas with Frankenstein you are pretty much stuck aquasi-mad doctor either bringing a dead creature to life or doing something else with one that he brought to life in the previous film.

There are many great Hammer Dracula pictures, but only one great Frankenstein film, the second, The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) which took every ridiculous plot point and played as if it could actually happen, and in doing so made us feel a little sorry for the tragedy of the good doctor.

Perhaps sensing their Frankenstein series was not as strong as their Dracula films (or many of their standalone titles) Hammer in 1970 to reboot the pictures instead of doing another sequel.  They were eager for screenwriter the screenwriter
of the first film, Jimmy Sangster, to write the re-launch, so they offered him
both the producer’s reins and director’s chair as well.  Sangster probably had more control over this picture than any director ever did at Hammer (well, except for Michael Carreras on The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb).

Although a lot of Hammer fans are not fond of this picture (perhaps due to the absence of Peter Cushing), I rather liked it, and I appreciated Sangster’s choice to make the film as a black comedy instead of another unsuccessful attempt at horror (was Frankenstein ever that scary, anyway?).  The picture follows the usual Frankenstein outline (boy dreams of monster, boy creates monster, monster kills people, boy tries to hide monster), but Sangster has fun with the usual cliché’s.

I was afraid that I would miss Cushing in the lead role, but Ralph Bates (who bears a stunning resemblance to The Kink’s Ray Daves) is really exceptional in the part and is quite funny.  He’s endearingly evil in the Richard III sense, and unlike Cushing’s interpretation, not the least bit mad.  At least this sociopath admits he’s one. The supporting cast (which also includes Graham James, who strangely looks just like The Moody Blue’s Justin Hayward) is mostly spot on, impressive for a first time director. 

The movie also looks good, but nearly all the Hammer films do, despite their budget.  If it can be said to have a flaw, it would be in the portrayal of the creature (David Prowse).  It’s not Prowse’s fault, but his character is given little motivation as to why he so loyal to Frankenstein when he otherwise so violent).  Perhaps it was supposed to parody why the doctor always fails at his attempts to create a good person, but wake-up-and-kill approach the character has doesn't work.

This is not a major cinematic landmark, but it is a fun movie that manages to present a couple compelling characters while still being mostly funny.  If there is one thing that all the Hammer director’s had in common, it was the fact that they
never played the material for laughs, which is usually suicide in speculative
fiction.  Here’s the only to my knowledge that Hammer did it, and amazingly, it worked.

Under discussion:

Film Name  Production Year

Sunshine Cleaning  (2009)

Sunshine Cleaning has all the signs of a movie that went into production too soon, with script that was either still being written or with one in serious need of revision.  The movie has the cast it needs and a setting that works, but lacks the crucial element of focus. 

As you’ve seen from the trailer, the movie is a light comedy about a two sisters who open up their own business cleaning up after bloody suicides or murders.  This is certainly an interesting idea for a movie, but the picture never bothers to consider most of the implications of this.  Instead it spends much of its time on a great many subplots, some of which are set up and never pay off.

The two sisters are Rose (Amy Adams) and Norah (Emily Blundt).  Rose works as a maid and has a young son named Oscar (Jason Spevack) and spends a great deal of time looking forward to her weekly rendezvous with a married police officer (Steve Zahn).  Norah lives with her father Joe (Alan Arkin), an unsuccessful businessesman who is trying to market a new kind of candy.  Oscar gets kicked out of school due to some troubling behavior (that the movie never resolves, nor mentions again) so Rose feels the needs to make more money to get him into a private school.  The cop advises that she can big bucks cleaning up after dead people, and she convinces Norah join her.

Among the nine million other subplots in the movie are Rose’s attempt to impress her former high school classmates at a baby shower, Norah’s quasi-voyeuristic interest in the daughter of one of the suicides (Mary Lynn Raskub) , Rose’s relationship with the cop, Rose’s potential relationship with the owner of a cleaning supplies shop (Eric Christian Olsen), the sister’s coming to terms with the death of their own mother, and Joe’s potential inability to deliver on a promise to Oscar.

Lost in all of this is any kind of analysis as to the implications of the cleaning company, the ostensible selling point of the movie.  At no point does director Christine Jeffs or screenwriter Megan Holley deal with any of the obvious questions.  Aside from the fact that the job would be disgusting, how would this effect a person psychologically?  Would this change someone’s opinion about death, or life or religion or whatever?  Is there much of a distance between cleaning up blood and tomato sauce if you clean up one enough after a while?

The screenplay is the central problem here, although the direction by Jeffs in uninspired.  Some plot points, such as Oscar’s trouble at school are introduced and never referred to again, while others, such as the death of the sister’s mother, are brought up too late and pay off too quickly.  The entire chronology of the movie seems off, with events that should be days apart apparently (and implausible) taking months to occur, while others seem to come along too fast.

Where the film works is in the acting, which is very impressive.  I really got the impression that Adams and Blundt were members of the same family, something that rarely happens in movies.  They share a sisterly bond that is utterly believable and silently real, more real that anything else in the picture.

I can’t flaw Sunshine Cleaning for a lack of ideas, or even a lack of good ones, but I can find fault in its inability to focus itself.  The whole is far less than the sum of its parts, though I have to say that the movie was not boring.  I think I might want to see a movie about a single mother with a troubled child, or a thirty something dealing with the emptiness of her life, or two sisters who start a weird business together, or two sisters dealing with death of their mother.  But not all at once.

Sunshine Cleaning(2009)