Episode 3: Out of Africa and Bottom 5 Romances

Out of Africa Notes

• I figured with my choice of Out of Africa as your movie to watch this week, I’d have done you a huge favor. While you spent the past two decades watching this movie, I gave you one thing and one thing only to hate. Was it Klaus Maria Brandauer’s Bror Von Bixenthat I’m speaking of? No. Was it Robert Redford’s Denys Finch Hatton? No. It couldn’t possibly have been Meryl Streep, for who could despise her portrayal of Karen Blixen? Surely not you. No, but the hope is that you would hate one thing and one thing from here until your last, chocking gasp: me for making you spend most of your adult life watching a sun-drenched period drama. The hope is that I’ve freed you from whatever it was you hated in this world – things like Eagles fans, Y’all Qaeda and The Royal Tenebaums– and now you can focus all your rage, discontent and disapproval on little old me. You could say that your fury is the sun and I hoped that Out of Africa would be a cinematic magnifying glass; sharpening your anger into a pinpoint Hellbent on frying me, a meager, little ant with questionable film taste and a penchant for identifying actresses by their nude scenes. Did it happen? Is this to be my fiery end?
• Did you spend most of the running time counting Klaus Maria Brandauer’s moles?
• How about a Austro-Russian-produced version of Twins starring Klaus Maria Brandauerand Alexander Gudonov? I think there’s an alternate timeline where we got that and I bet the Coca Cola probably still has cocaine in it too.
• What’s the white savior score on this picture? Is it Dances With Wolves level or Blind Side or maybe something in between?
• Sydney Pollock directed some good stuff, but also some really bad stuff. A possible contender for an even less convincing couple is Kristen Scott Thomas and Harrison Ford in 1999’s Random Hearts. He acted too! Remember him in Tootsie? How’zabout that dud Eyes Wide Shut?

My approach to Bottom Five romances was:

• To zero in on romances between couples that were either so poorly acted or lacked chemistry to the degree that they pulled me out of the movie.

5. Forrest Gump – (Forrest and Jenny)

• 1994
• Robert Zemeckis, (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Contact, What Lies Beneath) written by Eric Roth, based on a book by Winston Groom
• Winner of five Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best leading actor for Hanks, who had JUST one the preceding year for his performance in Philadelphia. It also won three Golden Globes. 
• Plot: Forrest Gump is a likeable, simple soul that wanders in and out of several decades-worth of important moments just being himself. As he does so, he becomes a war hero, and then an accidental anti-war activist, plays in international ping pong tournaments for peace, accidentally leads a cross-country marathon, founds a shrimping business and so on.
• I’m not a Gump hater, but I’m not a huge fan either. Many dislike it because they believe – I think erroneously – that it promotes conservative values. Others don’t like the idea of a simpleton as a hero. 
• I don’t mind any of that as I think there’s something to be said for innocence, kindness and good naturednessas leading to reward. 
• I also like the metaphor of the feather as relating to the random, unpredictable nature of life.
• And I think the movie is well-directed, with a moving, Academy Award-winning musical score by the wonderful Alan Silvestri who also did memorable score for Back to the Future, Predator and, my personal favorite, The Abyss. 
• So why this list? Because the Forrest and Jenny storyline is among the most frustrating, awkward and, ultimately, very upsetting romances I have every come across. While Hanks does a pretty good, believable job as Forrest, he’s also got it easy because Forrest doesn’t experience reality the way most anyone else does. He’s inert as he moves through his entire life – just doing his own thing and being simple, true and kind.
• Due to proximity and her kindness toward him, Forrest becomes fixated on Jenny Curran, and while their storyline is charming in the early going, as Jenny matures and develops into a complex woman played by the excellent Robin Wright.Forrest remains, well, Forrest. And his fixation never wavers. 
• Jenny is portrayed as a Mary Magdalene of a sort, and I find that characterization problematic– the woman as a problem to be solved, the woman who discounts kindness, the woman who needs to be saved. 
• And their romance, which is largely kept at bay by Jenny throughout their lives together, is finally consummated when Jenny gives in to Forrest’s care after she returns as a drug addict. 
• Alas, no, she cannot and does not deserve his kind soul – or simply doesn’t want it? And so she takes off, breaking his heart, but then later returning with a child they conceived on their one night together. She then promptly dies of AIDS and Forrest is left to raise his own young Forrest (played by Haley Joel Osmentbefore he saw Dead People – this was his first screen role.)
• The whole romance is played as tragic and frustrating because on one hand you understand Jenny wanting to live her own life and be mature, and not simply HAVE to go with the nice guy, while on the other hand you’re faced with the sadness and hurt Forrest experiences when she shuts him down time and again – most painfully when they finally get together only to have her leave AGAIN, then return with their child and then DIE! It’s an ugly series of events for both characters, and were Forrest’s hurt not so painful – were the two only ever friends without all the “LOVE (ALL CAPS)” messily forced between them, the whole thing would have played far better.

4. Sliver – (Carly and Zeke)

• 1993
• Nominated for seven Razzies, but lost in all categories!
• Phillip Noyce. Australian director who did many a terrific picture – as well as a few duds. Best known for one of his first, Dead Calm, starring fellow Aussies Sam Neill and Nicole Kidman and produced by Mad Max creator George Miller. Also did some of those good Jack Ryan movies starring Harrison Ford – Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger.
• Written by Joe Eszterhas, who infamously received huge money for his scripts to Basic Instinct ($3 million) and Showgirls. He was insanely well-compensated for his screenplays – he got $1.5 million for a two page outline for the movie Jade. 
• Sliver happened at the height of the erotic thriller boom of the 1990’s and starred the Queen of these pictures, Sharon Stone. 
• Say what you will about Sharon Stone, but she has some serious acting chops. Whether it’s in Basic Instinct, Casino, or even Sami Raimi’s western The Quick and the Dead, she’s among the best parts of each and many, many more.
• But here, while she looks positively fantastic, she’s cast opposite Billy Baldwin who barely can clear a look of perpetual surprise from his face. He always looks like a kid that opened a present and got exactly what he knew he’d get. It’s not even real surprise!
• The plot here is pretty easy to dismiss – it involves Stone’s character Carly moving to a Manhattan high-rise apartment. The place’s previous occupant looked a lot like her and died after plummeting from the balcony. Carly becomes involved with another tenant, Zeke (played by Baldwin) and she soon discovers he not only owns her place, but has also wired it with a ton of security cameras. Will Carly be able to figure out who killed the previous tenant? No one watching, nor anyone making the movie, cares. Because all Sliver seems interested in is the sleek glass-lined architecture of the apartment and lots of simulated sex.
• I don’t really think simulated sex onscreen is a bad thing – I like well-lit naked people gyrating! But you have got to be able to pull it out – I mean off – for it to be worth watching. And Baldwin – just as he was in Flatliners where I swear he played exactly this same character – is just awful to watch. He looks like he just woke up in every single shot.
• The pair have zero chemistry as a result, which no doubt in part led to the original ending of the movie being shit-canned. That had Zeke revealed as the murderer and Carly turning to the dark-side by saying she’d keep the evidence against him safe before they crashed into a volcano! I imagine Eszterhas must be relishing how hard he punk’dHollywood.
• Say what I will about how terrible the movie is, the sountrackis a straight up banger featuring Massive Attack, Lords of Acid, NenehCherry, Enigma and that once-ubiquitous cover of “I Can’t Help Falling in Love” by UB-40.

3. Body of Evidence – (Rebecca and Frank)

• 1993 (also – guess it was a great year to graduate high school)
• Nominated for six Razzie Awards, and Madonna actually won beating out Sharon Stone for Sliver! Madonna also was nominated for an MTV Video Movie Award for Most Desirable Female, so…
• Directed by UliEdel, a critical darling for a film made in his native Germany and for the notable indie Last Exit to Brooklyn starring Jennifer Jason Leigh. After Body of Evidence, Edelhas largely bounced between episodic TV and TV movies, directingepisodes of Homicide and Oz, a bio-pic about Mike Tyson and Houdini.
• I mean, the big thing here was that this movie was made right around the time Madonna released her Erotica album and her Sex book filled with nekkid photos of her alongside the likes of Naomi Campbell, Udo Kier and Vanilla Ice. 
• So, if you were like me and you grew up playing recorded Madonna videos on VHS in slow-moto catch purported glimpses of the promised land , well, this was the greatest time to be alive.
• The story, if we can pin one down, is basically a re-heated Basic Instinct with Madonna as Rebecca taking on the Sharon Stone role as the femme fatale, and a woefully out of place Willem Dafoe in the role of Frank, the married lawyer who falls for her charms. Mix in some S&M bondage and candlewax spills as well as some painfully acted courtroom scenes and you’ve got yourself a patience tester of the highest order.
• This biggest problem isn’t that Madonna cannot act – even as much as I still love her, I thoroughly concede she cannot (Even Evita was terrible) – but it’s that someone thought it was a good idea to cast Willem Dafoe in this opposite her and the two don’t seem like they even exist in the same universe. I mean, I wonder if there were whole scenes shot with the actors not even in the same room with one another – that’s how devoid of chemistry they are in a movie that HINGES on a palpable sexual chemistry between the leads.
• In some ways, it feels the way it does when you’re watching a no-budget B-movie and the producers had to use an obvious body double to do nude scenes because the lead actress wouldn’t agree to dropping her kit. Only, you know, it’s EVERY SCENE. It’s like Dafoe wanted to have a body double just to act opposite Madonna. He’s so absent and so is she. 
• And yet, all reports are that they got on well and Dafoe enjoyed working on the movie!
• No doubt, as it’s rumored he stuck his face in her crotch unexpectedly during one love scene!
• Also, Dafoe’s character cheats on his wife to be with Madonna. You know who his wife is played by? JULIANNE MOORE! Who in their right mind cheats on Julianne Moore? I love Madonna and I wouldn’t even consider such blasphemy.
• I think it’s important to quickly discuss that both Body of Evidence and Sliver were trimmed down in running time due to excessive, gratuitous sex scenes. Body of Evidence would have two minutes of footage restored for its video release, and I can tell you, it doesn’t help one damn bit. 
• Sliver too has an “unrated” version available, but from what I’ve heard that’s just pure marketing and there’s no significant improvement or change to the theatrical version. 

2.) Eyes Wide Shut

• 1999
• Directed by Stanley Kubrick, famously his last film that may – or may not – have truly been finalized.
• Originally released to lukewarm critical reception and an even chillier audience reaction, it’s managed to continue being hotly debated between people who find it a timeless parable about sexual politics and social stratification while others just find it a boring story about a yuppie couple who experience average marital woes and jealousy when the wife, played by Nicole Kidman confesses to her husband, Tom Cruise, a semi-recent attraction to another man.
• Cruise’s spiral into jealousy leads him on a dreamlike journey through the most staged version of QUOTE New York City END QUOTE that I recall ever seeing on film, and of course most memorably finds his character gawking at a bizarre, masked sex party that is equal parts uncomfortable and depressingly unerotic. It’s played like an Illuminati gang-bang, but is exactly 100% less interesting than that phrase.
• The biggest problem for me with Eyes Wide Shut isn’t that it feels pointless its egregious 2 hour 39 minute running time, which it certainly does, or that its allegedly eyebrow raising takes on sex feel super dated, no… the biggest issue is that Kidman and Cruise – obviously then actually husband and wife – amass almost no chemistry in any of their scenes together. 
• I just cannot get past that when watching the movie – the gimmick casting of these two MARRIED mega-stars and the low-wattage they produce on screen together. In fact, it’s worse than that, it’s a palpable discomfort which turns the whole movie into an experiment.
• And that’s where I get irritated with this movie and Kubrick. It all feels like a goof, like some big test. And I feel like Kubrick has been guilty of that throughout his career because he seems to want to bring the audience INTO the movie, into the experience of watching the movie, and then manipulate their expectations and make those PART of the whole deal. I don’t have time for that. This is cinema and not a damn sociological experiment.
• I’ll say that Eyes Wide Shut is interesting. But I’ll never say it’s good. It’s filled with some jaw-droppingly bad scenes (like the one where Cruise is bullied by some hooligans on the street) and it never really seems to coalesce enough to care about its two characters or their feelings. 
• I think Cruise can often be very watchable in movies – I like the livewire charisma he brings to his roles. And while Kidman is more of a mixed-bag for me personally as she frequently seems too affected in her manner and everything she does can come off as too premeditated – here she is far better than him. More human and natural. 
• Cruise is super-miscast as an emasculated husband, a role he has no clue how to pull off convincingly because he’s the very definition of an alpha male. To see him borderline cuckolded requires a suspension of disbelief that I certainly don’t have because HE himself didn’t have it. 

1.) Manhattan

• 1979
• Directed by Woody Allen, who I have a pretty tough time trying to watch movies from now. And one of the reasons are the pretty obviously drawn issues that come from this movie’s subplot.
• Manhattan is considered a masterpiece of cinema. It’s opening sequence set to Rhapsody in Blue is a love-letter to New York City and the black and white cinematography by director of photography Gordon Willis is spellbinding and beautiful. Allen’s writing was razor sharp and the movie’s Academy Award-winning screenplay delivers a lot of laughs even as it dissects its main character, Isaac, played by Allen, as a pretty big, to borrow a term from our last show, asshole. A neurotic twice-divorced writer dating an, ahem, 17 year-old model named Tracey played by Mariel Hemingway, this guy goes as far as criticizing his buddy for having an extramarital affair… so he can date the mistress instead.  
• Where I got off the bus personally when watching Manhattan was with Isaac’s and Tracey’s relationship. While I like the movie, and I find the interplay with Diane Keaton as his more age-appropriate love interest, the scenes between Hemingway and Allen have always struck me as off-putting. Hemingway is continuously called “a kid” and while she delivers an excellent performance as a young woman with agency, she was also 16 at the time of the movie’s making and Allen’s character acknowledges many times over she has a lot of growing up to do. 
• Also, in Hemingway’s 2015 biography, she wrote that Allen actually developed a crush on her and went as far as asking her to go to Paris with him.
• I try to separate art from the artist, but sometimes even subconsciously it’s tough to do so. I haven’t really watched a “new” Allen film in the past twenty or so years – I think the last was “Curse of the Jade Scorpion” and while I don’t want to get too much into that debate – or the allegations against Allen made by his daughter – I do want to address the fact that in Manhattan, Allen plays a pretty gross dude that, in the end, races to rebuild things with Tracey because, in part, he doesn’t want her to be corrupted by the experience of traveling to London for school. Gross. So gross.
• Seeing the two in bed together post-sex is pretty distressing too. It just all seems in poor taste and it significantly detracts from my overall enjoyment of an otherwise amusing and beautifully shot movie. 
• Incredibly, this movie which is Allen’s highest grossing picture – if you adjust for inflation – was a movie which, upon completion he is quoted as saying “I just thought to myself, ‘At this point in my life, if this is the best I can do, they shouldn’t give me money to make movies.'” One has to wonder if he wasn’t concerned about the movie overall and instead had misgivings putting something private and pretty weird about himself into the world. 
• I think it’s important for me to point out that this isn’t a post #metoo kind of reappraisal of this film. I was a big Allen fan growing up, but this movie, along with a few others in his oeuvre that feature age-inappropriate or chemistry-challenged relationships (think Mighty Aphrodite with Mira Sorvino or Deconstructing Harry with Elizabeth Shue) always left me feeling weirded out.

Staff Pick

A Star is Born

• I think people need a cinematic breath mint after the shit romances we crammed down their throats, and what better way than a movie that subverted the expectations of many – including me! And what makes this staff pick especially cool is it takes every theme of our first three episodes and combines them
• 1.) it’s a reboot
• 2.) it’s about an asshole
• 3.) it’s got two characters with so much chemistry that even today, some three years and change after the movie came out, click bait websites are still ruminating over whether there’s something more to the stars’ relationship.
• That’s right it’s 2018’s A Star is born starring Lady Gaga opposite writer/director/producer Bradley Cooper
• There was no way this was supposed to be good. Like, not at all. And that’s even with Sam Elliot in the movie.
• The story is, well, we all know the story. A fading alcoholic superstar – in this case played by Cooper – falls for a ingenue singer-songwriter (Gaga), experiences a resurgence in his career briefly before yielding to her rising success. Troubles brew and, well, let’s just say in this case it’s hard to get the dust from getting in the eyes.
• This shouldn’t be good. The last version with Kristofferson and Streisand from 1976 was such an atrocity that it took over 40 years to be attempted again! Prior to that it was done in 1937, 1951 for TV, and 1954. 
• Alas, this is good. The acting is super on point with well-drawn characters Convincingly portrayed by Cooper and Gaga, as well as some excellent supporting turns from Elliot and, holy crap, Andrew Dice Clay.
• The chemistry between the leads is really strong, both when they sing and in more intimate moments. Gaga really shines. Her vulnerability is shocking and you really buy her success as a singer because, well, duh.
• I find it fascinating that this story manages to be effective in today’s day and age – I thought for sure this was going to be a misfire! But the formula is indeed tried and true with all versions of the movie cumulatively nominated for 25 Academy Awards, but winning only three. This version was one of those for the original song “Shallow.”