A Walk In the Woods (2015)

A WALK IN THE WOODS  (2015)  ¢ ¢ 
    D: Ken Kwapis
    Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, Emma Thompson,
    Mary Steenburgen, Kristen Schall, Nick Offerman
Grumpy old men on the Appalachian Trail, from the book by Bill Bryson. Redford originally bought the movie rights hoping to team up with Paul Newman, and there's one scene in particular, involving a narrow rock shelf overlooking a long, steep drop to some water that inevitably recalls "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". Another movie this one risks being compared to is "Wild", the one where Reese Witherspoon hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, the differences being that Reese's character was half the age these guys are and hiked twice as far and did it alone. So score one for the lady. Redford and Nick Nolte play Bryson and his ne'er-do-well buddy Katz. As young men they bummed around Europe together, but that was then. They're in their 70s now, and nobody, but especially Bryson's wife (Emma Thompson) thinks the two of them setting off on foot in Georgia and heading for Maine is even close to being a good idea. So off they go. A scene early on suggests the kind of movie this might've been. Katz is bunking at Bryson's house before the trip, and with nobody else around, he slips into Bryson's office. There on the wall and the desk and the shelves are the tokens of a successful, productive life: awards, books, photographs, all well-kept and in order. As Katz takes it all in, the camera closes in on his face, and the visible evidence of years spent boozing, chasing women, knocking around and trying to stay out of jail. Nolte doesn't say a word. He doesn't have to. Everything you need to know about Katz at that moment is in the actor's eyes. Unfortunately, the script and Nolte's growly-bear performance reduce Katz to a cartoon, and it gets a little embarrassing when the boys go into a laundromat and Katz comes on to an obese woman having trouble with her underwear. It's exactly at that point that Bryson, trying to cross a stretch of mud under a freeway, turns into a cartoon character himself, and it's hard not to think you're being short-changed here, that there's got to be more to these two guys and their history than the movie's letting you in on. Nolte played Neal Cassady in a movie years ago, and you can see a little Cassady in Katz (assuming it's even possible to imagine Cassady as an old man). "A Walk In the Woods" has that kind of potential, and the scenery along the trail is undeniably gorgeous. But then you get Nolte in the laundromat, or Redford covered in mud, or the two of them in a bunkhouse gag that could be lifted from Laurel and Hardy: a case of potential diminished by too much cuteness and too many easy laughs. 

Listomania / Take 6

          Actors who were cast or considered 
          for roles that went to other people:

          Bela Lugosi as the Monster 
          in "Frankenstein"
          The role went to Boris Karloff.

          George Raft as Sam Spade 
          in "The Maltese Falcon"
          The role went to Humphrey Bogart.

          Marlon Brando as T.E. Lawrence 
          in "Lawrence of Arabia"
          The role went to Peter O'Toole. 

          Robert Redford as Benjamin Braddock 
          in "The Graduate"
          The role went to Dustin Hoffman.

          Steve McQueen as Sundance 
          in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"
          The role went to Robert Redford.

          Lee Marvin as Pike Bishop 
          in "The Wild Bunch"
          The role went to William Holden.

          Frank Sinatra as Inspector Harry Callahan 
          in "Dirty Harry"
          The role went to Clint Eastwood.

          Steve McQueen as Kurtz 
          in "Apocalypse Now"
          The role went to Marlon Brando.

          Burt Lancaster as Ambrose Bierce 
          in "Old Gringo"
          The role went to Gregory Peck.

          Paul Newman as Stephen Katz 
          in "A Walk In the Woods"
          After Newman's death, the role went to Nick Nolte.

The Star Packer (1934)

THE STAR PACKER  (1934)  ¢ 1/2
    D: Robert N. Bradbury
    John Wayne, Verna Hillie,
    George Hayes, Yakima Canutt
Sheriff John Wayne and his faithful Indian sidekick Yak ride out after a gang of outlaws under the command of a mysterious figure called the Shadow, who issues his evil instructions from inside a walled safe. Pure shoot-'em-up silliness, but even the Duke had to pay his dues somewhere. The actor playing Yak is the legendary stuntman and second-unit director Yakima Canutt. 

10,000 Saints (2015)

10,000 SAINTS  (2015)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
    Asa Butterfield, Ethan Hawke, Hailee Steinfeld, 
    Emily Mortimer, Julianne Nicholson, Avan Jogia
Here are a few things I took away from "10,000 Saints". Asa Butterfield, at this early stage in his career, looks a lot like a young Bud Cort. Ethan Hawke has become the go-to guy to play charming, irresponsible fathers. And huffing Freon any time, but especially on a cold night in the middle of winter, is a real bad idea. The movie starts out with a couple of teenaged boys (Butterfield and Avan Jogia) kicking around a small town, hanging out and getting high. Then a couple of bad things happen, involving the Freon and an unintended pregnancy, and overnight everything changes and it's time to start to grow up, real fast. Hailee Steinfeld (from "True Grit) plays the pregnant girl. Julianne Nicholson (the "good sister" in "August: Osage County") plays Butterfield's mom. Emily Mortimer (the flower girl in "Hugo") plays Hawke's girlfriend. There's nothing really new going on here, but a cast like that can keep you in the game. Butterfield, who played the lead in "Hugo" at 13, is definitely a young actor to watch. And if anybody out there plans to remake "Brewster McCloud" or "Harold and Maude", you might want to move on that while Asa still looks like a young Bud Cort.

Rhapsody In Blue (1945)

RHAPSODY IN BLUE  (1945)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Irving Rapper
    Robert Alda, Joan Leslie, Oscar Levant,
    Alexis Smith, Charles Coburn, Julie Bishop
Alan Alda's dad, looking vaguely like Liberace minus the glitz, plays George Gershwin in a good-parts-only biography of the great composer. It's the kind of life story where everybody defers to George, the obsessive genius who's driven to create at the expense of everything else. Apparently there were more than a few women in Gershwin's life, but you don't learn much about that side of the story here. He comes off as a workaholic celibate. Gershwin deserves better, in other words, but it's typical of the musical biographies Hollywood was making at the time. Musically it's a medley of Gershwin's greatest hits, with real-life Gershwin associates Paul Whiteman and Oscar Levant playing themselves. Any movie Oscar Levant's in is at least worth watching for Oscar Levant. 

Joan Leslie

(1925-2015)

Citizenfour (2014)

CITIZENFOUR  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Laura Poitras
The strange case of Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor who spilled the beans on how the government went from spying on possible terrorists to spying on virtually everybody in the years after 9/11. There's a theory of film that says every movie is a documentary about its own making , and that's true of this one more than most. Poitras was in contact with Snowden before the story broke, and she and her camera are in the Hong Kong hotel room when Snowden starts talking and leaking the news. It's not unusual for documentaries to get up close to the people and events they document, but the case of "Citizenfour" is exceptional. Poitras isn't just reporting the story, her participation makes her a player in it, too. She's eavesdropping on history directly, as it occurs, and watching her movie, so are we. Snowden himself remains something of an enigma, a brilliant guy with a conscience who took an enormous personal risk. For somebody who claims he has no skill or expertise at what he and the filmmakers are doing, he's remarkably composed and articulate onscreen. (As he prepares to leave the hotel for a future that's anything but certain, he also looks visibly scared.) What he did was illegal, but was it wrong? We're still wrangling over that one, but in a world where we're all being hacked, it's clear that the rules have changed in a way that's profoundly disturbing. Don't expect the debate to end any time soon.

David Copperfield (1935)

DAVID COPPERFIELD  (1935)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: George Cukor
    Freddie Bartholomew, Frank Lawton, W.C. Fields,
    Lionel Barrymore, Madge Evans, Roland Young,
    Basil Rathbone, Maureen O'Sullivan, Lewis Stone,
    Elsa Lanchester, Arthur Treacher, Una O'Connor
The Dickens tale about a boy who has many fateful adventures on the way to becoming a man (and coincidentally a writer much like Charles Dickens). The acting is melodramatic in a way that hasn't been seen since, well, this movie, but Dickens devotee W.C. Fields cuts through all that as the perfect Mr. McCawber.

The November Man (2014)

THE NOVEMBER MAN  (2014)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Roger Donaldson
    Pierce Brosnan, Olga Kurylenko, Luke Bracey,
    Bill Smitrovich, Amilia Terzimehic, Will Patton
My old friend Dr. Sporgersi was the one who first recommended the "November Man" novels to me, years ago. The books are the work of a Chicago newspaperman named Bill Granger, and they're about an American assassin named Devereaux, who works for an entity called "R Section", an outlier of the CIA that specializes in wet work. Devereaux's like a more remote, more cryptic, more elusive James Bond, and when I read on IMDb that Pierce Brosnan was going to play the role in a "November Man" movie, I thought it had real potential. That the finished product is mostly a case of potential unrealized isn't Brosnan's fault. Accent notwithstanding, he's well-cast as the methodical, cold-blooded Devereaux. It's the script, which takes most of the mystery out of the character and most of the intrigue and suspense out of the plot. What you're left with is a formula action flick in which things blow up and guns go off and cars chase each other at high speeds through oddly empty city streets. It's based very loosely on "There Are No Spies", which I remember as the best of Granger's books, the one I couldn't put down, and I guess this is one case where I'd suggest skipping the movie, if you can dig up a copy of the novel instead. 

Sons of the Desert (1933)

SONS OF THE DESERT  (1933)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: William A. Seiter
    Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Charley Chase,
    Mae Busch, Dorothy Christy, Lucien Littlefield
Stan and Ollie party it up at a lodge convention in Chicago, after telling their wives they're going to Hawaii for Ollie's health. When the wives learn the truth, the boys are in big trouble. Leonard Maltin considers this Laurel and Hardy's best feature, and it's a prime example of their peculiarly childlike attitude toward women. It's as if their social development in that area had stalled out at around age six, making you wonder how their characters ever could've courted members of the opposite sex. Their primary relationship - completely asexual - is with each other, and the feature film they seem most at home in isn't this one, but "Babes In Toyland", where they literally become characters in a fairy tale.  The international organization of Laurel and Hardy enthusiasts takes its name from the title of this movie. 

The Babadook (2014)

THE BABADOOK  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Jennifer Kent
    Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshall,
    Barbara West, Chloe Hurn, Tim Purcell
Here's a movie for anybody who's ever wondered what life might've been like in the Bates home with just Norman and Mother, back when Norman was , like, eight. It's a creepy little thriller from Australia, about a disturbed young boy and his exasperated mom and a book called "The Babadook", which they read together one night before going to bed. The book is like a collaboration between Edward Gorey and Edgar Allan Poe, and it's not the kind of thing a frightened kid should be looking at before going to sleep. The exact nature of the horror in this is never entirely clear, but one thing is: You cannot escape the Babadook. Not that these characters aren't going to try, no matter how crazy or bloody things get. They've made a pact to protect each other, after all. And a boy's best friend is his mother.

The Conquering Power (1921)

THE CONQUERING POWER  (1921)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Rex Ingram
    Rudolph Valentino, Alice Terry, Ralph Lewis
Rudy plays a French playboy who has to make his way in the world when a miserly uncle cheats him out of his inheritance. Valentino made this on the heels of "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse", as his career was really taking off. Unfortunately, his character disappears for a big chunk of the movie, and without his presence, something's definitely missing. That wouldn't happen so much in the years and films that followed. 

Under the Skin (2013)

UNDER THE SKIN  (2013)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Jonathan Glazer
    Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy McWilliams, 
    Lynsey Taylor Mackay, Dougie McConnell, 
    Kevin McAlinden, Andrew Gorman, D. Meade
Some trips you go along for the ride more than the destination. Some movies, too. Take this one. Scarlett Johansson, barely recognizable with a blank face and a black wig, plays an alien from somewhere, driving around Scotland in a van and picking up solitary men, who end up in some weird state of suspended animation. You start out not knowing what the hell's going on, and ten minutes in, you're pretty sure you're not going to find out. But you never know where Glazer's going to go with it, either, or what he's going to put on the screen next. That's one reason you're along for the ride. Another is that you keep wondering at what point Scarlett Johansson will take off all her clothes. She does that eventually, but the movie leads up to it gradually, like a slow, episodic striptease, revealing a little at a time. The rest is pretty cryptic, but keep your mind open, while your eyes are on Scarlett, and the ride could be worth it. Try it and see.

Ghostbusters II (1989)

GHOSTBUSTERS II  (1989)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Ivan Reitman
    Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver,
    Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Rick Moranis,
    Annie Potts, Janet Margolin, Harris Yulin,
    Peter MacNicol, Ben Stein, Philip Baker Hall
Five years after their epic encounter with the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, the Ghostbusters have more or less disbanded. Egon (Harold Ramis) is working in a research lab. Ray and Winston (Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson) are performing at children's parties for snotty kids who couldn't care less. Venkman (Bill Murray) is hosting a transparently fraudulent psychic television show. But evil is afoot, big evil, and when the River of Slime that runs beneath the city breaks to the surface, who ya gonna call? A lot of this is a rehash of the first "Ghostbusters" movie, which means that some of it's pretty funny, and some of it's just big and loud and silly. Murray's as smug as ever, and Sigourney Weaver does not turn into a slobbering dog monster this time around. Also, the Marshmallow Man has been replaced by a tall, green, New York City landmark with a torch and a crown. Maybe you can guess who that is.