No Small Parts: J. K. Simmons in “Break Point”

Though I’m hardly a tennis player, I’ve been wanting to see the much-applauded tennis movie, Challengers. The world in which it’s set reminds me of how many great movies of the past have included tennis in at last one key scene. Just think of the mesmerizing tennis tournament scene in Hitchcock’s classic Strangers on a Train. (The action is on the court, but the audience should be paying attention to a spectator sitting quietly in the stands.) Tennis shows up in movies as different as Annie Hall (Alvy and Annie first meet on a tennis court) and Gigi (Leslie Caron’s girlish character, who cavorts all over the court, stands in joyous contrast to the stiff demoiselles who can’t be bothered to move at all). In Pat and Mike, Katharine Hepburn’s character famously melts down while playing against real-life tennis celebrity Gussie Moran. The recent King Richard is, of course, all about the father who raised tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams.

The 2014 film Break Point (not to be confused with the 2015 surfing flick Point Break) is an amiable comedy in which tennis takes center stage. It’s written by and stars Jeremy Sisto as a slovenly tennis pro who’s forced to team up with his estranged brother, a wholesome substitute teacher, in order to win a berth in a major tournament. There’s lots of tennis action, but this is more of a human-interest story in which two siblings accept each other’s different choices and a lonely kid finds a substitute family. 

Part of why Break Point is worth watching is the presence of J.K. Simmons, who plays the gruff but loving father of the two tennis-playing brothers. He’s his sons’ biggest fan, always front-row center at their matches. To be honest, I’d never heard of Simmons until 2014. He started making movies back in 1994, and I’m sure I spotted his bald head and his low-register voice in big films like Juno, Up in the Air, and Burn After Reading. He’s pretty well disguised with hair and mustache as J. Jonah Jameson in several Spiderman flicks, which gives me an excuse not to have recognized him there. But in any case he didn’t come into focus for me until the year that Point Break was made. That’s became 2014 was also when Damien Chazelle released Whiplash, in which—playing the leader of a college jazz ensemble—Simmons demands perfection to the point where he’s downright maniacal. The role of Terence Fletcher was Simmon’s first big chance for a truly bravura performance, and he hardly wastes it. The role landed him major critical acclaim, and other more showy roles, like that of William Frawley (the original Fred Mertz) in Being the Ricardos. Still, a guy’s got to eat, and Simmons’ filmography is filled with roles in forgettable films like The Tomorrow War and Ride the Eagle It’s not unusual for him to release six films in a single year. And he also keeps busy using that wonderful basso voice of his in videogames and animated features. He also sings, and has appeared on Broadway as Benny Southstreet in Guys and Dolls

Like J.K. Simmons, there are hundreds of characters actors who’ve long been the backbone of the movie industry. Their names aren’t always familiar to us, but we know their faces and appreciate their reliable professionalism. I interviewed Robert Forster when Whiplash won Simmons an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Forster, an Oscar nominee himself for Jackie Brown, was thrilled for his colleague, a real pro who had truly paid his dues in the motion picture industry.  

 

The Winterly Beauty of “Small Things Like These”

So this year’s Oscar ceremony is almost here. Meanwhile I want to write about  a movie totally absent from the list of nominees, though its star—who’s also one of its producers—won last year’s Best Actor Oscar for playing the title role in Oppenheimer. Cillian Murphy, born and raised in Ireland, had fallen in love with Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These, a tiny but powerful 2021 Irish novella known as the shortest work to ever become a finalist for the prestigious Booker Prize. It was he who assembled a production team that includes Matt Damon. 

The resulting film, now on Prime, is acutely sensitive to Keegan’s themes as well as her taut use of language. It’s a small story, as befits a book barely100 pages long. But its concerns are large, because it takes on the horrors of Ireland’s Magdalen laundries, in which—until as recently as 1996—Catholic nuns welcomed unwed mothers into their convents, only to exploit their labor and steal their babies. (Contraception was then illegal in Ireland, and the power of the Church was such that no one spoke out for decades about the abuses occurring in their towns.)  

The horrors of the system have been covered in other dramatic films and documentaries. Part of what makes Keegan’s work, and the film it inspired, unique is that the focus is on a man—a middle-aged dealer in gas and coal, circa 1985—whose working-class life is upended when he comes in contact with a victim of the nuns’ double-edged hospitality. Bill Furlong (played, of course by Murphy) has made a comfortable if not a posh, living for himself and his family, which includes a hard-working wife and five school-age daughters. His girls, all of them promising and well-loved, attend St. Margaret’s, “the only good school for girls” in the vicinity, and so it’s vital that he remain on excellent terms with the Mother Superior (a frosty Emily Watson) of the convent next door. All the locals have a sense of what’s going on behind the convent walls, but (as Bill’s wife Eileen tartly reminds him), “If you want to get on in life, there’s things you have to ignore.”

But Bill, a man prone to introspection, sees in the plight of pregnant young women’s the situation of his own mother. Pregnant with Bill at 16, she was graciously accepted by the local wealthy Protestant widow as domestic help, rather than being treated as a “fallen woman” and sent to labor for the nuns.  And though his mother suddenly died young, the kindly and childless Mrs. Wilson raised Bill in comfortable surroundings, then helped him to find education, a wife, and a business of his own. Now he relishes his role as pater familias, but there comes a time when he finds himself forced to make a difficult but thrilling choice. 

The story takes place at Christmastime, and the cold, damp weather seeps into the film. This makes it all the more stunning when the Mother Superior invites Bill into her cozy study with its blazing fire. The imagery of the novel—its use of crows, for instance, as an ominous symbol of the nuns’ power—is faithfully preserved on screen, and of course the soundtrack is filled with Christmas carols that ironically remind us of comfort and joy. I’m  only sorry that the mystery of Bill’s paternity, sustained throughout the novel, is pretty well answered in the film version, in a way that invites its own questions. 

Not everyone will like this film, but its harsh beauty shines bright in the winterly darkness. 

 

Color Me Movies (The Academy Museum Dazzles in Living Color)

The always interesting Academy Museum is hosting a big new exhibit until July of this year. Called “Color in Motion: Chromatic Explorations of Cinema,” it is part of the Getty organization’s latest ambitious region-wide arts festival. The festival, which used to be known by the umbrella term Pacific Standard Time, is now simply called PST Art, and the theme for the current iteration is Art & Science Collide. (Learn more at www.pst.art)   

Though I admit that “Chromatic Explorations of Cinema” sounds a bit dry, there’s plenty on the fourth floor of the Academy Museum to delight both adults and children. We start with a history lesson, about how color came to be added to the familiar black & white tones of early cinematography, often with the help of female employees who painstakingly tinted reels of filmstock by hand. (Walt Disney gets credit for figuring out how to colorize animated movies. His “Flowers and Trees” was the first commercially released film to be produced in the full-color three-strip Technicolor process,, while Snow White became America’s first feature-length cel-animated film.) But the exhibit also boasts huge introductory pops of living color, featuring clips from movies both American and foreign. Indian and Chinese filmmakers, it seems, have long been masters at using intense color to brighten romantic stories. Naturally we also get that most colorful of American stars, Marilyn Monroe—all red lips, yellow hair, and fabulous fuchsia gown—in a splashy number from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Not to mention Judy Garland’s Dorothy emerging from her drab Kansas home into the Technicolor dazzle of Oz  And the brilliantly clashing colors of Jets and Sharks in West Side Story.

One room, labeled “Color as Character,” features a rainbow display from the museum’s extensive costume collection, showing us how Jay Gatsby’s powder-pink suit, the baby-pink ensemble worn by Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, and Cruella de Vil’s outrageous black-and-red get-up from One Hundred and One Dalmatians shed light on the characters who wear them. Dorothy’s ruby-red slippers, we learn, were described as silver in L. Frank Baum’s original novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It was the geniuses at MGM who changed silver to scarlet the better to take advantage of color cinematography.  (And, of course, we get to see an exceedingly rare pair of the slippers, one of the museum’s treasures, displayed in a plexiglass case.) 

But from this point onward, the exhibit gets sublimely experimental. It seems that some avant-garde animators, sensing the power of color in the abstract, began shooting short films to show off the new artistic possibilities of the motion picture medium. The Academy exhibit displays samples of the work of Oskar Fischinger, a German-American artist who profoundly influenced the opening sections of Disney’s 1940 masterwork, Fantasia. Remember how the start of that animated film, in which Mastro Leopold Stokowski leads his orchestra through Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, is a vivid visual collage of intertwining shapes? Though Fischinger remains uncredited because of a falling-out with the Disney brass, his work was the starting point for this brilliant segment. But I found myself particularly entranced by a film credited to Mary Ellen Bute, whose visual artistry brings a whole new dimension to Franz Liszt’s entrancing Hungarian Rhapsody. She reportedly specialized in “visual music,” and her short films often played as curtain-raisers at prestige movie palaces like Radio City Music Hall.   

Of course, everyone loves do-it-yourself exhibits, and this one ends with opportunities for the spectator to play with color on a huge screen, to a musical accompaniment. A good time is definitely had by all. 

 

Liza Minnelli: A Star Was Born

The new documentary,  Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story, made me curious about the movie career of one of Broadway’s favorite song-and-dance divas, Liza Minnelli. After all, Liza (still alive and kicking at age 78) is the daughter of two charter members of the Hollywood pantheon, director Vincente Minnelli and the incomparable Judy Garland. 

Liza made her first screen appearance as a babe in arms at the end of one of her mother’s musical films, The Good Old Summertime (1949). Her first credited role came in 1967’s Charlie Bubbles, as an ingenue opposite Albert Finney, who both starred and directed. But it was in 1969 when she truly made a splash: her role as a needy college co-ed in something called The Sterile Cuckoo led to her nomination for a Best Actress Oscar, along with such dramatic icons as Genevieve Bujold (Anne of the Thousand Days), Jane Fonda (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?), Jean Simmons (The Happy Ending) and ultimate winner Maggie Smith (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie). The following year she was featured as a disfigured young woman in another highly emotional dramedy, Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon. The death by overdose of forty-seven-year-old Judy Garland on June 22, 1969 had left Liza bereft just as she was entering young womanhood. Judy’s own youthful screen career had seen her frequently cast as a girl-next-door type, even though her huge singing voice contained paradoxical notes of what one critic has called “fragility and resilience.” For Liza, I would choose the word “waif.” Directors seemed to see in her someone who was hurting, but knew how to cover her grief with sheer pizzazz.

It all came together for Minnelli in 1972, when she snagged the female lead in the film version of Cabaret. Director/choreographer Bob Fosse knew how to capitalize on her combination of little-girl-lost pathos and brassy insouciance (as well as her musical skills and her long, long legs) to fill out the character of Sally Bowles. Sally, who first appeared in Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin, was portrayed as the top chanteuse at the city’s seedy Kit Kat Klub, at a time when Hitler and his thugs were taking over German life. It was the perfect melding of performer and role, and it won her the Best Actress Oscar in 1973.. (Also in 1972, Minnelli scored another triumph with her televised concert film, Liza with a Z.)  

Though after 1972, Minnelli’s continuing screen success would have seemed assured, she ran into a series of roadblocks. Projects that looked good on paper—like 1975’s Lucky Lady and 1977’s New York, New York—turned out to be expensive flops. Liza herself faced health crises (exacerbated by recreational drug use) and went through a pack of mostly unsuitable husbands and lovers. She craved motherhood, but it was not to be. 

It wasn’t until 1981 that she had another bona fide hit movie, 1981’s Arthur, in which she plays a scrappy waitress who unexpectedly becomes the love interest of a childish (and generally drunk) millionaire, portrayed with gusto by Dudley Moore. To be honest, I watched Arthur again recently, and found  much of it rather repugnant. To me there’s nothing particularly hilarious about a falling-down drunk, even if he generally means well. But the film won an Oscar for John Gielgud’s portrayal of a cranky but endearing butler. And Minnelli and Moore have some charming moments—notably when, upon first meeting, they instantly launch into spritely husband-and-wife banter to conceal the fact that she’s just been apprehended for shoplifting an expensive tie. The waif, it seems, also rises. 

 

A Colorful Take on “Carmen”

I’ve been wanting to write about Carmen Jones, and the death of Olga James at age 95 gives me a good (though sad) excuse. Though I saw this film only recently, I’ve been aware of it for many years. My parents, who prided themselves on being open-minded, admired the special flair of Black entertainers like Lena Horne, Pearl Bailey, and Harry Belafonte. Their passion for the whimsical 1943 all-Black fantasy-film, Cabin in the Sky (starring Ethel Waters and Eddie “Rochester” Anderson) transferred to me, and I love watching it to this day, regarding it as essential comfort-cinema. When Carmen Jones made its screen debut (following a hyper-successful Broadway run) in 1954, I was much too young to see it. But now that I have, I can understand my parents’ enthusiasm. This despite the fact that the two lead performers, both well-known professional singers with movie-star looks and credentials, were dubbed by more operatic voices.

Admittedly, the score of Carmen Jones is not an easy one to sing. It is, at base, Georges Bizet’s Carmen, transferred by lyricist and scenarist Oscar Hammerstein II from the streets and bull-rings of Spain to a small military town in North Carolina, midway through World War II. Carmen, still a seductive vixen, now works in a parachute factory; the  opera’s Don José has become the clean-cut “flyboy” Joe, who’s bound for officer candidate school. The glamorous toreador of the opera has turned into a champion prizefighter, Husky Miller, who whisks Carmen off to Chicago and decks her out in diamonds and furs. Though the language of the songs is contemporary, the score is still highly operatic in nature. I’m told it was a then-unknown Marilyn Horne who supplied star Dorothy Dandridge’s singing voice for the film. The handsome, good-natured Joe, who fails to resist Carmen’s seductive moves on him, is appealingly played by Belafonte, but he (or rather his vocal substitute) is hardly singing calypso .Naturally, there’s a tragic ending.

Before today I had never heard of Olga James, and was wholly unaware of her showbiz career. But a photo that accompanied her obituary in the Hollywood Reporter quickly brought her back to me. For the film version of Carmen Jones James was cast as Cindy Lou (think Micaëla), the sweet country girl whom Joe is planning to marry before Carmen gets her hooks into him. James, who hailed from a showbiz family, trained at Juilliard for a career in classical music, and so she was well equipped to sing arias like “My Joe” and the mournful “He Got His Self Another Woman.” She does so beautifully and poignantly; of all the tragedies in the story, hers is doubtless the saddest, because she does everything right but still loses out on love. (Interesting sidenote: James was married to jazz sax great Cannonball Adderley until his death at age 45.)   

The notion of a Hollywood musical with an all-Black cast is of course something out of a very different era. (Similarly, musicals in which the entire cast is white now seem hugely retrograde.) Though I’m hardly a fan of segregation on movie screens or anywhere else, I remain glad that talented Black performers of earlier eras got to show what they could do, and weren’t always stuck in supporting roles as cheery Pullman porters and feisty kitchen help. One other sidenote: African-American dancers who lived near Hollywood could count on occasional movie work in musicals like this one. In the film’s big dance scene, I love spotting Carmen de Lavallade, my very first dance teacher, and later a major star of the American dance world. 

 

Ripley: Believe Him or Not

A few months back, following the death of Alain Delon, I watched the 1960 French thriller, Purple Noon, which helped launch Delon’s career as a screen idol. It was a colorful flick about deception and mayhem, and boasted not one but two impressive twists at the end. It wasn’t until recently that I learned that this film was based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 The Talented Mr. Ripley, the first in a string of five novels featuring a young American who’s adept at impersonating others, for his own personal gain. Much more recently, Netflix showcased Ripley, a eight-part miniseries based on Highsmith’s first Ripley novel. I watched the critically acclaimed series from start to finish, thrilling to its take on the Ripley character and on its spectacularly detailed black-and-white cinematography.

Though the Texas-born Highsmith spent her adult life in Europe, her story has always had an All-American hustler at its center, and of course Hollywood eventually provided us with an American take on her plot. The 1999 film written and directed by Anthony Minghella (known for his Oscar-winning The English Patient) starred a  youthful Matt Damon in the title role. Key supporting parts were played by Gwyneth Paltrow, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Cate Blanchett, with a very young Jude Law in the key supporting role of the wealthy, feckless Dickie, Ripley’s first victim. (It won him an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor.)

Though I confess I’ve never read the novel that started it all,  the contrast between the various screen versions has been fascinating. The French-language film much admired by Highsmith stands out for its gorgeous leading man, its spectacular Italian locales, and some nifty surprises that make a sequel unlikely. The TV miniseries apparently sticks far closer to the mood and plot of the original. I was fascinated by Andrew Scott’s playing of Ripley not as a charismatic rogue but as a sort of nonentity, a quiet con artist who succeeds because he seems to blend in everywhere he goes, with no one quite able to spot the fact that he’s dangerous. A snake in the grass, without question. 

Then there’s Minghella’s Hollywood version. The leading role is played by Matt Damon, clearly chosen in part for the youthful innocence of his looks. (I’ve read that Leonardo di Caprio was an earlier choice for the part.) Whereas the Tom Ripley of the TV miniseries is an experienced grifter, bilking the unwary whose medical bills he’s stolen, Damon’s Tom starts out looking like a clean-cut young man, a pianist sensitively accompanying a classical singer at a house concert. He doesn’t seem to be on the make until opportunity suddenly drops into his lap, giving him a trip from NYC to an Italian beach resort to persuade the scion of a wealthy American family to quit loafing around and come home. 

Damon’s Tom Ripley and Jude Law’s Dickie Greenleaf quickly bond over a passion for jazz. (The role of music in the film is an effective change from the miniseries, in which Dickie—though by no means talented—aspires to a career as an artist and Tom claims to share his interest in Caravaggio.)  As we see from the start, Damon’s Tom really does love music . . . and quickly comes to love the handsome, mercurial Dickie. Every bad thing his Tom does seems almost accidental; his most dastardly deeds stem from spur-of-the-moment decisions made in time of crisis. He’s played, in a low-key way, as a closeted homosexual, one whose self-loathing leads him in dangerous directions. We’re supposed to end up feeling sorry for the guy. I ask you: what’s the fun in that?

 

Over the Rainbow: “The Florida Project”

My enthusiasm for Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or- winning Anora led me to wonder about Baker’s earlier films. At fifty-three, he’s not exactly a boy wonder, but until now his work has mostly been seen on the indie circuit. Starting in 2000, he’s been writing, directing, and editing small films that explore the lives of marginalized Americans of all stripes. He seems to have particular sympathy for undocumented immigrants and sex workers, and has placed them at the center of many of his stories. He also relishes using non-actors in central roles that reflect their own shaky situation in life. 

Years ago, I couldn’t resist watching Tangerine (2015), after I found out how it was made. This Christmas-eve tale of a transgender sex worker who’s being cheated on by her lover/pimp was shot on the mean streets of Hollywood by Baker and his crew using (instead of conventional cameras) three iPhone smartphones. Remarkably, it worked. Though the story sounds impossibly grim, there are also moments of great poignancy and even humor in Tangerine. This, Baker’s fifth film, brought him major attention from critics’ groups like the Independent Spirt Awards. The Palm Springs Independent Film Festival, for one, named him a Director to Watch.

Baker’s sixth feature, The Florida Project (2017) was filmed more conventionally, and debuted in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival, It was the first of Baker’s films to feature a major Hollywood actor, Willem Dafoe, but the film’s real star is Brooklynn Prince, a veteran actress who began her career at age 2. She was about 7 when she starred in The Florida Project as Moonee, a plucky kid who lives with her mom in a cheap motel managed by Dafoe’s sympathetic but often frustrated landlord. 

Moonee’s mom Halley was played by first-timer Bria Vinaite. Halley is a well-tattooed ex-stripper who’ll try just about anything—including drug sales, larceny, and prostitution—to house and feed herself and her daughter. (Needless to say, there’s no dad around.) She’s an angry young woman with a talent for scrounging and a very foul mouth, but at the same time she’s a loving mom who, when in a rare good mood, can delight Moonee with offbeat adventures. 

The Florida Project, named for an early codeword for Disney World, wants us  to see life chiefly from Moonee’s youthful perspective. For her and the other kids who live in the seedy but colorful Magic Castle Motel, there’s always time for fun, especially in summer. They try spitting on cars from the motel’s second- floor walkway; they gawk at the lady who sunbathes topless near the motel pool; they start a small fire that nearly destroys an abandoned housing project. Adult supervision is almost nil, and Moonee’s future may be bleak.  But meanwhile she’s enjoying her freedom.

The slow, relaxed pace of the storytelling encourages us to revel in the gorgeous Florida landscape. The film—dazzling in its sunny cinematography--was shot in Kissimmee, a stone’s throw from Walt Disney World, and a would-be fantasy environment hangs over everything. Moonee’s motel ($38 a night) is a startling shade of lavender, and the nearby Futureland Motel, home of new buddy Jancey, is painted pink and turquoise. We’re on the outskirts of Disney’s sprawling theme park, but a good distance from the well-curated fantasy venue enjoyed by well-heeled tourists. In recompense, Moony and her friends enjoy brilliant sunsets, dramatic rainstorms, lush foliage, and exotic waterfowl. The film’s endling essentially slips into their romantic dreams.  Too bad they will one day have to grow up and discover the harsher, darker world their parents know. 

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Creeping Through a House, Darkly

Does Neil LaBute dislike women? A common complaint about this award-winning playwright and film director is that he’s a total misogynist who goes out of his way to vent hostility toward what used to be called “the fair sex.” I don’t agree with this assessment: yes, his view of humanity is dark indeed, but I don’t think (judging from what I know of his body of work) that he favors one gender over the other. His characters can be brutal—and sexuality can be the spark that ignites their rage against one another—but he’s an equal opportunity misanthrope. From what I’ve seen, on the screen and in theatres, he doesn’t like anybody very much.

This is not to say that LaBute is a brute in real life. He is married, he has children; for all I know he’s a reliable friend and neighbor. Formerly, during his college years at Brigham Young University, he apparently became (like several good friends of mine) a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Though I’ve corresponded briefly with Neil, I can’t pretend to have anything like a close connection with him. I gather, though, that the sunny optimism of the Mormons in my life doesn’t entirely mesh with his outlook, or with the thrust of his writing and directing career.  

I think what fascinates LaBute is dominance: the way people are prone to seek control over those around them. And, at times, the way the victims contribute to their own subjugation. Those who suffer most usually deserve what they get, either because they’re naïve or because they’re greedy for something to which they’re not really entitled. The latter possibility shows up in the 2022 film I’ve just seen, one that LaBute both wrote and directed. House of Darkness seems ominous from the beginning, when a car pulls up in front of a creepy mansion in the woods. It’s late at night, of course, and no one is around except for the car’s occupants. Hap (Justin Long) is an ultra-cool finance bro, full of quips and self-confidence. Mina (Kate Bosworth) looks angelic, with her filmy white dress and long golden tresses. They’ve just met at a bar in the city, quickly bonded, and he gladly agreed when she asked for a ride home. It’s absolutely clear what’s on his mind, and this is confirmed when (as she goes off to fix some drinks) he has a cellphone chat with the buddy he left behind. He’s gloating about his good fortune . . . but his high spirits don’t last long. 

LaBute likes chamber pieces, in which a very few actors (often in an enclosed space) carry the film. This aesthetic preference also makes good sense: it’s certainly much easier to finance and produce a movie with a small cast and a single location. About half of House of Darkness takes place in what seems to be a mating dance between Hap and Mina, but then several new arrivals appear, changing everything. Mina’s name should give us a clue, but the sudden emergence of someone named Lucy makes it obvious: LaBute is playing with the dramatis personae surrounding Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I love the fact that in LaBute’s film these are tantalizing women in charge of their own destinies. The classic cinematic view of Dracula comes to us by way of Bela Lugosi’s 1931 film portrayal. In the movies, he’s a sexy man who lures innocent young women to a fate worse than death. Here LaBute has fun flipping the script, but Hap deserves (almost) everything he gets.