“Jay Kelly”: Stars in Their Eyes

I recently heard a sweet story involving a weather delay at a small airport somewhere in the northwest. For various complex reasons, the passengers suddenly had to rely on ground transportation to get to where they were going. What made all the difference was the fact that one of the passengers was the actor Keanu Reeves. Charmingly self-effacing, he befriended his fellow travelers and used his clout to hire the bus that got them all to their destinations. When they finally parted, they felt they had been personally blessed by this close proximity to stardom.

 That’s part of what being a movie star is about: having an appeal that reaches beyond the screen and makes average citizens feel they have a personal relationship with someone who is magic. There’s a similar sort of moment in the new Noah Baumbach film, Jay Kelly. In it George Clooney plays a world-famous leading man who seems (on the surface, at least) a whole lot like George Clooney. The episode begins on a European train on which Kelly, instantly recognizable by all the other passengers, charms them with self-deprecating humor. Then a disturbed man grabs the pocketbook of a nice old lady, stops the train, and runs off into the Italian countryside. Without a second’s hesitation, Kelly shifts into heroic mode, as he’s doubtless done in countless popular flicks. He leaps from the train and pursues the thief, finally emerging triumphant with the errant purse, to the huzzahs of all the other passengers. That’s the upside of being famous.

 Baumbach’s film (co-written by the talented British actress Emily Mortimer) shows us the downside too: the toll stardom takes on one’s family life, as well as the skewed sense of self that develops when the star is always encircled by a fawning entourage. The film certainly conveys the difficulties faced when an ageing celebrity is no longer so clear about his path forward, and we do feel a certain sympathy for a nice-guy leading man who’s starting to be tired of the usual clamor of expectations. But I found myself (as various critics groups have done) even more interested in the hangers-on who pay a price for their loyalty to the great man. The second lead in this film is played by Adam Sandler as Ron Sukenick, Jay’s long-time manager. He’s a guy who puts family obligations (and pretty much everything else) second to his duties as Jay’s companion, fixer, office wife, and general factotum. Yes, he’s even been known to touch up the star’s greying temples, when necessary. Now he’s left his own kids at home with an increasingly resentful wife (played by Baumbach’s own wife, Greta Gerwig) while he and Jay schlepp around Europe to attend a gala tribute event that Jay had previously turned down, but then mercurially changed his mind about at the very last minute. Sandler, who’s long since graduated from the childish comedies that first made his reputation, has already won some performance awards for this role, and I suspect there’ll be more.

The movie’s certainly a reflection on the price of stardom. And non-stardom: there’s a small but important subplot about the young Jay’s talented buddy who, through the kind of fluke with which the film industry is rife, never gets the chance to move ahead in his career. This is not Baumbach’s best film: its time-jumps and on-the-nose plotting detract from the kind of tightly-focused artistry he generally brings to projects like Marriage Story and The Squid and the Whale. Still, even if it doesn’t reach the starry heights, this is a film worth pondering.

 

 

 

Brush Up Your Shakespeare: Hamlet Goes Hollywood

As an avid theatre-goer, I’ve noticed lately that major stage productions seem to be relying more and more on effects that can only be called cinematic. In the early years, the motion picture industry was clearly envious of the public prestige enjoyed by live theatre. Broadway plays and Broadway stars were quickly snatched up by Hollywood, and it’s remarkable how many movies of the Thirties and Forties (in particular) focus on stage-based plotlines. See, for instance, Busby Berkeley gems like Forty-Second Street, Gold Diggers of 1933, and Footlight Parade, all of which pretend to be about the staging of Broadway musical extravaganzas, although the numbers they contain (full of fancy overhead shots, for instance) could only have been made on a soundstage. 

 That was then. Now Broadway has discovered that playgoers willing to shell out the big bucks to see a show in person appreciate flashy cinematic touches. I recently saw the touring company of Harry  Potter and the Cursed Child, and was impressed by its many magical moments. This was skillfully handled stage magic, though (disappearances, transformations, pyrotechnic effects, and so on), and thus was thoroughly a part of theatrical tradition. But several award-winning shows on Broadway right now feel justified by their subject matter for introducing video in heavy doses to the stage production. I have to confess that I haven’t seen either one, so I can’t comment on how successful these experiments might be. Nonetheless . . .  

 Good Night, and Good Luck is an historical drama about the very public conflict between venerated newscaster Edward R. Murrow and the notorious Senator Joseph McCarthy. George Clooney, who directed and co-wrote the 2005 film, makes his Broadway debut in the Edward R. Murrow role. Because the play has a great deal to say about news reporting and about the impact of television on the American public, it’s perhaps not surprising to learn that it culminates in a video montage of updated archival footage that includes the destruction of the World Trade Center and the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.  

 More film-centric, of course, is the current revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicalized Sunset Boulevard, for which the talented but (I would argue) under-age Nicole Scherzinger just won an acting Tony. The 1950 movie drama about a fading film star, directed by Billy Wilder with a remarkable Gloria Swanson in the leading role, has naturally led to a stage production that is all about movies and movie-making. As the L.A. Times reviewer put it, in this production “the camera is undeniably king. The darkened stage, swathed in movie projector fog, seems like a studio set in which dreams are manufactured through live projections along with more traditional Hollywood means.”  Live camera feeds are used at times to follow the actors, and this Norma Desmond, up there on the stage, definitely gets her close-up.  

 Then there’s the new Hamlet, adapted and directed by Robert O’Hara, appearing now at L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum. For much of its length it is a somewhat traditional Shakespearean tragedy, though drastically cut and highlighting anything potentially raunchy. Then everything implodes into a behind-the-scenes noir with a gumshoe who’s a blend of Sam Spade and Benoit Blanc investigating who did what to whom, on behalf of the suits at the Elsinore Film Corporation. Why? I don’t rightly know. It’s fun to see the spilling out of secrets not in Shakespeare’s original text, and I liked some of the inevitable cinematic touches (like the appearance of Hamlet’s father’s ghost on a huge screen). But what does it add to Hamlet? Really, not much at all. 

 

                                    Nicole Scherzinger in Broadway's Sunset Boulevard

 

"Hamlet" at L.A.'s Mark Taper Forum  

 

 

 

“Sideways”: Grapes, Nuts, and Flakes

Quaffed any good pinot noir lately? The grape got new respect in 2004 via Alexander Payne’s Sideways, a box office hit that was also a critical darling. (It was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture, and won for the adaptation of Rex Pickett’s comic novel by Payne and co-author Jim Taylor.) I’ve long used it in my UCLA Extension advanced screenwriting courses as one way to approach various aspects of the screenwriter’s craft. Sideways provided a major boost to the acting careers of Paul Giamatti and his castmates, as well as a shot in the arm to tourism in California’s Santa Ynez Valley. It also upended the wine industry: after the advent of Sideways, merlot was considered by many to be a wine grape non grata.

 In 2024, Applause Books released Sideways Uncorked, described on its cover as “the perfect pairing of film and wine.” There’s no question that the authors know whereof they speak. Kirk Honeycutt was for twenty years a writer and then the chief film critic of The Hollywood Reporter. So he knows the film world inside and out. His in-depth understanding of independent films like Sideways was enhanced by his experience with low-budget maven Roger Corman on Final Judgement, a 1992 priest-and-stripper quickie for which Kirk wrote the original screenplay. (As Roger’s story editor I worked with Kirk on the project. I best recall a little moment in which the accused killer tries to get away from potential danger by climbing aboard a city bus. Roger refused to accept this quirky choice, reasoning that a badass required a motorcycle or something cooler than public transit. Thus my boss firmly rejected what I had found original and characteristic.) 

 In this book, it’s Kirk’s job to explain how Sideways came to be, how it was written, financed, cast, shot, and distributed.  Part of his focus is on the implications of Sideways being an indie film: by not allowing a studio with deep pockets to dictate key artistic choices (like the dream casting of George Clooney and Brad Pitt in the leading roles instead of the less glamorous Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church), Payne preserved his vision of this film as featuring two ordinary down-on-their-luck guys.

 Kirk’s insider stories about the making of Sideways, corroborated by the film’s cast and crew, are augmented by the contributions of his wife, Mira Advani Honeycutt. A longtime wine journalist, she puts her expertise to work in explaining the realities of the wine industry, especially as this applies to the Santa Ynez Valley. She begins by focusing in on the all-important physical properties of the area, what the French call “terroir.”  These are the environmental factors—relating to weather, soil quality, and the like—that determine which grapes can be most successfully planted in a given plot of land. Santa Barbara County’s Santa Ynez Valley offers vastly different climate conditions from Northern California’s famous grape-growing counties, and she traces the history of pinot noir cultivation in the region, showing in detail how this notoriously finicky grape (see Giamatti’s now-famous speech about the special needs of pinot) thrives in its soil. For wine lovers, she also advises on the best wineries for pinot noir in California, Oregon, and elsewhere. Nor does she neglect merlot, which is scorned by Giamatti’s character in the film, but certainly is worthy of having its own enthusiasts. It’s amusing to note that the book is dedicated “to Cinephiles, Pinotphiles, and Merlot Mavericks.”

 Want to know how the real-life owner of a Solvang restaurant made a fortune off the success of Sideways? This book’s for you. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cue the Cellos: George Clooney Looks at the Midnight Sky Very Very Sadly

 You think you’ve got it bad? Actor/director George Clooney, usually known for his sparkling wit, here tackles a story that begins in the aftermath of a global apocalypse and  ends . . . God knows where. It seems he’s a research scientist stuck in the arctic, coping with a fatal illness and an ice-crusted beard. When his colleagues ship out, he’s all alone, giving himself transfusions, then microwaving his pathetic meals and eating them all alone in a large but empty dining hall.

 But wait! A small child has somehow been left behind during a group evacuation. She’s largely silent, but her presence brings out George’s long-suppressed paternal instincts. (We know they’re long suppressed, because of the occasional flashbacks in which a young guy who looks nothing like George Clooney tries to ignore a pretty blonde woman who is clearly his mate. She wants a family, but he shrugs her off because, well, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. And what a man’s got to do, apparently, is to give his all to the study of science.

 It’s possible this plot strand interested Clooney himself because, at 59, he is a fairly recent father. His twins, with wife Amal Alamuddin Clooney, are now 3 ½. In any case, his sometimes playful interactions with little Iris provide most of the film’s very few light moments.

 But don’t think for a moment that we spend the entire film in the arctic. No, we keep cutting away to a large and very fancy spacecraft that looks something like what a talented child would put together with Legos. This is the temporary home of five astronauts, nicely assorted in terms of gender and ethnicity. They’re just now returning from a newly-discovered moon of Jupiter, one that (remarkably enough) is completely conducive to human life. So they’re in a good mood, which is enhanced by the discovery that one of the women is newly pregnant by her boyfriend, the mission’s captain. This pregnancy has taken the two of them by total surprise (though they are, you know, scientists, basic biology doesn’t seem to be their strong suit). Still, everyone is jubilant, despite the fact there’s a spot of worry because they can’t seem to rouse anyone on earth through their various communications devices.

 Finally, after lots of lugubrious music by the usually capable Alexandre Desplat, Clooney and kid race across the frozen wasteland and find means to connect with the astronauts. His message: Don’t come home. But by this point, bad things are happening in space as well (triggering the film’s #1 grim and ghoulish sequence), and the astronauts’ choices are complicated. 

 If we’ve been following all of this, we’re expecting a super-grim finale. But of course this is a Hollywood film, one that anticipates uplift. And so in the grand tradition of such recent space epics as Gravity and Interstellar, we take a leap into the mystic. All the plot strands converge in a way that defies logic but is meant to make us feel somehow warm and cozy inside.

 Why take The Midnight Sky’s trip out into the universe when there’s so much to explore on our own planet?  Yes, I enjoyed The Martian, which stuck closely to the possible, but this conflation of outer space and mysticism is starting to get annoying. (Blame 2001: A Space Odyssey?) Personally, I’d rather be watching a glorious oldie like North by Northwest, or a smart, savvy exploration of life on earth like the new film version of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Why bother to fly off to the stars?