Working Girl (1988)

Although I am taking my sweet time in doing so, my attempt to finally get around to watching more Melanie Griffith films is continuing. She was someone I never really rated while actually delivering some of her best work (I was too young to fully appreciate most of her movies, and I mistakenly equated her choice of projects not tailor-made for me with a lack of talent), but looking back on the heyday of her career is an interesting experience. Not only did Griffith pick some great projects, it's fascinating to watch her own the screen and be treated like the beauty she so clearly is, yet also look at how she represents the kind of female sexuality and presence that is so rare to see onscreen in more modern movies, after years of developments in the world of fillers, implants, sculpting, and physical training regimes.

Working Girl is probably the biggest star vehicle for Griffith, certainly in the way it keeps her front and centre for most of the runtime, and allows her to work alongside a couple of star names comfortably leaning into their star status. The fact that it's a more adult reworking of The Secret Of My Success (which I'm sure was probably based on at least one or two previous tales) is neither here nor there. The main thing is that it's very enjoyable stuff. 

Griffith plays Tess McGill, a secretary who works for her boss, Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver), under the mistaken impression that she will be recognised and rewarded for all of her hard work. Seeing how she has been betrayed when her best idea is passed along by Katharine without giving her any credit, Tess decides to make some major moves when Katharine has to be absent for a while. She moves into the main office, upgrades her wardrobe, and starts seriously impressing Jack Trainer (Harrison Ford).

Working Girl has a decent script by Kevin Wade, which remains arguably the best he ever wrote, and solid direction by Mike Nichols. It's a great snapshot of the time, and makes a nice companion piece to the much more testosterone-heavy Wall Street, which was released the year before. The two films show people striving for great success, but with very different ideas of just what exactly that success looks like, and they both feature main characters who seem equal parts inspirational and monstrous, depending on how well they maintain their charming facade while holding on to their power and position.  

It's the cast who really make this shine though. Griffith is perfect in her lead role, and her transformation works as well as it does because they're only aesthetic choices that help her in her "fake it until you make it" mission. Weaver has a lot of fun as the big boss, enjoyably selfish and narcissistic, but deflecting any criticism by using a fake bond of feminist sisterhood and talk of long-term plans. Ford is playing the straight man to the two leading ladies, and he's well-suited to being someone as charming and charismatic and laconic as Ford can be. There's also room to have fun with Alec Baldwin, Joan Cusack, Nora Dunn, and Oliver Platt, and the likes of Kevin Spacey, Olympia Dukakis, and Timothy Carhart are scattered throughout the supporting cast.

I'm happy to have revisited this film for the first time in a looooooooong time, but I'm even more excited to eventually make time for a number of lesser-known titles that starred Griffith in a main role. Few may hit the same heights as this, but I hope they all at least showcase someone I am finally appreciating onscreen almost four decades after they were at the peak of their career.

8/10

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Prime Time: Shortcut To Happiness (2007)

AKA The Devil And Daniel Webster.

Based on a story by Stephen Vincent Benet, which was subsequently adapted into a play, "Scratch", by Archibald Macleish, Shortcut To Happiness (known in some other territories as The Devil And Daniel Webster) shows how strange and mesmerising it can be when life imitates art. The production history of this film, which was due to premiere in 2001 before financial issues and investors being investigated for bank fraud delayed things by a number of years, and led to Alec Baldwin removing his name as the director of a film that he claims was taken away from him in post-production, is more interesting than anything onscreen. But considering the plot is all about someone who wants success, and then finds that getting what he wants doesn't really make him happy, it's hard to hear about the troubles of this feature and not think of it as the end result of someone slightly tempting fate.

Because it's clear that Baldwin wasn't ready to direct a feature. Look, to be fair, maybe there's a better version of this with the right money in place and the right editing of the footage, but it's hard to see it as anything other than a huge disappointment, only of note because of some of the supporting players. It adds nothing to a familiar Faustian tale, doesn't ever get the tone right, and has a lead character that is hard to root for.

Baldwin plays Jabez Stone, a writer who isn't having much luck. He continues to write, but has yet to make any progress when it comes to getting actual sales and readers. That looks set to change when he meets The Devil (played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, who at least has a twinkle in her eye missing from many others onscreen). As his success builds, other things fall by the wayside. Things like friendship, good company, and his reputation. Julius Jensen (Dan Aykroyd) is a fellow writer and friend, but The Devil decides he must take a fall in order for Jabez to climb higher. The same goes for Mike (Barry Miller), albeit in a different way. Molly (Amy Poehler) seems to remain quite neutral, but even she states that she isn't as big a fan of the new Jabez as she was of the old version. Can anything be done to make the deal with the devil null and void? If it can be done, Daniel Webster (Anthony Hopkins) is the man for the job. Considering he's not a complete stranger to The Devil. 

Pete Dexter and Nancy Cassaro may be unfamiliar writers to me, but I'm astonished that Bill Condon joined them for this project and was unable to salvage it. The whole thing is a messy mix of teenage-level philosophy conversations and utter smugness, livened up by the occasional scene that allows Hewitt to have fun. While some of the cast members can save individual moments, none of them can make up for the awfulness of Baldwin in the main role. Maybe he should stick to his strengths, considering how great he can be when he delivers cameo performances that allow him to almost steal entire movies away from featured cast members.

Aside from Baldwin, just bad, and Hewitt, who I wish was given this role in a far better movie, you have Aykroyd being a bit of a boor (which he does well enough), Miller being quite the downer (which HE does well enough), and Poehler being, well, barely present. Hopkins does a decent Hopkins turn, although it needed to be a bit MORE full-on Hopkins, not something I say often, and there's a disappointing waste of both Bobby Cannavale and Kim Cattrall.

There are times when everything about this seems designed to repel viewers, particularly an ending that presents the viewer with absolutely nothing worth mulling over as the credits roll. It's not clever, nor is it thought-provoking. It's just a final middle finger from a film that has already spent 106 minutes insulting anyone who continued to watch it in the hope that it would get any better.

3/10

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Prime Time: Along Came Polly (2004)

In the rather small list of actresses who have more than once played characters evaluated by someone nerdy enough to use statistics and/or a list of good and bad qualities, Jennifer Aniston ends up at the very top. After being put through that particular humiliation once in Friends, she is here made to go through an all too similar experience here. All because she ends up dating someone who goes through life trying to minimise risk.

Ben Stiller is Reuben Feffer, a man who lives his life in much the same way he does his job, by analyzing risks. This leads to him being blindsided while his new wife (Debra Messing) cheats on him during their honeymoon. Heartbroken and out of sorts, he then meets up with Polly (Aniston), and the two soon attempt a few dates, none of which are as safe as Reuben would like them to be.

It's worth bearing in mind that Along Came Polly is about as safe a rom-com for everyone involved as it is possible to get. One or two seconds of bawdiness aside, it plays out exactly how you think it will, and every cast member is allowed to stay well within their comfort zone. Aniston is a beautiful woman who isn't always as organised and sensible about things as she could be (ring any bells?), Stiller is a fairly repressed man who starts to enjoy the process of loosening up slightly (yep, he's done that before), and Alec Baldwin is onscreen just long enough to remind you why a small role for Alec Baldwin is almost always a good thing. Even Philip Seymour Hoffman is very much at ease, having a lot of fun in one of his all-too-rare comedic turns (standard comedy, there are a lot of wonderful performances from Hoffman that use him well in darkly comedic ways).

Written and directed by John Hamburg, who had previously worked on the scripts for both Meet The Parents and Zoolander for Stiller (and would also work on the sequels to those movies), there's nothing here that shows any attempt to even push against the rom-com boundary lines. The infrequent moments of toilet humour and slapstick have been done better in other movies, the leads don't have any decent chemistry together (as much as I like him, Stiller is a difficult male lead for females to create chemistry with), and none of the set-pieces are that funny. It's also hard to care about the characters, nothing is really earned and it's just a case of waiting for the dominoes to knock each other over on the way to the ending.

It's passable entertainment if you don't mind Stiller and Aniston in the main roles, but the most pleasure comes from those providing support, be it a slick-as-ever Baldwin turn, a wonderfully selfish Hoffman, a daredevil tycoon played by Bryan Brown, and even a scuba-diving lothario played by Hank Azaria. Never one that will top any lists of firm favourites, Along Came Polly is the kind of film you end up watching in the afternoon while staying in bed during a sick day. Hardly a glowing recommendation, I know, but different movies can fulfil different needs when the time is right.

5/10

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Filmstruck Friday: Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

I haven't seen many other movies directed by James Foley. I can't even say that I remember his name when I am not ensuring that I get the details right for this movie review. But he's the man at the helm of one of my favourite films. Yet, and I know this may seem unfair, he's probably the person I would credit least with helping to make this film great. I save most of the praise for the writer, David Mamet adapting his own play for the screen, and the cast, which I will get to in due course.

The plot revolves around a bunch of real estate salesmen who get quite a shock when the company sends along a no-nonsense "axeman" to lay down the law - the top salesman will get a prize, the second will get a lesser prize, third place gets you fired. Knowing that there are a whole stack of new, promising, sales leads in the office, the group start to be tempted, being used to doing whatever it takes to get sales and earning their own commission.

It's hard not to write this review and just fill up space with choice quotes from this movie. Fans of Mamet will already know him as quite the wordsmith, pick any film he's been a part of and you can find some magnificent dialogue, but this may well be his best work, which is quite the compliment when you think of his other stuff (off the top of my head, I highly recommend both House Of Games and The Spanish Prisoner). It's not just the individual soundbites here, Glengarry Glen Ross is an ensemble piece that makes sure everyone involved has at least one chance to relish their role.

Where to begin with the cast? Al Pacino is there, giving a very entertaining performance even as he teeters on the edge of the full self-parody he would ease into by the mid-1990s, Ed Harris is at his angry best, and Alan Arkin is a man who feels less assured and more out of place among the more savage salesmen he works with. Jonathan Pryce is also wonderful for every moment he's onscreen, playing a potential customer being "wooed" by Pacino. You also get Kevin Spacey as the man in charge of the office, and in charge of those precious sales leads, and Alec Baldwin in such a brilliant bit of scene-stealing that I believe, but could be wrong, it set him on the right path of decades of scene-stealing ahead of him, something he does so much better than any lead roles (sorry Alec . . . like he'd ever read this). Despite all of that talent on display, and not one of the cast members lets the side down, the best performance in the movie comes from the one and only Jack Lemmon. It's hard to properly convey just how absolutely brilliant he is here, giving a masterclass in acting as his character is, by turns, bitter, manipulative, charming, depressed, elated, foolish, wise, and more. He seems to be the hungriest of the group, a hunger born of his current situation and his recollection of his past glory days.

Okay, I guess I should give more credit to Foley. Not only does he make sure that the camera is pointing the right way (although this is a very unfussy adaptation of the play that could just as easily have been, with a few tweaks, a straight recording of the show) but he makes the most of the cast and does a great job of not trying to fix anything that isn't broken. Unlike the onscreen events, this is very much a team effort.

The only things stopping Glengarry Glen Ross from being a perfect movie for me are the fact that a) it feels a bit stagey during the few times when I am not distracted by the script, b) I would have preferred some better resolutions for a couple of characters who just end up exiting before the final scenes, and c) there is no c. I just wouldn't have felt right if I ended the review without a reminder to Always Be Closing.

9/10

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Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

You may have already seen clips of Tom Cruise in action for this latest Mission: Impossible movie. He dives out of a plane. He races through the streets of Paris. He flies a helicopter in a manner not to be found in the "Guide To Being A More Responsible Helicopter Pilot". He does all of that and more. You may have also already heard the glowing praise. A lot of people are calling this the best of the franchise. A lot of people are calling it a new action classic.

Yeah, about that. Let's take off the rose-tinted IMAX glasses and turn things down just a notch.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout is a very good film. There are times when it is great. The stuntwork is often bordering on the insane, making it insanely entertaining, but this isn't the best action movie in years. I'd say that it even falls just below the previous two entries in this series, and I'll go into just why that's the case in a little while.

Cruise is Ethan Hunt once again, of course, and he's flanked by Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames) as they try to recover some stolen plutonium cores that they don't want falling in to the hands of The Apostles (who have remained at work despite the loss of their leader, Solomon Lane, played by Sean Harris). Henry Cavill is a CIA agent, August Walker, tasked with keeping a closer eye on Hunt and his team, Rebecca Ferguson returns as the kickass Ilsa Faust, and a few other familiar faces pop up to join the fun.

Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie (now on his third film with Cruise and his second in this series, the first director to return) knows how to sketch characters, dynamics, and the potentially complex plotting of a good spy caper. It's great to see a number of threads picked up and expertly manipulated. Plot points drop in and reverberate through this movie, and even the events of the past movies, with the impact of a fly that just found itself unexpectedly caught in a spiderweb. And this all happens in between, and sometimes during, those magnificent action set-pieces.

The cast all slip back into their roles with ease. Cruise is, as we all know nowadays, either fearless or completely insane. He won't rest until one of these films allows him to escape a space-set shockwave as he glides down to Earth on the back of a toothy creature a la "Ace" Rimmer from Red Dwarf. Pegg and Rhames are great support, their characters bringing just a small amount of comedy while reinforcing the few bonds that connect IMF with individual lives instead of just faceless masses to be saved. Ferguson is slightly underserved by the script, but does very good work with what she's given. Harris remains a menacing figure, Vanessa Kirby is good fun as a "broker", and Cavill is absolutely brilliant as the sledgehammer who may break our heroes if he thinks things aren't going to plan. You also get some nice work from Alec Baldwin, again, and Angela Bassett. There's even some screentime for Michelle Monaghan.

That covers most of the fun stuff. I could mention how exhilarated I felt watching Cruise ride a motorbike the wrong way around the Arc de Triomphe. I could try to describe the sheer joy I felt while Cruise called Cavill a prick. You get the idea. There are lots and lots of fun moments. And I won't deny that some of the action beats are next-level in their scale and choreography, for a mainstream blockbuster release. The finale is especially adept at jumping from one white-knuckle moment to the next.

The non-fun stuff is also very good. The subtitle here may be Fallout but I suspect that's because Weight just wouldn't sound as good. Believe me, however, when I say that this film is all about weight. The weight of responsibility, the weight of constantly making decisions based on murky and fluid morality, the weight of the practical effects, the weight of emotions. People may remember the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few but this film reminds us all that the choice weighs just as heavily on the person having to make the call, and also that sometimes the end games are one and the same. It also makes an interesting point about the war on terror and how the good intentions can create even more dangers and enemies. I would argue that the two moments in this film that completely sum up Ethan Hunt are a scene in which he apologises to a wounded police officer in French and a scene in which he tells the other team members that he won't let them down, even as everyone realises that they can no longer hear one another. Even with his team, Hunt alone feels the total weight of the job, especially while maintaining a moral code that others may lack.

Where the film falls down slightly, certainly in comparison to the previous missions, is in the scenes which allow it to remind us of the past. McQuarrie ties up loose ends that few people were all that bothered about. He does it well, or as well as he can, but it still feels unnecessary. The same goes for some of the details and callbacks that make the film feel like some grand sendoff rather than just a grand adventure. I'm not going to namecheck them all, and I am not saying that there are lots and lots, but fans of the series will find some moments feeling far too familiar because McQuarrie felt that he needed to include some extra little nods and winks.

The fourth film had amazing set-pieces without a memorable villain, the fifth film had the perfect mix of both. This film sits somewhere between the two. The villains are great, the action is often brilliant, but it's a bit overlong, a bit happy to scamper back and forth to the same well, and sometimes, even for this series, feels a bit too unbelievably coincidental and convenient.

But I'll be just as eager to see the next mission. And I'll be buying this one ASAP.

EDIT: I have changed my mind slightly on this, the bad doesn’t do enough to bother me on repeat viewings, and I think maybe wearing the rose-tinted glasses can be a nice experience sometimes.

9/10

Your mission can be found here.

Still Alice (2014)

Julianne Moore is Dr. Alice Howland, a linguistics professor who starts to worry when she realises that her ability to recall words seems to be diminishing. After a number of sessions with a doctor it becomes clear, although not quite believable, that she has early onset Alzheimer's disease. She has to break the news to her family, and also has to set in place a number of measures that will help her live a nirmal life for as long as possible.

This is standard stuff, very much TV-movie-of-the-week. The screenplay, by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, is based on a novel by Lisa Genova, which at least makes everything more interesting and powerful by having Alice be a linguistics professor. She arguably knows the value of individual words more than most, highlighting the deterioration of her mental acuity in the first stages of her illness.

Glatzer and Westmoreland also direct the movie together. While they don't show themselves to be experts in the field, they're smart enough to cast well and intersperse the second half of the movie with some moving moments.

Moore is excellent in the main role, as you'd expect her to be. There are one or two moments in the first half of the movie that have her repeating herself from past performances, but it's when she starts to lose aspects of her main identity that she truly shows what she's capable of. It's not up there with her best performances, in my opinion. It's still very good stuff though. Alec Baldwin puts in another great supporting turn (he's never disappointing in those roles), and Kate Bosworth and Hunter Parrish are two of the three grown-up children who struggle as they see their mother losing her mind. But it's the third child I'm going to spend the most time discussing. She's an aspiring actress, and still finding her place in the big world before all of her hopes and dreams are dashed. Played by Kristen Stewart, she's the best of the supporting characters, and Stewart gives perhaps the best performance in the film. Often sidelined, and often treated as if she doesn't know her own mind, she can probably see the situation that her mother is going through from a much closer perspective than anyone else around her, leading her to be the most selfless and sympathetic of the group.

It's a shame that the film just isn't a bit better. I guess it's difficult to make a movie like this feel like anything more than a well-intentioned melodrama. The cast all try hard, but can only raise it up so far. It's worth your time, and those wanting some inoffensive drama will certainly enjoy it a bit more than I did. Ultimately, it's quite forgettable, which is a tragic irony.

6/10

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It's Complicated (2009)

A romantic comedy written and directed by Nancy Meyers, this is pretty much in line with every other romantic comedy written and directed by Nancy Meyers. It has the added "bonus" of allowing viewers to watch Meryl Streep get frisky and Alec Baldwin act like a horndog (I didn't want to use the word but, believe me, it's the most appropriate one) while it meanders from start to finish.

Streep and Baldwin play a long-divorced couple who rediscover the spark between them. At first it seems great, but it doesn't bode well for Baldwin's current wife (played by Lake Bell) or the man (Steve Martin) who is showing interest in Streep. Hence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . it's complicated.

Okay, there's an intended demographic here that I'm not part of, yet, but that's still no excuse to make a movie quite as poor as this. It may have some older leads, but it could at least have the decency to show them at their best. Instead, this is just wastes the talents of all involved.

At least Streep and Martin get to have fun in a sequence that sees them acting like a pair of stoned teenagers (because, well, they're stoned), but the rest of the movie leaves them adrift in a sea of mediocrity. Baldwin is as good as ever, despite the fact that I could live my life happily without seeing him parading around with so few clothes on. Lake Bell is stuck with a character that we're not supposed to like, and does a good job, and there are a few scenes for Mary Kay Place and Rita Wilson to . . . . . . . . . not do much at all. Nice to see them anyway. John Krasinski is the most fun, playing the future son-in-law who accidentally discovers what's going on between Streep and Baldwin.

If you can find anything in the script or direction that comes as a surprise then you've clearly been living in a monastery for the past fifty years. Meyers, as she so often does, walks the path to commercial success on a carpet of cliches and harmless, bland moments. If a boxset of her work was ever released it could be tagged "The Beige Collection."

But what do I know? This was another big hit at the box office. People lapped it up. I won't encourage anyone to seek it out, but you probably won't hate it if you ever do give it a watch. Even I could only muster up the energy to slightly dislike it.

4/10

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Beetlejuice (1988)

For people who may have forgotten just how good that Tim Burton used to be, for those who have seen nothing from him apart from remakes, Beetlejuice is one of his many, earlier works that will remind you of his imagination, humour and sheer brilliance.

It's the tale of a married couple (played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) who have their happy life unexpectedly spoiled by premature death. Completely bewildered by their situation, the couple find their situation getting worse and worse as their home is then bought and inhabited by a horrible couple (Catherine O'Hara and Jeffrey Jones) and their morbid daughter (Winona Ryder). As they watch their home become "infested" with unpleasant people they turn, in desperation, to Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), a bio-exorcist who claims that he can solve their problem.

Everything here ticks the boxes for a Tim Burton movie - the use of Danny Elfman for a lively score, the macabre subject matter with plenty of humour in there, the wonderful visuals and main roles for some of his favourite people of the 1980s (Keaton, of course, was his choice for Bruce Wayne/Batman and Ryder was also given a starring role in Edward Scissorhands).

The script by Michael McDowell and Warren Skaaren is enjoyable enough but this is a movie elevated to greatness by a number of flawless performances. Particular praise must go to Michael Keaton, who gives yet another hugely entertaining turn in the title role despite the character not being onscreen for little more than about 15 minutes. Davis and Baldwin are very likeable as the recently deceased couple trying to protect their home while O'Hara, Jones and Glenn Shadix are very UNlikeable as the new people trampling over many happy memories. Shadix, in particular, is irritating and completely pretentious as Otho, someone who pretends to know everything about everything worth knowing. Winona Ryder is very good as the young girl who happens to figure out exactly what's going on before the rest of her horrid family.

There are great depictions of the afterlife, an unforgettable staging of Day-O (and one or two other songs from Harry Belafonte) and a mixed bag of practical special effects that may not hold up as perfect creations but certainly retain plenty of charm. Beetlejuice is a movie that I have always remembered with fondness but haven't seen that often since that first viewing back in the '80s. It's a pleasant surprise to find that it's one of those movies that just gets better and better with each viewing.

9/10

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