The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Although it can be daunting to have an ever-growing “to watch” list, with every main movie title reminding me of at least three or four other movies I have still to get around to, I love any time when the film conversation flows around certain genres or topics in a way that leads to me being encouraged to check out something considered a classic by many. And that is how I came to belatedly watching The Asphalt Jungle recently.

It’s a simple tale. A group of people are put together to commit a robbery, but the job is endangered by the potential for misfortune and treachery. People start to suffer, but the moral core of the film means that viewers will be expecting a downbeat finale from the very opening scenes.

Based on a novel by W. R. Burnett, this is a screenplay co-written by Ben Maddow and director John Huston that nicely blends the prep and execution of the crime with moments showing us some more background of some of the key players. Huston keeps things paced perfectly, and benefits from an excellent cast.

Sterling Hayden is the nominal lead, Dix Handley, and he tries hard to keep a cool head, even as others start to panic. Sam Jaffe is the man with the expertise required to pull off the robbery, allowing himself to trust in the men who make up the brawn surrounding his brain. James Whitmore and Anthony Caruso play Gus and Ciavelli, respectively, the other two men making up the core team. Everyone does good work, but Hayden and Jaffe stand out, helped by the fact that we get to spend a bit more time with their characters. There’s also a great selection of supporting players, allowing us to enjoy great performances from Louis Calhern and Jean Hagen, the former as slippery and untrustworthy as the latter is sweet and dependable. I could reel off many other names, each deserving a mention for their part in making this a consistently gripping tale, but you should just see them all for yourself. Oh, and Marilyn Monroe shines in one main scene (the merest hint of what was to come with her star ascending).

It goes without saying that Huston is a great director for this material, and those familiar with any of his films will know what to expect here. The Asphalt Jungle shows a number of people who end up stuck between a rock and a hard place, some holding on to their own moral code while others are willing to make bigger sacrifices if it gets them an escape route, and it may well have you rooting for one or two people that you wouldn’t normally root for. 

A classic, but most people know that already.

9/10

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Noelle (2019)

Although it's nowhere close to being a modern holiday classic, Noelle is a lovely Christmas Disney film for all the family, and one that you may find yourself rewatching more than the multitude of annual new releases that appear on your TV schedule. It's got a number of familiar faces, for one thing, and it also has a supercute baby reindeer.

Anna Kendrick and Bill Hader are Noelle ad Nick Kringle, respectively. They are the children of Santa, who is shown at the very start of the movie before viewers are then informed of his passing. That means that the role, and responsibility, goes to Nick. He's not sure he's up to the task though, and nothing seems to come naturally to him, from understanding languages to figuring out whether a child is naughty or nice. Which leads to him, well, running away. Days before Christmas. Noelle, accompanied by an elf named Polly (Shirley MacLaine),  must track him down. She enlists the help of a detective (Jake Hapman, played by Kingsley Ben-Adir), someone who is coincidentally in need of some Christmas spirit, even if he doesn't realise it, and races against the clock to get her brother home in time to save Christmas for children everywhere.

This has everything you'd expect from it, all mixed together in a way that is as entertaining as it is predictable (there are very few Christmas movies that aren't completely predictable, that's a part of their charm at this time of year). Kendrick is a natural fit for her role, and Hader is a lot of fun as he is shown numerous times struggling to get to grips with being Santa. MacLaine seems to enjoy being an elf, Julie Hagerty is Mrs. Claus aka Mom, and Billy Eichner has fun as Gabriel Kringle, someone who has ideas about making Christmas more efficient that clashes with the spirit of the season. Ben-Adir is just fine as the understandably sceptic detective, Maceo Smedley does decent work as his son, and there are small, enjoyable, turns from Diana Maria Riva, Shaylee Mansfield, and Michael Gross, among others.

Written and directed by Marc Lawrence, a dab hand at making enjoyable comedies (especially if they star Hugh Grant and/or Sandra Bullock), the biggest disappointment about Noelle is the lack of magic. It's there onscreen, in the form of the many skills you get to assume the role of Santa, but it rarely feels as it should. Magical Christmas movies should feel as if a number of scenes are filmed through a haze of tinsel and twinkling lights, or even just taking place inside a snowglobe sometimes, but this never feels that way. Not even during the sleigh ride sequences. 

There's plenty of fun to be had though, especially as Noelle discovers more about our world, and the cast are all doing their bit to sell the characters and world on display. There are one or two decent running gags, decent production values, and at least one huge hot chocolate to remind you that you need to make yourself one while sitting down and enjoying the rest of the movie. And it also has a SUPERCUTE reindeer.

6/10

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Miss Congeniality (2000)

Once you get beyond the opening act of Miss Congeniality, with numerous scenes built around the fact that Sandra Bullock isn't viewed as a lady because she's strong, smart, doesn't take time to ensure her hair and make-up are flawless every morning, and is generally just "one of the guys", things improve considerably. Instead of just trying to hide Bullock in the wrinkled clothing of "FBI slob", she gets a chance to shine, in terms of her transformed appearance and also, more importantly, in scenes that show her talent for comedy.

The basic plot is nonsense, but nonsense that makes the whole thing easy enough to buy into. Bullock is Gracie Hart, the only agent available at short notice to help infiltrate the Miss United States beauty pageant, which the FBI believes has been targeted by a dangerous criminal who wishes to blow it up. Gracie only has a couple of days to be groomed by Victor Melling (Michael Caine), who initially suspects it's a job that even a man of his skills cannot manage, and she is a pain in the backside of all those involved, be it the hosts (played by Candice Bergen and William Shatner) or her colleagues at the bureau (Benjamin Bratt tries to offer support, Ernie Hudson is the boss none too impressed by the whole escapade).

Director Donald Petrie has a filmography with some solid comedies in there, but few real greats. This is another solid one, almost lifted higher by the performances from a couple of the main players. Although it's all put together competently enough, it suffers from a script that fails to wring as many laughs from each sequence as it could. Marc Lawrence has written a few features that Bullock has starred in, whether by coincidence or by design, but co-writers Katie Ford and Caryn Lucas are names I am less familiar with, and that makes me wonder if there were a number of conflicting voices here that tried to pull the film in too many different directions, tonally, without keeping the comedy at the front and centre of their plans. You have the thriller plotline, often sidelined aside from one or two key sequences, you have the "fish out of water" aspect of Bullock being somewhere she really doesn't want to be, and you get the moments of female bonding. None of these elements spoil the experience, but the shifts in tone are enough to make it feel inconsistent and lacking in cohesion.

The consistency comes from the main performances. Bullock is a lot of fun, making the most of this star vehicle, and Caine works very well alongside her, helped by the fact that he grabs most of the best lines from the script. Bergen and Shatner are both good, with the latter a perfect fit for the role of slick show host, and Heather Burns is very sweet as "Miss Rhode Island", a girl who brings out the protective nature of Bullock's character. Other contestants are played by Melissa De Sousa, Deirdre Quinn, and Wendy Raquel Robinson, although they often have to resign themselves to being scene-setting accessories in most of their scenes. Hudson gets to be angry in a couple of scenes, and that's his whole character (basically), and Bratt gets the thankless role of potential romantic interest, which makes a nice change from a talented actress being stuck in such a role.

There's a good selection of familiar hits in the soundtrack, some amusing lines of dialogue outwith the exchanges between Bullock and Caine (my favourite being the answer to a question about a favourite date), and it just about manages not to outstay its welcome. If you're a massive fan of Bullock then you may want to add an extra point. Everyone else can have more laughs with Drop Dead Gorgeous (a much funnier film with a similar setting, albeit very different thanks to the mock-doc style) first, and then get to this one whenever the opportunity arises.

6/10

You can buy the movie, with the sequel, here.
Americans can buy it here.

Netflix And Chill: The Rewrite (2014)

The Rewrite is just about as predictable as a movie can be. It's not even too far removed from many other Hugh Grant movies from the last couple of decades. And I really enjoyed, I tell you, REALLY enjoyed it. Despite the predictability, I almost rated it even higher than I eventually did.

Grant stars as Keith Michaels, an Oscar-winning writer who hasn't recaptured that glory in many years. He as had numerous meetings that lead to nothing and he needs some money. So he accepts a teaching job in Binghampton, despite believing that writing cannot be taught. Instead of reading all of the script extracts that should be the deciding factor on who gets into the class, he picks attractive girls (including Karen, played by Bella Heathcote, who he has also slept with on his first night in town) and a couple of non-threatening males. There's someone else who wants to get into his class. A woman (Holly, played by Marisa Tomei) who tries to hold on to optimism, whatever life has thrown her way. Will the students learn anything? Can Keith even make it to the end of term? He has a couple of allies (played by Chris Elliott and J. K. Simmons) but quickly makes a powerful enemy (Allison Janney).

The Rewrite is written and directed by Marc Lawrence, the man who also gave us Hugh Grant vehicles such as Two Weeks Notice, Music & Lyrics, and Did You Hear About The Morgans? I haven't seen that last movie YET but this film is very much in line with the first two. Grant is someone who, throughout the course of the film, eventually learns some lessons while finding himself growing closer to someone who may become a love of his life. Hs charm and humour help people to overlook his flaws as he wades through territory that is unfamiliar to him, and there's usually a major wobble in the third act that has to be fixed for a standard, happy, rom-com ending. Lawrence does this so entertainingly, helped by his leads and the whole supporting cast, that it's easy to actually admire the formulaic nature of it, rather than resent it.

Grant is as wonderful as he usually is in this kind of role, working a fun mix of cynicism, desperation, and a small shred of hope that he can see things out long enough to get back on his feet. Tomei is equally wonderful, she has been a romantic lead in many other movies and is always believably warm and lovable in those roles. Heathcote does well, as do Andrew Keenan Bolger, Steven Kaplan, Emily Morden, Annie Q, and the other women playing the students. Simmons is a delight as a man who jokingly gripes about being the only man in a household with his wife and daughters, and who always gets emotional when he starts talking about them in earnest, Elliott is fun as a teacher who wishes that his ability yo find a Shakespeare quote for any occasion could improve his lot in life, and Janney is very welcome in a role that could have easily gone to a lesser-known performer.

The only downside I can think of is the decidely average score. Well, you also have the formula, sometimes feeling almost slavishly adhered to. This is disposable entertainment. It just happens to be disposable entertainment that made me smile, laugh, and feel satisfyingly entertained from start to finish. Others might even agree with me.

6/10

You can buy The Rewrite here.
Americans can buy it here.

Hold That Ghost (1941)

Abbott & Costello star in a film with a well-used premise that will be familiar to many. Sadly, it fails to include any of their better material and so ends up being one of their weaker outings from the first phase of their career.

The boys are a couple of gas station attendants unsuited to anything that has more responsibility (as illustrated at the beginning when they fail to grasps the basic of waiting on diners). They have about as much luck as they do cunning but that's all set to change. When a famous crook, Moose Matson (William Davidson), dies in their presence they are rewarded as the benefactors in his strange will and testament. Moose was so untrusting and paranoid that he simply left his estate to whoever was by his side at his moment of death. But people want to find out where Moose hid his stash of cash, which leads to plenty of scare tactics when the boys are driven out to the run-down building full of secret panels, dark corners and revolving casino furnishings.

Directed by Arthur Lubin, and written by Robert Lees, Fred Rinaldo and John Grant, Hold That Ghost has a number of enjoyable moments here and there but often relies too much on Lou Costello overacting as someone being petrified by events that everyone else seems to miss. His wheezing and muffled panic starts to grate quickly but it's the focus of the fun again and again and again. The sad thing is that the cast around our comedy duo are really quite a good bunch. The Andrews Sisters pop up for a couple of numbers, but are thankfully missing from most of the movie, and Joan Davis and Evelyn Ankers are fantastic actresses and great sports for going along with the fun. Richard Carlson is very enjoyable as the doctor far too busy examining things around him to actually notice the important things and Marc Lawrence and Mischa Auer are both just fine.

If this film was just above average then it would still pale in comparison to films such as The Cat And The Canary (the 1939 version), The Ghost Breakers (1940) and even the daffy Scared Stiff (which, to be fair, came a long time after in 1953). It would also pale in comparison to the later A & C movies that mixed comedy with mystery and/or supernatural elements. But it's not even just above average, it doesn't really satisfy and it just doesn't hold up all that well for fans who want to enjoy some quick-talking, quick-thinking fun and idiocy.

5/10.

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