The Biggest Scam In AMERICAN HUSTLE Is The Idea That It's A Great Movie

"It's perfume, but there's also something rotten."

There comes a day in the life of every film fan when you realize that all awards shows are complete bullshit.

In my younger days I used to get all excited about the SAG Awards, the Golden Globes and the Oscars because I was laboring under the delusion that the quantity of trophies won somehow corresponded to a film's quality or value within the industry.  My mistake was confusing film awards shows for an honest and objective competition based upon skill and merit as opposed to what they really are, a socio-political popularity contest.  I think for me, the curtain was really pulled back in 2000, when Julia Roberts won the Best Actress Oscar for Erin Brockovich over Ellen Burstyn's astounding performance in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem For A Dream.  Quite frankly, I'm still astounded that anyone would even put the two performances on the same level, let alone hold Roberts' paint-by-numbers portrayal as superior to one of the single greatest female performances I've ever seen in a film.  (Julie Christie's work in Away From Her just might edge out Burstyn.)  In that instance it was clear that the Academy members were simply voting for Roberts because they all really liked her and it was a reasonable excuse to give her an Oscar because she didn't have one yet.  They were voting for the performer, not the performance.  The same thing happened the following year when Denzel Washington won a Best Actor performance for Training Day, mostly I suspect because the Academy forgot to give him one for Malcolm X.  (At this rate, it seems likely that DiCaprio will suffer a similar fate, getting snubbed for truly deserving work like The Wolf Of Wall Street only to win for some far less impressive movie years from now once guilt finally gets the better of Academy voters.)

These days I care very little about awards.  In fact, the only show that I still watch regularly is the Oscars, mostly because I think the results at the end of the night still have a fairly significant impact on the kind of movies that studios choose to greenlight in the immediate aftermath.  There's still a historical significance to the Academy Awards that simply isn't present in something as insular as the SAG Awards or as downright silly as the Golden Globes.  But even that significance is incredibly relative, and just because a movie ends up winning Best Picture, that doesn't necessarily guarantee it a place of standing and influence within the larger popular culture.  There are more than a few movies that lost out on the big night and yet continue to reverberate throughout the collective unconscious years after they left the big screen, while plenty of Best Pictures have withered down to mere historical footnotes; we're all familiar with Citizen Kane while next to nobody remembers How Green Was My Valley.  If you want a more modern example, Jesse Eisenberg will forever be remembered for his indelible portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, a film whose lead actors have gone on to play such iconic roles as Spider-Man, The Lone Ranger and soon Lex Luthor.  Meanwhile, when's the last time you heard someone talk about The King's Speech?

In fact, I'm gonna call it right now: American Hustle is the new King's Speech/The Artist. (Be honest, you forgot that movie ever happened until right now.)  Hustle a film designed to win awards and then be promptly dismissed by the public at large.  It's got David O. Russell behind the camera, a talented director who's improbably morphed into a prestige artist despite a multi-year absence after the huge pile of weird that is I Heart Huckabees (probably my favorite Russell film) and the epic crash and burn of Nailed.  (Poor, poor Jessica Biel.)  The cast is chock full of fabulous A-List movie stars clad in a wide range of flamboyant period clothing and silly hairstyles.  The story is part con-man deception, part corrupt government sting operation, part sexy love quadrangle.  This movie's got everything going for it...

...and yet, I just don't care.

There are plenty of legitimate problems with the film, from the muddled structure to Jennifer Lawrence's muddled Long Island accent, but what's most frustrating is that it seems to operate on an almost cynical level of apathy.  No one seems to care about the actual story being told so much as they do the artifice and hollow style choices through which it is told.  Case in point: Christian Bale and Amy Adams are introduced as con artists who are incredibly successful and good at what they do, and yet their actual scams are presented as downright pedestrian, when they're being presented at all.  You'd wonder why the FBI would choose to depend on these two small-timers to bring down multiple U.S. Congressmen, but you don't wonder for very long because after about 45 minutes the movie gets bored with the con artist thing and almost completely drops the entire storyline.  When the movie suddenly tries to dive back into it in the last 20 minutes, not only do I no longer care but the big "surprise reveal" is executed with such neolithic incompetence that I don't even know why they bothered.  The final nail in the coffin for me came about 2/3 of the way through the film when a surprise big name cameo suddenly arrives in a key scene.  It's only a brief appearance, but considering the actor in question and the role they're portraying, that should have been a stand-up-and-cheer moment, a real highlight of the movie.  In a more engaging film, that would have been the point where my excitement and enjoyment shot through the roof.  In American Hustle, it felt like nothing more than an empty gesture, a calculated maneuver that capitalized on an actor essentially owing the director a favor.

The whole movie just sort lays flat on the screen, content to merely exist without pushing any kind of boundaries or doing anything remotely interesting.  Everyone, save Louis C.K, (inarguably the best part of the movie) is operating on complete cruise control, letting the Zeppelin soundtrack and feathered hair do all the work while they sit back and wait for the awards to come pouring in.  Which leads me to my biggest problem with American Hustle: it's simply not an awards caliber film in the absolute powerhouse that was 2013.  In a weaker year it would snag a bunch of nominations to pad out various categories and probably come away with a few isolated wins and you wouldn't care.  Years later you'd simply remember it as "that movie where Christian Bale got really fat and Jennifer Lawrence won another kinda bullshit Oscar."  But there's just no way to argue that Hustle belongs in the same conversation with Her, Wolf Of Wall Street, Gravity, 12 Years A Slave, Captain Phillips or even movies that weren't nominated like Inside Llewyn Davis, Stoker, Short Term 12 or Fruitvale Station.  Those are all movies that have a profound effect on the audience.  You simply don't walk out of the theater the same way that you walked into it.  American Hustle is the opposite of those movies.  It's Teflon.  Had it been released in May or August, it would have been considered the highbrow hit of the summer, a pleasant alternative to superheroes and explosions.  Instead, it's coasting through award season on the reputation of the players involved regardless of the actual film they've created.

And yet, when/if American Hustle ends up taking home a truckload of Oscars, I'll likely be filled not with righteous fury, but instead with mild annoyance.  I long ago realized that whether or not a movie wins trophies, that has no serious bearing on my enjoyment of the film going forward.  If a movie is really great, it will persist for years and even generations, no matter the ultimate tally of little golden men.  I'm going to be watching Wolf and Her over and over again for years to come, while American Hustle will quickly become relegated to the kind of movie you stumble into on cable some Saturday afternoon and leave playing in the background while you check your email and eat a grilled cheese sandwich.  I trust that history will appropriately sort it all out in the end.  The real crime here is that there are smaller movies like Inside Llewyn Davis, Nebraska, Dallas Buyers Club and Before Midnight that are never going to get the same kind of wide release and marketing platform as a slick awards ringer starring the likes of Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence.  Those movies actually depend upon the buzz generated from Oscar nominations to expand into more theaters and extend their theatrical runs.  It almost doesn't even matter if they win anything or not, as it's the simple act of being nominated which often determines how many people get the chance to actually see the film in a theater, which in turn plays a big part of how the film is eventually rolled out on home video.  So when I see the Academy lavishing praise upon Hustle while leaving Llewyn Davis twisting in the wind, I can't help but feel depressed about it.

So fuck it.  American Hustle certainly isn't bad, but it certainly isn't great either.  It is, at best, decent.  And it'll probably continue to win many awards.  My best prediction?  No matter what happens, in five years time Wolf Of Wall Street will still remain shorthand for excess and/or rampant nudity, with dumbass frat boys having Wolf-themed parties.  (They're doing it wrong.)  Meanwhile, you'll have completely forgotten that American Hustle ever existed in the first place.

Good riddance.

(Footnote: I watched American Hustle on Christmas Day with my parents, the first time we've ever made that particular holiday excursion.  It's pretty goddamn awkward watching a coked out Bradley Cooper try to fuck Amy Adams from behind in a grimy bathroom stall.  Then again, we almost went to see Wolf Of Wall Street.  So...bullet dodged.)

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Title: American Hustle
Director: David O. Russell
Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Louis C.K., Jack Huston, Michael Pena, Shea Wigham, Alessandro Nivola, Elisabeth Rohm
Year Of Release: 2013
Viewing Method: Theatrical - Mashpee Commons (4K)

So Let's Talk About MAN OF STEEL (Spoilers, Indeed)

"They will race behind you.  They will stumble, they will fall.  But in time, they will join you in the sun.  In time, you will help them accomplish wonders."

Before Bryan Singer's X-Men ushered in the modern comic book movie bonanza, there were two gold standards when it came to big screen superheroes in my lifetime: Tim Burton's Batman and Richard Donner's Superman.  I saw both when I was very young and each left very different yet equally indelible marks on my cinematic tastes.  Over time, the popular sentiment has seemed to favor Gotham's Dark Knight, especially after the overwhelming success of Nolan's trilogy, but I've always had a tremendous soft spot for the Last Son Of Krypton.  Meanwhile, my wife Jamie has always had trouble with the character because she finds his invulnerability to be dramatically dull, whereas plenty of others have told me that he's "too corny" or "kind of silly."  While Jamie makes a valid point, I would submit that those who have a problem with the tone of the character are really basing that stance on their remembrance of the four films starring Christopher Reeve, which spent a lot of time focusing on Clark as a bumbling fool and eventually got bogged down by absurd side characters like Richard Pryor's computer hacker or John Cryer's Lenny Luthor.  And while I maintain that Singer's Superman Returns is a gorgeous film that gets a lot of things very right, tying itself so closely to Donner's version of the character was ultimately a mistake.  The character has been long overdue for a completely fresh take, something that feels current but maintains the optimism that Donner and Reeve made so endearing.  Zack Snyder's Man Of Steel is a fairly radical departure from everything that's come before, and while not every change to the character and his familiar origin completely works, at the very least they're all interesting choices that add up to a compelling hero who is sure to dominate movie theaters for many years to come.

Let's talk about what works.  First and foremost is the film's cast, of which there is really no weak link.  Every one of the leads absolutely knocks it out of the park, and I love that the supporting cast is full of familiar faces like Christopher Meloni, Harry Lennix, and two cast members from both Battlestar Galactica and Smallville.*  And the very concept of Richard Schiff channeling Toby Ziegler in the midst of a Superman movie is endlessly entertaining to me.  (I kept waiting for him to pull a pink rubber ball out of his pocket.)  The first fifteen minutes of the film take place on Krypton and it's absolutely breathtaking stuff, full of ornate headpieces, floating robots and harnessed flying dragon beasts.  You really feel the withered age of their civilization, which is a pretty important part of Kryptonian society and why it's about to be destroyed.  Russell Crowe is superb as the stately warrior-scientist Jor-El, even when saddled with unfortunate dialogue like, "We've had a child.  A boy-child."  Kudos also to Ayelet Zurer as his wife Lara, who manages to convey a deep and palpable love for her infant son and an empathy for his future struggles with only a few scenes.

Amy Adams is wonderful as probably the best version of Lois Lane that's ever been committed to film.  While there was something rather adorable about Margot Kidder's brash and spelling-challenged take on the Daily Planet's intrepid reporter, when I first showed the movies to Jamie she had a real problem with Lois.  Specifically, Kidder's Lois was head over heels in love with Superman and completely ignored the bumbling Clark Kent, which made her feel totally superficial and seriously undermined her relationship with the character as a whole.  She wasn't in love with the actual person so much as the heroic ideal.  But this new Lois feels much more well rounded.  While she's always right in the thick of the action, the only time she's seriously in need of saving is when some sort of aircraft malfunctions and/or explodes and sends her falling through the sky.  She's almost never the damsel-in-distress, she's always an active participant in the action.  And Lois is not just a good reporter, she's a great reporter.  How do we know this?  Well aside from watching her toss back whiskeys and go toe-to-toe with the military, when she gets saved in the arctic by a mysterious stranger with superhuman abilities, she manages to track him all the way back to Smallville despite the fact that he'd been hiding his identity and traveling under assumed names for years.  Lois literally uncovers his secret before he ever puts on a cape.  That's some investigative fucking journalism.  But moreover, it fundamentally changes her relationship with Clark.  In bypassing all the secret identity nonsense up front, the connection between Lois and Clark becomes inherently stronger, especially since she managed to figure out his origins and track him down but then chose not to expose him to the public.  I think the romance angle is a little underwritten here, but this is a version of Lois and Clark that I can't wait to spend time with, one in which she's a true partner and confidant, as opposed to someone whom he's constantly lying to and manipulating.  The comics figured this out back in the 90's and I'm glad to see Snyder pick that thread up right from the outset.

A big part of the reason for Christopher Reeve's success in the role was his ability to not only embody the forthright heroics of Superman, but to be so thoroughly entertaining as the klutzy Clark Kent.  Most people tend to think of the character as split in two, but I've always considered him split in three, with Kal-El as the real, grounded, and conflicted person caught between two extreme public personas in Clark Kent and Superman.  Snyder and screenwriter David Goyer make an extremely smart choice here, forgoing all of that to give us one guy, Kal-El, searching for his place on an adopted homeworld.  He's still got an inner conflict between his human upbringing and his Kryptonian roots, but it doesn't manifest itself in silly disguises and split personalities.  Henry Cavill is utterly fantastic in the role, bringing a deep humanity that many would argue the character has lacked over the years.  Young Clark has often been portrayed as a typical all-American kid, but this Clark had a fairly terrifying childhood courtesy of the incredible powers that he couldn't always control.  He therefore turns into an outcast who's literally uncomfortable in his own skin.  It's little wonder that the adult Clark ends up wandering from job to job in isolated places, compelled to help people but unwilling to reveal himself to humanity because Pa Kent instilled in him such a fear of how mankind would react to the news of an all-powerful alien living among them.

The idea of humanity's reaction really drives a lot of the story here, but it's largely dictated by one somewhat maddening storytelling decision.  Even though the Jor-El hologram explicitly tells Clark that he's meant to serve as an example of inspiration and leadership to the people of Earth, he's so paralyzed by Jonathan Kent's protective paranoia that he's still nervous about showing humanity what he can do.  The audience is thus robbed of one of my favorite bits of any Superman movie: the montage of Superman zipping around Metropolis and engaging in some old-fashioned do-gooding.  I love the bits where Superman foils a bank robbery, or prevents a plane crash, or rescues a kitten from a tree.  It's a little old fashioned I guess, but it's also an essential part of who he is as a character.  Clark chooses to be a force for good and therefore takes it upon himself to suit up and help people from tragedies both large and small, and by revealing himself to mankind as a beacon of hope and justice he wins over humanity and becomes the people's champion.  But in Man Of Steel he only reveals himself when Zod holds the world at gunpoint, hacking into anything with a screen and broadcasting a threat to destroy the planet unless Kal-El surrenders.  Clark is so concerned with revealing himself at the right time and making the right impression on people, but the choice is essentially taken away from him here.  When a giant starship shows up and demands the planet turn him over or be destroyed, I'm sure most of humanity is thinking, "I don't know what you're talking about, but if there is a secret alien hiding out somewhere you're welcome to him.  What do we care?  Also, please don't blow us up."  Since Kal-El is still essentially a hidden refugee, I'm sure that plenty of people (i.e. Fox News talking heads) would have been incredibly distrustful of Superman when he did finally make his presence known.  It instantly colors the relationship between Superman and humanity in a weird light and I'm curious to see how Snyder intends to handle it going forward.

That potential distrust will most likely be fueled by the astounding devastation wrought at the end of the film.  I've simply never seen destruction on this kind of scale before.  Superman gets into a brawl with a few of Zod's henchmen that practically wipes Smallville off the map, but that's nothing compared to what goes down in Metropolis.  Zod sets up a terraforming device in the middle of the city that fucks with gravity, a device that is eventually brought down by creating a goddamn black hole that sucks the Kryptonians and their ship back into the Phantom Zone and, in the process, levels half the city.  As in, flattens many square miles to dust.  In the midst of all this chaos we have Laurence Fishburne as Perry White along with Intern Jenny (Olsen?) and Other Daily Planet Reporter scurrying between falling buildings and getting trapped in the wreckage.  But since they're not actually tied to the action going on in the skies overhead and we've only had a cursory interaction with the characters up to that point, it's a bit of a narrative dead end.  Clearly the only reason they're included is because A) they're canon characters that need to be established so they can have more to do in future movies and B) Zack Snyder wants us to focus on these three civilians who survive Zod's attack to distract us from the fact that tens of thousands of people are clearly dying all around them.  What's more, Superman seems unconcerned that he's causing mass casualties every time he punches Zod through a building.  At one point the two fly toward each other and collide full speed and the ensuing force collapses an entire building facade.  Sure it's awesome to watch, but it's also more than a little disturbing to contemplate the obvious toll it's taking on Metropolis.  When he fights in Smallville (a town SURROUNDED BY EMPTY FARMLAND) Superman offhandedly tells some bystanders to get inside the surrounding buildings, and within ten minutes every building has been knocked over or had a train thrown at it.  While I unabashedly tip my cap at Snyder for delivering the biggest superhero battle of all time, (Jamie remarked, "It's as if he watched The Avengers and said, 'I can totally blow up more stuff than that.'") it's also extremely frustrating to see Superman act with so little regard for the safety of those he's trying to protect.  I expect the sequel will feature Lex Luthor leading the charge to blame Superman for the unfathomable loss of life that resulted from Zod's last stand.

And speaking of loss of life, there are two deaths that I had a real problem with.  First is Jonathan Kent.  The death of Pa Kent is a crucial moment in the development of the character.  He's traditionally died of a heart attack, which is a formative experience for Clark and teaches him that even with all of his powers that there are some people that just can't be saved.  Instead, this Pa Kent runs out in a tornado to save the family dog while Clark stands by and watches as his father is swept away.  I'm sorry, but that's just stupid.  Maybe Clark couldn't have run out into the whirlwind and saved his father without giving away his powers to the crowd of onlookers,** but he certainly could have told his father, "No, you go wait under the overpass with Mom and I'll go save the dog because I CAN'T BE KILLED."  While it's still a powerful dramatic moment because Kevin Costner is so great in the role, the underlying moral is totally lost because his death was 100% preventable.  Instead it just becomes one more reason for Clark to resent his powers and his place in the world, and it makes me resent this version of Pa Kent as written.  He basically comes off like some kind of self-hating xenophobe and while that might feel like a more realistic depiction of a Midwestern farmer, it's a really bizarre choice for Superman's father.  Perhaps he should have imbued young Clark with a little more optimism and a little less distrust of humanity.  At least then Clark wouldn't have had to go see that priest and we could have been spared that subtle-as-a-brick-to-the-face shot of Clark with a stained glass Jesus over his shoulder.

Finally there's Zod.  Michael Shannon is nothing short of brilliant in the role of the mad general who will stop at nothing to protect Krypton's legacy and ensure the survival of his people.  It's infinitely more interesting than Terrance Stamp's "I will conquer whoever happens to be standing nearby" iteration of the character, as much as I love all that "Kneel before Zod" stuff.  No matter what this new Zod does, he always believes that it is right and necessary for the good of the Kryptonian race and Shannon fills the character with such righteous fury that you simply cannot look away whenever he's on screen.  The only thing disappointing about his character was his eventual resolution.  First of all, between this and Star Trek Into Darkness, I'm really sick of the good guys finally retrieving whatever Macguffin they've been searching for or destroying the enemy's doomsday device, only to then cram in one more superfluous set of fisticuffs after the fact.  I'm all for Supes and Zod slugging it out one-on-one in the skies of Metropolis and it's a fantastically staged fight, with a lot of great little touches like Superman floating in place when the floor falls out from under him, or using his heat vision to melt away the steel beam that Zod is swinging at his head.  Every punch sounds like a sonic boom and is accompanied by bright impact waves in the air.  It's a stupendous brawl.  But if there's one thing Superman has always held sacred above all else it's the sanctity of life.  It's why he always goes out of his way to protect civilians during a battle and it's why he doesn't kill his enemies.  And, much like his newly minted cavalier attitude towards collateral damage, here Superman is forced to snap Zod's neck before the villain can occularly roast a trapped family of four in Metropolis's Grand Central surrogate.  That decision might hold more dramatic water if they hadn't just inadvertently massacred a quarter of the city's population.

And aside from any logistical issues I might have with the method of execution***, it feels like an unnecessarily dark choice.  In this version, it's not enough that Superman doesn't kill people because it's morally wrong, instead he has to be tortured by the emotional scars of the one time he actually killed someone with his bare hands.  The moment is played dramatically, (before being abruptly dropped for some jokey shit in the desert) with Superman dropping to his knees and releasing a cry of anguish before clutching the nearby Lois Lane.  This feels like Batman's territory and it's precisely the reason that Superman and the Caped Crusader make such a potent pairing: Batman is cold and pragmatic with a deep inner turmoil, while Superman is warm and idealistic, an icon of hope in an uncertain world.  Cavill's Superman is meant to serve as the cornerstone for Warner's eventual Justice League movie and one of the keys to that film's success will be how they differentiate all the different characters.  They can't all be so dour.  I'm okay with scuffing up Superman's image a bit, but I hope that in the already-greenlit sequel we'll see a Supes who is not only a little more comfortable in his role as Earth's protector, but also properly earns the nickname "The Big Blue Boy Scout."

Zack Snyder became an easy target after the double whammy of Sucker Punch and that animated owl movie, but you simply cannot deny that the guy is a master of the visual medium.  He can compose the hell out of a shot and for all the kinetic insanity of Man Of Steel's finale, it's the little stuff that I've found has stayed with me, like the butterfly flapping its wings while stuck in the chains of a swingset, young Clark playing outside with a red cape pinned to his shoulders, or Jonathan Kent silently waving off Clark's help and accepting his fate.  Donner's scenes set in the fields of Kansas are some of the most memorable of the whole film and Snyder proves a worthy successor in that regard.  He doesn't shy away from the emotional side of Clark's journey but he also manages to keep the story from feeling truly overwrought or mopey.  And while he's abandoned his usual affinity for speed ramping, he seems to have developed the same obsession with dust motes floating through beams of light that J.J. Abrams has with lens flares.  But it's just a minor textural thing and I actually kind of dig it.  (Just like I secretly dig those lens flares.)  Oh yeah, and I simply cannot say enough good things about Hans Zimmer's incredible score.  I got obsessed with it after seeing the third trailer (embedded below) and immediately downloaded the entire deluxe double album.  In many ways it reminds me of his score for Nolan's Dark Knight movies, where there isn't exactly a catchy single melody like John Williams' Superman theme or Danny Elfman's Batman theme, but there are instead a series of variations strung throughout the film that add up to a complete musical landscape which defines the character and his world.  Zimmer's work here is absolutely soaring and propulsive and goes a long way towards setting the overall tone of the film and keeping things uptempo and inspirational whenever possible.  You might not walk out of the theater humming a specific tune, but when you hear this music you'll instantly recognize it as belonging to Superman.

The final scene is brief but perfect, with Clark showing up for his first day of work at the Daily Planet, lending further credence to the feeling that we've essentially been watching Superman Begins.  It's easy to connect the dots from Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy to Man Of Steel, especially considering that Nolan and Goyer shepherded both characters into theaters.  And while I wouldn't describe Man Of Steel as "grim and gritty," it's certainly taking itself extremely seriously.  The moments of levity are few and far between, and while Cavill's Clark Kent remains upbeat, some of the character's trademark altruistic hope and unbridled optimism still feels missing.  It's as if DC decided, "Well, Marvel has cornered the market on flat-out fun, popcorn-munching hero yarns, so instead we'll be prestigious and classy and IMPORTANT."

If I sound overly critical, it's only because I love Superman so damn much and I want him to always be awesome.  I really did enjoy Man Of Steel thoroughly and in a lot of ways, this is the Superman movie I've long been waiting for.   While the Reeve era certainly had its share of super-powered fights, the effects really have not aged well and I've always wanted to see Superman face off against a real physical threat.  Lucky for me, Snyder delivers enough bone-rattling combat and destruction here to make Roland Emmerich blush.  Perhaps next time we'll get an intellectual challenge as well?  A puzzle for Superman to solve?  The ancient Kryptonian scout ship featured an open, empty pod, so perhaps there's another Kryptonian roaming around after all.  Folks seem to want it to be Kara/Supergirl but I'm hoping for Braniac.  Much like Abrams' Star Trek reboot or Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man, I think DC has assembled the exact right collection of talent and they've established characters and a world that I want to see more of, so I'm willing to forgive them for a few choices that seem interesting and well intentioned but ultimately don't play out as well as they'd like.  All the moving pieces are in place to deliver something truly spectacular next time out.

But in the meantime, Man Of Steel is thrilling, emotional, ambitious and just plain entertaining.

Welcome back, Superman. 

We've missed you.

*Well, three Smallville cast members if you count Amy Adams, who appeared in a fat suit as an overweight girl who gets slim and crazy courtesy of some kryptonite-laced veggie shakes.

**He totally could have.

***Doesn't that imply that, with the proper amount of force and leverage that Superman's neck could be snapped just as easily?  That seems pretty fucking vulnerable to me.


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Title: Man Of Steel
Director: Zack Snyder
Starring: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne
Year Of Release: 2013
Viewing Method: Theatrical - IMAX 2D

THE THIN MAN Is Still Funny After All These Years

"Can you tell us anything about the case?"

"Yeah, it's really getting in the way of my drinking."

I've previously discussed the lopsided nature of my movie watching experience.  Generally speaking, if it was made in my lifetime then I at least have a passing familiarity with it.  But that leaves decades of classic films which I've never seen and know little about.  I really want to make an effort to experience some of these old gems, and the biggest hurdle is usually the feeling that watching stuff from before 1960 is the cinematic equivalent of eating my vegetables.  (Something I was never very good at...just ask my mom.)  I guess an easy entry point for a lot of this older material is anything that's been thrown into the modern Hollywood remake machine, as it usually indicates that there's something at the core of the story that translates across generational lines.  That's how I ended up seeing the original Ocean's Eleven, a movie that largely feels like Sinatra and friends let a camera crew film them hanging out in Vegas for the weekend.

About a year ago, director Rob Marshall was set to remake MGM's classic series The Thin Man based on the books by Dashell Hammett, with Johnny Depp lined up to play Nick Charles and a few different actresses in the running for his wife Nora, including Emily Blunt, Amy Adams, and Emma Stone.  I've got no love for Rob Marshall and, to be honest, it's getting harder and harder to stay interested in Johnny Depp.  That being said, after I read this article by one of my favorite film writers, Drew McWeeny, I was really curious to check out the original films, and it seemed there was a definite chance I'd end up liking the classic version more than whatever Marshall managed to cobble together.  (That film seems to have since turned to vapor.)  It's been sitting in my Netflix queue for a year now, so when I felt like I needed to vary up my screenings a bit, The Thin Man was my first choice.

Nick and Nora Charles are the ultimate good time couple.  Nick was a keen eyed detective until he fell in love with the wealthy Nora.  She's able to match him wit for wit, as well as drink for drink, and while Nick certainly enjoys living the more comfortable lifestyle, it's clear that he's not just using Nora for her money.  They have perfect chemistry, and whenever the two are together, there's an energy that absolutely crackles between them.  William Powell and Myrna Loy fill the lead roles, two actors who I was familiar with in name only.  In fact, for a number of years I worked on the Sony Pictures lot (which used to be the MGM lot), so when I think of the names Loy and Powell, I think of the buildings bearing their names.  While Powell gets the lion's share (MGM pun intended) of the attention here, both are an absolute joy to watch.

The story itself is a bit all over the place.  An eccentric inventor, the titular "thin man," goes missing and a number of dead bodies start popping up in his wake.  The police and his family suspect that the guy's gone on some kind of killing spree, but something doesn't quite add up for Nick.  When he inventor's family asks him to investigate, but he'd rather stay out of it, content to spend his days having a boozy good time with his beautiful wife.  Nora's got other plans however, tickled at the idea of seeing Nick in action and solving a real crime.  She practically dares to get involved and before long Nick is fending off gunmen and skulking around warehouses with a flashlight and their trusty dog Asta.  By the end he's got a suspect list of about a dozen people and literally any of them could be the culprit, but the audience isn't actually interested in learning the killer's identity so much as they are in watching Nick play detective.  Just to reinforce that fact, Nick solves the case by sitting everyone down at the dinner table and essentially bullshitting them until the villain ultimately reveals himself.

In my discussion of My Week With Marilyn, I talked about the rise of "The Method" and how it forever changed the face of cinema.  The Thin Man is a movie that really exemplifies the pre-method style, which is another reason I've always had trouble getting into much older cinema.  The whole thing is very theatrical, as if there's a prescenium arch just out of frame somewhere.  The power of the camera to show rather than tell seems to elude director W.S. Van Dyke, especially a poorly constructed bit where Nick discovers a crucial clue in the form of a dead body buried in the inventor's workshop.  I'm sure it's mostly just a sign of the time the film was made, namely that you didn't show a dead body on camera in 1934.  But the scene is staged with very little energy or suspense and until Nick gets on the phone and actually says out loud that he found a body, his discovery and its importance are very unclear.  Many of the scenes feel like they were ripped straight from the pages of an off-Broadway play.  In fact, it often seems as if we're just watching the recording of a stage show with the occasional close-up, particularly the final dinner scene.  There's even a running gag where Nora will rattle off some zinger causing Nick to do an exaggerated double take and it feels like Powell is still trying to play to the back row.  When compared to our modern aesthetic, the whole thing can sometimes feel very unnatural.

That said, The Thin Man is funny as all hell, and I think it's a testament to the timeless nature of the humor that every joke still lands nearly 80 years later.  The clever one-liners come fast and furious, inspiring more laughs per minute than most of today's sitcoms.  (Seriously, look at the IMDb quote page.  It's a mile long and it doesn't even include some of my favorites.)  It definitely helps that most of the cast are playing serious characters trapped in a typical murder mystery, leaving almost all the comedy to Nick and Nora.  That includes a stone faced young Caesar Romero, who would later go on to play The Joker to Adam West's Batman.

The Thin Man is proof positive that comedy can be truly timeless, the polar opposite of something like the Shrek films where the jokes feel dated before the movies even make it onto home video.  The only complaint I have is that there isn't nearly enough Myrna Loy.  She's great but totally underutilized, often disappearing when it comes time for the investigating.  I'm hoping that in the later films Nora gets to play a more active role in Nick's detective work.

I'm definitely going to find out.

PS - Watch this trailer below.  It's conceptually amazing, especially for 1934.


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Title: The Thin Man
Director: W.S. Van Dyke
Starring: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O'Sullivan, Porter Hall, Minna Gombell
Year Of Release: 1934
Viewing Method: DVD - Netflix