Podcast Episode 17: Dangling From The EDGE OF TOMORROW

Against all odds, Tom Cruise seems to have found himself as the underdog of the summer.

I almost feel sorry for Cruise at this point.  The guy's personal life could be generously described as "suspect," and more bluntly described as "nine kinds of crazy."  He's certainly toned down his behavior since famously jumping up and down on Oprah's couch and subsequently arguing with Matt Lauer about the evils of psychiatry, but that shit stays with people and makes it hard to distinguish his on screen performance from his off screen antics.  I get it but I don't agree with it, mostly because I couldn't give less of a shit what an actor does in his personal life short of committing a crime.  Cruise can believe in all the Thetans and Xenus he wants and I'll still go see him in the theater so long as he keeps giving layered and compelling performances.  And rest assured that despite his advancing years, Tom Cruise has not lost a step.  Sure he might not disappear into a role like some of his peers, but the guy still has undeniable charisma and is the living embodiment of sheer, blunt-force entertainment.

In truth, it's been a while since he had a resounding box office success outside of the Mission: Impossible franchise.  But he hasn't been solely responsible for any huge bombs either, leaving him as one of the few stars left whose mere presence can bring just about any movie he wants a guaranteed green light.  (Will Smith is still being dragged kicking and screaming out of this club.)  Personally, I love that Cruise is utilizing his star power to make interesting, thought-provoking sci-fi spectacles.  It's like we can see his inner nerd showing, and that's incredibly endearing to me.  Last summer Cruise starred in Oblivion, a visual feast that proved to be mostly empty calories.  But I at least appreciated the effort.  Based on the somewhat lackluster marketing, you'd be forgiven for writing off this summer's unfortunately titled Edge Of Tomorrow as simply more of the same.  You would, however, be wrong.

Edge Of Tomorrow, which can essentially be boiled down to "Groundhog Day meets Starship Troopers" is a surprising amount of fun.  Cruise brings a lot of depth to the role of William Cage, a military PR shill who's been drafted into service against an alien horde and gains the ability to relive the day of an epic D-Day-esque battle over and over again.  But he's nothing without Emily Blunt's Rita Vrataski, a.k.a. The Angel Of Verdun, a.k.a. The Full Metal Bitch.  How big of a badass is she?  She carries a sword made out of a helicopter blade.  Yeah.   Cruise is good, but it's Blunt who really elevates the proceedings, crafting a character whose hardened exterior protects a bruised psyche and a shattered history.  We learn very few real facts about her, but every glimpse we get is utterly fascinating and leaves the audience wanting more.  The same can be said of the film's setting.  Much like Vrataski, we don't get to see a whole lot of life outside the embattled beaches of France, but director Doug Liman has managed to craft a world that feels lived in and left me curious about the events happening off screen.  What would be going on in the States during the collapse of Europe?  I imagine there would be more than a few refugees taking up residence...

Most importantly, the time loops are extremely well executed, utilizing repetition to great effect both in terms of action and humor.  Much like Bryan Singer in Days Of Future Past, Liman is able to mine a lot of fun out of the ability to keep killing his characters in violent and surprising ways and then resetting the clock to bring them back for more.  Many have been quick (and correct) to praise the film for perfectly capturing the feeling of playing a video game in which you have to learn the enemy's movements by rote memory, frequently fucking it all up and committing suicide in order to start over.  You might think that would grow dull after a while, but the script by Christopher McQuarrie and Jez & John-Henry Butterworth keeps the audience smartly off balance, never allowing us to be sure whether we're seeing Cage perform some task for the first time or the 37th time.

I've seen a lot of criticism for the film's ending, and while I think it's a fairly big miscalculation, it's not enough to completely derail the film.  The word of mouth is overwhelmingly positive, and yet Edge Of Tomorrow finished a distant third in its opening weekend behind YA sensation The Fault In Our Stars and Disney's Maleficent.  Those target audiences are certainly very different demographics, and yet with 22 Jump Street and Transformers looming on the horizon, it seems all but certain that Tom Cruise's latest will at most be regarded a minor success.  That's a shame.  It deserves much better.

Episode 17 of the podcast features myself, Bart and Jamie chatting about all things Edge Of Tomorrow, including Tom Cruise fatigue, Emily Blunt badassery, fully realized action hero homo-eroticism and the film's somewhat nonsensical ending.  We also discuss the apparent conclusion of the Ant-Man director drama, Josh Trank joining the Star Wars universe, the merits of the Wachowskis and the feminist failings of Stripes.

YOUR SISTER'S SISTER And I Both Start Strong Before Tapping Out Too Early

 "I really think your face is going to annoy me right now."

The second day of Noteworthy Reunion started with a clutch Dunkies run before a few folks had to exit back to the real world.  The rest of us had a low key afternoon, largely fueled by Bud Light Strawberitas and avacado egg rolls.  We listened to some of the group's various recordings over the years, which may sound self-indulgent but was actually anything but.  The young'uns got to hear the earliest incarnations of the group while we old folks were blown away by Noteworthy's most recent album.  The host's parents stopped by with some friends in the early afternoon so we sang a few tunes on the front porch, including "A Little Help From My Friends" by The Beatles and Billy Joel's "Lullabye," two songs that have been passed down among multiple generations of the group.

Afterwards, some people retired for a midday nap around this point while others gathered in the living room for a movie break.  I anticipated such an occurrence and, during our early morning jaunt into town, I scoured the discount DVD rack at Walgreens in search of something fun.  I chose Orphan, a horror movie I've never seen even though the totally bonkers ending has already been spoiled for me.  Tragically I was unable to get the house DVD player working and had to abandon that plan.  It's a shame, as I really think that would have been a great crowd for Orphan's particular brand of crazy.  What's worse, I almost brought the cables that would've let me plug my laptop into the TV, but left them at home at the last minute.  I'm still pretty sad about it.

By the time night rolled around I started to wish that I too had crashed out that afternoon.  I was the oldest member of the group present at Reunion this year and lately I've been starting to really feel my age in the lamest of possible ways.  Around 11:30 that night, as the party was starting to really kick into gear again, I was suffering from some pretty awful heartburn.  I guess that's what happens when you straight booze and smoke for two days without drinking any water or eating anything that even vaguely resembles healthy food.  This just in: getting old sucks.  I feel like next year I'm gonna have to spend the week before Reunion getting extra sleep and hydrating so that I can make it all the way through and keep up with the babies.  I was forced to take myself out of the action for a bit, so I pulled out my laptop in search of an alternative movie option for the day and settled on Your Sister's Sister, really for no other reason than, like Reunion, it was largely set in a house in the woods.

Lynn Shelton is a filmmaker who I find incredibly interesting.  I saw her most recent film Touchy Feely at the Independent Film Festival Boston but was so underwhelmed that I ended up abandoning my write up in favor of Bobcat Goldthwait's great Willow Creek.  In that film, Shelton was able to elicit strong performances out of her actors, especially Rosemarie DeWitt, but the story never coalesced for me in any meaningful way, burning through its quirky premise and not really amounting to much of anything else.  I suppose that's the danger of working in a largely improvisational style - it's easy for the plot to get away from you.  Most people hear "improv" and they think comedy (Thanks Drew Carrey!) and while there's plenty of laughs in both Touchy Feely and Your Sister's Sister, it's the drama that really drives these films.  I've done some improvised drama back in my theater days and I totally love it.  Dramatic improv has the ability to be incredibly powerful in the hands of the right performers and I found that style to be compelling enough in Touchy Feely to give Shelton another look.

Here's how the trailer sold Your Sister's Sister to me: Mark Duplass plays Jack, a guy who's still in a funk a year after the death of his brother.  His best friend/his dead brother's ex-girlfriend Iris (Emily Blunt) convinces him to go spend some time alone at her father's cabin in order to clear his head, but when he arrives late at night he finds Iris's sister Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt) already there drinking away the relationship she just walked out on.  One thing leads to another and, a bottle of tequila later, she and Jack end up sleeping together.  But when Iris arrives the next morning, everything becomes more complicated, especially when she admits to Hannah that she might actually have feelings for Jack.  I love small character/relationship pieces with simple, believable setups like that.  (I've certainly been in similar situations in the past, where I had feelings for someone but couldn't actually be with them for one reason or another so I ended up hooking up with their friend instead as some kind of weird emotional proxy.  What can I say, infatuation is a messy business.)  I'm even willing to live with a certain degree of the classic rom-com "everybody's lying to each other and running around under false pretenses" schtick so long as the characters are interesting and there's an honest payoff at the end.

Here's what the trailer left out though: Hannah is a lesbian.  Now, I'll still believe that after a lot of tequila, honest conversation, heartbreak and a little flirting, that she and Jack would end up having sex.  She even says something to the effect of, "It's been a while since I climbed on that particular horse," which clearly implies that she's at least slept with guys before.  It's a little janky, but DeWitt and Duplass really sell that moment on screen so I'll allow it.  It's the film's later big reveal that I have a real problem with; it turns out that Hannah really wants a kid, which immediately makes Jack suspicious of their brief fling.  She points out that they used a condom and Jack dismisses the whole thing, but then he remembers that the rubber was hers and not his, so he digs it out of the trash can and fills it up with water, revealing that the thing has a dozen holes poked in it.

That's the point where the film really kind of lost me.  Tonally, it's such a weird left turn from everything that's come before it that suddenly the entire story seemed downright silly.  And there's still a lot of emotional scene work to follow, as Iris and Jack are forced to figure out their feelings for one another in the face of their complicated history while Iris is simultaneously pissed at Hannah for deceiving her and Jack is still an immature mess of a person.  There's so much strong emotional material to worth with just in those three very real relationships that the added pregnancy complication just completely gilds the lily.  It's too over the top and frankly feels like a plot device that was borrowed from a lesser film.  The three stars all do strong work, which is the only thing that keeps the film moving at that point on.  (Also, props to comedian Mike Birbiglia, who's great in the film's opening scene.)  Blunt, Duplass and DeWitt are all extremely capable improvisers and their natural dialogue builds a sort of breezy chemistry between them.  DeWitt in particular seems to fit very well with Shelton's style and I look forward to the day when they make a film together that can actually sustain itself the whole way through.

I hung out with the Noteworthy crew for a while longer before finally succumbing to the will of my aging body and crashing out on the upstairs couch once again.  The next morning we made one more Dunkies run before we cleaned up the house and bid each other adieu.  Warren and I were the last to leave, and after we dropped our friend Erin off at the Hartford airport, we continued the trek back to Boston.  Reunion has always been my favorite event of the year and I don't expect that to change anytime soon.  But it's been interesting to watch the tone of the event and the makeup of the participants shift over time.  This year, due mostly to scheduling, there were no current members of the group in attendance.  While it's something we've talked about doing in the past, it's never actually happened before.  The same goes for inviting spouses, significant others and children.  Right now we all look at Reunion as a weekend away from the world to cut loose and party with our favorite people, but as the years march on it's becoming more about reconnecting with the folks you haven't seen in ages.  At some point I expect that "alumni only" will become the standard for future Reunions.

As the age gap widens between the youngest and oldest Noteworthians, (it's currently sitting somewhere around 19-31 years old) it can certainly make for a slightly bizarre environment when we all get together.  We really do consider ourselves to be one big family, but just like any family there are multiple generations at play, and it's understandable to be drawn towards our contemporaries as opposed to some young upstarts who can give me a dissertation on twerking but don't understand my Saved By The Bell references.  (Obviously that street goes both ways.)  As someone who's still able to attend shows on a regular basis I'm probably the oldest member of the group who's closest to the youngest members, but when the time comes for me to leave Boston again I expect that will alter my attitudes about Reunion and my relationship with Noteworthy as a whole, especially if I end up living somewhere far away from everyone else.  Will I ever get "too old for Reunion?"  I certainly hope not.

I'm not an old man yet.  But I'm getting there.

---------------------------------------
Title: Your Sister's Sister
Director: Lynn Shelton
Starring: Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt, Mark Duplass, Mike Birbiglia,
Year Of Release: 2011
Viewing Method: Netflix DVD (laptop)

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.


---------------------------------------
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