A couple of movies from 1993

The Warehouse had a sale of DVDs on the weekend, so we picked up a few to replace a bunch that were surplus to requirements, movies we'll never watch again (wouldn't want to watch again) and some that we had double-ups of for whatever reason.
On Saturday night we watched a DVD of The Remains of the Day, which we'd seen at the cinema when it first came out. Neither of us could remember much about it; in fact there was very little of that visual recognition you usually have when you're seeing a movie again. Perhaps we're losing our visual recognition as we get older, which is a bit scary!
Anyway, this movie, with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson both at their best, is a story about a butler in a large aristocratic home, Darlington Hall, owned by Lord Darlington. The Lord, though he is an honourable man, is an amateur in his political dealings; he foolishly sides with the Nazis during the war, and probably should have been charged with treason. Hopkins, the consummate butler, always there, always perfect in behaviour, claims he never hears what goes on around him: he's too busy doing his job. But in fact he's closed off to human relationships for the most part. When he employs his own father as an under-butler, he calls him Mr Stevens rather than father. It's only as his father is dying that he manages to speak as though there is some relationship there. Even when his father is lying dead upstairs he believes his duty is still to serve his Lordship first.
Thompson plays the housekeeper who gives as good as she gets from Hopkins, but also falls in love with him. In spite of himself, he's in love with her, but his nature is such that he can't admit to it, and so both their lives go awry as a result.
There's a top-notch cast including Hugh Grant, Christopher Reeves and Ben Chaplin among the more familiar faces. The direction by James Ivory is quiet and assured, and the script by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala gives the performers ample room for subtlety and subtext. A great film, with much in it to be admired. 
In the same year, Michael Keaton and Nicole Kidman starred in a much less well-known movie, My Life, which, if it had been done as a TV movie with a TV actor would have ended up requiring a box of tissues. It narrowly avoids this because of Keaton's solid performance in which he has ample room to both clown and play to his serious side. 
Keaton plays a man who has only a few months to live because of cancer, and like many in that position he doesn't want to die, especially as his wife is expecting their first child. He manages to stay alive long enough to see his son grow through his first months before succumbing to the continually invasive cancer. As in too many movies about illness, the cancer gets put on the back-burner too often: it has a brief dramatic appearance at the beginning (sorted out by some magic pill that works instantly) and hardly turns up again until the end. In the meantime, unlike most cancer patients, Keaton, on the surface at least, appears to be as healthy as the next man.
Before he dies he makes a series of home movies that he wants his future child to be able to view, but in the process he comes face to the face with the fact that he's never forgiven his own parents: he particularly felt that his father was never there for him because he worked so hard at his business. But he has to face the fact that he's actually no different: he's a workaholic too. 
For the most part it's Keaton who makes the movie work (Kidman has a bit of a wishy-washy role that doesn't give her room for much depth unfortunately) in spite of its forays into occasional silliness. The rest of the cast, including Bradley Whitford (from West Wing, and sporting the worst false moustache you've ever seen - it looks as though belongs in the 70s rather than the 90s), Michael Considine and Queen Latifah don't really get much chance to get to grips with their roles because they're basically underwritten. Latifah doesn't appear till almost the end, comes in with a whiz and a bang and is then given nothing to do. 

Stranger than Fiction

Watched the movie, Stranger than Fiction, last night. I didn't realise my son had recorded it onto our hard drive recently, and was pleased to catch up with it.

Will Ferrell does a great job as the very uptight hero, Harold Crick, who would have got on with his exceptionally boring life if it hadn't been for the fact that he's occasionally begun to hear a detailed narration of his life. Somehow he communicates boring without being boring; he's quite endearing, in fact. His narrator is the ever-wonderful Emma Thompson, here playing a famous writer so stricken with writer's block that she's gaunt, drawn and haggard, and as uptight in her own way as Harold is in his his.

Queen Latifah and Dustin Hoffman round out the main roles, and the somewhat surprised romantic female lead is played by Maggie Gyllenhaal (whatever happened to the days when film stars had names that rolled off your tongue?)

Zach Helm, the scriptwriter, has carefully avoiding explaining too much: we have no idea why an apparently real person should suddenly find himself to be a character in someone's book, and no idea how this all works at the end, when 'character' and author eventually meet. By sidestepping that possible complication, Helm is able to focus on the people in the story, and give us a few comments on life and death and the fact that like it or not, we all face death at some time - even if, as Harold remarks rather tearfully, it's just not convenient at the moment. It's also slightly unlikely that someone as wild as Gyllenhaal's character would really fall so readily for someone so boring/oddball as Harold, but somehow it works in the context of the movie. Only Ferrell, perhaps, could make the line, 'I want you' sound both romantic and physical.

Looking back at the list of quotes on imdb.com I realise again that the dialogue - and narration - in this movie is a lot sharper than you first think. And the humour is subtle; very little of it has that TV sitcom style of: person A makes an odd remark, person B caps it with a laugh line. And there's quite a lot of fun had with the idea of what a story is, how it works, whether it's a comedy or tragedy, and whether all of us have this kind of sense of being part of a story written by someone else.

In the trivia section related to this film, there's this interesting paragraph: The last names of all the characters (and the bus line and publishing firm names) are the names of mathematicians, scientists, engineers, artists, etc. (Harold) Francis Crick: with Watson and Wilkins found the structure of DNA; (Ana) Blaise Pascal: French mathematician and philosopher; (Karen) Gustave Eiffel: engineer and designer of the Eiffel Tower; (Penny) M.C. Escher: Dutch graphic artist; (Dr.) Magnus Gustaf Mittag-Leffler: Swedish mathematician; (Professor Jules) David Hilbert: German mathematician; (Doctor) Gerardus Mercator: 16th century Flemish cartographer; (Kronecker Bus Line) Leopold Kronecker: German-born mathematician and logician; (Banneker Press) Benjamin Banneker: free African American mathematician, astronomer, clockmaker, and publisher; (Dr. Cayly) Arthur Cayley, 19th century British mathematician. Even Dave (no last name) seems to be a reference to the main character from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

It's hard to know how people pick these things up, but it's interesting that they do! (Even harder to know what sort of people pick up the goofs on movies....are they totally focused on looking for inconsistencies?)

Hairspray

We watched Hairspray last night as a change from moving the furniture around the house in preparation for the carpet-layers - who came today.
I’d heard that Hairspray wasn’t up to much and that people didn’t like Travolta in drag. I’m not sure that I was overstruck by his performance in this movie, but he carries it off pretty well, and gets some enjoyment out of sending himself up in the role.
The rest of the cast have an equally enjoyable time in what is a very upbeat movie. And there’s dancing, dancing of the calibre you don’t often see in a Hollywood musical these days. Actually you don’t see too many Hollywood musicals anymore, if it comes to that.
I miss musicals. They were the mainstay of my cinema-going in my childhood. It was the peak of the film musical period, and I’ve been saddened by the fact that so few musicals have been produced since the 70s. Why this should be, I have no idea. Someone in the marketing department got the idea that young people wouldn’t go to musicals, and that was that. Out they went.
Anyway, back to Hairspray, which apparently has been filmed before. Can’t say it passed my way, but in 1988 I may not have been going to too many movies, having a bunch of kids at home.
The film has a bunch of stars at its centre, from Michelle Pfeiffer and Christopher Walken to Queen Latifah and Zac Efron (better known as Mr High School Musical. But it’s Nikki Blonsky, who comes way down the cast list on IMDB, who carries the film. There can’t be many roles for short and solid girls, especially leads in a musical. But here she is, and she gives it everything she’s got. The rest of the cast orbit round her, but just when you think one of them is going to take over, up pops Nikki again. She’s a delight.
Zac Efron plays a bit of a wimpy role, which is a pity, because he’s got talent coming out of his ears, and needs a role with a bit more bite. It can’t be said that either of his High School Musical parts have given him much to do – apart from the singing and dancing.
The cast apart, the film is full of visual delights: not an opportunity is lost to play up the fun of crazy hairstyles and clothes, garish colours and skinny women. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and can see me sitting with my granddaughter watching it over and over.