Thursday, April 01, 2004
Gah. I just wrote about 1000 words about Pretty Poison, Welles' Confidential Report (aka Mr. Arkadin) and The Big Brass Ring, a 1996 adaptation of a late Welles script -- and then the browser suddenly quit on me. I can't do it over, so:
PP: Not profound, but tightly controlled, Weld better than in Lays for my money, Perkins enjoyably twitchy. Not a waste of time.
CR: Filmic genius under budgetary constraints -- some scenes as lush as Ophuls, ending sparse as a '50s TV drama. Plot schmot, theme schmeme -- this film is about character actors (Mischa Auer as a flea-circus proprietor), even unto Welles himself.
BBR: Please avoid this. Movie about a political campaign with no politics; script as shot has a few florid speeches that are recognizably Welles', offset by hamhanded allusions to Kane, Chimes at Midnight, Twain, and Conrad. I have to assume that Welles, even in decline, did not write the line "Here's to living with yourself, Dark Heart." This, and much else of similar portent, is placed in the mouth of an insensibly bad Irene Jacob, who cannot do a line reading in English for love or money -- to think I was going to call my 'band' The Double Life. (And if John Hurt's governor-to-be is the future of American politics, why is Jacob the only press following him around?)
PP: Not profound, but tightly controlled, Weld better than in Lays for my money, Perkins enjoyably twitchy. Not a waste of time.
CR: Filmic genius under budgetary constraints -- some scenes as lush as Ophuls, ending sparse as a '50s TV drama. Plot schmot, theme schmeme -- this film is about character actors (Mischa Auer as a flea-circus proprietor), even unto Welles himself.
BBR: Please avoid this. Movie about a political campaign with no politics; script as shot has a few florid speeches that are recognizably Welles', offset by hamhanded allusions to Kane, Chimes at Midnight, Twain, and Conrad. I have to assume that Welles, even in decline, did not write the line "Here's to living with yourself, Dark Heart." This, and much else of similar portent, is placed in the mouth of an insensibly bad Irene Jacob, who cannot do a line reading in English for love or money -- to think I was going to call my 'band' The Double Life. (And if John Hurt's governor-to-be is the future of American politics, why is Jacob the only press following him around?)
