September 20, 2013
Dear Everyone:
I’m still getting used to the freedom of not working.
It’s marvelous how stress-reducing it can be.
Plus, I have time to watch movies.
Last weekend, “Jeannie” decided we should see
The Family.
In a way, this is a kind of modern fairy tale.
Once upon a time there was an American
Mafia family who turned
state’s evidence against friends and kin, got into the
Witness
Protection Program and, for some unfathomable reason, got dumped in
Normandy, France. That’s
pretty much it.
Apparently, the director, who greatly admires
Martin Scorsese, decided
to make a French film, in English, about an American gangster family in
France. And, if he could
just get Michelle Pfeiffer and
Robert De Niro to play the mother and
father, well, that would be a “dream come true”.
So there we all are, in the director’s dream world, trying to make sense
of it. It’s billed as an
“action comedy”, but there’s nothing really comic about it.
In Shakespeare’s day, a play was either a Tragedy or a Comedy (or
an Historical). The
difference between a Tragedy and a Comedy was in the number of
characters who died in the play.
So, for instance, The Merchant of Venice counts as a Comedy because no one dies,
although Shylock wasn’t exactly laughing his head off at the end.
However, by this criteria, The
Family can’t count as a “Comedy” because there is a significant
number of dead bodies lying around by the time it finishes.
De Niro and Pfeiffer drag out their best “New Yawk” accents.
Tommy Lee Jones hangs on his “I’m old and tired of all this”
face, but it’s getting a little routine these days.
There are a number of scenes in which the “New Yawkers” revert to type,
blowing something or somebody up, but you’re never quite sure if it’s
really happening or just a daydream.
The director’s daydream.
It may come up for some awards next spring, but it’s worth
skipping for now.
Not working means that I can decide to see a movie just about any day of
the week, if I want to. So I
went to see The Butler.
Only that’s not what it’s called.
Technically, it’s
Lee Daniel’s The
Butler.
Why is it “Lee Daniel’s The Butler”
instead of just “The Butler”?
Apparently, Warner Bros released a silent short film entitled
The Butler in 1916 and someone
feared that people would confuse the two movies.
(Really?) So it was
agreed to add the director’s name in front, as long as it was no more
than 75% the size of the actual name of the movie.
They even wrote that into the contract.
I wondered why this film was released in August.
Typically, this is Hollywood’s “dumping ground”, when they get
rid of movies that weren’t expected to do well in the summer, and before
the beginning of “Oscar Season”, when they bring out the big guns.
Lee Daniel, by the way, is one of those
Hollywood
Renaissance Men, an
actor,
producer and
director.
He produced such movies as
Monster’s Ball, which won
Halle Berry her
Best Actress Award, and
directed the unfortunately-named
Precious: Based on the Novel
“Pushed” by Sapphire, which received a lot of notice at the 2010
Academy Awards.
Interestingly, the screenplay was “inspired” by an article in the
Washington Post. Even
more interesting, it was written by
Danny Strong (who had a cameo in the
newer Butler movie.)
If the name seems vaguely familiar, you may have seen the TV
Series,
Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Strong played a repeat character named “Jonathan”.
Since then, he seems to be blossoming into a Renaissance Man
himself. This is the second
screenplay of his that has made it to the screen, no small
accomplishment in itself.
As for the film: It follows
the life of a man named Cecil Gaines from his early childhood in rural
Georgia in the 1920’s through his career as a
butler in the
White House,
culminating in the inauguration of
Barack Obama.
With that broad a canvas, the best the movie can do is present a
series of scenes:
Cecil experiences racial injustice as a child.
Cecil grows up, gets a job, gets married, has kids.
Cecil is denied equal pay for equal work, even in the White
House. Cecil’s kids get
involved in the
Civil Rights Movement.
Cecil sees a lot of
Presidents and
First Ladies, all portrayed by
great actors. Sixty years’
worth of social evolution pass by in just under two hours.
On the fun side:
Robin
Williams as
Dwight Eisenhower.
Jane Fonda as
Nancy Reagan.
And I especially loved
Alan Rickman’s
Ronald Reagan.
But don’t blink; it goes by pretty quickly.
And then there’s the
set decoration and
costuming, which may just show
up in next year’s Oscars show.
For the younger generation:
Yes, we really did
wear those clothes (and that hair!!!) in the 1970s.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Love, as always,
Pete
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