Short Film Review: When Cary Grant Introduced Timothy Leary to LSD (dir by Geoffrey Sax)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The year in 1959 and Cary Grant (Ben Chaplin) is filming North by Northwest. From what we see of him, he’s the Cary Grant that we’ve all read about — the handsome, charming, witty, but very guarded movie star who never seems to truly trust anyone.

On set, Grant is visited by a pushy Harvard professor named Timothy Leary (Aidan Gillen). Leary explains that he’s recently read an interview in which Grant discussed using a new drug called LSD for therapeutic purposes. Leary believes that the drug could possible be used to help humanity evolve into something better. He says that he wants to take LSD and he wants Grant to guide him through his trip. Grant rather stiffly explains that LSD should only be taken under medical supervision. Leary, however, doesn’t have time for that.

Eventually, Leary and Grant do end up dropping acid together and, as you might have guessed, that’s where things start to get strange. First off, Leary and Grant find themselves sharing the same trip. While Grant tries to escape from Leary, they travel through Grant’s poverty-stricken childhood and they even find themselves being chased by the famous North By Northwest cropduster. They also take a trip to Leary’s future, where he will someday be just as famous as Grant. Leary proclaims that LSD will be the start of the counter culture while the far more conservative Grant grumbles that Leary is a charlatan and that most people won’t be able to handle the drug. Along the way, we go through the usual innuendos about both men. Even under the influence of LSD, Grant remains guarded about his sexuality while Leary struggles to convince Grant that he actually is prophet and not just a con artist looking to get rich through revolution.

Clocking in at just 20 minutes, When Cary Grant Introduced Timothy Leary to LSD is an enjoyably weird little film that makes sense once you realize that Chaplin and Gillen are not actually meant to be playing the real-life Grant and Leary but instead are playing fictionalized versions who both understand that, along with being historical figures, they’re also characters in a film. By the end of the film, they’re less concerned with dealing with each other and more concerned with convincing those of us in the audience that one of them is right and the other one is wrong. Ben Chaplin may not look like Cary Grant but he has the right brooding quality to be convincing as a troubled man who often feels trapped by his own persona. Aiden Gillen, meanwhile, is far more cheerful as Timothy Leary, who he plays as being a bit of a trouble-making sprite.

Interestingly enough, the film is loosely based on fact. Cary Grant did take LSD for therapeutic reasons and Timothy Leary did later go on to become a public figure as a result of his pro-acid advocacy. It has been rumored that Leary and Grant actually did meet, though not necessarily during the filming of North by Northwest. In the end, When Cary Grant Introduced Timothy Leary to LSD is an enjoyably weird short film that shows up occasionally on Showtime so keep an eye out for it.

Film Review: Murder by Numbers (dir by Barbet Schroeder)

Posted on February 27, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 2002, Murder by Numbers is one of those films that seems to be pop up on Cinemax every couple of months. It’s not really that good, though it has its fans because if features Sandra Bullock being all self-destructive and one of the film’s villains is played by a young Ryan Gosling.

Ryan Gosling is Richard Haywood, child of privilege. He’s handsome. He’s funny. He’s popular. He’s spoiled. He’s often high. And he’s totally psychotic. Richard wants to commit the perfect crime and, fortunately, so does his classmate, Justin (Michael Pitt). Justin is a fiercely intelligent introvert who spends most of his time reading and writing and playing with his computer. He’s got a crush on Richard’s ex, Lisa (Agnes Buckner). From the minute that Lisa showed up and started talking to Justin, I was concerned. I was like, “Is this another movie that’s going to feature someone named Lisa being murdered? CHERISH ALL OF THE LISAS IN YOUR LIFE, PEOPLE!”

Anyway, Richard and Justin do end up killing a woman, though not Lisa. They go through a lot of effort to frame the school’s pervy janitor, Ray (Chris Penn), for the crime. And they nearly succeed, though Detective Cassie Mayweather (Sandra Bullock) is way too smart to fall for their tricks. Unfortunately, no one believes anything that Cassie says because she has a shady past and a drinking problem. Even her sympathetic new partner, Sam Kennedy (Ben Chaplin), thinks that it was probably Ray.

Literally everyone on the police force tells Sam that Cassie is unstable and not to be trusted, which leads to an interesting question. If everyone’s convinced that everything Cassie says is wrong, why does she still have a job? Why do they still assign her to cases? It’s like, “We’ve got a murder that we have to solve! Let’s give it to that detective who we think never gets anything right!”

Sandra Bullock does her best to bring the self-destructive Cassie to life but she kind of runs into the huge problem that she’s Sandra Bullock and she has such a firmly entrenched screen presence that it’s difficult to take her seriously as someone who spend her free time sitting on a houseboat, getting drunk, and obsessing on the past. You really want her to give a good performance because it’s impossible not to root for Sandra Bulllock but she’s just too miscast. You keep expecting Matthew McConaughey to show up, playing a bongo drum and trying to cheer her up.

Far more convincing is Ryan Gosling, who plays Richard as the type of guy that we all knew in high school. You know he’s a jerk. You know you should stay away from him. But he’s just so much fun and he has so much money! Unfortunately, Gosling is so charismatic that Richard quickly becomes the only compelling character in the film. I mean, if you have the choice between watching Michael Pitt, Ben Chaplin, or Ryan Gosling, who are you going to go with? You’re supposed to hate Richard and hope that justice catches up with him but instead, you find yourself hoping that he’ll sneak out of the country and spend the rest of his hiding out in South America or something.

So, as a result, the film really doesn’t work. (It also doesn’t help matters that it’s directed in a rather detached fashion by the king of ennui, Barbet Schroeder.) But it’s interesting to watch, just for a chance to see a future star in the making. Gosling steps into a rather underwritten role and basically takes over the entire damn movie.

It’s also worth seeing for the scene in which Sandra Bullock gets attacked by a baboon. It’s a weird moment and Schroeder screws things up by mixing in a flashback to Cassie’s past but still, it’s a baboon attacking Sandra Bullock. That’s not something you see every day.

Shattered Politics #55: The Remains of the Day (dir by James Ivory)

Posted on January 31, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1993 Best Picture nominee The Remains of the Day is a love story. Actually, it’s a series of love stories. Every character in the film is in love with something or someone. It’s just that, with one exception, they’re all so extremely British that it’s sometimes hard to tell.

The one exception is an American congressman named Trent Lewis (Christopher Reeve). As the film opens in the 1950s, he’s just purchased Darlington Hall, which is one of those country manors that hold so much history and romance for those of us who regularly watch Downton Abbey. Lewis is excited to have a British manor of his very own. It even comes with its very own butler, a Mr. Stevens (Anthony Hopkins).

As we see in flashback, Stevens previously worked at Darlington Hall when it was owned by Lord Darlington (James Fox). In the 1930s, Lord Darlington may have loved Britain but he was also dangerously naive about the rise of Nazi Germany. Actually, to say that he was naive might be letting Lord Darlington off too easily. When we first meet Lord Darlington, he seems like a well-meaning but hopelessly out-of-touch aristocrat. He has so little understanding of the real world that he even asks Stevens to have the sex talk with his godson (played, somewhat inevitably, by Hugh Grant), who happens to be close to 30 years old at the time and, one would presume, far beyond the age when the talk is really necessary. When we first see Lord Darlington, who is hosting a conference on how to best deal with the rise of the Nazis, arguing that Britain should ignore the rise of Hitler, it’s easy to assume that he’s just as clueless about Germany as he is about his godson. But then, eventually, Lord Darlington orders Stevens to fire two Jewish maids and you’re forced to reconsider everything that you previously believed about him.

And then there’s Ms. Kenton (Emma Thompson), who worked as a housekeeper for Lord Darlington. She loves the repressed Mr. Stevens but continually finds herself frustrated by Stevens’s professional detachment. Unlike Stevens, Ms. Kenton doesn’t hold back on her opinions but, when she finally has a chance to stand up for her beliefs and defy the status quo at Darlington Hall, she backs down.

And then there’s Mr. Stevens. Mr. Stevens may be one of the most emotionally repressed characters in the history of the movies but the entire film revolves around trying to figure out what or who Stevens loves. It’s a little too easy to assume that he’s in love with Ms. Kenton, even though that will be the natural instinct of most viewers. While he obviously feels affection towards her, he can never bring himself to truly express it. (That said, getting a letter from her appears to be the only thing that can actually inspire him to leave the safety of Darlington Hall and venture into the outside world.) While it seems, at times, that he might love Lord Darlington, Stevens himself prefers to say that he respected Lord Darlington and, after the war, Stevens seems to have no trouble staying on at Darlington Hall even after its bought by Congressman Lewis. Much like the ghosts in The Shining, Stevens has always been the butler and always will be.

Ultimately, Mr. Stevens loves his job. He loves being a butler. He’s a man so dedicated to his job that he even continues to work even while his father is dying in the next room. He loves making sure that everything’s perfect at Darlington Hall and he never bothers with worrying about how imperfect the world outside Darlington Hall may be. In that way, Stevens is a stand-in for all of the European leaders who willfully chose to ignore what was happening in Germany in the days leading up to World War II. And, much like those European leaders, he finds himself forced to work for an American in the aftermath.

As a film, The Remains of the Day can be frustrating but in a good way. Mr. Stevens is such a repressed and detached character that, much like Ms. Kenton, we’re always tempted to give up on him. Fortunately, Anthony Hopkins is one of those actors who can suggest so much with just a pause in his dialogue or a quick glance to the side. You look at his sad eyes and suddenly, you know everything that Mr. Stevens cannot bring himself to say. Emma Thompson has a somewhat easier role because Ms. Kenton at least gets to say what she’s thinking but she still bring a lot of depth to the role and has a lot of chemistry with Hopkins. And finally, you’ve got James Fox who is so comically befuddled that it’s all the more shocking to consider all of the pain that he — intentionally or not — is partially responsible for.

The Remains of the Day is a great film for all of us Downton Abbey-loving history nerds.